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11 11 11 12 12 COM 140 CONTEMPORARY BUSINESS COMMUNICATION AXIA 12 31 2007 03 02 2008 I think that the words used direct the article to us the consumer as a way to show us that times have changes away from the business world mass media, in a way similar to that of the way the printing press altered mass communications from hand writing out an idea, hand copying that idea many times over, and then disseminate those few copies of that hand written book to the local community. Now every person with a pc and a printer can be a publisher. As times change and blogs have spread in popularity in the current electronic age, instead of needing a printer, all we need to publish is an internet connection, a blog, and an opinion that the writer wants to be shared with the world. Because in the past to present an idea to the world a person must go through business power brokers who owned all the equipment necessary for mass communications. Now mass communicant is moving from the printed page to the internet, publishing is as simple as open a blog, thinking of an idea, write that idea down, and then post that idea in that blog. The power of information has been taking out of the hands of business and put into our hands. In a few years the steps between a persons ideas and presenting that idea to the entire world will be one or two steps easier. The tone of the article was to show the non familiar with the world of blog that putting an idea to the world has become several steps easier. By writing in a step by step process from the how the world has changed through the printing press, to how the current trend in blogs is reshaping the world of business as well as altering the definition of mass communications in the internet age. We the consumers are being introduced to electronic publishing through the use of the tool “blog”. Shawn Welling Discussion Question 2 • Due Date: Day 4 [post to the Main forum] • Post your response to the following: Recall a writer with whom you have felt rapport as well as a writer with whom you have felt little or no rapport. What made the difference? Provide suggestions for building rapport between the writer and readers of written communication. • Ask for more information as you respond to your classmates’ posts if you are unfamiliar with the writers mentioned. A writer who has shaped my life with not only their writing skill but the subject manner was Robert A. Heinlein. In my early 20s, when I first encountered his work, his novel and the ideas behind “Stranger in a Strange Land” affected me to this very day. My rapport came from the emotional connection I had to the possibilities of what one can be done with ones self when the rules of the society in which one lives or has all influences are removed. We humans are capable of mythical actions when the idea “That can not be done” is removed from the point of view of the person doing it. On the other hand Louis Lamoure I find his work although his writing skills are very high for his genre I just find it difficult to connect to the genre. Although Mr. Lamoure’s work is good I find nothing in his works that captures my attention. It takes a lot of emotional work to connect to his characters more work then I am usually willing to commit to reading a novel. I find that no matter if the subject be fiction or non fiction, to read something for me means I the reader have to become emotionally invested in the subject matter. That subject matter be it a character or be it verb (person place or thing) from the fiction standpoint, I have to find a way to identify with what the subject of the writing is all about. One key way in which I work in my own writing is to always use word auto correct, because in hard truth my spelling and grammar are horrible. So as I use MS word I find that as I write and the computer tells me that I have spelled something incorrectly, or I have incorrect grammar, the visual identification of seeing it incorrect and having the computer fix it for me after much use of the auto correct tool. Seeing the words I type incorrectly change to the correct version, that has helped me in immeasurable ways to improve my spelling and grammar skills. You might ask “how does the auto correct affect the assignment” the answer is since we are working in an age of electronic communication, where our facial expressions, as well as our vocal tones are not a factor. Using the correct spelling of words as well as the correct grammar is the key to me being able to convey my ideas to the world as I use what ever tool I choose to convey an idea. Shawn The old phrase “start with a joke” then go into hard details. To entertain first to lighten the mood then input data in the lightened mood. Again to the past, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. There is a reason there is a TV in nearly every household in American but few and far between encyclopedias per household. Entertain first, info second. Shawn Humor, i.e. open with a joke. If you ask most entertainers and politicians for that matter most that are worth their salt will tell you the line between comedy and tragedy almost does not exist. Every joke comes from in some degree over coming tragedy. I quote the fraise “someday we will look back at this and laugh” as example. Putting people at easy with a we a have all come through some kind of difficulty in life, which builds rapport. Rapport is in effect a rudimentary at least through a joke way to start building lines of trust. If is only after some level of trust is established that an openness to information being convayed can be accepted more readily. Although your point of if the info is solid I pay attention, has to immediately follow. But have you noticed that in a lot of cases, the joke has a large grain of truth to it. As in, the joke itself contains information of how to avoid some kind as well as some degree of difficult situation. In the joke, is hard info that can be used to improve your own life. Shawn Sorry if that was not clear in my post. I thought I complimented his technical skill but not the genre. He is a great writer, I have no ability to get into his stories. I also like J. K. Rawlings for the same reason. Her technical skill is incredible, but the story line keeps me going for hours. I also like L.K. Hamilton her "Anita Blake" character novels, although the writing skills are not as high as some other authors, the story and character development suite me very well. I get into the genre's of anything is possible you just have to have enough imagination to get their, sorry I am a kid of the kennedy speech Bobbie that is "Some look at things as they are and ask why. Others look at things as they could be and ask why not. I invite you to join me in asking why not.” I really like this idea. I look for it in the input devises around me. Books, TV, educational material, what are the possibilities. Shawn On Shakespeare, I semi understand the point since his media was not to write in modern English but in an older form of English I do not remember right now if it was old or middle English. Which is much closer to that of Nordic or German then what we would consider to be English. Although its is understandable if you learn the rules of the grammar of that language format, but trying to come at the Bard from modern English is a challenge. Think of the Bards sentences as symbolic representations of the idea, in truth I find that eubonics and old English are very similar in their linguistics approach. The words digits, 411, crib, are all symbolic word representations of a larger concept put into a sentence to shorten that sentence do have maximum understanding with minimum words used. Digits is a phone number, but to our culture a phone number is a very important social construct arrangement between 2 or so people, 411 is 3 little numbers/words but the meaning to our culture of info is of the greatest value, 411 in Ebonics means almost the same thing as a sitrep aka (situation report) in the military. Crib is not a representation of just a house where you hang your hat but of your home where your most valuable of valuables are the place you come to rest and protect from all invaders. So think of William Shakespeare aka “the bard” in that light and I think you will start to get an understanding of his work a bit better. See the linguistics of Nordic and German language based are extremely similar to that of the language base that created what we understand to be Ebonics. Now I do not mean to insult anyone at all which this description, I am in no way assuming any ones ethnicity, I am speaking from a pure linguistics and sociological point of view. In my own humble opinion, since Ebonics is starting to be used by more then just one small isolated part of oru culture, I even hear Ebonics coming from news and main stream media people I assume that I can use references to Eubonics no matter how you spell it with out causing a problem. The movie clueless used the expression digits as a sign of accomplishment between getting 2 people to “hook up” another similar phrase of symbolic origin. Shawn There is also nothing wrong with expanding in the same facility, just operate on a longer office hours, have diffentre employees use the same work areas at different hours. Shawn Well actually that is only partially correctly. I was attempting to give those that do not know a good code key to understanding old and middle english. But as for everyone in his time to speak the way he wrote is simply inaccurate to the extreme. I am not sure since I have not looked it up if the times in which he was writing if old or middle English was used. English started around 800 ce. One transition happened around one of the Nordic/Scandinavian invasions of England that altered the based English language from the Middle German Language when the Anglo/Saxon/Jutes/Danes cultures mixed after the 300 - 750ish ce German cultures mixed in Britain. So I do not remember at this point if the commune language was old or middle, I am starting to think that it was middle because his times were after Hastings (1066). You see old English and modern English are more in commune then middle English to modern. Middle English is much closer to old German/Scandinavian then it is to the kings English. He was a poet, writing plays to be performed. Hence the use of iambic parameter, which most people did not speak in, which is a very hard form of speech pattern to use on the fly, even if you are schooled in iambic parameter its still a hard skill to have. So I can not imagine even the elite being able to openly speak in iambic parameter in casual conversation. Shawn Great, I was seriously worried about this one. On the Bedford ed site, the score tab did not work for several days. I pushed the tab several times, no scores recorded, the about half way through recording each of the 5 exercises, I checked the score tab again, I saw it finally work. I then understood how that site worked. So now the rest of the assignments in that site will go much easier. Do you need me to send to you the paperwork, or just the scores in the future? Shawn To outline the idea a bit better, verbally bouncing an idea around is actually a key factor in a lot of scientific endeavors. At Los Alamos "Open Discussion" was key to the construction of both the designs for "fat man" and "little boy". So do not be concerned with starting from word babble to something that makes sense, not all ideas how to come into the brain fully formed. Sometimes they take just talking it out. Shawn What speech did I watch What kind of body language did the president use to make his speech persuasive? Provide an example. What word choice and tone did President Kennedy use? What was the effect? Did the president use logic or emotion to persuade the audience? Provide an example. Did you find the speech persuasive? Why or why not? Shawn On the subject of respect, is to be given respect a given thing or to be respected an earned thing. I have noticed that being in my middle 30s, when someone is demanding respect to be given, that person is usually doing something they should not be doing and demanding to just be allowed to do it because of how great they think they are. I can recall interactions with dozens of people when I was much younger who although they knew nothing and had no respect for themselves or others they wanted to be treated as their self delusions had convinced them they should be treated. I happen to be a person that automatically gives a certain level of respect to any and all I encounter, after learn a bit about that persons history and how they interact with me, that level mostly does not change, but sometimes it fluxuates. With age does bring experience, but sometimes with age comes the skills of learning how to fake or given the illusion of experience more efficiently. I have found that with any one given person on the subject of respect; experience and communication with that person as to how much to respect or trust who they are and what experiences they bring to the table is to watch the actions they do. Anyone with a level of experience will be able to talk their way out of most jams but if you watch what they do and how they do it, the truth of how much to respect them, how much they respect you, how much they respect themselves, and how much actually hard experience they have comes through. With sentence structure it becomes harder to tell, but with the tools we are learning this week, I have learned things about communication I did not know before, I have added through those 4 words divided into 2 groups have learned really good hard application tools as to how to go about watching the words someone uses and what their actions have been, are now, and will be in the future. Which gives you an idea of how to respect them and how much to expect back. Shawn What qualities make any form of written communication effective? Which qualities do you already include in your writing? How can you incorporate additional effective elements into your written communication? When ever I sit down to write something, I always start with, what is the idea I want to convey to the world. Then I sit down and ask what aspect of the world I want to write that idea to. Then I think about the benefits of this class and what I have learned and then start to subdivide my thoughts into more organized forms of information processing. Idea, purpose, content, tone, as well as the structure of how I want to write the words that will become the sentences and then paragraphs of the idea written down. How do I want to go about doing this, so that what I want to say will be received by the audience I want it to be received by. Then I add an additional thought. How do I want my reader to respond to the written word I put before them. Incorporating all that, I sit down and start to write. Being mindful that multiple drafts are just fine and expected and I can delve into different aspects of the idea based on different drafts. I actually like writing form multiple points of view on the same article; you never know what your mind will spill out of you if you write the same idea down from a different perspective, or even if you write the same idea down with emphases on different parts. I have had many assignments in class where I needed to write 8 or more versions before I found the voice I wanted to say. As well as sometimes the mind if you just sit and start to just let the fingers type freeform, the ideas your mind writes down sometimes take you in directions you even expected and you learn from what you wrote down. Shawn W3q1 Interpersonal Purpose Tone content Fun is fun but business is business. This phrase comes to mind as I attempt to answer this discussion question. When talking with friends or others in a non business sense, the first and foremost thing one notices is a sense of being relaxed, not watching and paying very close attention to what words or the format used. If you make a mistake in a sentence it is usually not a big deal to say it again, or make a joke out of the mistake. But in a business sense especially coming from the outside world, business communications seems to be so formal and important that making mistakes in any of the 3 main categories seems to be just something that one does not or can not do, the penalties are just too severe, mistakes cost people money, loosing money is not tolerated. Communication mistakes are tolerated even less, since after all communication mistakes in purpose tone or even content not only make you look stupid but the “deal” then are no longer something that will happen. With friends or family, those mistakes can be seen as just friendly banter, you misspeak, and they misspeak. If they or you do not understand then a simple “what” or an “I do not understand” covers it. You get an opportunity to say it again, or clarify by saying it differently. In business a lot of the outside world views business as you can get in the door but make no mistakes or you are history.
