let the blogging begin Week 5

It's the 5th week of the summer session and the final blogging week. Quite a few class members have gotten an early start:

• akaFlash
• cjlynch
• Esther
• G
• GSackman8
• ilikecake
• Kimber
• Miss Potato
• Molly McMuffin
• Msensei
• TM

The holiday weekend is coming up. Blog early and often so you're not spending the 4th in front of your computer screen!

~ Professor Cyborg

org com and the future

In Chapter 10, Eisenberg et al. discuss larger issues in organizational communication and organizing, focusing on strategic positioning and alignment. The primary message is flexibility and adaptability in a turbulent environment.

The cover story of the May 25, 2009, issue of TIME is on the future of work, providing a more updated version of what's covered in Chapter 10. In a series of short articles, the magazine outlines how work has changed and trends that suggest new work paths in the coming months and years. Topics include types of jobs, management training, benefits, career trajectories, retirement, women in the workplace, green jobs, Gen X in the workplace, manufacturing, and the office. Plenty of intriguing tidbits of information. For me, the most interesting trend is telecommuting. Already it's estimated that 28% of the U.S. workforce telecommutes either full or part time. Seth Godin, the author of the article, "The Last Days of Cubicle Life," argues:

More and more, though, the need to actually show up at an office that consists of an anonymous hallway and a farm of cubicles or closed doors is just going to fade away . . . I'd rather send you a file at the end of my day . . . and have the information returned to my desktop when I wake up tomorrow.

Many companies are already working this way. I've found the best faculty meetings are those in which we've already done much of the work online and the only work left is what we need to talk about in person.

If you get the change, read the entire cover story. Lots of interesting ideas to think about and discuss.

~ Professor Cyborg

leadership at the bottom

Leadership in organizations is typically associated with those at the top, such as CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CIOs, and the like, or those in middle-management supervisory roles. And in some companies, the people at the top truly are crucial to the organization's well-being. Consider the case of Apple and Steve Jobs. With Jobs at the helm, Apple flourished. When he left in the early 1990s, Apple quickly lost its way and its ability to make money. Jobs came back and Apple's innovative ideas soared. Still, without creative and smart people around him, even Steve Jobs wouldn't be able to keep Apple on the cutting edge of new communication technology.

In Chapter 9, Eisenberg et al. fall into this leaders-at-or-near-the-top trap as well, drawing a distinction between leaders/managers/supervisors and employees (aren't managers, supervisors, Presidents, etc., employees of the organization, too?). I suspect that leadership in the bottom levels of the organization may be as important (or even more important) than leadership at the top. At SJSU, for instance, the university went through several years of interim and temporary presidents and managed to muddle along just fine. But what would happen without department chairs? The university would come to a standstill. Even worse would be no office managers (administrative staff). It's not just the tasks department chairs and office staff complete, it's also the support they provide, goals they set, and ways they motivate others to complete their tasks.

Maybe it's time to take a closer look at leadership communication outside the upper echelons of organizations and study how those taking care of the day-to-day organizing tasks lead the way.

~ Professor Cyborg

gangs as organizations

Near the end of Chapter 8, Eisenberg et al. mention that "terrorist organizations have turned to online communication as a means of recruiting and staying connected with new members" (p. 267). I'm not sure if local gangs are doing the same, but they certainly use cell phones and other new media to organize and accomplish their goals.

I bring up gangs today because the Merc ran an article on increased gang violence in Santa Cruz county. Although the article focused on Watsonville, there's evidence that gang activity is on the rise in other parts of the county. For example, in my neighborhood of Pleasure Point, we're seeing more graffiti and tagging. Within the past year a neighborhood park was tagged (Brommer Park at Brommer and 30th) along with a house next to Moran Lake on East Cliff Drive. And then there's the regular tagging of signing, sidewalks, fences, and benches. Just like companies mark their territory with advertisements, gangs mark their territory with graffiti.

