Blogging: A Rationale

When we create a blog, we are creating a space in which we can express ourselves. The author of a blog is free to build any kind of structure and design possible. We are free to post opinions, thoughts, beliefs, and any other information that we choose. The power that we have over the art of blogging is substantial, but like all power, it can be abused. Bloggers must take care to make their designs palatable to the general public in order to gain an audience. A blogger who builds a page that does not appeal to readers will quickly find himself without any. I would like to address my thoughts on blog design and purpose, and to explain why I choose to build and write in certain ways.

The purpose of a blog is to provide a forum for expression. Blogs can range from personal sites used by individuals, to professional sites used by public personalities, to collaborative works associated with corporations or government agencies. Every person or group who builds a blog site will have different end goal in mind. Individuals may simply seek an outlet for creative endeavor. A professional author may blog with the intent of connecting with an audience. Companies may use blogging for PR, advertising, or community service purposes. Each of these goals is undertaken with the purpose of providing information to a mass audience. I undertook the creation of my blog with a combination of two purposes in mind: personal expression and academic development. Even though I have been involved with creating web pages and blogs before, I was extremely glad of the criticism and critiques from my classmates. This academic development helped me to gain a better perspective on design and writing.

Design is one of the cornerstones of blogging. Without a design that is appealing and accessible, an audience will not react positively. Without positive response, a blogger will be unable to build a sizable audience, thus defeating the purpose of creating the blog. When it comes to design, I generally choose more neutral color schemes, so that backgrounds and other elements will not overwhelm the content. This is not to say that bright colors are out of place, though. To me, there are two priorities that should be worked towards in blog design: consistency and compatibility. Because of the large number of different items that can be customized on a blog’s layout, it is important that color schemes and fonts are kept consistent across the board. Sections and postings that have varying text sizes and styles, and headers and backgrounds in different colors will create a sense of disjointedness for the reader. Colors should be compatible and complimentary, even when used for contrast. Color selections should also compliment any background images that are used.

Even with an effective design, though, the heart of blogging is creating content. Since the author is exposing work to a mass audience, that work should appeal to the audience as much as possible. Sometimes, the audience for a blog is almost predetermined. Take the example of a large corporation that starts up a blog to communicate its ideas. The audience, of course, consists of existing customers. The content that is delivered by the corporation must provide those customers with the information that they are looking for, whether that be support information, product recalls, or coupons and discounts. By giving the readers the content that they seek, the creator of the blog solidifies the audience and can accomplish goals.

The final component of blogging is the audience. Whether it is preexisting or being newly built, the audience determines the success or failure of the blog. In the example I used above, consider the audience for a corporation’s blog. Customers who already partake in the company’s goods or services are the preexisting audience. By providing timely and complete information on the blog, the corporation can generate goodwill among its customers and reinforce brand loyalty. This by necessity dictates the content. New blogs which seek to build a new audience are not under the same restrictions. A new blog seeks to build an audience around the content, rather the other way around. This is, in the end, one of the greatest strengths of the blog: the ability to find an audience that will be receptive to the author’s ideas.

Conflict in the Workplace

Consider the following scenario:

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

What can a manager do when faced with an under-performing employee? In many cases, the problem can be solved with a simple face-to-face meeting in which the manager outlines the realities of the employee’s performance, shows what the accepted standards are, and requests that the employee work to meet them. In an ideal world, the employee would then agree to work on adjusting his or her work habits to better reflect the standards promoted by the organization.

Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world. Many times, the manager in question is constrained by the employee’s behavior, or by the realities of the workplace. The manager is responsible for meeting the needs of the customers and the business simultaneously, though, so it is vital to maintain a sense of control when faced with this sort of situation. There are several ways to bring this situation under control.

First and foremost, a spirit of honesty must be maintained. It is not fair, to either them employee in question, the company, or the customers to prevaricate and withhold information. The employee must be made aware of the fact that he or she is performing at a substandard level. Regular performance appraisals for all employees are one procedure that can provide a stable work environment.

In this case, though, we are discussing and employee who has shown a pattern of substandard performance. Complaints from customers and from coworkers indicate that earlier steps, if any, have not been effective. When the time comes to address the situation outside of the normal evaluation processes, the manager must ensure that the business is protected while providing honest results to the employee.

If I were the manager in question, the first thing I would do is schedule a personal meeting with the employee. I should note, though, that “personal” is not the same as “one-on-one”. When dealing with an employee with a history of confrontational behavior, I would request either another manager or a representative of the HR department be a part of the meeting. Having a second manager or other company representative would give a sense of control, and it would also provide a witness to the employee’s behavior and a sense of support. Based on past behavior, I think that a one-on-one meeting would not be ideal. Taking a recording of the meeting in order to document the events would also be a good idea.