business Purpose Tone content Fun is fun but business is business. This phrase comes to mind as I attempt to answer this discussion question. When I have worked in business over the course of my life, not only is being specific with my purpose and content of what I said but when working verbally coming off with an authoritative voice tone has propelled me very far, but when I have attempted to do the same with written I have not been able to translate that authority of tone to the person or persons reading my info. I have often times with feedback later on come off dry, technical, and in the worst of times I have come off as a know it all about the subject I was trying to communicate about. Instead of communication it turned into something I have no description for. As a result my business connections have been forced through my own ignorance to be extremely limited; I have been able to make progress verbally but not written. One of the reasons I am here in school is to learn how to approach my communications better, to figure out how to go about altering my way of communicating. With these classes, I now have the word keys I need to start building a new skill of communicating. Before I did not realize communicating with friends was actually that complicated. But now I see differently, friends and business are just as complicated its just easier to make mistakes in the friends world because of the way friends and family not only tolerate miscommunication but they make mistakes themselves, so its really just a laugh it off or just repeat yourself thing, rather then being so vastly important as the business world. I have more to say, I just need more time to write it. I will post again. I am trying to figure the best way to write some of my very personal experiences down so they make sense. My experiences in the business world have produced 2 very distinctive results. The first result is I am very good at talking and can make a very convincing argument as to what I want to do and how the person I am talking to can or need to assist me in what I want to do. But the second and one purpose to taking college classes in the first place is to learn how to put the verbal into written and be able to take that written information and not only convince people to do what is written but actually accomplish something in the business world. I have a friend who we have known each other since high school, who has owned his own business for years, a very successful business, we are not able to work together because I lack the written communication skills in order to work with him. We both understand this and we keep our interactions to a friendship basis, at times he might ask me input on some technical aspect in the IT realm but never in the business end, there is no reason to include me at all. I simply lack the business communication skills. One of the things I most want to learn here is exactly how to go about learning the fundamentals of business communications so I can chat with the business world in written form. If I am able to do that, then some of the ideas I have can be utilized in a realistic manner. But that learning is to come. Shawn I was not attempting to make light of your experiences. I am sure the situation was negative in almost every way. I was attempting to not make light of but change the subject slightly to my views on respect as a way understanding what happened to you as well as experiences similar to us all, I have lived a part of my life in heavily patriarchal cultures, where boys by their mothers and sometimes family are treated as if they can do no wrong. When that boy grows up, that sometimes in my own humble experiences have found that person seams to have a culture shock as to how to interact with a world that not only does not treat them as their family did but expects them to earn what ever that person wants. Again not making light of your situation at all or the experiences you endured to earn that experience in any way. Just brining up a slightly different aspect of that situation to my life. It might be possible for that person you had a very bad interaction with came from the family scenario I briefly explained, or came from some other that make that person react the way they did. One aspect of my experience with verbal or written communication has been the respect factor. Respect to abusers or those that we perceive to be abusing us is of the highest value. One thing I have learned in my years of life is that most everyone see themselves as the hero of their story. Very few see themselves as the villain. Respect, boundaries, and perceived/real abuse are all extremely important aspects to both verbal and written communication, a give and take if you will.
Anyone have thoughts?
Shawn When ever I sit down to write something, I always come to the blank page with a fully formulated thought. Now, just because I come with the thought fully realized in my head does not mean I can put that idea down on the blank page on the first draft. It almost always takes at least 3 drafts to get my words close to the idea. I do not write to impress with the length, or write to see my words out in the world. I write for the simple need to get the ideas I have in my head either talked out to someone or something i.e. an A/V recording devise or write the idea down. I have very few times in my life cared about the length of what I write. I usually surpass the length of any academic assignment by a lot, so that has never been a concern. When I write for myself, I have a deep desire to get that idea in my head down, so I can think about something else. Or to put that thought down and see the evolution of that thought that idea as I experience new things. So the 4 words about me, simple I write because I need to. Shawn W5q2 Well I do not think I will go as far as to bring up anything I would like to, since there are a large number of subjects I can talk about that would be inappropriate in this venue. Talking and debating topics in a classroom setting is a very good thing for learning, but there are rules and I do not want to break or even come close to breaking those rules in my first 6 credit hours. I want to have a very long scholastic life, having very long and heated debates in my first class, seems like a bad idea. Although it is true a lot knowledge can be imparted that can the heat a conversation up but, question the is “is that a good thing at this point”. So as to the opposite side of a persuasive argument, knowing when not to engage and start to talk, argue, make a speech, persuade, and or other forms of “you will believe, think like, and or even I will make you ___” as to the formulation of this days Daily discussion. I choose and have chosen a great deal to say “thank you for the opportunity to chat about subject __ but I think that this is not the appropriate time or place.” My ability to see ahead and not open my mouth or use my fingers in an echat is one reason I am not easily persuaded from my original point of view. I do my homework before engaging in a persuasive battle, if I can not persuade you, no reason to engage. Which is one reason I am in these chats, I spend very long time thinking about what I want to say and remember to be but short about personal experiences. Its not that I want to hold back, but there are just some things about our lives that are not academic. It is those non academic things that are not to be brought up in an academic format. I feel very strongly that in persuasive arguments, it is a battle between various points of view. There is only one way to win in a persuasive battle. When trying to
convince someone, there are a couple ways to convince someone, through calm
persuasive lulling them into your way of thinking, or 2 flat out verbal
battle. It is always smart to start
with 1, but if part C does not work, be ready. You first have to know what they think, and
then you have to know how to come up with counterarguments while the person
or people you are talking about have their guard down. You have to know what they are going to say
back, and have a very good calm response to their you say A they say B, and
what you say C will affect the rest of the conversation. If C is already a
canned response, and you say it calmly enough and with empathy, then you take
the wind out of their sails. But it
you say it badly, then you have to be able to sit their and argument it out.
Which brings up point 2, in our western culture “embarrassing” or making
someone look bad can win you more points in an argument or debate then a well
placed blow to any orifice. I refer to “passive resistance” a technique that
if the Palestinians would use would get them farther then any 10,000 suicide
bombers. Think of it 5,000 Palestinians doing a sit in in front of a tank,
would have the same effect of just a few hundred Chinese sitting in Tiananmen
square. Or even one man sitting in front of dozens of tanks. The British are
out of On the other side, every argument you are both the persuad er and ee. As in if someone comes to you and wants to convince you of something, you have an equal chance at convincing them of what you want. I remember the phrase “No one ever wins a war or battle. The question is what has been lost and what has been gained” in an argument if you can convince your opponent of your point of view, you gain, if they are, they gain. In life if you can get someone to see your point of view even for a second while they are attempting to get you to see theirs. But what you gain is a few more seconds of you are you, you have your identity intact, but they are even if it is only for a few seconds under your influence and you can move them around by their nose. If you do it really well you can convince them that your ideas are better, that they will thank you for leading them by the nose. Diplomacy, the ability to tell someone off, so they will enjoy the trip and thank for the guided tour. If you do it really well, they will even be grateful for you taking the time to explain how things work and they owe you. Truth in an argument is a very relative thing. True truth is only relative in the worst of situations; religious chats are not one of those truth arguments. Truth is only truth to the person in charge. Shawn W5q2 manipulation What would make my argument more persuasive? Simple, learn well the rules of how to argue, debate, and for the true bold people. Learn how to use the act of persuasion to convince people of your point. This can all be found under the heading manipulation. Problem with manipulation is it comes with some very nasty consequences. As we have seen many a politician use persuasion to lead the electorate by the nose. They do it by knowing how to persuade. The skill of influence, is a very had skill to deal with since you have to know how to twist facts to make them into your version of truth. See truth is the definition of a vague thing, since any one given fact can be twisted to meet the needs of the argument. Any given fact can be used to prove or disprove anything. There are hard facts that are true, but a persuasive argument can twist that fact or truth into anything as long as the argument is hard and solid enough, and the presenter knows how to manipulate an audience. Shawn Since you are the one that wrote it, can you plagiarize yourself? Since after all there is the idea of evolution of thought, I know many an artist who have many just the smallest of changes to something and that new thing is considered to be a new thing, but then again. That new thing is only a very small % change from the original. Can I think of an example. Yes I can, the famous “Mona Lisa” is not actually one painting but 1 of 70. DaVinci painted as stated 70 variations fo that one painting just to make sure he did it correctly. The one he actually sold to the merchant/politician of Venice as recently proved is one of the earliest ones. One reason he kept that one as special is because he felt that one was the best of the 70, although that one in the Louver (please pronounce with the r silent and soft v and a very soft a after the v.) is somewhere in the early 60s, so in essence he painted more then 15 more after he did what he considered to be his masterpiece. Funny thing is, in his diary, he stated that the merchant was given his choice of 30 paintings, the merchant picked in DaVinci’s opinion one of the worse of the lot. Which made DaVinci very sorry for having given so much time to a useless benefactor. So did DaVinci plagiarism himself, since he painted over 70 versions and hundreds of sketches? Some extremely similar and some radically different. Did Jacques-Louis David plagiarism himself painting the crowning of napoleon, since he did it 2 times and only changed the dress color of one of Josephine’s hand maidens? He did this to ensure that the painting was different in some small way. But basically the 2 paintings are for all intense and purpose exactly the same minus one dress color. Is “commune sense” Thomas Pain one of the world most plagiarized authors, since his book was copied with out and with his consent too many times to count. With out the booklet “commune sense” the French revolution would either not have been or taken decades longer. So what is the answer? Evolution of thought, or what. Some newspaper writes write about the same subject for weeks if not months on end, just slightly different aspects of the same subject, in their columns. Is that plagiarism? Some columns its hard to tell the different after a while if the column is actually different then previous, just a few words here and their changed. Shawn Radically alterations are also par for the course Radically alterations are also par for the course, my favorite is his name is not Noah but Gilgamesh, and even though the story is about a flood, the premise could not be farther from the original if the best fiction writer in the world altered it, no one could have done better altering the story. I again do not mean to offend, or mean to cause harm, but the simply an unfortunately hard science facts behind some truth is impossible to measure. The truth, and what we in the western world have been taught are so different as to come from different planets, but the root is the same story. Not some embellishment is standard, a hero killed 50 with his bare hands, when in truth he killed one with a lucky bare hand shot, took his weapon and then proceeded to kill or at least mame 2 or 3 more, that is poetic license. But some alterations are simple radical changes to tell a completely different story. Shawn Inaugural Address I watched the inaugural address and I saw a few parts that I did not expect. I was sure his left hand never left the podium, I was wrong. So I guess his back issues were not that much of an effect that specific day. But I do remember many a press conference where his left hand was welded to the podium as if an affect of attempting to hold himself up. I might be wrong on that account but I thought it was correct. One of the key factors in that speech was watching Mr. Kennedy carefully attempt to address everyone, as his head passed not quickly but in a deliberate attempt to carry the attention of crowd from left to right. But when he made his first few points his head was slightly tilted to the right side and his voice commanding as it was was followed by his hand pointing to his speech, as in the words he was pointing to meant as much as his voice reading those words was, heavy, pointed, and very important. I found watching this speech again, from a studying it point of view, highly interesting and worth a great deal more study, he was a very eloquent speaker. I find it interesting that he tilted his head slightly to the left and up to make sure as much of the sun was on his face as possible. It made him look very good to the cameras, as well as it gave him a nice human look. Sometimes when you look at a friendly dog who wants to play or interact with you, it will tilt its head to the side, it looked like he was attempting to do a similar look, but also follow the sun for the good white balance for the cameras. This is a very good speech. The words used, both stern and inviting. Shawn Reading to refute rather than understand This is the problem I had last week. All I could think about were not positive responses. I guess having the flue had something to do with that, but I do not have concrete as to why I could not see beyond argumentative responses. But as I read things I do my best to read first for knowledge and seeing what the author is attempting to convey to me. But then what stops me is usually sentence structure that make little to no sense. Or the sentence structure of stating something that then backing that sentence up with “you know” or “isn’t it”. My usual sentence to an author or person imparting that is why you are thing to reconvene me 2 times of your opinion. If you need me to say yes, they you do not have to courage behind your own convictions and what you are writing has by default false that need to be understood. So I at that point I read for errors, rather then what I can learn from the communiqué. Shawn Aggressiveness, Being a very dominant person myself, I fight every