jlcox2

Management Vs. Leadership: Going Back to the Beginning

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:57:47 -0500

I stumbled upon the quote from Stephen Covey.

“Management works in the system; Leadership works on the system.”

This goes back to the beginning of the semester but what better time to look back than the end. I think this quote really summarizes our many discourses on the management vs. leadership topic. I don't want to spoil anyones own thoughts by writing my own right away. But I thought it would be interesting if anyone else see this quote the way I do.

Quotes is from: http://thinkexist.com/quotes/stephen_r._covey/

Competitive Intelligence Strategies

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:55:17 -0500

Competitive Intelligence and Knowledge Management: Two Key Factors to Successful Leadership

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:53:22 -0500

Throughout the semester I have focus mainly on the relationship between the leader and the follower. I have created my own personal theory of leadership that contains a situation in which the follower and leader must communicate. I have not done a tremendous amount of research on competitive intelligence (CI) or knowledge management (KM). The following is an essay that focuses on both CI and KM as attributes of a well-rounded leader.

My Four Part Theory of Leadership

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:00:26 -0500

My theory of leadership breaks down into four main parts. Leadership only exists when these four aspects are present: a leader, a follower, a situation, and communication. I will begin the essay by stating my personal definition of leadership then explain each of the four parts of my leadership theory.

Theory of Leadership

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:37:55 -0500

Analysis of “Information is Knowledge in Motion”
and
Leadership/Followership Theories

Leadership Part 2

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:16:45 -0500

My theory of leadership will be broken down into three sections. The first section will be my definition of leadership. The second section will be focused on situational leadership and the third will not be about leaders but their followers.

Leadership Part 1

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:33:50 -0500

The Information Age(less)

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:14:02 -0500

Technology is said to doulbe itself in 18 months. So in a year and a half from now there will be computers that will be twice as powerful as the most powerful computer of today. With this in mind, are people that shocked that a four year old can check their own email. Or the fact that this years hot toy is a radio controlled mini helicopter that only weights only ounces. Technology is smaller and faster than ever...but theres always tomorrow.

Leo the Renaissance Man

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:41:55 -0500

Leonardo da Vinci was a strong factor of the European Renaissance. His paintings, sculptures, and drawings are still ideas of wonder in today's world. Some facts about da Vinci include: his mother was a peasant girl, he had 17 step brothers and sisters, he was 15 when his father sent him to apprentice a painter, after painting an angel for his master, his master, out of a amazement, allegedly vowelled never to paint agian. da Vinci designed weapons including tanks and submarines. da Vinci is creator of the Mona Lisa, one of the most famous and talked about paintings. Many people believe the Mona Lisa is famous because of the asthetics but others feel the painting is famous because it is unlike any other paintings of that time.

Information Renaissance: Video Games

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:29:43 -0500

Video games are a billion dollar a year industry that is only getting bigger. In the last twenty years video games have come leaps and bounds in terms of technological advances and they way are accepted in society. The first video game was a simple bouncing square that was nothing more than that. Today’s video games are anything but simple. Storylines exist that take the user anywhere imaginable.
The reason for such a growth in video games, in my opinion, is escapism. The user wants to stop thinking about his or her everyday life and become some else, or go places they wouldn’t be able to go without the game. This is where my thought on a video game field study stems. If people play video games to “get away” then give them the option of playing the game out of their normal environment. I’m not suggesting putting the TV in the kitchen and battling monsters from the counter tops. I’m suggesting that you take the player out of the real world and put them into the video game. Obviously, we can’t put someone in to a game but we can let him or her play the game in a environment that represents the game. Possible a room designed like the setting in the game, even dimming the lights would be an option. This is only for research of course but we could see the effects and differences someone has when they play a game in a totally white room, a normal living room set up, or the game environment. This might help us understand the concept of the person’s environment inside and outside the game. For example, the game Guitar Hero, the object of the game is to play notes on a miniature guitar and try to sound like the real song. If you play the song well the crowd screams and applauds, if you play it poorly they boo. The game setup could be a stage with huge speakers, instruments lying around, possibly a live crowd. This would make the player feel like they were actually playing a concert, taking them out of the living room. Question would be asked after the test. How did you feel when the crowd started booing you? Did it make you want to play better? Worse? At which setting was your intensity at the highest? At which setting was the game more fun? Another example could be a combat game set in the jungle. The game setup would be a room with lavish plants. I would expect the intensity of a shooting game to be much higher than a music game. Testing the players surrounding like this and asking specific question could allow a greater understanding of how the story’s setting (narrative) affects video game playing.

