Month: June 2020

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Discussion prompts for week of 6/15

As we move forward into Unit 2 this week, our focus will be twofold:  identifying and practicing rhetorical strategies (thinking about how we say what we do) and working to articulate the specific issues we’re interested in exploring further beneath this big umbrella of organizational culture. This will be foundational to the larger work of Unit 2: exploring.

For this week’s discussion work, please respond to question 1 and either of the other questions. Your posts are due by Thursday, 6/18–an extension from the original date, as you have a brief analytical exercise due by Wednesday (see the Unit 2 schedule of assignments and the associated dropbox on Blackboard).

  1. Our primary purpose in Unit 1 was to expand the body of shared knowledge on the subject of diversity and organizational culture, and each of you has made an individual contribution to that effort. Now I’d like you to review your classmates’ contributions to see what they’ve added–click on “canon” in the tag cloud to read these. What have you found interesting and significant in what you’ve read in their posts? Please be specific in naming the issues that have stood out to you and in pointing us toward 1 particular media element (graphic, video, link, etc.) that really made an impression on you. Taking these contributions as a set, how are you seeing the idea of “diversity and organizational culture” differently?
  2. “Flashpoint” is one of those buzzwords used in lots of different ways, in fields as far removed as management and gaming and exercise and chemistry. And since it’s proven to be so flexible, in rhetoric, too. For our purposes, it refers to a sort of rhetorical spark, a moment in the text when we see an important genesis or shift—when something important suddenly becomes clear. Pick such a flashpoint in “The Problem with Diversity in Computing,” and walk us through your chain of thought using one template from TSIS that’s designed for presenting the reaction you want to capture. (Chapters 4 and 5 of TSIS offer lots of ideas)
  3. Crafting effective transitions can be a real challenge for writers, but we can learn a lot from examining how others approach the task. Consider how Bogost uses transitions to develop his argument by focusing on a specific passage—the movement between one paragraph and another or between one section and another. How does he lay the groundwork for the move? How does he pick up on one of those pieces to move forward with? Be specific—quote and analyze in detail.

Please categorize your posts as “Discussions/Homework,” and Tag with “unit 2,” “week of 6/15,” and [your name]. Read through your classmates’ posts later this week, and respond where you see fit.

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Wrapping up Unit 1

Let’s start pulling some things together. Here are a few lessons from our first unit of the course that I hope you will carry forward in our next projects:

  • We need to understand a text’s rhetorical situation before we can work with it—over the last few weeks, we’ve been looking at some sets of texts that talk around some of the same issues but from different angles. Looking closely, we can trace many of these differences to facets of their writing situation: i.e. different audiences, different purposes, different credentials/experiences of the authors, different contexts. In order to figure out how much stock to put in folks’ ideas, what ideas of our own we might build upon them, or how to use these sources to help explain ideas to other people, we MUST first understand the texts themselves and where they’re coming from.
  • Understanding a text’s rhetorical situation also gives us a window in to whether and how it works, and what we might learn from its example as writers—we can see how writers try to appeal to their readers (using 2nd person, anticipating and responding to their concerns, styling their text to be visually engaging). We can see how writers build their arguments (linking evidence to claims, providing the reader with opportunities to follow their chain of thought back through hyperlinks to sources or citations). We can see writers drawing on their personal experiences to tell us stories about how they came to wonder about something and how they developed their understanding of it. By watching how other people do this work, we prepare ourselves to do it, too.
  • We need a variety of tools—we’ve examined how-to texts (from Harris and TSIS) and content-focused ones; we’ve watched videos; we’ve discussed. We’re coming to appreciate the complexity of our big topic area and to see how we’re only really going to make progress toward our understanding by engaging with a variety of resources and voices. That’s not just an academic exercise for us in this course; that’s a core guideline for research. As researchers and writers, we will also need that multi-faceted set of perspectives if we’re ever going to make progress toward understanding. AND we need to use a multitude of tools in presenting our ideas to our readers—whether that’s templates, graphic representations of data, varying levels of formality, etc. Furthermore, this sort of diversity of perspectives and approaches is a core value for organizations–an essential component of fair and effective collaboration.