time I either open my mouth or put my fingers down on the keyboard my aggressiveness in how I communicate. I actually like school or at least currently because I have had to not only develop the discipline of writing a lot, but I have also had to temper what I wanted to say to the audience that would read me. I have fellow students I want their feedback, and a teacher who I want to learn from, as well as my work graded. So as I see input as to how to temper what I write to make my writing smooth and or add less aggressive words, I in a few cases in the last weeks my writing I hope has improved. But I have also noticed that adding sugar or in writings case humor to a sentence does not negate my aggressiveness, nor does adding humor cancels out others aggressive writing. I am really enjoying learning how to be assertive, rather then be aggressive. The concept alone when I looked it up, helped me start to think about how I can relearn to write and form my ideas into thoughts that will become sentences from a point of view that is directed at assertiveness. Keeps the audiences attention longer with their guard down. So now it’s the next 4 months of constant practice, to cement the assertiveness rather then aggressiveness. Shawn When the message is not well received Persuasion, humor, and or even a flamboyance approach are the tools I add to my communication skills when I have an idea the message will not go over well and I might be the victim of blame the messenger. I have also found that, coming from a point of view of if the worst case scenario happens going into a situation, get aggressive, unlike normally when aggressive communications are frowned upon. Getting almost nasty with someone who might retaliate to you the messenger is the only true course of action. Now I find that even thought my current skills are very lacking in which to choose from and my very nature I have dominated more then a few situations where my aggression even though I owned the room was the worst thing I could have done, I did not get immediate retribution but it came after. Giving the correct situation, dominating and or aggressive communication skills are warranted. I might add thinking about it, that start small, and add the tools needed at that second. Diplomacy is the ability to tell someone off so they will enjoy the trip and thank you for the suggestion. If you do it really well they will even think they own you for it. The tools of that are the balance in communication between; aggressive and assertive communication, with humor, flamboyance, and a bit of personal fortitude thrown in the mix can accomplish more then previous to this minute even I realized could work very well to get out of a bad situation. Shawn Establishing trust I do my best to come from the personal. I try to write not dry and unemotional but from my experiences, my understanding of life, and or the lessons I have learned. I try and come from that standpoint in all that I write. With some things I write, I try and put as much humor and cultural references as I can as those cultural references apply to the situation we are in. IE, to dip a toe into college would be a reference to, to go swimming in an unfamiliar body of water, sticking a toe in to check the temperature is a standard thing. So to stick a toe into this experience is, doing a little bit to see just how the item being temperature checked will be copasetic to you and your life now. So not only humor, but coming from the real. For if you are trying to convey something important to you, and you are attempting to lie, once that threat hold of illusion is broken you are never trusted again. So to establish trust, you not only have to come from true references but truth from yourself. What I am talking about is, if I referenced something of a political concept that I at my base do not believe in but I wrote as if I did believe in that reference, my credibility would be completely blown. Shawn Paraphrasing I often paraphrase and you are absolutely correct with the concept of the author has to have a very good concept of the quote stated. But I often use the sentence “I refer to this phrase or this concept, and if I remember who said it I say it, if I do not then I state where I remember it from, which is usually a TV show or movie. Shawn Space, America. I say take a look at china, they have a billion $ for every 1 $ we are spending on space exploration. They know that a decade’s long investment in science and technology will put them as the world leaders in everything. We have issues with sending one person to space for fear of that person being killed. China could not care less if they kill 100,000 of their own in their race for space. Their are 1 million to replace that 100,000 and still not make a noticeable dent in their population. They want to colonize space, since space has lots of room, and if you had not noticed, with over 1 billion Chinese they need all the space they can get. So making a moon base IE they would then qualify to own the moon, putting a couple thousand people on the moon, would only serve their purposes nicely. Please stop and think for a second about what Kennedy was talking about, and where we are right now. The old space race we won was actually a forgone conclusion; their tech was just not up to the task till the mid to late 70s. When they leapfrogged past us, we were shutting our systems down when Russia took the lead. Now china is about to leap frog past us all, there is no good solution to china taking the space race lead. So we are actually in a huge mega space race right now, but refuse to acknowledge that simple fact. I would love it if we as Americans understood how dangerous a space race with china is. The space race with china makes the race with Russia seam like bringing a gun to a knife fight. In the 50s we brought a .44 gun, now we are brining a small knife egoistically resting on our decades ago accomplishments. It is just shy of 4 decades ago we landed on the moon. We only have a couple shuttles, no actual hard space vehicles, and a plan to go back to the moon in 2 decades. In 2 decades china could have 100,000 people on the moon and declare it their territory. A lot of us were not born during the first moon landing and we have kids in the double digits of age now. So as of Kennedy’s speech, we are in an unfathomably more tenuous situation then he could have imagined when he proposed that moon landing and the other thing. Shawn Opinions I like the psychological comment; what about the item that I am looking at do I not like about myself. With opinion comes emotion. When something strikes me as something I do not like the first and foremost thing I have to do is stop inputting the data I was assimilating and attempt to find out what about that data is addressing something about myself that I do not like. Doing these homework as daily discussion assignments, has achieved something in my that I was hoping very badly it would. I have been desperate for years to get the discipline of writing my thoughts down for years, I do journal occasionally, something happens and I forget I have not written anything for days, weeks, months, or in some cases years. So with the penalty of school I have to write no matter what, which for me has been wonderful because all the excuses for not adopting the discipline of writing are gone. So as I am forced to write on a daily basis, I find myself at times like this class last week being bogged down in all kinds of emotional issues that I did not want to deal with. So I write very little, I wanted to write a lot, and I did, I just choose not to post the garbage that I wrote down. So as school progresses and I get attached to different writing assignments that cause me to pause and think about an aspect of life that I did not expect to think about I love it. That opinion coloring the input I want to be reading I love it because that is as close to unconscious truth that one is hiding from themselves as one can find outside of deep therapy. So taking the time to deal with why I did not like or loved what I read has been just as much of a learning experience as the assignments that are just their for the read something write an opinion and go on to the next with out stopping for that subject has not effected you emotionally. Shawn I have a few things to say, did I say bobbi? No, I did make it gender which was a mistake, which I did not catch from week one or two assignment, for that you have my apology, that is as far as my apology goes. But I was attempting to be nice to you. Giving you a solid reason why you do some of the things you do. This is an academic class, academics are an area where one goes to open the mind and explore the recesses of knowledge. So I will only shut my smart mouth as you put it when it does not involve academics. For which I have done so on many occasions, including several of your posts. Since this is an academic environment and I am graded on my responses, I think I will reply to whom and what ever I choose to as long as it is nice, respectful, encouraging, educational, academically based, and is by definition of this area is of a substantive contribution. I was left out of a great deal of items like this in high school because of this kind of interactions, I choose to study privately for 17 years because I was tired of dealing with people who insulted me, smart mouth is not a nice thing to say, especialy when by action my sentence was accurate to the action described. Next, this is American the last time I checked, so unless I am slandering you, the first amendment allows me to say what I want. Since this is academia, other rules apply and I have done my best to follow them, see above. If you want to attend a theocratic or religious institution there are more then a few to choose from. But if you want to stay in a group of people who do not mention a reference to the divine in most of our posts then you will have to be respectful of us. I am not saying you can no use words I am saying you have to put up with us and our not using those words. You posted to the main forum and engaged in a discussion, as part of the rules of this institution it is my business to read everything and reply substantively to those posts from my fellow students that follows the above rules. So since I had something to say that was substantive I said it. If you do not like what I write, simple do not read them. I ignore your constant reference to the divine. I can say anything I want to about the words you use, we are learning about how to use words to communicate ideas and how to respond to those around us in all aspects of communication even points of view we do not like. Unfortunate for you, this would be an example of this exact weeks other posts in this class Opinions Aggressiveness Reading to Refute Emotions , and Passion just because you might not like what I said, does not mean this is not a part of not only this string of inquiry but the other post by Mr. Shelley this week. I kept my smart mouth closed and just shut up around those that used similar words in my youth, I refuse to do it now. I hope you have a great rest of the day. I apologize to Mr. Shelley if this was a disruption to your class. Shawn One the subject of war, to motivate troops to go take that hill over their when everyone that has any logic to their mind knows the % of survivability is 25% will survive that charging the cannons, the speaker much be able to motivate the troops to use what ever diplomacy speech patterns necessary to insure that enough troops make that journey over that hill and survive to actual take those cannons. To the motivation speeches, there is a pattern to them, to all words there is a way of saying those words, well the well organized speech especially a motivation speech to “buy this idea, charge that hill, buy this proposal there is no difference between those 3 things when it comes to a motivational speech” the well orchestrated speaker will use words that operate in a rhythm. Crosby, Stills, Nash is the only way to arrange the words so rhythmically it comes out nice. See the way Crosby is pronounced, its 3 syllables, the other 2 are 1, so the rhythm is da di da da da, that is the only way it works. In a motivation speech arrange your words accordingly in rhythm. A marching tempo will motivate more people to do things then one can possibly imaging, you can get a group of individuals to “step in line” so to speek, all you have to do it use the correct word order rythems, so thay fall into place and become an unstoppable mob. Shawn In addition to what I wrote yesterday, I wanted to add a bit. Speeches have rhythms. Those rhythms are patterns of music all their own and can convey their own underlying message. I give you for example, bam ba da bam da da bum da da da da da. The basic rhythm of iambic pentameter. In base it’s a march rhythm. I give you another, Da di di di di da da di di di bom di bom di, was first an English poem, then an English drinking rhythm then singing melody. Then it turned into something extremely important just by a simply change of words, but the rhythm and cadence of the way the ups and downs of the way the sentence is put together is a very uplifting rhythm. As we prepar for the business world, one thing that would be a very good idea to do is to incorporate what we want to say into a rhythm that fits what we what the end product to be. For sales of an idea or a product, a rhythm of a march or motivational speech works the best. To motivate a group to produce more pick a cadence that already has motivating factors to it. Music is a major factor to the way we live our lives, instead of ignoring those factors, add to them, and make our talks with an underlying sound track. Shawn When you are about to have any interaction with anyone around you the first thing that is the most important is appearance. We have eyes and our eyes are not only the windows to the soul but the input devise we use primarily. So since the eyes are the thing we use the most, what appearance we give off is absolutely key and crucial to what ever we want to do second. Once our appearance shows what we want to do. Then the way we present ourselves would be second on the list of most important. How we talk, what words do we use, how best to carry our bodies, what observation of personal space of ourselves and others do we observe. Appearance comes in 2 packages, what we wear and how we choose to communicate with those that share our environment. This culture prides itself on not only fashion, “is that Armani, or is that John Philips”. When thinking about a presentation the first thing we must consider is what to wear, the second thing that must be given equal time to is our presentation of personal self. Personal self is the cologne we choose to wear, what words we choose to use, who we choose to gravitate to, and who at base are we most comfortable with being around (which might not be who we gravitate to). Obviously in business a suite is the standard dress, but what is the standard dress for an IT person. What will get you noticed if you attempted to walk into Google and give a presentation? Would you get ignored if you walked in with a pony tail, khakis, and plaid flannel or would you get their attention? I know of a couple different computer based businesses that is you walked into their conference room wearing a hand made tailored to you Gucci, you would not get the time of day, but if you walked in with wearing a flannel shirt and had forgotten to shower for 2 days you would have their attention in a good way, you would not only get their attention but they would respond to you as if you had an idea what you were talking or presenting about. You have to choose the audience you are going to be speaking to presenting your ideas, different audiences require different not only apparel but different presentation of the self. Shawn Negotiation Everything
we do in this world boils down to this concept “to sell something X to
someone”. That X is the thing being sold, the someone is who you have to
interact with in order to achieve a greater goal. That X could anything from be that sale of
an idea, a plan, your ability to do something labor oriented, your ability to
organize something, you want someone to buy your product, you want someone to
buy a product someone else made, you want someone to hire you, its all sales. So
the question comes about, how do we as a person go about setting the table of
our sales pitch to best suite our needs in the short term IE today or a
couple days, middle several days to several weeks, long term IE weeks to
years. What do we want from them, what will they want from us. To start this
interaction we must be able to determine what we will not compromise on and
figure out what that other someone will not compromise on. If
we the person know what to expect from the person we are pitching to well
before the event takes place, then we have the advantage, since we have a
good idea what they are going to say or ask so we can create a good
reasonable answer or in this case counter argument on the spot. This
putts those that follow this chain of concept in a greatly increased
negotiating standpoint.
