Final Blog Post

The biggest event this week for our group was the absence of one. We had to cancel our service learning project due to inclement weather. We plan on rescheduling it for next Friday, also weather permitting. That got me thinking about the importance of communication when it comes to having a backup plan. When our original plans fall through, and we have nothing to fall back on, we are most certainly doomed for failure. The thing with having a backup plan is that they only work when everyone is on the same page. Creating a backup plan needs to be done with everyone in your group. Otherwise when it's time to put the backup plan into action, everyone will probably do something different. The result will be confusion for everyone involved.
Since this is my last blog post, I will reflect on blogging and the course in general. And I haven't reached 220 words yet. Overall I spent way too much time on the blog posts, mostly because I have no idea what to say. Despite this and my loathing of writing length minimums in general, it was manageable, and I got them done satisfactorily. As for the class in general, I found it to be worthwhile in that it has provided good situations to use in interviews. Calvin's final words about sum it up. For that I'll say xie xie and zaijian. View larger.

- Steven Gitter

Reflection on blogs

    We live in a world consumed by communication.  Anyone at anytime can broadcast what they are thinking about or how they feel to anyone willing to listen.   This semester in com 320 we as a class have used blogs to reflect on the class and how it affects us on a weekly basis.  Group communication has been the overall topic of the class but is sadly missed in our reflection time.  Each group in class has a set blog they use, but here is little to no connection between different members and their posts each week.  Real group blogging does exist in rare forms on the internet but is hard to come by.  I just wanted for my last post to be a reflection on blogging in general as it relates to the topics covered in class.

    It seems like the communication department here at Purdue loves using blogs in class.  Just about every class in com uses them in some form or another.  Blogs are a new form of communication that has become very popular in the last 10 years.  They are a great cheap way to express yourself, and as many companies have found out a cheap way to get people to read about new products.  As I stated above the real weakness of blogs are that they have no real group communication.  People may submit different posts about the same topics but they do not have group communication.  These people never experience forming, storming, norming and performing while they blog their lives away.  Maybe video blogging can solve this problem if all members of the group are on tape at the same time.  Group mechanics may be more prevalent then but I have seen no proof of this.  I didn’t mean for this post to be a generic bash on blogs, because I do feel they play a great role in communication I just feel that used in their present state that they have no relation to group communication.  It would be a very interesting topic for a master’s student or PHD candidate to do research on, to find a better way we can utilize this resource to better our group communication skills.

Jarrett Hullinger

Event Cancelled

As you know, our event had to be canceled due to the rain on Friday.  It rained all night and into the morning, and the field was just too wet.  We were on a time crunch to figure out whether we should cancel or hold the event.  We had to know by 1:30 pm at the absolute latest, because of our order for the pizza. 

Going about making the decision by that time was a lot more difficult that I thought it would be.  I had class all morning, so I did not get a chance to look at the weather or check out how the field actually looked.  Mark called around noon, I left class to take it, and he explained how the field was and such.  We decided that because there was some standing water on the field it would be best to hold off because we cannot have the kids getting wet and muddy.  We then split up who had to contact who to let everyone know that we had to cancel the event. 

This is a prime example of critical thinking and working on the fly, just like in the Japan earthquake project.  We had a limited amount of time, and we had to make the correct decision.  Everybody uses this once they get a job in the real world.  Nothing ever goes perfectly as planned, and everybody needs to know how to adapt to the situation and make the necessary changes quickly.  This was good practice for these types of situations, and now hopefully we will have a warmer sunny day instead of a cool and wet one.

-Andrew De Jong

Time Management

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. "

 -Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

   Time management is something that in my life comes up again and again every semester. Especially at this time of the semester I have to really focus on how I manage my time.  With a long list of things to do, I need to prioritize my tasks and focus on what needs to be done.
   Time management can be found in everything we do, from personal schedules to work assignments to group projects.  It is especially important in group projects where there is a limited time to accomplish a task, like the crisis project we did a week ago.  In some instances there may not be a lot of time to make decisions and like Jasmine said in class, those involved in the crisis have to start acting on their decisions right away.  That is a lot of pressure so time management is especially important in those times.
   Effective time management also saves money and resources.  You've all heard the saying "time is money" and it is true.  Our time is valuable, whether we are here at Purdue working on class work or working a full-time job. In the corporate world, they trust that you will be able to manage your time effectively.  And, I have learned, that college is a great place to learn and perfect time management skills.  I think you need them to truly succeed in school and in your career.

It was fun blogging and I hope you enjoyed my comics. :)

-Rachel Page

Communication in Basketball

   

   When we talk about small group communication I can't help but think of the small group interaction in sports.  I love sports. I play or watch a ton of sports.  Most sports at its core requires small group communication.  Tomorrow is the national championship for college basketball between the UCONN Huskies and the Butler Bulldogs.  These are two great teams who both have utilized good small group communication skills to get where they are now. 