So let’s continue. We’re growing our body of knowledge this week through accretion—each of you is adding something to it with the article you’re going to explain to the rest of us, and reviewing your classmates’ posts will be an important part of this week’s work. As we move forward, we’ll continue to learn from each other even as we head down individual research paths.

One final point, summary isn’t just a hoop for you to jump through. It’s how you test yourself to ensure that you’re conversant enough with the text to work with it in your own writing. If you can’t effectively summarize it, you probably shouldn’t be working with it in a project, because you can’t be sure you’ll fairly characterize its perspective and utilize its full value. A careful definition and description of a source (as part of a summary that also details its main take-away points) is a necessary precondition to be able to work further with that material.

Ready to move on? The unit 2 assignment sheet is available here and on Blackboard. Take a look, and let’s get ready to go.

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Expanding the Canon, Unit 1, Week of 6/8, Toni Salisbury

Challenging the dialogic promise: how Ben & Jerry’s support for Black Lives Matter fosters dissensus on social media

Erica Ciszek & Nneka Logan

Full article here

In summary:

This article’s purpose is to advance dialogic theory by presenting an agonistic orientation toward dialogue, concluding that public relations research is enriched by a postmodern approach, recognizing dissensus as an important concept and consequence when organizations advocate on behalf of contested political and social issues. Erica Ciszek (PhD Communication & Society, University of Oregon School of Journalism & Communication and Assistant Professor, Stan School of Advertising and Public Relations) & Nneka Logan (PhD Georgia State University and Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Virginia Polytech University) ascertain how Ben & Jerry’s social media support for Black Lives Matter functions as an ideological reservoir for a variety of competing perspectives about race in the United States and the role of a corporation in these conversations. Though they are challenging consensus-driven orientations of dialogue within digital landscapes by analyzing Ben & Jerry’s support of the Black Lives Matter movement and the subsequent public response, the findings of this study elucidate the utility and implications in a public relations context in a company’s communication in corporate political advocacy. Situating value-drive over profit imperative in organizational life. I agree that by maintaining that public relations needs to continue to theorize how dialogue contextualizes these issues, it’s worth considering an instance in which an organization takes relational risks by engaging in corporate political advocacy.

Note: This article was Received 01 Dec 2017, Accepted 18 Jun 2018, Published online: 08 Aug 2018. I include these dates, as it seems important and powerful to note on Ben & Jerry’s behalf, that this was not in response to the protests going on today in 2020, but rather separate, yet all too similar, issues four years ago!

On October 6, 2016 Ben & Jerry’s posted on their website not just that Black Lives Matter, but WHY black lives matter to them.  They spoke out about how “Systemic and institutionalized racism are the defining civil rights and social justice issues of our time.”

They ask their customer base to join them in not being complicit. Illuminating a simple objective “to ensure justice-loving people act toward justice, with all evidence, and that we stand together and act from a place of power and love, rather than out of fear and anger.”

Ben & Jerry’s goes even further, educating their public on how systemic racism is real, within their own company website.

https://www.benjerry.com/whats-new/2016/systemic-racism-is-real

Today, in response to the murder of George Floyd, brands and companies are taking Ben & Jerry’s lead and speaking out against Racism, such as Nike and more effectively Viacom.  However, Ben & Jerry’s seems to always go a step further with their alliship, advocacy and calls to action, with statements on Twitter such as:

Maybe it’s because they sell Ice cream that Ben & Jerry’s can speak out so openly regardless of possible stakeholder and public alienation, and without seemingly risking the life of their organization?  Does what you sell, what business you are in, what kind of company you are, make a difference in the role you can have in corporate political advocacy? And that according to Ciszek & Logan, even while continuing to address that scholars have continually used dialogic principles to examine whether social media is dialogic, and the significance of three of the key areas to public relations theory and practice; how within digital landscapes, can there still be a mode of inquiry in line with critical theory, that is also concerned with the flow and play of power through public discourse?