Author c clark One major key factor to the week’s daily discussion and a huge part of our final project is a presentation is at base a way to entertain. To what audience are we working with that will be entertained by what format of presentation. What in this case we are using PowerPoint as our presentation model. Which means we have to deal with both the negatives and the positives of that presentation format. This must be first and foremost on everyone’s mind as they create, edit, and rebuild their final project when ever using any presentation tool, their will be people that like it, bored with it, and those that will never have seen the technology and be fasinated by your technical brilliance. Arthur C. Clarke “Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.” In a presentation when you present someone
that has little to no contact with that kind of technology, you can sell your
proposal simply by having a command of the “advanced tech” the subject you
want to do is at that point immaterial. But on the other hand, if you are
presenting a project with the sale old same old presentation technology, not
only is your audience that much harder to convince but you also have to
overcome their boredom at not entertaining them. Shawn One must stay on the cutting edge of technology in giving presentations. For those that loose the audience’s attention loose the proposal’s acceptance. What I mean is, most computers have some kind of PowerPoint on them, and for a decade PowerPoint as been a mainstay in business and academic presentations. The audience by resent reports have become bored with it. So I say, as we advance in our studies, that we remember after this project that we need to add 2 things to our PP presentations one add motion pictures to the slides, that way the audience has a moving picture that tells the story easier and faster. I do mean an actual movie short, it does not take much skill or time to make a few second short movie in Windows Movie Maker it is a standard install program on Microsoft OS’s since 95. The second point I wanted to add is have the presentation end with either a direction to go to a web site IE if you want to see a working model go to www.______.com or have the end slide of the PP presentation end as a mock up in the slide of the www.____.com index page. It would be great if we could inside the PP programs be able to make a hypertext link and go directly to the web site at the end of the presentation, live and on the net is a very nice selling point. Interaction with technology right now is the cutting edge. Shawn Peer review When experts in their fields are not working they are still thinking. So the best way to approach for feedback an expert is to offer them something that they can think about but has no pressure as to their involvement. It its just a mental exercise of lets think about this new idea, or new whatever, then they are most joyously looking forward to distraction from the main thrust of their lives. Plus when you get right down to it, a researcher never knows what the string of ideas will be, so maybe concentrating on your paper for 5 minutes will allow their mind to spit out the answer they have been searching for some length of time. So when I go looking for someone to review my work, I wrap it in fun and relaxation. Let the mind explore with no consequences. Shawn “Just the facts, just the facts” I you keep this as a mantra, “allow the evidence to be the guide” it makes no difference what that evidence is, or where it leads you. “The truth shall set you free”, as long as you keep all these very valuable and completely annoying quotes not only fresh in your mind, but print them out put them on the walls of your study area. You after 5 months of constantly looking at it will develop a Pavolvian response. The evidence, the facts of the thing, are the most important of all. If you do not follow the facts just the facts, or burry the truth, you are a liar, in science there is no room for liars. To lie is to counsel the truth, to hide the facts. The pursuit of knowledge is only made harder by those that choose to lie. Shawn 1. Why lie 2. Why do you allow something that is proven to be inaccurate be a base of your research. 3. Why go forward when you know parts of what you are looking into are inaccurate, but you place them as accurate. 4. Why does your personal point of view matter so much in this paper. 5. Why is this subject so important to you. 6. Why did you assemble these items 7. Why did you go about assembling the items you did 8. Why did you start this research. 9. Why have you brought this research to me at this point. 10. Why have you gone to this level at this time. 11. Why do you approach in that manner 12. Why did you use the words you used. 13. Why did you go with that “eureka moment” 14. Why did you not continue on to the next “eureka moment” 15. Why did you seek help when you did. 16. Why did you form a team 17. Why did you choose to do this on your own Shawn To emphasis different things lets see now, change of color, or background, put info in a cell, change background color, change to a different size font, put images around the intended attention grabber, put that one lone thing in a sea of blank page, put a blank page before and after that one page of importance, build an animation with the PowerPoint pages as in a slow building of the idea very drawn out, Shawn Statistics Statistics it has been said can be manipulated to support whichever view a person chooses. It is important to also see how the data was gathered to support these statistic. Was the information taken from a random sample of the population or was it concentrated on a certain group of people with like behaviors and opinions? This is an example of how information in statistical results could become slanted whether intentionally or unintentional. It is important to consider this when looking at sources that rely heavily on statistical findings. Are there other ways or examples how statistics are used to create bias or slant in a specific direction? Statistics are defiantly a form of information dissemination. The discipline of using statistics can be used like any tool, for good or for bad. As with any tool, statistics is just that a tool. Like every other tool in the scholars arsenal every tool can be used for both. We on our journey through the absorption of knowledge have to be careful of any and all tools that can be corrupted. Shawn White space, If the white space is used correctly, as a director of the eye, then it is a good thing. But when the white space is used as a sign post, I find it not only annoying but distracting from the point the author was attempting to make. Shawn Being a graphic artist, this subject is slightly odd because I almost always use my own images when I make something. The images I think of are to my own opinion better then what I have been able to find elsewhere. With the exception of when I have taken an item from someplace and recreated what I wanted from that graphic. I grabbed a wax flourdelee, and remade it into a button for a web site I created for friend. Shawn Recall memory tricks There are times when an Anachronism helps with the process of memorization. But as for me and the way my brain is wired thanks to the other class I have a greater understanding of how I learn now. As I progress with my lessons, my memorization tricks are tied to pictures. If I can put a picture to a concept I am learning, my memory is triggered faster. I have little idea why.
Shawn Life skills I have found in the first 8 weeks of courses here that most of the assignments in some small way can be used in the private sector in a few years. I for one am very happy to be learning a multitude of different ways in which I can apply these lessons to the business world. Before I knew a cover letter was important, but till these assignments I did not understand why, I strongly do now. Shawn Tone unintended One of the problems I face in my daily life are some of my hobbies a lot of people take them wrong. I live the study of linguistics, but when that subject is poured into and some words are defined from the actual source rather then the socially acceptable version. I take for instance that I knew a great deal of time ago that the learned of the Jewish people spoke an earlier form of Hebrew Aramaic from 1000 b.c.e till roughly 500 c.e. . but till that movie came out a few years ago, some of the reactions I received was less then positive. I am reminded of an old story, naked truth was talking in a town and was either being ignored or was being ridiculed, his fiend flamboyance attracted all the attention and was accepted with out question. One day truth talked to flamboyance and asked why this was the case, and flamboyance took off one of his cloaks and put it around naked truth. Ever since truth cloaked in the cloak of flamboyance does attract attention but it with out the cloak naked truth is too difficult a subject for most to deal with. This is the tone of any communication, wrap a certain amount of flamboyance around any truth helps the medicine go down. Shawn I must say having you as one of my first instructors has helped in more ways then I can possibly tell you. My confidence during this last 3 months more then a few times has been shaky at best and your encouragement has helped in ways there is not way of extending my appreciation. Shawn Confidence For me this subject is a harder on to deal with since my academic career is very long, very drawn out, and I plan on learning a multitude of subjects. So in a way my confidence coming into this was high. What I do is use the same base formula that any good motivation program uses; do one thing, do it very well, move on to the next item, hope that when the grading comes back I did a good job. If the grading comes back negative then apply those negatives to the next assignments so the next can be done as well as I can. It is all a matter of perspective for me, one cut, chewed, and swalled bit of elephant will eventually have the entire elephant consumed, just look at the next bit instead of the whole of what is on the plate. Shawn Keeping it positive In my writing, the thing I always have the greatest issue with is to keep things positive. Too much positive comes off as arrogance or cockiness. To little and it comes off as weakness and begging. To balance between those major factors is one of the major keys to being able to write from positive, not crossing the line. Shawn How will you apply the knowledge you have gained about effective business communication in your current or future job and college courses? 1 I have learned so much about how to be more presis in my writing. I can get to the point with more ease and present a better well rounded sentences. So to future jobs I have an improved technical writing skill which will help me in my entire communications endeavors. But there is more to it then that. I have learned the value behind the forms, I have learned that something’s need to be drawn out with as simple and ease of operations as possible. For some need things to be written out in crayon to get what it being presented. I can not tell you how difficult it as in the first 3 weeks not knowing with every assignment what I was going. I had to read and reread the reread again the instructions to get what I needed to write down. Sometimes when things are not completely clear; a little redundancy and clarification for the cheep seats is a good thing. 2 I wanted to say something else about the cheep seats, and for those that do not know the cheep seats is a theater terms for the seats the farthest away from the stage, or with the worse acoustics. In movie making, playing for the cheep seats has become known as “the William Shatner school of over acting” since a camera lens can latterly be put and look good a few inches from an actors face and the extremely subtle facial changes or other body parts motions can be then used as the vehicle to tell the story other body parts ie hand, shoulder, foot, ear, what ever is going on in that scene that captures the emotion and the reaction of that emotion best. But when writing a paper, to convey a message requires the author and the audience to know this is in a way theater. So being subtle will actually not accomplish the goal. Jake lemon once said after being asked what actually happens if you get lost in a character why is that a bad thing. His response was “Ok take Hamlet, the to be scene” those words should actually be either thought really hard or be just whispered, since he is in extreme emotional peril, who do you know that if they are actively thinking suicide is the answers to escape the pain they are in as well as the events that will unfold over the course of the next bit of time, on stage you have to make it clear to the cheap seats, in film you can whisper the line, but in truth to present an idea requires the correct performance.” As I look over the course of the last 8 weeks, I am suddenly drawn to the nun to subtle reaction that to write somethi8gn is theater not film. To there is over acting on stage but mostly its just emphasizing the point, telling the story of the event through sound and action. We tell the story through words and placement of those words on piece of paper. Food for thought. 3 My mother as a very young child trained me to be a scientist. To do all the stuff nessessary to be a scientist. Now that I am an adult, one of the things I miss the most about my early life is how certain the scientific community was about what it knew to be absolute accepted fact 36 years ago and how much of that hard fact has been altered to match the current evidence. In the business world, the models of how we operate have changed over the years. WE have just seen a writers strike about a subject that 7 years ago did not exist. The technology of Pod casting, downloading whole shows, and having entire shows on the internet. Amazing technical advances in just a few short years time. Some things about business are the same, some things about radically different. To apply the scientific method to the world of education as to what is valid to learn at what time can prove to be a very beneficial thing. 4 What to learn when, I learned a very log time ago that if and when someone wanted to learn something they needed to take the proper steps in learning that item. Now for most those steps are very formal and laid out very strictly. But for others that formality is only a very superficial way of going through the steps. I watched a kung fu movie when I was in my teens. The story premise was this youth from a distant province wanted to learn a different technique, so he traveled to the temple where that technique was taught and just was accepted. After a few weeks of being their, something occurred an the school master choose to “kick him out” ordering him instead to observe the schools function from outside the walls. I he was to build a bamboo scaffold all the way around the complex 12 feet higher then the actual walls of the temple. This construction of this scaffold took 2 years, after 2 years he was finished with his task, and went to see the school master for re-admittance. The school master became very cross and outright attacked the youth, making him backwards go through the entire schools equipment so he had to defend not only himself from the school master but from the school equipment as well. The youth did not realize but he in 2 years of observation learned all that school could teach him. The master knew it, but the youth did not realize it. We each have our own approach to learning, and just because one way may be very different that does not mean it is of any less value. Apply this to your life. You may have knowledge you did not realize you had. Shawn |