   Basketball players who make it to the championship game aren’t players who don’t know how to communicate.  They aren’t a just group of random people who happen to be wearing the same jersey.  They have formed their group and know their group members.  They know how to communicate with each other and to work well together.  They came together to work towards a certain goal.  All of these things can be seen in any small group or team.  In chapter five of our book for COM 320 it talks about group cohesiveness.  This is something that groups need to form a team and to accomplish their task.  For the Huskies and the Bulldogs, their task is to win a national championship.

   I’m looking forward to watching tomorrow’s game between UCONN and Butler not only for the enjoyment of the sport but I’ll also be watching to see how they communicate. 

   Here is another comic that has to do with being on a team.  It really is about more than just wearing the same jersey.

-Rachel Page

Service Learning Project

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to attend Prestige Worldwide’s Service Learning Project.  I am hoping that after witnessing their event, our event will go a little smoother than it otherwise might have gone.  I liked how they took charge right off the bat by collecting money and asking for team names to set up the bracket.  When it was time to start, one person stepped up and got everyone silent so they could explain the rules and what teams were playing and where.  There was only one problem area that I noticed.  It seemed like sometimes members of the group were too busy getting involved in the event and it took awhile to get the next teams on a board and playing.  This was not all that bad though because everyone was having a good time, and did not care too much that it was going slower than it could have.

Our Service Learning Project is this coming Friday.  Hopefully we can do well like Prestige Worldwide did.  The most important thing I believe is going to be how we act right away.  We need to set the tone right away that we are in charge of this event, and the kids will not be able to just run around and do what they please.  We also need to make sure that we do not get too caught up in the games ourselves and remember that we are the ones that need to run this event.  I have faith that our event will go smoothly as planned.

-          Andrew De Jong

New Task, New Groups

This past week we were assigned to come up with a crisis management plan. There was a twist though. We were assigned new groups! I wasn’t too thrilled about this at all. My group and I have gotten very comfortable with one another and have our set roles in place with a nice flow going as well. Like Jasmine mentioned, the environment in the real world is not so convenient. We all with have to work with several groups of people for the rest of our lives on a daily basis. I can personally attest to this. Since working at Toyota, I have had to work with several groups of people each time I go back. It’s the same every time. I am very shy, until I get comfortable. Through this class, I have learned how to come out of my shell in initial group meetings. I think it’s very important to do so that way people will take what respective role you want to take on important. For example, I feel that I take on more of the leader role in group settings. If I’m shy at first until I’m comfortable, who would really take me serious when I try to take on the leadership role? That’s why I am glad to have taken this class. We were really forced to think about ourselves and the roles that we take on in group settings. 

Crisis Management

This week we had our presentations with our temporary "new" groups. My group was in charge of the Japan Airlines situation. This experience reminded me a lot of the final group presentation I did in COM 114. For that project our class was divided up into small groups where each had to compete for "funding" for some type of project dedicated to help Purdue. After one group presented, it was the job of the rest of the class to find weaknesses in their proposal and call them out on it. While the rest of the COM 320 class wasn't trying to shoot down or Japan Airlines proposal, the same concept applies. Another similarity was being prepared to answer questions posed by our classmates. This would be especially practical in a real world crisis situation or even when making a proposal to your boss. In the Japan Airlines case, I was actually surprised no one asked how we would deal with flight delays and the uncertainty involved with it. Also no one asked about our plan to deal with customers should they become unruly due to flight cancelations, delays, baggage limits, etc. These would be some issues I would have raised had I not been a member of the Japan Airlines group. The following is from the comic strip Dilbert and is about small groups in general. View Larger.

- Steven Gitter

what if we cant see them?

This post is not so much of a reflection as it is a question.  In this day and age technology has allowed us to communicate with people all over the world in real time.  People in China can talk to people in Indiana with little to no delay on a daily basis.  This technology has opened doors to global business and business groups expanding beyond the physical office space.  This semester we have learned in class how groups function and grow to solve tasks.  Verbal and non verbal communication is taken for granted here because this is how we normally communicate with others.  Sometimes video conferencing is not available so non verbal communication is not viable.  What I want to know is how the use of only verbal communication affects small groups. 

In the same way that you don’t really miss something until you can’t have it, nonverbal communication plays a huge role in the correct development of groups.  I feel like I am being very misrepresented when I can’t talk face to face with someone.  Forming groups overseas with different cultures of people all coming together to solve complex business problems with no non verbal communication seems like an experience I would not like to be part of.  I hope we get to this in class this year because it is something that really intrigues me.

Jarrett Hullinger