Why this? While I couldn’t find information on how any minority employees at Ben & Jerry’s might feel going to work each day (as originally intended), and as a white person I can not even begin to assume anything about this; what I can say is that, Ben & Jerry’s has proven that it is possible for organizations to take relational risks by engaging in corporate political advocacy, regardless of dialogical theory, and I appreciate that they don’t let anything like that deter them.

 

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Discussion Prompts on TED Talks

  1. Raneta Salecl started her TED talk off by introducing 3 quotes. I took interest to the first one by Samuel Johnson which was, “When making your choice in life, do not forget to live.” I believe this was a great tactic to immediately pull the audience in, because right from the start I found myself engaged with the speaker. Raneta then proceeded to link these 3 quotes which she shared to the “sweet anxiety of choice,” so this transition was very well done in my opinion. In terms of rhetoric, Raneta also used real life examples including her friend Manya and the woman she encountered at the wedding reception so by explaining these stories to the audience, we are provided with the knowledge that she actually lived through seeing others making choices and has great knowledge on this topic. In order to explain her ideas, Raneta additionally mentions other sources such as philosophers and professors from several universities to build off of her points. Several statements that Raneta made throughout her talk such as how self critique may often lead to self destruction, how many people have a passion for ignorance rather than knowledge, and that choice leads to individual and social changes are extremely raw and natural subject topics that I’ve never been confronted with. So for this reason, I believe Raneta presented her arguments in such a passionate way that really appealed to me.
  2. Building off of Raneta’s TED Talk, I believe she used evidence in various ways. Raneta uses outside sources to her advantage as a way of providing the reader with credibility that she’s well educated on what she speaks about. For example, the evidence of her personal encounters (such as Manya) gave Raneta leeway right into discussing how humans rarely make rational choices. Another specific example of this is when she told the story of the young woman at the wedding reception. This story wasn’t told for any specific reason; it was to emphasize her point that choice is linked to risks and unpredictability.  An argumentation tactic that I found very effective was Raneta asking the audience questions. Rather than just providing the listeners with facts on top of facts, this way of presenting her subject matter forced the audience to take short moments of silence and actually think deeply about the questions. For example, a time when this happened to me was when Raneta asked, “We’re often choosing by guessing, what would other people think about our choice?” I thought that the strategy behind this question and connecting it to always having our decisions needing to be socially acceptable was very clever.
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Discussion Post

1. Focusing on Renata Salecl’s TED Talk, I thought her initial introduction into her presentation about “Our Unhealthy Obsession with Choice” was captivating. By engaging the audience into her struggle with choosing a quote to introduce her presentation, already introduced her topic of conversation in such a relatable and understanding way. Elaborating on her own struggle with making a choice, she was then able to flow straight into her perspective on how choices bring about feelings of anxiety, guilt, and inadequacy if the “wrong choice” is made. I think it was interesting for Renata to lead with her own struggle with choice, as she exemplifies the negatives of human’s ideology of choice throughout her TED Talk. Providing scenarios, such as Manya and her car business, provide a real life scenario that any business owner or customer could place themselves into. The way she spoke about choice is linked to risk, and how taking a chance can be anxiety-provoking, had me, an audience member, consider some of the risks and choices or chances I have taken and I further asked myself why I took them. But I eventually went even further to then ask myself how I really felt when making those decisions and hr descriptions of fear and anxiety resonated with me, because I could clearly remember bearing those feelings. 
2. Focusing on Margaret Heffernan’s TED Talk about “The Human Skills We Need in an Unpredictable World”, I found that the evidence she used to be rather interesting. Her argument, about the world dealing with the unpredictable, was a conversation that I was initially drawn to, as this was something I had never really thought about when considering the efficiency of businesses and what they aim to predict. In her argument, I think that the evidence she used was rather compelling. Using CEPI, she exclaims how there is a prediction for future epidemics, but how does one prepare for the right one? Looking at reality as seeing the pandemic we are currently still trying to manage, I don’t think any human could have accurately predicted how detrimental this would be, as coronavirus has effected the entire globe. Turning her topic towards climate change, she then examines how certainly there are countries who are trying to combat this change within their territories but how can one predict that their change will in turn be enough to aid in the halting of climate change. Using other examples of country’s initiatives such as the Netherlands and England show that there is some means to actually experiment and test a hypothesis instead of computer analyzing what could possibly occur. This growing use of technology may have his benefits, but Margaret questions the ability for technology to always have the answer. 