11 11 11 12 12 COM 140 CONTEMPORARY BUSINESS COMMUNICATION AXIA 12 31 2007 03 02 2008 I think that the words used direct the article to us the consumer as a way to show us that times have changes away from the business world mass media, in a way similar to that of the way the printing press altered mass communications from hand writing out an idea, hand copying that idea many times over, and then disseminate those few copies of that hand written book to the local community. Now every person with a pc and a printer can be a publisher. As times change and blogs have spread in popularity in the current electronic age, instead of needing a printer, all we need to publish is an internet connection, a blog, and an opinion that the writer wants to be shared with the world. Because in the past to present an idea to the world a person must go through business power brokers who owned all the equipment necessary for mass communications. Now mass communicant is moving from the printed page to the internet, publishing is as simple as open a blog, thinking of an idea, write that idea down, and then post that idea in that blog. The power of information has been taking out of the hands of business and put into our hands. In a few years the steps between a persons ideas and presenting that idea to the entire world will be one or two steps easier. The tone of the article was to show the non familiar with the world of blog that putting an idea to the world has become several steps easier. By writing in a step by step process from the how the world has changed through the printing press, to how the current trend in blogs is reshaping the world of business as well as altering the definition of mass communications in the internet age. We the consumers are being introduced to electronic publishing through the use of the tool “blog”. Shawn Welling Discussion Question 2 • Due Date: Day 4 [post to the Main forum] • Post your response to the following: Recall a writer with whom you have felt rapport as well as a writer with whom you have felt little or no rapport. What made the difference? Provide suggestions for building rapport between the writer and readers of written communication. • Ask for more information as you respond to your classmates’ posts if you are unfamiliar with the writers mentioned. A writer who has shaped my life with not only their writing skill but the subject manner was Robert A. Heinlein. In my early 20s, when I first encountered his work, his novel and the ideas behind “Stranger in a Strange Land” affected me to this very day. My rapport came from the emotional connection I had to the possibilities of what one can be done with ones self when the rules of the society in which one lives or has all influences are removed. We humans are capable of mythical actions when the idea “That can not be done” is removed from the point of view of the person doing it. On the other hand Louis Lamoure I find his work although his writing skills are very high for his genre I just find it difficult to connect to the genre. Although Mr. Lamoure’s work is good I find nothing in his works that captures my attention. It takes a lot of emotional work to connect to his characters more work then I am usually willing to commit to reading a novel. I find that no matter if the subject be fiction or non fiction, to read something for me means I the reader have to become emotionally invested in the subject matter. That subject matter be it a character or be it verb (person place or thing) from the fiction standpoint, I have to find a way to identify with what the subject of the writing is all about. One key way in which I work in my own writing is to always use word auto correct, because in hard truth my spelling and grammar are horrible. So as I use MS word I find that as I write and the computer tells me that I have spelled something incorrectly, or I have incorrect grammar, the visual identification of seeing it incorrect and having the computer fix it for me after much use of the auto correct tool. Seeing the words I type incorrectly change to the correct version, that has helped me in immeasurable ways to improve my spelling and grammar skills. You might ask “how does the auto correct affect the assignment” the answer is since we are working in an age of electronic communication, where our facial expressions, as well as our vocal tones are not a factor. Using the correct spelling of words as well as the correct grammar is the key to me being able to convey my ideas to the world as I use what ever tool I choose to convey an idea. Shawn The old phrase “start with a joke” then go into hard details. To entertain first to lighten the mood then input data in the lightened mood. Again to the past, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. There is a reason there is a TV in nearly every household in American but few and far between encyclopedias per household. Entertain first, info second. Shawn Humor, i.e. open with a joke. If you ask most entertainers and politicians for that matter most that are worth their salt will tell you the line between comedy and tragedy almost does not exist. Every joke comes from in some degree over coming tragedy. I quote the fraise “someday we will look back at this and laugh” as example. Putting people at easy with a we a have all come through some kind of difficulty in life, which builds rapport. Rapport is in effect a rudimentary at least through a joke way to start building lines of trust. If is only after some level of trust is established that an openness to information being convayed can be accepted more readily. Although your point of if the info is solid I pay attention, has to immediately follow. But have you noticed that in a lot of cases, the joke has a large grain of truth to it. As in, the joke itself contains information of how to avoid some kind as well as some degree of difficult situation. In the joke, is hard info that can be used to improve your own life. Shawn Sorry if that was not clear in my post. I thought I complimented his technical skill but not the genre. He is a great writer, I have no ability to get into his stories. I also like J. K. Rawlings for the same reason. Her technical skill is incredible, but the story line keeps me going for hours. I also like L.K. Hamilton her "Anita Blake" character novels, although the writing skills are not as high as some other authors, the story and character development suite me very well. I get into the genre's of anything is possible you just have to have enough imagination to get their, sorry I am a kid of the kennedy speech Bobbie that is "Some look at things as they are and ask why. Others look at things as they could be and ask why not. I invite you to join me in asking why not.” I really like this idea. I look for it in the input devises around me. Books, TV, educational material, what are the possibilities. Shawn On Shakespeare, I semi understand the point since his media was not to write in modern English but in an older form of English I do not remember right now if it was old or middle English. Which is much closer to that of Nordic or German then what we would consider to be English. Although its is understandable if you learn the rules of the grammar of that language format, but trying to come at the Bard from modern English is a challenge. Think of the Bards sentences as symbolic representations of the idea, in truth I find that eubonics and old English are very similar in their linguistics approach. The words digits, 411, crib, are all symbolic word representations of a larger concept put into a sentence to shorten that sentence do have maximum understanding with minimum words used. Digits is a phone number, but to our culture a phone number is a very important social construct arrangement between 2 or so people, 411 is 3 little numbers/words but the meaning to our culture of info is of the greatest value, 411 in Ebonics means almost the same thing as a sitrep aka (situation report) in the military. Crib is not a representation of just a house where you hang your hat but of your home where your most valuable of valuables are the place you come to rest and protect from all invaders. So think of William Shakespeare aka “the bard” in that light and I think you will start to get an understanding of his work a bit better. See the linguistics of Nordic and German language based are extremely similar to that of the language base that created what we understand to be Ebonics. Now I do not mean to insult anyone at all which this description, I am in no way assuming any ones ethnicity, I am speaking from a pure linguistics and sociological point of view. In my own humble opinion, since Ebonics is starting to be used by more then just one small isolated part of oru culture, I even hear Ebonics coming from news and main stream media people I assume that I can use references to Eubonics no matter how you spell it with out causing a problem. The movie clueless used the expression digits as a sign of accomplishment between getting 2 people to “hook up” another similar phrase of symbolic origin. Shawn There is also nothing wrong with expanding in the same facility, just operate on a longer office hours, have diffentre employees use the same work areas at different hours. Shawn Well actually that is only partially correctly. I was attempting to give those that do not know a good code key to understanding old and middle english. But as for everyone in his time to speak the way he wrote is simply inaccurate to the extreme. I am not sure since I have not looked it up if the times in which he was writing if old or middle English was used. English started around 800 ce. One transition happened around one of the Nordic/Scandinavian invasions of England that altered the based English language from the Middle German Language when the Anglo/Saxon/Jutes/Danes cultures mixed after the 300 - 750ish ce German cultures mixed in Britain. So I do not remember at this point if the commune language was old or middle, I am starting to think that it was middle because his times were after Hastings (1066). You see old English and modern English are more in commune then middle English to modern. Middle English is much closer to old German/Scandinavian then it is to the kings English. He was a poet, writing plays to be performed. Hence the use of iambic parameter, which most people did not speak in, which is a very hard form of speech pattern to use on the fly, even if you are schooled in iambic parameter its still a hard skill to have. So I can not imagine even the elite being able to openly speak in iambic parameter in casual conversation. Shawn Great, I was seriously worried about this one. On the Bedford ed site, the score tab did not work for several days. I pushed the tab several times, no scores recorded, the about half way through recording each of the 5 exercises, I checked the score tab again, I saw it finally work. I then understood how that site worked. So now the rest of the assignments in that site will go much easier. Do you need me to send to you the paperwork, or just the scores in the future? Shawn To outline the idea a bit better, verbally bouncing an idea around is actually a key factor in a lot of scientific endeavors. At Los Alamos "Open Discussion" was key to the construction of both the designs for "fat man" and "little boy". So do not be concerned with starting from word babble to something that makes sense, not all ideas how to come into the brain fully formed. Sometimes they take just talking it out. Shawn What speech did I watch What kind of body language did the president use to make his speech persuasive? Provide an example. What word choice and tone did President Kennedy use? What was the effect? Did the president use logic or emotion to persuade the audience? Provide an example. Did you find the speech persuasive? Why or why not? Shawn On the subject of respect, is to be given respect a given thing or to be respected an earned thing. I have noticed that being in my middle 30s, when someone is demanding respect to be given, that person is usually doing something they should not be doing and demanding to just be allowed to do it because of how great they think they are. I can recall interactions with dozens of people when I was much younger who although they knew nothing and had no respect for themselves or others they wanted to be treated as their self delusions had convinced them they should be treated. I happen to be a person that automatically gives a certain level of respect to any and all I encounter, after learn a bit about that persons history and how they interact with me, that level mostly does not change, but sometimes it fluxuates. With age does bring experience, but sometimes with age comes the skills of learning how to fake or given the illusion of experience more efficiently. I have found that with any one given person on the subject of respect; experience and communication with that person as to how much to respect or trust who they are and what experiences they bring to the table is to watch the actions they do. Anyone with a level of experience will be able to talk their way out of most jams but if you watch what they do and how they do it, the truth of how much to respect them, how much they respect you, how much they respect themselves, and how much actually hard experience they have comes through. With sentence structure it becomes harder to tell, but with the tools we are learning this week, I have learned things about communication I did not know before, I have added through those 4 words divided into 2 groups have learned really good hard application tools as to how to go about watching the words someone uses and what their actions have been, are now, and will be in the future. Which gives you an idea of how to respect them and how much to expect back. Shawn What qualities make any form of written communication effective? Which qualities do you already include in your writing? How can you incorporate additional effective elements into your written communication? When ever I sit down to write something, I always start with, what is the idea I want to convey to the world. Then I sit down and ask what aspect of the world I want to write that idea to. Then I think about the benefits of this class and what I have learned and then start to subdivide my thoughts into more organized forms of information processing. Idea, purpose, content, tone, as well as the structure of how I want to write the words that will become the sentences and then paragraphs of the idea written down. How do I want to go about doing this, so that what I want to say will be received by the audience I want it to be received by. Then I add an additional thought. How do I want my reader to respond to the written word I put before them. Incorporating all that, I sit down and start to write. Being mindful that multiple drafts are just fine and expected and I can delve into different aspects of the idea based on different drafts. I actually like writing form multiple points of view on the same article; you never know what your mind will spill out of you if you write the same idea down from a different perspective, or even if you write the same idea down with emphases on different parts. I have had many assignments in class where I needed to write 8 or more versions before I found the voice I wanted to say. As well as sometimes the mind if you just sit and start to just let the fingers type freeform, the ideas your mind writes down sometimes take you in directions you even expected and you learn from what you wrote down. Shawn W3q1 Interpersonal Purpose Tone content Fun is fun but business is business. This phrase comes to mind as I attempt to answer this discussion question. When talking with friends or others in a non business sense, the first and foremost thing one notices is a sense of being relaxed, not watching and paying very close attention to what words or the format used. If you make a mistake in a sentence it is usually not a big deal to say it again, or make a joke out of the mistake. But in a business sense especially coming from the outside world, business communications seems to be so formal and important that making mistakes in any of the 3 main categories seems to be just something that one does not or can not do, the penalties are just too severe, mistakes cost people money, loosing money is not tolerated. Communication mistakes are tolerated even less, since after all communication mistakes in purpose tone or even content not only make you look stupid but the “deal” then are no longer something that will happen. With friends or family, those mistakes can be seen as just friendly banter, you misspeak, and they misspeak. If they or you do not understand then a simple “what” or an “I do not understand” covers it. You get an opportunity to say it again, or clarify by saying it differently. In business a lot of the outside world views business as you can get in the door but make no mistakes or you are history.
