In my final portfolio I have compiled five of my favourite posts. I have curated each post and provided a paragraph of explanation for each of them relating each of them to a specific topic or conversation from my class in the course: Business and Organizational Communication. Additionally I wanted to showcase different types of free creations and have selected posts that show various different approaches.
Branding and Marketing
Visual Meme
Branding and marketing are of course an extremely important tool that companies use to sell their products. When talking about different branding in class we began to talk about how brand names of certain products have become the generic term for them. For example personal water crafts are more often called Jet skis, slow cookers are called Crock pots, lip balm is called Chapstick and of course tissues are called Kleenex. For more examples go here https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/56667/41-brand-names-people-use-generic-terms. I found this very interesting and thought it represented the power of marketing well. When decided what type of creation I would use to present this idea I wanted something blunt and eye catching. This is why I choose a Visual meme and I think it does really good job of catching the viewers eye and also gets them thinking by using such a simple and relatable example of the use of brand names that one might encounter in daily life.
Making a Pitch
Video
For one of our creations we were required to make video of us presenting a pitch. My pitch is my attempt to persuade people that vinyl records are still a relevant way to listen to music regardless of their drawbacks. I highlight the pros and cons of vinyl in comparison to other formats. I choose to select this pitch for my final portfolio because its something I enjoyed doing. I enjoy sharing my passions with others and this was great opportunity for me to do that. I also think that this pitch is a great example of what a pitch could look like. Looking at my pitch you'll notice I used a very casual approach and I think this makes it come off more genuine then if it were scripted or perfectly prepared. In contrast I did not present as many facts or information as I could have and maybe I didn't come off as knowledgeable as I could have.
Gender and the Power of Talk
Journalistic interview questions
Why is a woman's confidence often looked at differently than a man's?
Do Men and women dwell on things much different?
Men are often less afraid of hurting people's feelings should this give them an advantage?
How much does history affect these norms although some are anecdotal?
Why are gentle men often called weak?
Why is a dominant masculine woman often looked at as bossy?
These questions all go to show that there is a lot of unjust and inappropriate expectations or beliefs about how different genders should communicate in the workplace. It's to answer these questions and also hard to understand why these things haven't changed. Historically these types of issues were an accepted part of society and breaking norms can be extremely difficult. Men and Women often do communicate differently with some characteristics of communication being more commonly associated with more feminine or masculine and this is ok. What is not ok is holding an individual to certain characteristics. An individual of any gender can present any of of these characteristics in their communication. For example a man might show a more traditionally feminine characteristic of communication and thats great everyone should be able to be themselves and should not be held to be a certain way. I choose to represent this topic using journalistic interview questions because I thought it might challenge the viewer more and stir up a new train of thought or a conversation. I also don't know all the answers and thought it was important to leave this open ended.
Taking Stress Out of Stressful Conversations
Freewriting
stress will always exist in certain conversations we simply must find ways to deal with it better having things to fidget with or techniques to help manage it like how u aproach it or having something to fidget with or learning ways of saying things that arent as harsh sounding it is also important to be staright forward in these situations and not beat around the bush. honesty and respect r important aswell we also never know when we will encounter these situations so we have to have some basic preparatoion and practice so that we can deal with these conversations as they are often to important to our life.
You will notice that the paragraph above uses extremely poor grammar and has many spelling errors. This is because it is a free write. Freewritng is an unedited expression of writing where the writer does not stop to change or correct anything. I decided to use this technique to talk about stress because I thought that it related well to how you might prepare for a stressful conversation. The paragraph highlights different things that can someone help take some of the stress out of a stressful conversation. It mentions the importance of being practiced, prepared and the importance of having something help distract from or cope with the stress at hand. Freewriting is much like being in a stressful conversation its a bit all over the place, every scenario it is different, you might not be fully prepared and you can't edit yourself when you are talking. What is important is that you can confidently deliver the basic idea you are trying to communicate. Practice, preparation and other tools are what these things easier overtime.
Crisis Communication
Visual meme
For my final creation I choose to use another visual meme as I thought it would be a fun and entertaining way to show an example of what the result of poor crisis communication could result in. This shows employees poorly dealing with information that was supposed to be confidential. It shows the importance of clear communication throughout an organization. It is important not assume you were fully understood and it is also important to make sure everyone is communicated to. In this situation one employee was simply unaware, the second was not paying attention so missed the point and the third was an untrustworthy moron. All of this results in the boss losing his cool throwing the third employee out of the window and causing hug problems for himself and the company. All of this because of poor communication.
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