Social Networking and Community Participation Websites

As we all know Facebook is now the most visited website on the Internet, and a number

of companies such as Adidas, Red Bull, Starbucks, have millions of fans on their Facebook

pages. Social Network is today’s topic on what I’m going to talk about because in this economy

almost everything is technology and now a days applying for jobs is online. The business world

currently has a complicated relationship with idea of social networks. Some companies embrace

them wholeheartedly and encourage employees to use them to reach out to customers. Other

companies ban employees from using them at work, particularly networks such as facebook that

weren’t originally designed for business use LinkedIn. Businesses now use several types of

social networks, including public, general purpose networks, public, business oriented networks

and variety of specialized networks. A significant majority of consumers now want the

businesses they patronize to use social networking for distributing information and interacting

with customers and companies that aren’t active in social networking risk getting left behind.

            With hundreds of millions of people expressing themselves via social media, you can be

sure that smart companies are listening. Sentiment analysis is an intriguing research technique in

which companies track social networks and other media with automated language analysis

software that tries to take the pulse of public opinion and identify influential opinion makers.

Companies use social networks to find potential employees, short term contractors, subject

matter experts, product and service suppliers, and business partners. Members can recommend

each other based on current or past business relationships, which helps remove the uncertainty of

initiating business relationships with complete strangers. Businesses don’t invest time and money

in social networking simply to gain fans. The ultimate goal is profitable, sustainable relationships

with customers, and attracting new customers is one of the primary reasons businesses use

networks and other social media. However, the traditional notions of marketing and selling need

to be adapted to the social networking environment because customers and potential customers

don’t join a network merely to be passive recipients of advertising messages. They want to

participate to connect with fellow enthusiasts to share knowledge about products, to

communicate with company insiders, and to influence the decisions that affect the products they

value. According to Amitha Amarasinghe he states “Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation

embedded in the action itself rather than from external rewards such as money or recognition.

Intrinsic motivation comes from the pleasure of completing the task satisfactorily. On the other

hand, extrinsic motivation refers to the motivation coming outside the individual. These are

external factors such as money or recognition. For example, a person might engage in a certain

action because of the monetary benefits that he could gain by completing the action. A social

network is a social structure made up of individuals or organizations called "nodes", which are

tied connected by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship,

common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs,

knowledge or prestige. In its simplest form, a social network is a map of specified ties, such as

friendship, between the nodes being studied. The nodes to which an individual is thus connected

are the social contacts of that individual. The network can also be used to measure social capital  

the value that an individual gets from the social network. These concepts are often displayed in a

social network diagram, where nodes are the points and ties are the lines.

            Social network analysis has now moved from being a suggestive metaphor to an analytic

approach to a paradigm, with its own theoretical statements, methods, social network analysis

software, and researchers. Analysts reason from whole to part; from structure to relation to

individual from behavior to attitude. They typically either study whole networks, all of the ties

containing specified relations in a defined population, the ties that specified people have, such as

their personal communities. The shape of a social network helps determine a network's

usefulness to its individuals. Smaller, tighter networks can be less useful to their members than

networks with lots of loose connections to individuals outside the main network. More open

networks, with many weak ties and social connections, are more likely to introduce new ideas

and opportunities to their members than closed networks with many redundant ties. In other

words, a group of friends who only do things with each other already share the same knowledge

and opportunities. A group of individuals with connections to other social worlds is likely to

have access to a wider range of information.

Revising your Message: Evaluating the First Draft

Ricky Brackett

October 31, 2011

MAN 131

                                    Revising your Message: Evaluating the First Draft

            Today I want to discuss with you about revising your message. After you have completed

a first draft you may be tempted to be breathe a sigh of relief, send the message on it’s way, and

move on to the next project. We all know that successful communicators recognize that the first

draft is rarely as tight, clear, and compelling as it needs to be. Sometimes we have to be careful

of what we write because it will be revised . Careful revision can mean the difference between a

rambling unfocused message and a lively direct message that gets results. Depending on your

writing and the medium and the nature of your message revision task can vary somewhat. When

using instant messaging, text messaging, email, or blogging, the revision process is often as

simple as quickly looking over your message to correct any mistakes before sending or posting

it.  A lot of times we fall into the common trap of thinking that you don’t need to worry about

grammar, spelling, charity, and other fundamentals of good writing when you use these media.