business Purpose Tone content Fun is fun but business is business. This phrase comes to mind as I attempt to answer this discussion question. When I have worked in business over the course of my life, not only is being specific with my purpose and content of what I said but when working verbally coming off with an authoritative voice tone has propelled me very far, but when I have attempted to do the same with written I have not been able to translate that authority of tone to the person or persons reading my info. I have often times with feedback later on come off dry, technical, and in the worst of times I have come off as a know it all about the subject I was trying to communicate about. Instead of communication it turned into something I have no description for. As a result my business connections have been forced through my own ignorance to be extremely limited; I have been able to make progress verbally but not written. One of the reasons I am here in school is to learn how to approach my communications better, to figure out how to go about altering my way of communicating. With these classes, I now have the word keys I need to start building a new skill of communicating. Before I did not realize communicating with friends was actually that complicated. But now I see differently, friends and business are just as complicated its just easier to make mistakes in the friends world because of the way friends and family not only tolerate miscommunication but they make mistakes themselves, so its really just a laugh it off or just repeat yourself thing, rather then being so vastly important as the business world. I have more to say, I just need more time to write it. I will post again. I am trying to figure the best way to write some of my very personal experiences down so they make sense. My experiences in the business world have produced 2 very distinctive results. The first result is I am very good at talking and can make a very convincing argument as to what I want to do and how the person I am talking to can or need to assist me in what I want to do. But the second and one purpose to taking college classes in the first place is to learn how to put the verbal into written and be able to take that written information and not only convince people to do what is written but actually accomplish something in the business world. I have a friend who we have known each other since high school, who has owned his own business for years, a very successful business, we are not able to work together because I lack the written communication skills in order to work with him. We both understand this and we keep our interactions to a friendship basis, at times he might ask me input on some technical aspect in the IT realm but never in the business end, there is no reason to include me at all. I simply lack the business communication skills. One of the things I most want to learn here is exactly how to go about learning the fundamentals of business communications so I can chat with the business world in written form. If I am able to do that, then some of the ideas I have can be utilized in a realistic manner. But that learning is to come. Shawn I was not attempting to make light of your experiences. I am sure the situation was negative in almost every way. I was attempting to not make light of but change the subject slightly to my views on respect as a way understanding what happened to you as well as experiences similar to us all, I have lived a part of my life in heavily patriarchal cultures, where boys by their mothers and sometimes family are treated as if they can do no wrong. When that boy grows up, that sometimes in my own humble experiences have found that person seams to have a culture shock as to how to interact with a world that not only does not treat them as their family did but expects them to earn what ever that person wants. Again not making light of your situation at all or the experiences you endured to earn that experience in any way. Just brining up a slightly different aspect of that situation to my life. It might be possible for that person you had a very bad interaction with came from the family scenario I briefly explained, or came from some other that make that person react the way they did. One aspect of my experience with verbal or written communication has been the respect factor. Respect to abusers or those that we perceive to be abusing us is of the highest value. One thing I have learned in my years of life is that most everyone see themselves as the hero of their story. Very few see themselves as the villain. Respect, boundaries, and perceived/real abuse are all extremely important aspects to both verbal and written communication, a give and take if you will.
Anyone have thoughts?
Shawn When ever I sit down to write something, I always come to the blank page with a fully formulated thought. Now, just because I come with the thought fully realized in my head does not mean I can put that idea down on the blank page on the first draft. It almost always takes at least 3 drafts to get my words close to the idea. I do not write to impress with the length, or write to see my words out in the world. I write for the simple need to get the ideas I have in my head either talked out to someone or something i.e. an A/V recording devise or write the idea down. I have very few times in my life cared about the length of what I write. I usually surpass the length of any academic assignment by a lot, so that has never been a concern. When I write for myself, I have a deep desire to get that idea in my head down, so I can think about something else. Or to put that thought down and see the evolution of that thought that idea as I experience new things. So the 4 words about me, simple I write because I need to. Shawn W5q2 Well I do not think I will go as far as to bring up anything I would like to, since there are a large number of subjects I can talk about that would be inappropriate in this venue. Talking and debating topics in a classroom setting is a very good thing for learning, but there are rules and I do not want to break or even come close to breaking those rules in my first 6 credit hours. I want to have a very long scholastic life, having very long and heated debates in my first class, seems like a bad idea. Although it is true a lot knowledge can be imparted that can the heat a conversation up but, question the is “is that a good thing at this point”. So as to the opposite side of a persuasive argument, knowing when not to engage and start to talk, argue, make a speech, persuade, and or other forms of “you will believe, think like, and or even I will make you ___” as to the formulation of this days Daily discussion. I choose and have chosen a great deal to say “thank you for the opportunity to chat about subject __ but I think that this is not the appropriate time or place.” My ability to see ahead and not open my mouth or use my fingers in an echat is one reason I am not easily persuaded from my original point of view. I do my homework before engaging in a persuasive battle, if I can not persuade you, no reason to engage. Which is one reason I am in these chats, I spend very long time thinking about what I want to say and remember to be but short about personal experiences. Its not that I want to hold back, but there are just some things about our lives that are not academic. It is those non academic things that are not to be brought up in an academic format. I feel very strongly that in persuasive arguments, it is a battle between various points of view. There is only one way to win in a persuasive battle. When trying to
convince someone, there are a couple ways to convince someone, through calm
persuasive lulling them into your way of thinking, or 2 flat out verbal
battle. It is always smart to start
with 1, but if part C does not work, be ready. You first have to know what they think, and
then you have to know how to come up with counterarguments while the person
or people you are talking about have their guard down. You have to know what they are going to say
back, and have a very good calm response to their you say A they say B, and
what you say C will affect the rest of the conversation. If C is already a
canned response, and you say it calmly enough and with empathy, then you take
the wind out of their sails. But it
you say it badly, then you have to be able to sit their and argument it out.
Which brings up point 2, in our western culture “embarrassing” or making
someone look bad can win you more points in an argument or debate then a well
placed blow to any orifice. I refer to “passive resistance” a technique that
if the Palestinians would use would get them farther then any 10,000 suicide
bombers. Think of it 5,000 Palestinians doing a sit in in front of a tank,
would have the same effect of just a few hundred Chinese sitting in Tiananmen
square. Or even one man sitting in front of dozens of tanks. The British are
out of On the other side, every argument you are both the persuad er and ee. As in if someone comes to you and wants to convince you of something, you have an equal chance at convincing them of what you want. I remember the phrase “No one ever wins a war or battle. The question is what has been lost and what has been gained” in an argument if you can convince your opponent of your point of view, you gain, if they are, they gain. In life if you can get someone to see your point of view even for a second while they are attempting to get you to see theirs. But what you gain is a few more seconds of you are you, you have your identity intact, but they are even if it is only for a few seconds under your influence and you can move them around by their nose. If you do it really well you can convince them that your ideas are better, that they will thank you for leading them by the nose. Diplomacy, the ability to tell someone off, so they will enjoy the trip and thank for the guided tour. If you do it really well, they will even be grateful for you taking the time to explain how things work and they owe you. Truth in an argument is a very relative thing. True truth is only relative in the worst of situations; religious chats are not one of those truth arguments. Truth is only truth to the person in charge. Shawn W5q2 manipulation What would make my argument more persuasive? Simple, learn well the rules of how to argue, debate, and for the true bold people. Learn how to use the act of persuasion to convince people of your point. This can all be found under the heading manipulation. Problem with manipulation is it comes with some very nasty consequences. As we have seen many a politician use persuasion to lead the electorate by the nose. They do it by knowing how to persuade. The skill of influence, is a very had skill to deal with since you have to know how to twist facts to make them into your version of truth. See truth is the definition of a vague thing, since any one given fact can be twisted to meet the needs of the argument. Any given fact can be used to prove or disprove anything. There are hard facts that are true, but a persuasive argument can twist that fact or truth into anything as long as the argument is hard and solid enough, and the presenter knows how to manipulate an audience. Shawn Since you are the one that wrote it, can you plagiarize yourself? Since after all there is the idea of evolution of thought, I know many an artist who have many just the smallest of changes to something and that new thing is considered to be a new thing, but then again. That new thing is only a very small % change from the original. Can I think of an example. Yes I can, the famous “Mona Lisa” is not actually one painting but 1 of 70. DaVinci painted as stated 70 variations fo that one painting just to make sure he did it correctly. The one he actually sold to the merchant/politician of Venice as recently proved is one of the earliest ones. One reason he kept that one as special is because he felt that one was the best of the 70, although that one in the Louver (please pronounce with the r silent and soft v and a very soft a after the v.) is somewhere in the early 60s, so in essence he painted more then 15 more after he did what he considered to be his masterpiece. Funny thing is, in his diary, he stated that the merchant was given his choice of 30 paintings, the merchant picked in DaVinci’s opinion one of the worse of the lot. Which made DaVinci very sorry for having given so much time to a useless benefactor. So did DaVinci plagiarism himself, since he painted over 70 versions and hundreds of sketches? Some extremely similar and some radically different. Did Jacques-Louis David plagiarism himself painting the crowning of napoleon, since he did it 2 times and only changed the dress color of one of Josephine’s hand maidens? He did this to ensure that the painting was different in some small way. But basically the 2 paintings are for all intense and purpose exactly the same minus one dress color. Is “commune sense” Thomas Pain one of the world most plagiarized authors, since his book was copied with out and with his consent too many times to count. With out the booklet “commune sense” the French revolution would either not have been or taken decades longer. So what is the answer? Evolution of thought, or what. Some newspaper writes write about the same subject for weeks if not months on end, just slightly different aspects of the same subject, in their columns. Is that plagiarism? Some columns its hard to tell the different after a while if the column is actually different then previous, just a few words here and their changed. Shawn Radically alterations are also par for the course Radically alterations are also par for the course, my favorite is his name is not Noah but Gilgamesh, and even though the story is about a flood, the premise could not be farther from the original if the best fiction writer in the world altered it, no one could have done better altering the story. I again do not mean to offend, or mean to cause harm, but the simply an unfortunately hard science facts behind some truth is impossible to measure. The truth, and what we in the western world have been taught are so different as to come from different planets, but the root is the same story. Not some embellishment is standard, a hero killed 50 with his bare hands, when in truth he killed one with a lucky bare hand shot, took his weapon and then proceeded to kill or at least mame 2 or 3 more, that is poetic license. But some alterations are simple radical changes to tell a completely different story. Shawn Inaugural Address I watched the inaugural address and I saw a few parts that I did not expect. I was sure his left hand never left the podium, I was wrong. So I guess his back issues were not that much of an effect that specific day. But I do remember many a press conference where his left hand was welded to the podium as if an affect of attempting to hold himself up. I might be wrong on that account but I thought it was correct. One of the key factors in that speech was watching Mr. Kennedy carefully attempt to address everyone, as his head passed not quickly but in a deliberate attempt to carry the attention of crowd from left to right. But when he made his first few points his head was slightly tilted to the right side and his voice commanding as it was was followed by his hand pointing to his speech, as in the words he was pointing to meant as much as his voice reading those words was, heavy, pointed, and very important. I found watching this speech again, from a studying it point of view, highly interesting and worth a great deal more study, he was a very eloquent speaker. I find it interesting that he tilted his head slightly to the left and up to make sure as much of the sun was on his face as possible. It made him look very good to the cameras, as well as it gave him a nice human look. Sometimes when you look at a friendly dog who wants to play or interact with you, it will tilt its head to the side, it looked like he was attempting to do a similar look, but also follow the sun for the good white balance for the cameras. This is a very good speech. The words used, both stern and inviting. Shawn Reading to refute rather than understand This is the problem I had last week. All I could think about were not positive responses. I guess having the flue had something to do with that, but I do not have concrete as to why I could not see beyond argumentative responses. But as I read things I do my best to read first for knowledge and seeing what the author is attempting to convey to me. But then what stops me is usually sentence structure that make little to no sense. Or the sentence structure of stating something that then backing that sentence up with “you know” or “isn’t it”. My usual sentence to an author or person imparting that is why you are thing to reconvene me 2 times of your opinion. If you need me to say yes, they you do not have to courage behind your own convictions and what you are writing has by default false that need to be understood. So I at that point I read for errors, rather then what I can learn from the communiqué. Shawn Aggressiveness, Being a very dominant person myself, I fight every