Metaphors

Metaphors have always been a useful ways to explain things. When you were a child, your parents would use metaphors to show you how two things are alike so that you would have a clear way to visualize them. It only makes sense that metaphors be used in the workplace as well. As schooled as you are, as trained as you are, there will always be some things that you are not familiar with. Using the correct type of metaphor brings you up to speed on a subject and makes the assimilation process much easier.

Democracy

I thought that the description on the different types of democracies was very interesting. Especially the competitive democracy. We just had the elections for the different officers in my fraternity a few weeks back, and they followed this exact same pattern. Different candidates had different ideas on how certain aspects of our chapter should be run. This separated them enough so that there would be very little overlapping. However, as explained in the web lecture, sometimes this can lead to a minority collection of people in the brotherhood having their views either ignored or overshadowed by the views of the majority who elected the officer. 

Phatic Communication

I thought that this was an extremely interesting concept just in everyday life. When we see people on campus that we know, but aren't extremely good friends with, what is the first few things that you say to them? Hey, How are you? How have you been? Everyone knows that this is simply mindless chatter, but to be completely honest I never would have thought that an actual communication process would be made to describe this. I never see it as disrespectful, I see it as an attempt to remain friendly with that person and acknowledge them, even if you don't have much to say.

Job Training

The section on job training in chapter 10 gives a good description of the different angles that are involved in a job training. When you find out how to accurately do a job, you naturally would want that success to continue by teaching your new employees how to perform the job the same way. But in another way, job training is also a way for companies to see if they have got the right man for the job. You can choose a guy with the most impressive credentials, but it isn't until you see him in the workplace that you know if you have correctly invested in this worker.

Teams

I thought that the discussion in chapter 8 on the different types of teams was also very interesting. When you work for a big organization, your job is so clearly lined out that you sometimes don't realize the type of team you are in within the grand scheme of the organization. In all the jobs I have had, I have been regulated to the Project teams, given a soecific task and been told to complete that task by a certain time. As I go on in life, I have no doubt that I will be able to experience all the different types of teams.

Pervasive Communication Environment

I thought that the article about Pervasive Communication environments was extremely interesting because of the fact that I have been living in this environment for my entire life and never noticed it. We really are plugged in at nearly every moment of our life. I was riding a chairlift with my Dad when we were skiing and he received a call from my Mom on his cellphone and was in sheer shock that such communication was possible because when he was a kid, it would be impossible. We have come along way, and it will be interesting how far we will be able to go.

Gender Communications

I thought that reading the differences in the ways that males and females communicate with each other was very interesting, and surprisingly true. In my personal experience, dialogue between men is very straight to the point and up front. We tell other guys about the event, what happened, and how it ended. Men aren't looking for anything else. Women communicate to express themselves. They discuss the event, and how the event made them feel. This is often why men and women have a hard time communicating. Another interesting concept was from chapter 9 on leadership. I had never previously thought of the different types of leadership there really is. Reading about them all made me think about what type of leader I am as president of my fraternity and what type of leader that I want to be.