During the meeting, I feel that a direct approach to the issue would be best. Using a calm and reasonable tone of voice, I would notify the employee of the complaints that had been received, and of his or her failure to meet company standards. Without dragging the meeting out, or using any weasel words, I would try to inform him or her of the reality of the situation. Granted, past behavior might indicate that this would not be received well. In that case, having the other manager present would be effective in either preventing the employee from overreacting, or at least provide me with a second opinion and witness to any negative behavior.

In terms of conflict resolution, I think that this is a situation that is faced by managers more often than we care to imagine. As I said, we do not live in an ideal world, and people do not always react in the ways we would like. In the event of conflict, the most important thing I could do would be to prevent escalation. If the employee became threatening or belligerent, I would stop the conversation and request that it not happen again. While conflict can be used in a positive way, allowing it to escalate out of control will never lead to a satisfactory outcome. Following that, I would repeat my request for the employee to listen, and inform him or her that further outbursts could lead to disciplinary steps.

Hopefully, presenting a firm and unshakeable front to the employee him or her that management was serious, and that any further actions like this would lead to an extremely negative outcome.

Media Technologies: How far have we come?

We’ve been discussing media technologies in class this week. Since media is dependent on different technologies in order to spread its message at all, I think this is a good place to start when considering communication at all. Without some form of technology, even very simple ones, we’re stuck with word of mouth. This isn’t to say that spoken communication is weak, just that it is very limited! The human voice is only so powerful, so even addressing large groups of people verbally can be difficult. Before the advent of mass-produced printing, we depended first on painters, then scribes, and then engravers to provide us with information. Literacy was not a common skill, mainly because the resources needed to develop it were very scarce. Most people had neither the time nor the money to become literate, but the skill was not much in demand, either. It is only after the invention of the printing press that books and other documents became readily available, and it became much easier for the common person to become literate. With this increase in literacy came a huge increase in knowledge, and it could be said that the invention of the press led directly to the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution.

Today, at least in many countries, we take literacy for granted. It’s considered one of the basic life skills, and is taught from the first days of school. We should never forget, though, that less than 700 years ago, it was something to be admired.

After printing, what was the next big change? In the late 19^th century, Guglielmo Marconi began transmitting radio signals over longer and longer distances, eventually creating a network of “wireless telegraphy” stations on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In the beginning, these stations were used for ship-to-shore communication, and were later used to compete with the transatlantic telegraph service. Eventually, this technology was improved further and further, and the equipment necessary was made smaller and more efficient, and its utility as a means of communication were fully realized. In addition to entertainment potential, news and information could be broadcast to anyone in the transmission area who had a receiver. By the Great Depression, the United States government had realized the strengths of the system, and President Roosevelt made extensive use of radio in order to communicate with the population in general. Radio continues to be a major part of our communication system.

The invention of the television, the next great change in communication, is actually earlier than a lot of people realize. The first real work towards transmitting images wirelessly began in 1884, with patents issued to Paul Nipkow for his electromechanical system. The first televisions used large spinning disks with a series of holes to produce images on a screen. These images were very rough, very small, and very difficult to make. The initial inventions showed the potential of the idea, and research continued, until in 1928 Philo Farnsworth demonstrated the first all-electrical television system. Television took over where radio left off, and provided an even greater amount of information and entertainment to the general public. In most of society, television has become a ubiquitous presence, and has gone so far as to become an accepted part of the background. It has become odd to enter a building and not see a TV. The sheer amount of information that can be broadcast, and the number of stations that are available, made television one of the defining factors of the 20^th century as a whole.

I have been fortunate to be a part of the next sea change in communication, the development of data networking and the Internet. As I started my career in technology, the potential of the Internet was just being realized by the general public. While it was originally developed by DARPA to provide links between universities and military installations, data networking has advanced to be the backbone of an information revolution that I feel rivals the printing press. We are now able to communicate faster, and have access to more information, than ever before. Email, web browsing, and social networking have given us a level of information access that it unprecedented. In as little as twenty years, the Internet has changed vast areas of society. As access becomes more widespread, and we build more and more bandwidth for transmission, we will see more and more changes to how we work and communicate. News and information can reach us faster than ever before, especially now that Internet access is common on many people’s mobile phones and ultra-portable tablet PCs. Modern smartphones are more powerful than the computers I used less than twenty years ago. As this technology continues to advance, I think we will see an ongoing revolution in how we communicate.