~ Professor Cyborg

networked university case

At the end of Chapter 8, Eisenberg et al. pose the case of the networked university. The authors note that many universities have established campuses far from their primary sites, sometimes in other countries. Then the authors refer to the University of Phoenix, a for-profit institution, and similar organizations that "offer highly flexible degree programs that require very little in the way of physical presence in a classroom."

Partly because the textbook was published two years ago, the case and discussion seem rather quaint. As institutions of higher education, all colleges and universities should be examining ways to integrate new media into the classroom and learning experience. For traditional place-oriented schools, developing innovative ways to structure classes will be essential for survival. The U of Louisville, for instance, offers a bachelor's degree in communication that's completely online. Enrolling in online classes costs more than in person classes, but students are willing to pay for the flexibility online classes offer.

~ Professor Cyborg

collaboration and knowledge building

Monday's Mercury News had an interesting column by Larry Magid in the Business section. In the article (titled "Cheating is cheating, but tech offers chance to teach critical thinking" in the online version and "Technology could aid student learning" in the paper version), Magid argues that while students cheating on tests and papers is wrong, maybe what teachers should be doing is rethinking what they're evaluating and how they're evaluating it. As Magid points out:

In the work force, what's important in most situations is not so much the facts you can pull out of your head but your ability to acquire information when you need it and — most importantly — your ability to make sense of it.

Team papers and tests provide opportunities for students to work together on assignments and better understand the collaborative nature of knowledge development. Academe still tends to cling to the notion of the lone researcher toiling away in the laboratory during the wee hours of the morning. But consider the recent breakthroughs in science such as the human genome project and face transplant. These involve multiple groups coordinating their efforts to test theories, gather data, interpret results, and strike out on new scientific paths.

As Eisenberg et al. point out, teams are not without their drawbacks. Team members must have the expertise for the task, must have training in how to work together, must have a task that requires teamwork, and must figure out a way to match team member expertise with assigned work.

Certainly in the educational setting we need to do a better job of teaching students how to collaborate as they learn about and explore new topics. The notion that learning is an individual effort isolates students from each other. One reason I have students blog in my online classes and comment on each others' blogs is that students learn from each other. On my teaching evaluations, students often comment that reading others' blogs helps them better understand the class material and bring to their attention concepts and ideas they overlooked.

~ Professor Cyborg

let the blogging begin Week 4

It's the morning of Day 2, Week 4, and the blogging has already begun. Earlier bloggers this week include:

• akaFlash
• Esther
• G
• GSackman
• Kimber
• Miss Potato
• Molly McMuffin
• Tina
• TM

The early bloggers get the early comments! And they have less stress later in the week as the Saturday midnight deadline approaches. Don't be the blogger posting at 11:59pm on Saturday night--Blog early and blog often!

~ Professor Cyborg

new media and organizations

One of the weaknesses of the Eisenberg et al. text is the lack of integration of new media in discussions of organizations and organizing today. The internet and mobile communication have fundamentally changed how people organize and how organizations function.

For example, distance education has been around for decades if not centuries. My father taught correspondence courses (essentially independent studies in which he mailed students course requirements and they mailed back their assignments), tv courses (lectures broadcast on campus or public access tv), and off-site courses (he went to where the students were, as with a military base). But with the exception of the off-site courses, distance ed used to mean little interaction among students. Now, online courses offer the possibility of greater interaction than what occurs in on campus classes. With online classes that use some sort of asynchronous discussion format, all students have the opportunity to participate because the usual time constraints are absent. With in person classes, there's just so much time, and unless the class size is quite small, never enough for everyone to contribute.

Eisenberg et al. tend to treat new media as something added on to organizational communication rather than something integral to organizing. That's why I included the tech and teams lecture in which I discuss the notion of a pervasive communication environment. That lecture is drawn from a small group communication book my spouse (Ted) and I are working on for McGraw-Hill. I must give him credit for the PCE model, which he presented at a conference three years ago. If you're interested in reading more about the pervasive communication environment, he recently published an essay on the model in First Monday, an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed online journal.