 

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Unit 1 Assignment – Dominique

Although we have read about diversity in abilities, we have not read an article specifically targeted at schools. This topic is important to me because my major is inclusive elementary and special education teaching, so it is important for me to understand diversity in the classroom. I believe that this topic is essential for everyone to understand because differences should be accepted and valued in society. In order to expand the canon, I decided to include an article about neurodiversity in the classroom called “Valuing Differences: Neurodiversity in the Classroom” which was published by Phi Delta Kappa International, an organization for educators. This article was written by Barb Rentenbach, Lois Prislovsky and Rachael Gabriel who wrote about their experiences as students and educators. This article is different from the others that we have read because the authors have disabilities, so they are writing using their experiences as people in the neurodiverse community. In this article, the authors list different ways that teachers can help students who have disabilities to succeed. The purpose of this article is to inform educators, and other people who work with those who have disabilities, and also to show them that there are things you can do to help your student or coworker succeed. In the beginning of the article, the authors explain neurodiversity. The rest of the article is broken down into three sections (Autism, ADHD, and Dyslexia). In each section, the authors list practical implications and explain what these implications mean, and how to use them. The reason that someone may need to apply these things is because they want their students or coworkers who have disabilities to feel valued. Some people may believe that the best way to help people who have disabilities is to “fix” or “cure” them. However, people who are neurodiverse need to know that they are valued, accepted. They also may need accommodations that will allow them to succeed. All students should feel welcome and respected in the classroom, and this article explains exactly how to do that. In order to support what I have said, and learn more about neurodiversity, I have decided to include a YouTube video in my post. This video is by a woman named Amythest Schaber who has autism, and her thoughts on neurodiversity. Schaber says, “To put it simply, neurodiversity states that everybody on the planet has a different brain and that’s ok”. I like this video because Schaber has autism, so she has experienced some of the hardships that people with disabilities go through when others do not accept them. The purpose of this video is for Schaber to raise awareness, and offer advice based on her experiences. This video relates to the article that I chose because it gives a little background by explaining neurodiversity, and the movement that goes along with it.

Link to article: https://www-jstor-org.libezproxy2.syr.edu/stable/pdf/26388229.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A6ff9e5192877af6900911459ca04e5c9

Citations

Rentenbach, B., Prislovsky, L., & Gabriel, R. (2017). Valuing Diversity: Neurodiversity in the Classroom. Retrieved June 11, 2020, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/26388229

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Dan Expanding canon draft

“Bridging the generational gap in the workplace: How I learned to stop worrying and love working with the millennial generation” is an article written by Dr. Thanakorn Jiresevijinda at Cornell university. It was written for the Journal of communication in healthcare and published by Taylor & Francis group.

In Dr. Thanakorn’s 20 years of supervising medical students, he has received an unsettling and growing amount of complaints about the millennial generation. One could easily draw a conclusion that there exists a disconnect between Gen X and Gen Y.  This problem encouraged him to explore new ways to create a more integrated work force that understands and accepts each other regardless of age difference. The purpose of his article is to offer the methods that he found to be helpful through his exploration.