time I either open my mouth or put my fingers down on the keyboard my aggressiveness in how I communicate. I actually like school or at least currently because I have had to not only develop the discipline of writing a lot, but I have also had to temper what I wanted to say to the audience that would read me. I have fellow students I want their feedback, and a teacher who I want to learn from, as well as my work graded. So as I see input as to how to temper what I write to make my writing smooth and or add less aggressive words, I in a few cases in the last weeks my writing I hope has improved. But I have also noticed that adding sugar or in writings case humor to a sentence does not negate my aggressiveness, nor does adding humor cancels out others aggressive writing. I am really enjoying learning how to be assertive, rather then be aggressive. The concept alone when I looked it up, helped me start to think about how I can relearn to write and form my ideas into thoughts that will become sentences from a point of view that is directed at assertiveness. Keeps the audiences attention longer with their guard down. So now it’s the next 4 months of constant practice, to cement the assertiveness rather then aggressiveness. Shawn When the message is not well received Persuasion, humor, and or even a flamboyance approach are the tools I add to my communication skills when I have an idea the message will not go over well and I might be the victim of blame the messenger. I have also found that, coming from a point of view of if the worst case scenario happens going into a situation, get aggressive, unlike normally when aggressive communications are frowned upon. Getting almost nasty with someone who might retaliate to you the messenger is the only true course of action. Now I find that even thought my current skills are very lacking in which to choose from and my very nature I have dominated more then a few situations where my aggression even though I owned the room was the worst thing I could have done, I did not get immediate retribution but it came after. Giving the correct situation, dominating and or aggressive communication skills are warranted. I might add thinking about it, that start small, and add the tools needed at that second. Diplomacy is the ability to tell someone off so they will enjoy the trip and thank you for the suggestion. If you do it really well they will even think they own you for it. The tools of that are the balance in communication between; aggressive and assertive communication, with humor, flamboyance, and a bit of personal fortitude thrown in the mix can accomplish more then previous to this minute even I realized could work very well to get out of a bad situation. Shawn Establishing trust I do my best to come from the personal. I try to write not dry and unemotional but from my experiences, my understanding of life, and or the lessons I have learned. I try and come from that standpoint in all that I write. With some things I write, I try and put as much humor and cultural references as I can as those cultural references apply to the situation we are in. IE, to dip a toe into college would be a reference to, to go swimming in an unfamiliar body of water, sticking a toe in to check the temperature is a standard thing. So to stick a toe into this experience is, doing a little bit to see just how the item being temperature checked will be copasetic to you and your life now. So not only humor, but coming from the real. For if you are trying to convey something important to you, and you are attempting to lie, once that threat hold of illusion is broken you are never trusted again. So to establish trust, you not only have to come from true references but truth from yourself. What I am talking about is, if I referenced something of a political concept that I at my base do not believe in but I wrote as if I did believe in that reference, my credibility would be completely blown. Shawn Paraphrasing I often paraphrase and you are absolutely correct with the concept of the author has to have a very good concept of the quote stated. But I often use the sentence “I refer to this phrase or this concept, and if I remember who said it I say it, if I do not then I state where I remember it from, which is usually a TV show or movie. Shawn Space, America. I say take a look at china, they have a billion $ for every 1 $ we are spending on space exploration. They know that a decade’s long investment in science and technology will put them as the world leaders in everything. We have issues with sending one person to space for fear of that person being killed. China could not care less if they kill 100,000 of their own in their race for space. Their are 1 million to replace that 100,000 and still not make a noticeable dent in their population. They want to colonize space, since space has lots of room, and if you had not noticed, with over 1 billion Chinese they need all the space they can get. So making a moon base IE they would then qualify to own the moon, putting a couple thousand people on the moon, would only serve their purposes nicely. Please stop and think for a second about what Kennedy was talking about, and where we are right now. The old space race we won was actually a forgone conclusion; their tech was just not up to the task till the mid to late 70s. When they leapfrogged past us, we were shutting our systems down when Russia took the lead. Now china is about to leap frog past us all, there is no good solution to china taking the space race lead. So we are actually in a huge mega space race right now, but refuse to acknowledge that simple fact. I would love it if we as Americans understood how dangerous a space race with china is. The space race with china makes the race with Russia seam like bringing a gun to a knife fight. In the 50s we brought a .44 gun, now we are brining a small knife egoistically resting on our decades ago accomplishments. It is just shy of 4 decades ago we landed on the moon. We only have a couple shuttles, no actual hard space vehicles, and a plan to go back to the moon in 2 decades. In 2 decades china could have 100,000 people on the moon and declare it their territory. A lot of us were not born during the first moon landing and we have kids in the double digits of age now. So as of Kennedy’s speech, we are in an unfathomably more tenuous situation then he could have imagined when he proposed that moon landing and the other thing. Shawn Opinions I like the psychological comment; what about the item that I am looking at do I not like about myself. With opinion comes emotion. When something strikes me as something I do not like the first and foremost thing I have to do is stop inputting the data I was assimilating and attempt to find out what about that data is addressing something about myself that I do not like. Doing these homework as daily discussion assignments, has achieved something in my that I was hoping very badly it would. I have been desperate for years to get the discipline of writing my thoughts down for years, I do journal occasionally, something happens and I forget I have not written anything for days, weeks, months, or in some cases years. So with the penalty of school I have to write no matter what, which for me has been wonderful because all the excuses for not adopting the discipline of writing are gone. So as I am forced to write on a daily basis, I find myself at times like this class last week being bogged down in all kinds of emotional issues that I did not want to deal with. So I write very little, I wanted to write a lot, and I did, I just choose not to post the garbage that I wrote down. So as school progresses and I get attached to different writing assignments that cause me to pause and think about an aspect of life that I did not expect to think about I love it. That opinion coloring the input I want to be reading I love it because that is as close to unconscious truth that one is hiding from themselves as one can find outside of deep therapy. So taking the time to deal with why I did not like or loved what I read has been just as much of a learning experience as the assignments that are just their for the read something write an opinion and go on to the next with out stopping for that subject has not effected you emotionally. Shawn I have a few things to say, did I say bobbi? No, I did make it gender which was a mistake, which I did not catch from week one or two assignment, for that you have my apology, that is as far as my apology goes. But I was attempting to be nice to you. Giving you a solid reason why you do some of the things you do. This is an academic class, academics are an area where one goes to open the mind and explore the recesses of knowledge. So I will only shut my smart mouth as you put it when it does not involve academics. For which I have done so on many occasions, including several of your posts. Since this is an academic environment and I am graded on my responses, I think I will reply to whom and what ever I choose to as long as it is nice, respectful, encouraging, educational, academically based, and is by definition of this area is of a substantive contribution. I was left out of a great deal of items like this in high school because of this kind of interactions, I choose to study privately for 17 years because I was tired of dealing with people who insulted me, smart mouth is not a nice thing to say, especialy when by action my sentence was accurate to the action described. Next, this is American the last time I checked, so unless I am slandering you, the first amendment allows me to say what I want. Since this is academia, other rules apply and I have done my best to follow them, see above. If you want to attend a theocratic or religious institution there are more then a few to choose from. But if you want to stay in a group of people who do not mention a reference to the divine in most of our posts then you will have to be respectful of us. I am not saying you can no use words I am saying you have to put up with us and our not using those words. You posted to the main forum and engaged in a discussion, as part of the rules of this institution it is my business to read everything and reply substantively to those posts from my fellow students that follows the above rules. So since I had something to say that was substantive I said it. If you do not like what I write, simple do not read them. I ignore your constant reference to the divine. I can say anything I want to about the words you use, we are learning about how to use words to communicate ideas and how to respond to those around us in all aspects of communication even points of view we do not like. Unfortunate for you, this would be an example of this exact weeks other posts in this class Opinions Aggressiveness Reading to Refute Emotions , and Passion just because you might not like what I said, does not mean this is not a part of not only this string of inquiry but the other post by Mr. Shelley this week. I kept my smart mouth closed and just shut up around those that used similar words in my youth, I refuse to do it now. I hope you have a great rest of the day. I apologize to Mr. Shelley if this was a disruption to your class. Shawn One the subject of war, to motivate troops to go take that hill over their when everyone that has any logic to their mind knows the % of survivability is 25% will survive that charging the cannons, the speaker much be able to motivate the troops to use what ever diplomacy speech patterns necessary to insure that enough troops make that journey over that hill and survive to actual take those cannons. To the motivation speeches, there is a pattern to them, to all words there is a way of saying those words, well the well organized speech especially a motivation speech to “buy this idea, charge that hill, buy this proposal there is no difference between those 3 things when it comes to a motivational speech” the well orchestrated speaker will use words that operate in a rhythm. Crosby, Stills, Nash is the only way to arrange the words so rhythmically it comes out nice. See the way Crosby is pronounced, its 3 syllables, the other 2 are 1, so the rhythm is da di da da da, that is the only way it works. In a motivation speech arrange your words accordingly in rhythm. A marching tempo will motivate more people to do things then one can possibly imaging, you can get a group of individuals to “step in line” so to speek, all you have to do it use the correct word order rythems, so thay fall into place and become an unstoppable mob. Shawn In addition to what I wrote yesterday, I wanted to add a bit. Speeches have rhythms. Those rhythms are patterns of music all their own and can convey their own underlying message. I give you for example, bam ba da bam da da bum da da da da da. The basic rhythm of iambic pentameter. In base it’s a march rhythm. I give you another, Da di di di di da da di di di bom di bom di, was first an English poem, then an English drinking rhythm then singing melody. Then it turned into something extremely important just by a simply change of words, but the rhythm and cadence of the way the ups and downs of the way the sentence is put together is a very uplifting rhythm. As we prepar for the business world, one thing that would be a very good idea to do is to incorporate what we want to say into a rhythm that fits what we what the end product to be. For sales of an idea or a product, a rhythm of a march or motivational speech works the best. To motivate a group to produce more pick a cadence that already has motivating factors to it. Music is a major factor to the way we live our lives, instead of ignoring those factors, add to them, and make our talks with an underlying sound track. Shawn When you are about to have any interaction with anyone around you the first thing that is the most important is appearance. We have eyes and our eyes are not only the windows to the soul but the input devise we use primarily. So since the eyes are the thing we use the most, what appearance we give off is absolutely key and crucial to what ever we want to do second. Once our appearance shows what we want to do. Then the way we present ourselves would be second on the list of most important. How we talk, what words do we use, how best to carry our bodies, what observation of personal space of ourselves and others do we observe. Appearance comes in 2 packages, what we wear and how we choose to communicate with those that share our environment. This culture prides itself on not only fashion, “is that Armani, or is that John Philips”. When thinking about a presentation the first thing we must consider is what to wear, the second thing that must be given equal time to is our presentation of personal self. Personal self is the cologne we choose to wear, what words we choose to use, who we choose to gravitate to, and who at base are we most comfortable with being around (which might not be who we gravitate to). Obviously in business a suite is the standard dress, but what is the standard dress for an IT person. What will get you noticed if you attempted to walk into Google and give a presentation? Would you get ignored if you walked in with a pony tail, khakis, and plaid flannel or would you get their attention? I know of a couple different computer based businesses that is you walked into their conference room wearing a hand made tailored to you Gucci, you would not get the time of day, but if you walked in with wearing a flannel shirt and had forgotten to shower for 2 days you would have their attention in a good way, you would not only get their attention but they would respond to you as if you had an idea what you were talking or presenting about. You have to choose the audience you are going to be speaking to presenting your ideas, different audiences require different not only apparel but different presentation of the self. Shawn Negotiation Everything
we do in this world boils down to this concept “to sell something X to
someone”. That X is the thing being sold, the someone is who you have to
interact with in order to achieve a greater goal. That X could anything from be that sale of
an idea, a plan, your ability to do something labor oriented, your ability to
organize something, you want someone to buy your product, you want someone to
buy a product someone else made, you want someone to hire you, its all sales. So
the question comes about, how do we as a person go about setting the table of
our sales pitch to best suite our needs in the short term IE today or a
couple days, middle several days to several weeks, long term IE weeks to
years. What do we want from them, what will they want from us. To start this
interaction we must be able to determine what we will not compromise on and
figure out what that other someone will not compromise on. If
we the person know what to expect from the person we are pitching to well
before the event takes place, then we have the advantage, since we have a
good idea what they are going to say or ask so we can create a good
reasonable answer or in this case counter argument on the spot. This
putts those that follow this chain of concept in a greatly increased
negotiating standpoint.