~ Professor Cyborg

identities and organizations

There's no doubt that a large part of our identity is tied up with the organizations in which we're enmeshed. One organizational practice that regulates and controls members' identities is giving members an explicit set of guiding values and morals. You can get a sense of SJSU's values from its mission statement, strategic planning, organization charts (where are the faculty and students on these charts?), and other formal documents, which provide both explicit and implicit value statements.

Intersecting identities refers to the idea that social categories such as gender, race, class, age, dis/ability, sexuality, and others combine in complex, fluid, and sometimes contradictory ways. For example, my father is from a working class family and was the first in his family to go to college, much less earn a Ph.D. His background was very different from the students at Cornell University, where he got his first teaching job, but very similar to the students at Delta College, his last teaching job. For him, teaching at Delta was easier and more rewarding than Cornell because he could relate better with the Delta students. Now a retired professor, some aspects of his identity put him in a privileged class (male, highly educated, white, straight), but his age and disability (inoperable esophageal cancer) make him nearly invisible when he goes to the grocery store or the bank.

We all bring multiple identities to our organizational lives. The authors of your text suggest that one strategy for negotiating these multiple identities is to be mindful. Consider the various aspects of your self that you bring to your organizations and how those organizations influence your identities.

~ Professor Cyborg

this week's concepts

A broad range of concepts and topics covered this week in the class blogs. Cultural elements, feedback, workplace surveillance, resistance, ideology, metaphors, concertive control, practical view of organizational culture, socialization, assimilation, power--just to name a few. Many useful insights, practical applications, and intriguing stories.

Tomorrow is the last day of Week 3. If you haven't yet blogged this week, you need to get to it! Three people have taken Quiz 3, which ends midnight, Saturday as well.

~ Professor Cyborg

technology and the value of work

Although new communication technologies have had important positive changes on organizing and work (such as online classes), there are negative impacts as well. In Chapter 6 Eisenberg et al. discuss the technological panopticon, or the level of surveillance of organizational members now possible (note that the highest levels of surveillance are reserved for the lowest levels of the organization hierarchy; those at the top are rarely surveilled, yet can do the most damage to the organization). If you're interested in my research on organizational surveillance, I discuss it in my BUS/COMM 244 blog.

Technology in organizations has another dark side in addition to increased surveillance. TIME recently reviewed Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work. The author, Matthew B. Crawford, argues that "Globalization and technology are doing to white collar jobs of the 21st century what the assembly line did to the trades in the 20th--turning them into repetitive, menial, dissatisfying tasks." I haven't yet gotten the book, but it's on my summer reading list.

If you're interested in Crawford's ideas, an earlier and briefer version of his work was published in 2006 in The New Atlantic. Toward the end of that article, Crawford states, "White collar professions, too, are subject to routinization and degradation, proceeding by the same process as befell manual fabrication a hundred years ago: the cognitive elements of the job are appropriated from professionals, instantiated in a system or process, and then handed back to a new class of workers—clerks—who replace the professionals." That's precisely the fear of professors who teach online--we'll develop the course and then the university will hire part-time contract employees to teach the class. That hasn't happened yet, at least not at SJSU, but the possibility is there.

~ Professor Cyborg

LUV and Southwest Airlines

In Chapter 6 Eisenberg et al. note that ideology exists in the practices of everyday life. In the organizational context, ideology supports the power of elites by denying system contradictions, such as living in a democracy but not implementing those ideals in the business sector. The authors go on to discuss the hidden power of culture, particularly in myths, stories, and metaphors.

I found the discussion of Southwest Airlines' LUV story interesting because I fly that airline so often. Eisenberg et al. critique the LUV story, concluding that "employees generally accept these [managerial] controls as part of the 'story' that distinguishes the organization and its culture" (p. 175). Although like any large organization Southwest has its flaws, it consistently receives high ratings from outside agencies, customers, and employees. For example, TIME rated the airline the friendliest in 2008. Three-quarters of the employees belong to a union. It's consistently ranked at the top of airline customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction. Yet the company has had problems with airline safety. In March, Southwest was fined over $10 million dollars for violating FAA regulations on airplane inspections. Yet the company receives high marks for social responsibility, innovation, and management.