Most of these qualities can be very important in electronic media particularly if these messages

are the only contact your audience has with you. Poor quality message create an impression of

poor quality thinking and can cause confusion, frustration and costly delays. To complex your

messages try to put your draft aside for a day or two before you begin the revision process so that

you can approach the material with a fresh eye.

            Making sure that you have accomplish your goal start with the picture before moving to

finer points, such as readability, clarity, and conciseness. When you begin the revision process,

focus your attention on content, organization, style and tone. From the textbook at my

Management class according to Bovee and Thill to evaluate the content of your message answer

these questions: “ Is the information accurate? Is the information relevant to the audience? Is

there enough information to satisfy the readers needs?”  When you are satisfied with the content

of your message ask yourself some few questions like Are all the points covered in the most

logical order? Would the message be more convincing if it were arranged in another sequence?

And also are any points repeated unnecessarily? Next consider whether you have achieved the

right tone for your audience. Spend  a few extra moments on the beginning and end of your

message these sections usually have the greatest impact on the audience.  Be sure that the

opening is relevant interesting, and geared to the reader’s probable reaction. Before you dive into

someone’s else’s work recognize the dual responsibility that doing so entails. If you try to edit or

revise without knowing what the writer hoped to accomplish, you run the risk of making the

piece less effective, not more. According to Bovee and Thill to evaluate someone else’s writing

ask these questions: “What is the purpose of this document or message? Who is the target

audience? What information does the audience need? Does the document provide this

information in a well organized way? Is the tone of the writing appropriate for the audience? Is

the writing clear? If not, how can it be improved? Is the writing as concise as it could be? Does

the design support the intended message?

            Substance refers to the content of the essay and the message you send out. It can be very

hard to gauge in your own writing. One good way to make sure that you are saying what you

think you are saying is to write down, briefly and in your own words, the general idea of your

message. Then remove the introduction and conclusion from your essay and have an objective

reader review what is left. Ask that person what he thinks is the general idea of your message.

Compare the two statements to see how similar they are. This can be especially helpful if you

wrote a narrative. It will help to make sure that you are communicating your points in the story.

A message also has to have a structure and in order to check the overall structure of your essay,

conduct a first-sentence check. Write down the first sentence of every paragraph in order. Many

people think only of mechanics when they revise and rewrite their compositions. As we know,

though, the interest factor is crucial in keeping the admissions officers reading and remembering

your essay. Look at your essay with the interest equation in mind: personal + specific =

interesting

Advantages and Disadvantages of Teams

Ricky Brackett
October 6th, 2011

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Teams

            We all know that there are no I’s in team. A team is not an individual that brings effort to

a team because one individual puts in all the work to get the effort but does not work with a

team. A team is a group or more than one person who helps each other to get the job done or in a

way work at things faster. According to the text book of business communication today a team is

“A unit of two or more people who share a mission and the responsibility for working to achieve

a common goal.” We all can agree that to be a team player it takes more than one individual to

succeed in the work force. However, there is always a good and a bad about teams in other words

there is an advantage and a disadvantage of teams. When teams are successful, they can improve

productivity, creativity, employee involvement, and even job security.

            Here are some advantages of just what a team is in a business sense. Work teams bring

another advantages as markets place a premium on cycle time, adaptability, and give a unique

response to the customer. Supervisor and management positions will survive as long as they

provide value to the core work teams who are now their customers. A facilitator role is a

transitional one because over time, even this role will either go away or their organization will

become correspondingly larger to justify their position. One advantage of team is team members

have the opportunity to learn from each other. Also, potential exists for greater work force

flexibility with cross training. Teams provided opportunity for synergistic combinations of ideas

and abilities. New approaches to tasks may be discovered, teams membership can provide social

facilitation and support for difficult tasks and situations. Also, communication and information

exchange may be facilitated and increased. Another advantage is that teams can foster greater

cooperation among team members. Interdependent work flow can be enhanced, also potential

exist for greater acceptance and understanding of team made decisions. Greater autonomy,

variety, identity, significance, and feedback for workers can occur. A few advantages that I want

to point out is that team commitment may stimulate performance and attendance, teams also

increased information and knowledge. They also increased diversity of views , increased

acceptance of solution and higher performance levels. Lastly, teams are often at the core of

participative management the effort to involve employees in the company’s decision making.