Web 2.0 is here but Web 3.0 is Knocking on the Door

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:57:55 -0500

Web 2.0 is the use of the internet as an application. Examples being Facebook, Flickr, iGoogle and iMeem.com. Tim O'Reilly coined the phrase Web 2.0 around the year 2004. He stated. Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform."1
Web 2.0 has only been around for a few years however talk of a new version has already sprung. The birth of the term Web 3.0 is unknown but the meaning is concrete. Web 3.0 is the use of the internet as parts of application but not through internet browsers. Applications would use the internet to gather information and supply the user instantly. In my opinion an example would be Apple's widgets. They are computer applications that pull information (like weather forecasts and stock quotes) from the internet and visibly display is for the user.
I do not think 3.0 will totally overshadow 2.0 but we should all be on the look out for more Web 3.0 application in the near future.

"On-Demand" Communication

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:52:38 -0500

The tradition concepts of narrative have not been totally changed but modified by the immense revolution in technology over the last twenty years. As the world moved into the digital age, the old steady forms of narrative had no choice but to conform to the newer standards of society. Interactive technologies have affected the narrative, however I feel that the narrative audience has had control over the digital revolution. New generations are being born into a digital world and are use to having an endless amount of information at their fingertips. With keeping this “on-demand” youth in mind and the fact that the narrative has always had a huge cultural base, I believe that in the near future, if not already the audience is going to have quorum control over what forms a narrative will live and die.
Concepts of traditional narrative are timeless standards that don’t change, but are only tailored to fit a certain medium in a certain time. The narrative concepts of a storytelling source and the medium are two that I am considering the focus in the digital world. The new generations are obsessed with the got to have it now approach to information. They don’t care where the information comes from as long as it’s fast. Granted this is not necessarily a good thing but that’s all they know. Usually sources have always needed credibility to be considered worthwhile. My argument here is that credibility gets lost in the right here right now shuffle of the digital world. With so many people being able to publish their every thought on the internet, Google can’t be held responsible if your search results aren’t credible, but does the young population realize this? Newspapers, television, movies, radio, are all on they way to becoming totally digital, it’s inevitable. Each of these mediums has certain characteristics of narrative that are differently affected by digital technology. People want their news quickly and inexpensively. People want to watch their favorite show when it is convenient for them. People want crystal clear radio with no pesky commercials. The news, television, and radio industries have to adapt or cease to exist. So what happens? Newspapers go online, digital recorders are now a five-dollar a month upgrade from cable companies, and satellite radio have been built into cars years for the last few years.
Did the New York Times put their newspaper online because the technology was there and it was “the next step in innovation,” or did they create the website because their audience stopped reading the traditional form? Did the technology create the change or did the audience wanted it? Television has always been a consumer controlled industry and now that HD is here, audiences everywhere want more. Networks can create dozens of shows that they think will be instant hits, but if Mr. Couch Potato and his millions of fellow viewers don’t tune in, the network will be forced to cancel the show.
Media like everything else changes with time. Technology is a driving force in the communication world. So it would make sense for media to embrace technology, but does the media change because it can or because its forced to?

Communication and Persuasion of Cyber Space

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:45:32 -0500

In the world we live in today an enormous amount of communication is done across the Internet. However, all of the persuasion sources are meant to be face-to-face communication in a speaker/audience format, unfortunately face-to-face communication doesn’t happen on the web. With the millions of daily users, the Internet is too random. Anyone can get on almost every site, no matter age, race, gender or income. Using the aged forms of persuasion, how would a website attract their target audience when there are so many other sites within reach?
One day I’m just browsing the web, not really looking for anything in particular.
Every website that I land on is either going to grab my attention or not. If the website happens to be a commercial website, the company which it represents should have a main target audience. I am a 20-year-old single white male that likes video games and cars. Does the website know this about me? NO! How could it, it is just a bunch of pictures, colors, and words joined together to represent something greater. There is no demographical test, or Nelson rating for the Internet. There is no way to tell who is on any site at any time. This time let’s say that I am trying to buy a book for my mom. I try four or five different websites: Amazon, eBay, Wal-Mart, Kmart, and Barnes & Nobles. Not being able to change who I am, which website will more than likely appeal to me the most? Will it be the website with the trustworthiest visual aspects, or the website with the biggest variety of books? How about the one with the cheapest books? What I am trying to get at is that every single person has his or her own attitude or beliefs. A website with thousands of daily users is likely to lose some due to lack of interest.
Website publishers know not everyone will appreciate and/or use their website; so they have to adapt by producing a website with a certain demographic in mind, or make the website universal. For example the creator of eBay cannot make the website with only one demographic in mind. The audience for eBay.com is too colossal, they would be shutting out millions of dollars. Now consider a webpage totally devoted to videogames, Gamespot.com for instance. When the web designer wants to generate a website geared towards a mainly male teen audience he/she is going to do use different creation methods than the eBay designer.
Wicks wrote about attitude change and how to influence an audience. Wicks wrote, “…manipulating the source, the message, and the channels to provide a desired outcome on the part of the receiver (58).” Referring to the Internet the source would be the publishers of the website, not the company that sponsors the site. The message would be dependant on whatever the website content would be. And the channel of course would be the World Wide Web itself. However, on the Internet, the source and audience seem to be reversed. The audience has too many sources too choose from and in result will choose what they think the best site is for themselves, creating a passive source that cannot direct their audience. Ebay’s website’s main purpose, like any other online company, is to make money. Therefore the creator of the source would want the audience to spend their money as fast as possible without interruptions. That means no music and no flashing advertisements. However, on Gamespot.com, the main purpose is also to make money, but the longer the audiences linger around, theoretically the more money the source will obtain. By having more pictures and videos available to the websites audience, the longer a person will browse the page. Also by buying an “executive membership” an audience can gain access to more pictures and videos.
In conclusion the Internet is probably the hardest form of media to tactfully persuade an audience. The most a website creator could do is to design a site around a message and try to communicate that message to a target audience. However, there is no way to tell who will stumble on any certain website at any certain time, and that is a huge problem when trying to communicate a message to a specific audience.