In my experiences with Southwest, I've found that employees are empowered to make decisions and handle common problems to keep people moving and planes running on time. Like companies such as Apple and Google, employees seem to enjoy working for Southwest. Maybe that's why the company received nearly 200,000 résumés last year. So while the Eisenberg et al. suggest that employees are simply buying into a hegemonic story that encourages them to participate in their own oppression, it just might be that Southwest is a great company to work for because employees do actively participate in structuring their own work life.

~ Professor Cyborg

let the blogging begin Week 3

It's the morning of day 3 of week 3 and several people already have blogged about concepts in Chapters 5 and 6 and the web lecture. So if you're looking for blogs to comment on, visit these:

• Filbert's Pink Heart
• GSackman8
• Miss Potato
• Molly McMuffin
• SquEarl
• Tina

Recall that you need to comment on the blogs of 4 different people in the class by the end of the week. Keep track of the URLs to avoid commenting 2 or 3 times on the same person's blog.

If you haven't completed a blog entry yet this week, don't wait much longer! Saturday has a way of sneaking up on you faster than you might expect.

~ Professor Cyborg

socialization and new tech

Near the end of Chapter 5 the authors of your text discuss new communication technologies and organizational socialization. Discussing new media separately seems a bit old-fashioned considering the pervasive communication environment in which organizations and organization members function. But at least the authors acknowledge that socialization doesn't just involve in person interaction.

The section did get me thinking about the new faculty who will be joining the department in the fall. Their experience is much different from mine nearly 20 years ago. Then, I had to rely on a microfiche reader to go through the SJSU Catalog so I could get an idea of the department and university. I talked with a few of the faculty members on the phone. But for the most part, socialization occurred in person. Now, job candidates review university and department websites as they write up their letters of application and prepare for the interview. To help integrate the two faculty, I've added their bios and photos to the website. They've exchanged emails with several current faculty. They have access to the department wiki, which includes minutes from faculty and committee meetings, course syllabi, and other useful information. These new colleagues simply know a lot more about the department before the first faculty meeting than I ever did. Still, there's a great deal of informal knowledge that they won't know, but will learn over time.

~ Professor Cyborg

first day Week 3

I just finished reviewing all the blogs and comments from last week and posting those grades. I've taught this course online many, many times (this is the 21st time, to be exact), and each class is different due to different students with different interests and changing times.

Discussions of organizational culture, however, continue to remain one of the most popular. When I first started teaching at SJSU in 1990, I asked students to describe the various elements of the university's culture (such as rituals, metaphors, vocabulary, stories, and the like), giving me some insight into the educational institution I'd recently joined.

As a large bureaucratic organization within two other large bureaucratic organizations (the CSU and State of California), SJSU's culture tends to remain fairly stable. However, outside forces have impinged on the organization, leading to some changes. For example, the CSU was sued over lack of accessibility. As a result, CSU schools are implementing practices that focus on making all aspects of university life--especially informational technologies--accessible for all students. The Communication Studies Department was one of the first departmental websites to convert to a completely accessible platform.

Organizational culture can change, but it often takes some major event, outside force, or new personnel to start the change process. In addition, cultural change doesn't always lead to positive results. Finally, changes in organizational culture may go unnoticed as the organization slowly evolves over time, with old members leaving and new members entering--with new ideas and new ways of doing things.

~ Professor Cyborg

last day Week 2

Week 2 ends today. You must post all your blog entries and comments by midnight tonight and complete Quiz 2. Many excellent insights into Chapters 3 and 4.

~ Professor Cyborg

company layoffs and executive pay

I'm back in California and reading the Mercury News. Last week I missed the paper's annual survey on What the Boss Makes, so I'm reading it online this morning. Not surprisingly, in spite of the current awful economic times, executives in Silicon Valley still make plenty: "The median pay package the valley's boards of directors awarded their chief executives dropped 5.6 percent, to $2.2 million." Okay, it's less, but still a lot.

