Organizations for Communication Professionals

There are many organizations available to Communication Professionals, some of which include:

1.  The Society for Technical Communication www.stc.org.  

 

STC is “the world's largest and oldest professional association dedicated to the advancement of the field of technical communication. The Society’s members span the field of the technical communication profession and reach across every industry and continent. In fact, the Society has members in almost 50 countries and is continuing to grow rapidly outside of North America and Europe” (STC.org).  The intended audience is technical communicators in various fields, as well as professionals, organizations or companies who are impacted by technical communication.

2.  The Association for Women in Communications www.womcom.org.  

 

This organization targets women in the communication field as the intended audience and provides opportunities for education, networking and building connections with other women in the communications sector.

What Makes a Good Blog?

According to media writer Simon Dumenco, “there is no such thing as blogging.  There is no such thing as a blogger.  Blogging is just writing - writing using a particularly efficient type of publishing technology” (Scocco, P.1).  The use of a blog is to efficiently provide ones written materials to a specific target audience in communicating a product, concept or idea with your personal branding.  To do this effectively, bloggers, or writers, must create their blogs with a specific purpose and target audience in mind, then cater the design and content to hold greatest impact for this audience.

In evaluation of blogs created by my fellow students in COM480 Communication Studies Capstone, I found all created blogs to hold many valuable components and key attributes necessary to effectively target their intended audience.  For the purpose of this class, students were to create a blog showcasing their written work to potential employers, including both assignments from the COM480 class, along with previously completed written work and assignments from past classes.  The blogs I evaluated are as follows; Communication Happens http://communicationhappensblog.blogspot.com/ by Chassity Beals, The Expert Witness Communicator blog http://the-expert-witness.blogspot.com/ by William Gulya and Communication Today blog http://lilgunny.blogspot.com/ by Dolly Burgos.

Career Fields for Communication Studies Majors

Public Relations Managers and Specialists
The 2010 median pay for this position is $57,550 for specialists and $91,810 for managers.  A Bachelors degree is required, with related work experience preferred.  This role is responsible for creating and maintaing “a favorable public image for their employer or client.  They write material for media releases, plan and direct public relations programs, and raise funds for their organizations” (BLS.gov).  There is anticipated growth in this job as driven by “the need for organizations to maintain their public image in a high-information age and with the growth of social media” (BLS.gov).

Technical Writers
The 2010 median pay for this position is $63,280.  A Bachelors degree is required along with experience in a technical field like computer science or engineering.  This role is responsible for producing “instruction manuals and other supporting documents to communicate complex and technical information more easily” (BLS.gov).  The opportunity for advancement is expected to be good for this position.

Writers and Authors
The 2010 median pay for this position is $55,420.  Writers and authors must have excellent writing skills and a degree is typically required.  In this role, individuals “develop original written content for advertisements, books, magazines, move and television scripts, songs, and online publications” (BLS.gov).  While growth is expected for this position, there is also a lot of competition for salaried jobs.

Critiquing Blogs

The first blog I reviewed is Chassity's blog, Communication Happens http://communicationhappensblog.blogspot.com/.  I really like how clean this blog looks, and it looks very professional.  I also like the drop down options under the “Sidebar” tab to customize the view to the readers’ personal taste.  Personally, I like the “Magazine” view but I found that not all of the views work (such as “Snapshot”) so that would be something to update in the future.  Also, I found the right hand menu not to be very user friendly.  I actually found it by accident when I moused over it looking for information about the author and I think if it was more visible on the page it may make the blog a bit easier to navigate.

The Expert Witness Communicator blog http://the-expert-witness.blogspot.com/ has a lot going on.  I think it is a fantastic place for William to advertise his book and found that very exciting.  He also has a lot of information on his blog, which is valuable, but I think it may be helpful to categorize them with sub-menus or something to make them a bit easier to navigate.  Also, this might just be my computer but I have to scroll from side-to-side to see the full blog page, something I don’t prefer and don’t recommend.  If the page setup was narrowed, or perhaps the margins were narrowed a bit, I think the blog could be more user friendly.  Also, I really like the intro description under the page name, but I found it hard to read when the white text overlaps with the white on the background image.  Maybe that text color could be changed to a grey or blue to be easier to read.

Dolly's blog, Communication Today blog http://lilgunny.blogspot.com/ is bright and cheerful.  Based on the color scheme, font colors and pictures I feel like I know a little bit about the author and she seems like a friendly writer.  I would recommend adding additional pages to the blog to showcase other pieces she has written and as this is a blog for professional use I think it would be ideal to use her name rather than “Travel Hound” in the “About Me” section.  If this is too personal, perhaps initials or Ms. [initial from last name] to continue the professional vibe.

To read more about my blog critiques and how classmate feedback helped me improve my own blog, see my new post What Makes A Good Blog?

Delivering Bad News Tactfully and Effectively

   Case Study: “You are a department manager in a mid-sized company that provides technology support services.  You have ten employees who are required to maintain a high level of technical expertise and deliver excellent customer service.  One of your employees, who has been with the company for two years, is performing at a substandard level and you have received numerous complaints from customers and coworkers.  In addition, this employee has displayed confrontational behavior which has created a hostile environment.  You must now meet with this employee and deliver an ultimatum regarding the need for immediate improvement or dismissal.”

    In response to this employee, I would initiate a one-on-one conversation immediately.   According to Cahn & Abigail, interpersonal conflict will most commonly arise with the following four main characteristics; “ (1) the conflicting parties are interdependent, (2) they have the perception that they seek incompatible goals or outcomes or they favor incompatible means to the same ends, (3) the perceived incompatibility has the potential to adversely affect the relationship leaving emotional residues if not addressed, and (4) there is a sense of urgency about the need to resolve the difference” (Cahn & Abigail, 2007, p.4).  In this situation, all four characteristics are present as; he is an employee dependent upon me for income and I am dependent on him to provide high level services to our clients; we both want him to complete his work however his methods are causing unrest with clients and other employees; hostile work environments harm people emotionally and the issues must be resolved quickly so as not to cause further harm.  Since the situation has already gotten to the point of creating a hostile work environment and negative impact on our clients, I should have spoken with this employee much earlier to diffuse the situation and there is no more time to procrastinate in handling the situation.

Ten Commandments of Intercultural Communication

As a cross-cultural trainer for a foreign language translation company, I find application for the guidelines from the “Ten Commandments of Intercultural Communication” on a daily basis.  At work, I am constantly interacting with people from other cultures; whether based on ethnicity, age, gender or life experiences.

I find these guidelines are beneficial when attempting to interact with someone on their level.  I don’t mean that one level is higher or lower, but different.  When attempting to “walk in their shoes” or connect on a deeper level “seeing things from their perspective” it is vital to take into account cultural differences.