The Rebirth of Intellect

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:40:56 -0500

The European Renaissance was a change in culture that occurred during the 14th to the 17th centuries. This renaissance (Italian for rebirth) changed the way many humans lived their lives. Religion, art and science were three ideas that were largely changed and further developed during the renaissance.
I would like to focus on the growth of intellect through the time of the European Renaissance. Books, art, politics, and science are some areas of shown interest during the social and cultural transition. It seemed that people were becoming more eager to learn and more eager to interact with each other. Curiosity could have played a factor, people became curious and decided to explore for themselves. Communication became a larger part in society, this is proven because books and arts are forms of communication. In my opinion communication could have been the driving factor that cause the slow but immense change in Europe.

Work In Progress...The Theory Part 2

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 01:46:57 -0500

Like language and sound have an obvious connection with verbal communication, symbols do with non-verbal. A stop sign is red with white trim. And has the word “stop” written on it. However in Europe a red circle with a white “X” is the symbolic representation of the stop sign. Road signs are great examples of how symbols can be used to simplify more complex ideas. Shapes and colors play a huge role in non-verbal communication. In the United State red usually means stop, warning or hot. Blue usually stands for cold or calm. Shapes are like colors and also hue contain symbol representation. An octagon, especially when red means stop! An upside down triangle tells traffic to beware and yield. Symbolism is an intricate part of communication. Stephan W. Littlejohn, the author of Theories of Human Communication, believes that people should not “ignore the complexities and ambiguities of the communication process,” (Littlejohn, 2005). Noise does not affect non-verbal communication like it does verbal. Even though noise still exists in the non-verbal realm, it has less of an impact. Fog for example could be considered noise in non-verbal communication. This brings me to a paramount point of nonverbal communication. Without sight non-verbal communication cannot exist. There are a few exceptions to this rule. First of the communicators, the sender and receiver cannot be in physical contact. A hug is a form of communication and yes it is still communication if you hug with your eyes closed as long as there is an interaction between two or more people, communication does exist. Sign language is a good example of non-verbal communication. There are, however, people in this world that cannot hear or see. They must communicate through touch. I have personally seen people use sign language to communicate with blind and deaf people. The impaired person will physically put his or her hand on top of the sanders hand and feel the signs giving. This is non-verbal sightless physical communication.
Body language is another form of non-verbal communication. Body language can also be called kinesics (Littlejohn, 1983). In a book title Kinesics and Context, the author Ray Birdwhistell lists seven assumptions on his ideas of body language. Here are few highlights from his list (Birdwhistell, 1970).
• All body movements have potential meaning in communicative contexts. Somebody can always assign meaning to any bodily activity.
• Although bodily activity has biological limitations, the use of bodily motion in interaction is considered to be part of the social systems.
• People are influenced by the visible bodily activity of others
• The ways in which bodily activity functions in communication can be investigated.
These four highlights, I believe, are four major theories behind body language. The body movement can always be classified into meaning and movements of people attract attention and can be studied. Last but not least about body language is the fact that the interaction at body language is part of a social system.
From pre-school to graduate school communication is affecting every word and bodily movement that we make. The interaction that takes place between sender and receiver in my opinion is the heart and soul of the term communication. Interaction is key. The basic model of Shannon-Weaver includes a reply form the receiver to the sender. In verbal communication a verbal reply or a simple head nod is interaction. Even non-verbal communication required interaction. When a car approaches a stop sign and begins to slow down to a stop, interaction exists. Perhaps with non-verbal communication the interaction is less apparent or intrusive but it still exists. As a student that will soon be a professional, I would like to conclude my essay with a quote from a professional about interaction and communication, “…information-sharing, interaction and recognition are required to induce the attitude change and horizontal communication necessary to faster wide spread involvement and commitment.”