What I found more interesting, however, was columnist Mike Cassidy's comments on layoffs. He argues that we no longer think of layoffs as the tragedy they really are; we've forgotten that it's real people losing their jobs and their livelihoods. Of course, if you're someone who's experiencing this situation--"in transition" as C & B has learned it's called--you fully understand the implications of not having a job.

Viewing layoffs as a part of doing business in this economy versus viewing layoffs as having far-reaching effects on communities highlights the differences between the machine and organism metaphors for organization. The former leads to what Cassidy observes as "a certain detachment in news reports of the latest company cutting payroll to increase profits 'going forward.'" Contrast that perspective with the one Cassidy suggests we should take:

But that doesn't mean we can ignore the way massive job losses, including from profitable companies with extravagantly paid executives, are choking the life out of our economy and our communities. People who don't work don't buy things or keep current on their mortgages. Stores close. Homes go vacant. Neighborhoods and commercial districts shrivel up.

Company layoffs are particularly troubling when the businesses are profitable, as with HP and Cisco Systems. As you'll read in later chapters, a critical approach to organizational communication will provide additional insights into issues such as executive pay and employee layoffs.

~ Professor Cyborg

sensemaking and learning

A few of you (Esther and Kimber) have already blogged about learning organizations and Weick's theory of sensemaking. According to Peter Senge, the learning organization exhibits flexible mental models. From Weick's perspective, decision making in organization is for the most part retrospective, organizations are viewed as communities, and managers are symbol manipulators.

One of my colleagues from graduate school and I have just started working on a business and professional speaking book that uses these two approaches to organizations as the theoretical foundation of the text. In the book's proposal, we argued, "Conceptualizing organizations—and communicators—as continually learning underscores the importance of effectively gathering and analyzing information, applying that knowledge in practical ways, evaluating the outcome, and updating knowledge pools and skill sets. In this fast-paced, always on, always connected information age, students must develop flexible learning styles to make sense of and adapt to an ever-changing environment." The concepts of sensemaking and learning apply not only to organizations, but also to how we plan to present the information in the book.

We recently signed a contract for Communicating for Business and the Professions: Knowledge and Skills with Cengage and hope to start writing soon!

~ Professor Cyborg

let the blogging begin Week 2

It's early Tuesday morning and several people have already blogged about Chapters 3 and 4. If you're looking for blogs to comment on, go to these class blogs:

• Cynthia Y
• Esther
• GSackman8
• Kimber
• Molly McMuffin
• Msensei
• Sassy Scholar

Thanks to these class members for getting the week started. If you're not on this list--get blogging! Saturday will be here before you know it.

~ Professor Cyborg

organizations as systems

Although systems theory has its drawbacks (such as dehumanizing organizational members and communication is equated with information), it provides an important way of thinking about organizations. For example, recognizing that SJSU is part of a larger system--the California State University--helps you make sense of SJSU's bureaucracy. As an employee of SJSU and the CSU, I'm an employee of the State of California, so my checks come from Sacramento rather than SJSU.

Because SJSU is part of the CSU, that impacts the programs each campus might offer. For example, if the Communication Studies Department wanted to change it's focus to new media studies, the faculty would need to consider not only what's offered by other departments at SJSU, but also other communication departments in the CSU.

Consider how the organizations you're a part of are systems and the ways in which systems theory helps explain why those organizations function as they do.

~ Professor Cyborg

theory and organizational communication

You've probably heard someone say, "Oh, that's just a theory," as if theories aren't all that important or useful. Yet theories are essential for functioning in every day life as they help you explain why things are the way they are and why people behave as they do.

Eisenberg et al. argue that all theories are metaphorical and historical. That is, a theory of organizational communication provides a metaphor of organization, explaining what is not known in terms of what is known. (I discuss the nature of metaphor in greater detail in the Metaphors and Culture web lecture.) Theories are also historical because they're grounded in the time they were developed and the theories that came before them. For example, human relations arose out of dissatisfaction with classical theories of organization and human resources provided a further extension of human relations.