He admits in the article that he too has experienced frustration while educating the students from the younger generation. By stating this he levels the playing field as he explains that he understands the discontent that his colleagues have with Gen Y. He then continues his article by citing a sentence in a piece written by the prominent figure Chelsea Clinton. Her statement suggested that millennials are often portrayed as disinterested and selfish individuals, though the millennials that she has worked with do not fit that stereotype. He included this quote as it attests to the fact that the Millennial generation tends to have a bad reputation. This also helps persuade the audience to be more accepting of his suggestions as he shares a similar perspective with an influential figure. The author also builds up his argument by sharing his own personal experiences. Dr. Thanakorn speaks from both his experiences at work and the conversations he has had with his coworkers. Some of their frustration with the millennial group stemmed from increased technology use; different communication preferences; the students craving for feedback; and their preferred work like balance, which can be misconstrued as students being disinterested in learning. He was then able to identify positive traits from Gen Y and craft methods to remedy these problems.

One of the suggestions was to focus on inclusiveness. He understands that in a social media driven world, millennials need to feel that their voice is heard. This has led him to listen more closely to his students without judgement and help them by asking pointed questions. He also allows them to work in groups as they often thrive better through student collaboration. Pre-class quizzes are given to ensure that everyone is engaged and keeping up with the pace of the class as a whole. His second suggestion is that we must leverage social consciousness. The millennial generation is one that truly values having a positive impact on the world. They tend to be more accepting of diversity and progressive change. This observation led him to see the importance of framing the knowledge he gives his students in such a way that they can see the importance it has on improving society. He keeps this importance in the minds of the students by having them sign up for community service. The students worked alongside the professors and another medical organization to offer a free clinic for refugees seeking asylum in the United States. His last suggestion is to include more technology in the curriculum. One way he suggested doing this is by incorporating fun and engaging games such as jeopardy to keep his students involved. He also finds it useful to use a smartphone app that is an audience-response system. I found this interesting as the students must stay engaged in the class because the context of the class is literally on their phones on which they must participate.

I find this text to be an important contribution to expanding our canon as every single sustainable organization will always be multigenerational. Though this is not often the first thing that comes to mind when we hear the term diversity, people in different generations have vastly different life experiences and are indeed quite diverse. Rapidly accelerating technological advances; Unforeseen world events; and new global challenges are among the most impactful factors that affect the overall behavior of a generation. It is paramount that we learn to come together to create a synergistic environment at work. This can only be done by valuing each other’s differences. I found Dr. Thanakorns work to contain the wisdom that is crucial to solving our intergenerational struggles.

 

Link to the article

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17538068.2018.1485830

Ted Talk to further explore intergenerational diversity in the workplace

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Week of 6/8 – Discussion

1. The most engaging approach I found this week came from Jason Freid. Throughout his presentation he gave a very logistical and linear narration on why work doesn’t (always) happen at work. He begins with a line of credibility addressing an ongoing and relatable question he’s been asking everyday people for ten years. Prompting those in the audience to speculate where they go to ‘get work done,’ Fried draws out that they seldom say the office. He gives support to why this is never the case listing reasons whilst drawing comparisons and adding a bit of comical charm to his argument. The examples he gives, such as comparing sleep with work, helps explain how the two processes are interrelated and that in order to achieve its fullest potential, they require uninterrupted. Managers and meetings, or “M&M’s” as he jokingly calls it, are directly apart of the issue. These anecdotal scenarios go further serving as statistical tradeoffs when he makes the point that a manager’s meeting with ten employers doesn’t consume an hour of time, but rather ten hours of productivity. What I found interesting was his ability to reason or look at things in an alternative way. Explicit about being manager himself, Fried furthers his connection with the audience making them feel as if he is on ‘their’ side. He offers a point of reason appealing to listeners who may not have looked at it that way in the past. Finally, he rounds out his argument debunking beliefs of those opposed to alternatives at the office by adding recommendations from whats worked based on his own and many other company experiences