Author c clark One major key factor to the week’s daily discussion and a huge part of our final project is a presentation is at base a way to entertain. To what audience are we working with that will be entertained by what format of presentation. What in this case we are using PowerPoint as our presentation model. Which means we have to deal with both the negatives and the positives of that presentation format. This must be first and foremost on everyone’s mind as they create, edit, and rebuild their final project when ever using any presentation tool, their will be people that like it, bored with it, and those that will never have seen the technology and be fasinated by your technical brilliance. Arthur C. Clarke “Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.” In a presentation when you present someone
that has little to no contact with that kind of technology, you can sell your
proposal simply by having a command of the “advanced tech” the subject you
want to do is at that point immaterial. But on the other hand, if you are
presenting a project with the sale old same old presentation technology, not
only is your audience that much harder to convince but you also have to
overcome their boredom at not entertaining them. Shawn One must stay on the cutting edge of technology in giving presentations. For those that loose the audience’s attention loose the proposal’s acceptance. What I mean is, most computers have some kind of PowerPoint on them, and for a decade PowerPoint as been a mainstay in business and academic presentations. The audience by resent reports have become bored with it. So I say, as we advance in our studies, that we remember after this project that we need to add 2 things to our PP presentations one add motion pictures to the slides, that way the audience has a moving picture that tells the story easier and faster. I do mean an actual movie short, it does not take much skill or time to make a few second short movie in Windows Movie Maker it is a standard install program on Microsoft OS’s since 95. The second point I wanted to add is have the presentation end with either a direction to go to a web site IE if you want to see a working model go to www.______.com or have the end slide of the PP presentation end as a mock up in the slide of the www.____.com index page. It would be great if we could inside the PP programs be able to make a hypertext link and go directly to the web site at the end of the presentation, live and on the net is a very nice selling point. Interaction with technology right now is the cutting edge. Shawn Peer review When experts in their fields are not working they are still thinking. So the best way to approach for feedback an expert is to offer them something that they can think about but has no pressure as to their involvement. It its just a mental exercise of lets think about this new idea, or new whatever, then they are most joyously looking forward to distraction from the main thrust of their lives. Plus when you get right down to it, a researcher never knows what the string of ideas will be, so maybe concentrating on your paper for 5 minutes will allow their mind to spit out the answer they have been searching for some length of time. So when I go looking for someone to review my work, I wrap it in fun and relaxation. Let the mind explore with no consequences. Shawn “Just the facts, just the facts” I you keep this as a mantra, “allow the evidence to be the guide” it makes no difference what that evidence is, or where it leads you. “The truth shall set you free”, as long as you keep all these very valuable and completely annoying quotes not only fresh in your mind, but print them out put them on the walls of your study area. You after 5 months of constantly looking at it will develop a Pavolvian response. The evidence, the facts of the thing, are the most important of all. If you do not follow the facts just the facts, or burry the truth, you are a liar, in science there is no room for liars. To lie is to counsel the truth, to hide the facts. The pursuit of knowledge is only made harder by those that choose to lie. Shawn 1. Why lie 2. Why do you allow something that is proven to be inaccurate be a base of your research. 3. Why go forward when you know parts of what you are looking into are inaccurate, but you place them as accurate. 4. Why does your personal point of view matter so much in this paper. 5. Why is this subject so important to you. 6. Why did you assemble these items 7. Why did you go about assembling the items you did 8. Why did you start this research. 9. Why have you brought this research to me at this point. 10. Why have you gone to this level at this time. 11. Why do you approach in that manner 12. Why did you use the words you used. 13. Why did you go with that “eureka moment” 14. Why did you not continue on to the next “eureka moment” 15. Why did you seek help when you did. 16. Why did you form a team 17. Why did you choose to do this on your own Shawn To emphasis different things lets see now, change of color, or background, put info in a cell, change background color, change to a different size font, put images around the intended attention grabber, put that one lone thing in a sea of blank page, put a blank page before and after that one page of importance, build an animation with the PowerPoint pages as in a slow building of the idea very drawn out, Shawn Statistics Statistics it has been said can be manipulated to support whichever view a person chooses. It is important to also see how the data was gathered to support these statistic. Was the information taken from a random sample of the population or was it concentrated on a certain group of people with like behaviors and opinions? This is an example of how information in statistical results could become slanted whether intentionally or unintentional. It is important to consider this when looking at sources that rely heavily on statistical findings. Are there other ways or examples how statistics are used to create bias or slant in a specific direction? Statistics are defiantly a form of information dissemination. The discipline of using statistics can be used like any tool, for good or for bad. As with any tool, statistics is just that a tool. Like every other tool in the scholars arsenal every tool can be used for both. We on our journey through the absorption of knowledge have to be careful of any and all tools that can be corrupted. Shawn White space, If the white space is used correctly, as a director of the eye, then it is a good thing. But when the white space is used as a sign post, I find it not only annoying but distracting from the point the author was attempting to make. Shawn Being a graphic artist, this subject is slightly odd because I almost always use my own images when I make something. The images I think of are to my own opinion better then what I have been able to find elsewhere. With the exception of when I have taken an item from someplace and recreated what I wanted from that graphic. I grabbed a wax flourdelee, and remade it into a button for a web site I created for friend. Shawn Recall memory tricks There are times when an Anachronism helps with the process of memorization. But as for me and the way my brain is wired thanks to the other class I have a greater understanding of how I learn now. As I progress with my lessons, my memorization tricks are tied to pictures. If I can put a picture to a concept I am learning, my memory is triggered faster. I have little idea why.
Shawn Life skills I have found in the first 8 weeks of courses here that most of the assignments in some small way can be used in the private sector in a few years. I for one am very happy to be learning a multitude of different ways in which I can apply these lessons to the business world. Before I knew a cover letter was important, but till these assignments I did not understand why, I strongly do now. Shawn Tone unintended One of the problems I face in my daily life are some of my hobbies a lot of people take them wrong. I live the study of linguistics, but when that subject is poured into and some words are defined from the actual source rather then the socially acceptable version. I take for instance that I knew a great deal of time ago that the learned of the Jewish people spoke an earlier form of Hebrew Aramaic from 1000 b.c.e till roughly 500 c.e. . but till that movie came out a few years ago, some of the reactions I received was less then positive. I am reminded of an old story, naked truth was talking in a town and was either being ignored or was being ridiculed, his fiend flamboyance attracted all the attention and was accepted with out question. One day truth talked to flamboyance and asked why this was the case, and flamboyance took off one of his cloaks and put it around naked truth. Ever since truth cloaked in the cloak of flamboyance does attract attention but it with out the cloak naked truth is too difficult a subject for most to deal with. This is the tone of any communication, wrap a certain amount of flamboyance around any truth helps the medicine go down. Shawn I must say having you as one of my first instructors has helped in more ways then I can possibly tell you. My confidence during this last 3 months more then a few times has been shaky at best and your encouragement has helped in ways there is not way of extending my appreciation. Shawn Confidence For me this subject is a harder on to deal with since my academic career is very long, very drawn out, and I plan on learning a multitude of subjects. So in a way my confidence coming into this was high. What I do is use the same base formula that any good motivation program uses; do one thing, do it very well, move on to the next item, hope that when the grading comes back I did a good job. If the grading comes back negative then apply those negatives to the next assignments so the next can be done as well as I can. It is all a matter of perspective for me, one cut, chewed, and swalled bit of elephant will eventually have the entire elephant consumed, just look at the next bit instead of the whole of what is on the plate. Shawn Keeping it positive In my writing, the thing I always have the greatest issue with is to keep things positive. Too much positive comes off as arrogance or cockiness. To little and it comes off as weakness and begging. To balance between those major factors is one of the major keys to being able to write from positive, not crossing the line. Shawn How will you apply the knowledge you have gained about effective business communication in your current or future job and college courses? 1 I have learned so much about how to be more presis in my writing. I can get to the point with more ease and present a better well rounded sentences. So to future jobs I have an improved technical writing skill which will help me in my entire communications endeavors. But there is more to it then that. I have learned the value behind the forms, I have learned that something’s need to be drawn out with as simple and ease of operations as possible. For some need things to be written out in crayon to get what it being presented. I can not tell you how difficult it as in the first 3 weeks not knowing with every assignment what I was going. I had to read and reread the reread again the instructions to get what I needed to write down. Sometimes when things are not completely clear; a little redundancy and clarification for the cheep seats is a good thing. 2 I wanted to say something else about the cheep seats, and for those that do not know the cheep seats is a theater terms for the seats the farthest away from the stage, or with the worse acoustics. In movie making, playing for the cheep seats has become known as “the William Shatner school of over acting” since a camera lens can latterly be put and look good a few inches from an actors face and the extremely subtle facial changes or other body parts motions can be then used as the vehicle to tell the story other body parts ie hand, shoulder, foot, ear, what ever is going on in that scene that captures the emotion and the reaction of that emotion best. But when writing a paper, to convey a message requires the author and the audience to know this is in a way theater. So being subtle will actually not accomplish the goal. Jake lemon once said after being asked what actually happens if you get lost in a character why is that a bad thing. His response was “Ok take Hamlet, the to be scene” those words should actually be either thought really hard or be just whispered, since he is in extreme emotional peril, who do you know that if they are actively thinking suicide is the answers to escape the pain they are in as well as the events that will unfold over the course of the next bit of time, on stage you have to make it clear to the cheap seats, in film you can whisper the line, but in truth to present an idea requires the correct performance.” As I look over the course of the last 8 weeks, I am suddenly drawn to the nun to subtle reaction that to write somethi8gn is theater not film. To there is over acting on stage but mostly its just emphasizing the point, telling the story of the event through sound and action. We tell the story through words and placement of those words on piece of paper. Food for thought. 3 My mother as a very young child trained me to be a scientist. To do all the stuff nessessary to be a scientist. Now that I am an adult, one of the things I miss the most about my early life is how certain the scientific community was about what it knew to be absolute accepted fact 36 years ago and how much of that hard fact has been altered to match the current evidence. In the business world, the models of how we operate have changed over the years. WE have just seen a writers strike about a subject that 7 years ago did not exist. The technology of Pod casting, downloading whole shows, and having entire shows on the internet. Amazing technical advances in just a few short years time. Some things about business are the same, some things about radically different. To apply the scientific method to the world of education as to what is valid to learn at what time can prove to be a very beneficial thing. 4 What to learn when, I learned a very log time ago that if and when someone wanted to learn something they needed to take the proper steps in learning that item. Now for most those steps are very formal and laid out very strictly. But for others that formality is only a very superficial way of going through the steps. I watched a kung fu movie when I was in my teens. The story premise was this youth from a distant province wanted to learn a different technique, so he traveled to the temple where that technique was taught and just was accepted. After a few weeks of being their, something occurred an the school master choose to “kick him out” ordering him instead to observe the schools function from outside the walls. I he was to build a bamboo scaffold all the way around the complex 12 feet higher then the actual walls of the temple. This construction of this scaffold took 2 years, after 2 years he was finished with his task, and went to see the school master for re-admittance. The school master became very cross and outright attacked the youth, making him backwards go through the entire schools equipment so he had to defend not only himself from the school master but from the school equipment as well. The youth did not realize but he in 2 years of observation learned all that school could teach him. The master knew it, but the youth did not realize it. We each have our own approach to learning, and just because one way may be very different that does not mean it is of any less value. Apply this to your life. You may have knowledge you did not realize you had. Shawn |
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