Theories also provide narratives of organization in that they present goal-oriented stories. Theories frame how you think about organizations. No matter how perfect a theory may seem, it will always be partial (doesn't provide a full account of organizational communication), partisan (organizational events may be assigned multiple possible meanings), and problematic (inviting dialogue and questions about organizational communication).

So Chapters 3 and 4 introduce you to early theories of organization that provide important foundations for later thinking about organizational communication. As you read about these theories, consider the historical context in which they arose. Also reflect on the ways they still influence organizing today.

~ Professor Cyborg

organizing and human civilization

The authors of your text argue that the history of human civilization is a history of organizing. In analyzing the current turbulence in the global economy, the centrality of organizing to human existence is quite apparent. Because I'm in Michigan, I've been following the saga of GM's bankruptcy, downsizing, and reorganization. As parts of GM go to other companies (e.g., Saturn to Penske and Hummer possibly to a Chinese company), there are possibilities for new ways of organizing that might prove better for all stakeholders and increase the likelihood of innovation--moving more toward the creativity side of Eisenberg et al.'s model.

As a reminder, Saturday June 6 is the last day to take the first quiz and complete the process tasks. The 6-week summer sessions goes by quickly!

~ Professor Cyborg

let the blogging begin

It's Day 3 of Week 1 and several class members have already set up their blogs, introduced themselves, and posted their work stories. Check out these blogs:

• aimee5466
• COMM 144 Student
• Cynthia Y
• Esther
• Filbert's Pink Heart
• GSackman8
• Hallie
• i like cake
• Molly McMuffin
• Msensei
• SquEarlBlog
• TM
• Wilki

If you haven't posted yet, be sure to introduce yourself and tell us about your work story this week. You're not graded on your blog entries and comments this week, but blogging now will help prepare you for next week--and you'll get to meet the others in the class and they'll get to meet you.

~ Professor Cyborg

work story

Although blogging isn't required for this week, posting your work story to your blog will get you used to blogging as well as thinking about organizational communication.

My work story includes all sorts of jobs to pay the bills while I was in school, such as food co-op manager and unit clerk on a hospital burn unit. My first job (outside of babysitting) was stuffing envelopes and other clerical work for a small psychology journal. I've waited tables (2 weeks) and sold Avon products (2 months). I knew in 8th grade that I wanted to be a professor (my father is a retired psychology professor and my stepmother is a retired business communication professor, so teaching runs in the family), I just wasn't sure about the "of what" part.

When I started my bachelor's at Western Michigan U, I majored in psychology (too many experiments and surveys), switched to interior design (I didn't have a "vision" sense), and briefly considered majoring in English (my poetry was really awful). Finally, my junior year I took a class in interpersonal communication and another in sociology, and I was hooked, majoring in the former and minoring in the latter. I taught my first university class, public speaking, in 1980 as a teaching assistant working on my master's in communication at the U of Massachusetts.

In my present life as a professor, I teach, conduct research, write textbooks and journal articles, and engage in professional and community service. Many of you know me as one of the primary advisors in the department (and if you're a COMM major or minor and haven't met with an advisor to plan your fall schedule, plan to attend a drop in advising session this month). I'm also the advising liaison for the College of Social Sciences and the faculty advisor for the COMM Club.

I'm looking forward to learning about your work stories.

~ Professor Cyborg

Day 1 Week 1 in 144

The Summer 2009 session started today. Several students have already set up their blogs and most have signed up for the class listserv (google groups). So we're off to a good start. If you haven't already, you'll want to complete the Process Tasks in the next few days. Although you don't have to blog this week, you may want to post an introductory message to get used to how Blogger works.

eCampus has uploaded the class roster, so you can access Blackboard now. All quizzes are available; you must complete the first one by midnight this Saturday.

The GM saga continues. I've been following it closely; it's difficult not to in Michigan. It's a new world order for organizations and organizing. What you'll be learning about during the summer session will help you better analyze and understand the tremendous changes U.S. organizations and others world wide are experiencing.

~ Professor Cyborg