            Teamwork also has a number of potential disadvantages. Working in teams can be

frustrating waste of time. One of the disadvantages is that business teams can generate

tremendous pressure to conform with accepted norms of behavior. Hidden agendas is another

one because private counterproductive motives, such as a desire to take control of the group, to

undermined someone else on the team, or to pursue a business goal that runs counter to the

team’s mission. Cost is another one too because arranging meetings, and coordinating individual

parts of project can eat up a lot of time and money. Some individuals are not compatible with

team work as well as workers they must be selected to fit the team as well as requisite job skills.

Some members may experience less motivating jobs as part of a team. Another disadvantage is

that organization may resist change. The worse is having a conflict because conflict may develop

between team members or other teams. Another problem with teams is that teams may be time-

consuming due to need for coordination and consensus. When there is work to be done work

needs to be done. Where am I going with this? When you’re on a team and you’re on a team of 4

which is including yourself, there will be a situation when yourself and another person is doing

the work but the other 2 are not. However, the ones that are not doing the work want the credit

which leads to Free-riding and this may occur. Teams can have creativity and inhibit good

decision-making if group think becomes prevalent. Less flexibility may be experienced in

personnel replacement or transfer. According to the disadvantages of teamwork in a workplace

“Employees may be so focused on working for the overall good of the team and fitting in to the

team concept that they put their own ideas on the back burner. This lack of innovative thinking

may keep your company from moving forward, resulting in stagnation.” You can find this article

at http://smallbusiness.chron.com/disadvantages-teamwork-workplace-1937.html.

Communication is important to your career. Chapter 1 Man 131.

       First I would like to introduce myself to all my name is Ricky Brackett and I’m pretty

much new to this blogging site. Today I would like to talk to you about Communication and why

it is important towards your career. In order to go forward we must first know what’s the

definition of communication. Many have different definitions of that word and that is fine by me,

but I would like to tell you my definition of the word communication. Communication means

interacting with other people inside or outside of the workforce, it can also mean “transferring

information between senders and receivers using one or more written, oral visual, or electronic

media” which is found in a business textbook Business Communication today (Bovee & Thill, 3).

You can have the greatest ideas in the world however if you can’t express them clearly it will not

be any good to your company or your career. For example if you want to be an engineer or

finance you probably need to share complex ideas with executives, customers, and colleagues.

I’m proud to say that I’m a young man who knows what I want in life and is part of a business.

Do I want to be an entrepreneur? Yes I do because I not only want to help myself but I want to

help my family and people around me or should I say giving back to the community. If you have

the entrepreneurial urge you will need to communicate with a wide range of audiences such as

investors, bankers, and most of all government regulators, employees, customers, and business

partners.

            One of the ways of why communications is important is because once a person has come

of their comfort level anyone can become leaders. Being a leader is one of the most important

things in communicating. Now some might agree and others might disagree but think of it as a

start. Think of it as if you are being interviewed for a position at a job, so now the question is

how can you get or even start a career without communicating? Ok we all know there are many

different ways to communicate right? Computer, Cellular phone, word of mouth, hey even

blogging. Why did I bring this up? According to the authors of my business textbook Business

Communication today they stated “the higher you rise in an organization, the less time you will

spend using the technical skills of your particular profession and the more time you will spend

communicating.” (3). I understand what that quote means however I disagree and here’s why.

One reason is that even if you are at a higher position in an organization yes you do have to

communicate more so but so still spend a decent amount of time on you technical skills, higher

positions still go on the computer everyday, on top of that some CEO’s have skype video

conferences on the computer instead of going out of state to a headquarter building and are

communicating about a next event. The technology era that we are in today I believe that more

people are spending time with their technical skills because your still communicating with your

peers. I remember my first day of college a professor asked me why are you taking this class? At

the time the class is an Entrepreneurship class so I reply “ I need it to graduate.” Unfortunately

she told me I need it because when you get out there in the real business world you will be more

then ready. Many employees express frustration at the poor communication skills of many

employees such as recent college graduates who have not yet learned to adapt their

communication styles towards a professional business environment. One of the key tools of

communication is to write well, speak well, listen well, and also try to memorize your colleagues

names because people around you will know that you got a good memorization. We are still

learning when you’re  in school studying for a degree or in or out the work place. Where am I

going with this? One advice that I will never forget that was given to me from Long Island

University Career Service Counselor please refrained from calling your employers or employees

names like “Yo, Hey, You” etc. If you don’t know the person’s name ask he or she for their

name because calling your peers with those words is not work appropriate to me. It may or may

not be negative but it doesn’t sound good in a work area. Remember people are watching you!

May God Bless you all and Have a Blessed Day.