3. For this discussion I wanted to continue elaborating on Jason Fried’s argument. For starters its necessary to understand Fried’s perspective which is based around developing and reframing the nature of work with practical tools and collaborative platforms. As an entrepreneur he continuously looks for growth thus requiring him to be relatable across broad audiences. He has co-authored publications and found companies that focused on productivity. Knowing this we’re able to relate his background with the larger body of knowledge around organizational culture. From our class readings we’ve begun to understand how diversity and inclusion policies can influence the perception of its employees especially with minority groups. Similar discussions included embracing those less well known such as neurodiverse and disabled populations. Rethinking the levels of systems Kaplan and Donovan describe coincides with the theme Fried is trying to address in his TedTalk. Where I see Fried’s message fit is in between the category of an organizational and individual level. His approach to reworking the systematic organizations we have today, such as those in greater leadership positions (i.e. managers),  is key to fostering an environment that has better lines of communication and productivity amongst its employees. By reducing distractions taken from trivial matters (i.e. meetings), Fried is empowering individuals to have more time to focus on themselves which in turn can have positive effects on the overall pool of sustaining diversity. The point I want to make is that his talk reinforces the idea that ones actions have running impacts and feedback loops to many issues at large.

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Summary week 6/1

Delving deeper into the lasting effects of stereotype threat, authors of the article “Contending with Stereotype Threat at Work: A Model of Long-Term Responses” focus on demographics such as women and people of color being misrepresented in the general workplace. With little research conducted on the long-term effects of stereotype threats, specifically to women and minorities, using intellectual theories the authors collaborate to discuss what some of the long-term effects of this threat could potentially be. This “model” they develop takes into account theories stemming from social, organizational, and counseling psychology. With additional evidence from short-term studies aimed to provide results on stereotype threat, the authors are able to predict the outcome if the data were to continue onward, marking evidence of long-term effects. Examining the positive and negative outcomes further allow this model to be rather subjective towards the idea that there are certainly some consequences to this threat being perceived the general workplace.
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DRAFT – Expanding the Canon, Unit 1, Toni

To begin my research on the how the social mission of Ben & Jerry’s has survived and lives in their workforce, I have had trouble finding scholarly articles that delineate this aspect of the business.  There are a lot of scholarly articles that speak about some of the challenges Ben & Jerry’s have had, but no conclusive scholarly articles, currently, about their successes, despite their earlier difficulties.

For the sake of finally getting something posted I went with this article, which  has good introductory information but I am aware the source is not strong enough. Alas…

Matthew Lam, a writer and intern at Cornell SC Johnson College of business, who writes for the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise News, presents Ben & Jerry’s as a company that is committed to it’s cause: valuing social justice and remaining unabashedly progressive in their politics. Ben & Jerry’s has a three-part mission, which aims to create linked prosperity for everyone that’s connected to their business and as Lam discovers, their three prongs of their  mission are lined up next to one another in the company graphic; with the belief that displaying them in another way would lead employees to subconsciously rank them in importance. Through speaking with Rob Michalak, Global Director of Social Mission @benandjerrys, Lam learns that Ben & Jerry’s makes deliberate and tangible choices, incentivizing suppliers to make more environmentally sustainable and animal-friendly choices, and was one of the first companies to pay a living wage, now boasting one of the lowest wage compression ratios its workforce in the country. Even though Ben & Jerry’s was acquired by a multinational consumer goods giant in 2000, this atypical acquisition provided for an independent board of directors composed of Ben & Jerry’s original leadership, and experts in the fields of environmental sustainability, human rights, and other social issues. Ben & Jerry’s employees remain just as enthusiastic about their ice cream as they are about progressive political and social causes, and as a so-called “activist company,” Ben & Jerry’s leadership and culture, the holistic choices it has made, and the socially responsible reputation it has built, is not just PR it’s Philanthropy.

Ben & Jerry’s: Committed to the cause