- The article I chose to focus on is the article titled ““How to create a culture manifesto for your organization (and why its a good idea).” The author does a great job at conveying her message to the reader. With the use of subheadings, West is able to highlight key companies that had mission statements, but would not necessarily follow them. West begins by explaining how mission statements have been guiding non-profit organizations for a while now. However, instead of focusing on internal ways of working, they often focus on the. external goals. A manifesto is meant to create a a better working environment and create a place where everyone is equal and no one is discriminated against. This article is really informative and people who are in a position of power in the workplace, as well as people who work everyday, will benefit from reading this article. The questions she raises under the subheading “how to create a manifesto,” are questions everyone should ask themselves when going into work. This article is a great addition to the conversation on organizational culture. West does a great job at using certain strategies to appeal to certain audiences to convey her point of view.
- For my own research piece, I would like to continue my conversation on the screening process in schools by creating a news article. Websites and news articles, along with scholarly articles, have been at the forefront of my research. I found the most information there and I am going to continue to use those to show why diversity and inclusion is so important in education. I’m going to continue to look at scholarly articles done by professionals in the field as well as websites and news sources as a. format for my own research piece. I feel that there are many audiences that can benefit from this kind of writing. First and foremost students and parents who are going through this process and experiencing some kind of discrimination. In addition, faculty and staff at schools who are the ones admitting and declining students. The News article would be a good way to get this information across because it would be easy to read, yet still showing the importance and the problem with screening. I can incorporate quotes from some of the research I have done before and even add pictures that can be relevant to the topic.
Discussion Week of 7/20
- In the article “How to create a culture manifesto for your organization (and why its a good idea)” the author processes what she has learned by breaking down the article into subtopics of three companies, and ending with how the readers themselves can create their own humanifesto. The targeted group would be those entering the workforce or those who are starting up companies. The author utilizes smaller paragraphs that are easy to read while writing in a format that is more conversational. This information is more usable for readers as it is easy to find what they are looking for, and quick to understand. I believe the author writes the article in this way in order to keep the attention of the reader, while also using well known companies as examples to have the reader relate to the article. I believe the author also wrote in this format to relay themselves as a friend giving advice, as the author relays specific examples but not quoted and ending off with what the reader can do to create their own. By ending with how to create your own, it makes the reader feel as though they are talking to the author in person, while the author makes it clear to the reader that they are important in the article. For this audience, I feel as though this is the most effective way to engage them and create a compelling article.
- For my writing, I want my purpose to be a call to action for those who are entering the work force, which is the reader I would want to engage with. The kinds of texts this sort of reader would be likely to engage with are first hand accounts from those with disabilities and information from studies. I see them getting this information on blogs, buzzed or other social media outlets. My readers would have a high expectation for level of detail, as providing the most information possible is something that attracts them. For writing style, they would tend to prefer a conversation style of writing as it feels more friendly and relatable. The length preferred of text would be short and to the point. Time spent read would be less than 5 minutes as it would coincide with the short and too the point method. Citation would be a nice flow in the sentence with an easy transition as it would make it easy to read. The types of evidence and sources would be credible and reliable as they make it easier to be reliable
Week of 7/20 Discussion
- In the article, “How to create a culture manifesto for your organization” the author speaks to the audience and provides knowledge on how to grow an organization and simple methods that can allow its mission to be effectively spread. She speaks to those with their own company or who have an idea that they wish to produce on a grand scale and catch the attention of others. She tries to persuade them into using some of the valued manifesto methods to share ideas and influence in an effective and friendly manner. In order to show the audience how beneficial this practice would be to each company she models some highly successful business that have used the technique and have reached the utmost success. She calls on companies such as etsy, warby parker and b corps which created a manifesto and were able to not only draw in numerous consumers but create a safe and compassionate environment for each employee. The author is very effective in showing the audience that any idea can be mass produced as long as it has the right environment and it’s marketed the correct way. By using this technique any company will be able to expand its ideas and establish a positive work culture.
- For my unit 2 assignment I did my research on the discrimination faced by school kids and workers in each environment and how bias and stereotypes can keep them from establishing successful lives. I presented some ideas on how to make environments more exclusive places and how many lives are truly disproportionally affected by discrimination. So many young kids are put through terrible education systems and are exempt from gifted programs because their teachers fail to see their potential and never push them forward. It is important to me that opportunities are created for minority students and that teachers are held accountable for racially profiling their students. So many schools and workplaces fail to set each individual apart and fail to see them for what they can bring to each environment. In my project I hope to spread awareness on the discrimination faced by each student and make it that no child is ever kept from receiving a proper education. I think that when trying to engage with the readers they would mostly connect to first hand accounts of kids dropping out of school due to discrimination or racially charged events. This type of request or statement would most likely be distributed on the pages or sites of companies and organizations that strive to make change for each minority. In order to truly attain the respect and sincerity of the readers it would have to be a well calculated and authoritative speech that would effectively attain the readers sympathy but also convey the message.
Week of 7/20 Discussion, Aaron
- In Mollie West’s article “How To Create a Culture Manifesto for Your Organization (And Why It’s a Good Idea)” she uses her introduction to talk about mission statements and what can be used to build a manifesto for your organization very clearly. From here she uses testimonials from a few different organizations (that we can identify because of their success and popularity). This makes it easy to have a concrete image in our head about these wildly successful companies building their manifestos around the values and views that their employees as a whole care about and strive for. The bullet points that West writes down, capturing the list of what the employees wrote down for what they wanted to outline their workplace culture is sufficient enough to make me feel like I was right there in the meeting room with all of those people while they took part in this exercise. The audience is anybody who is part of a company that is looking to develop their own cultural manifesto, as outlined in her last paragraph that gives us a road map to create this. I think this can be a very productive, healthy activity for businesses to work through.
- In my own research piece, I will be writing about implicit bias in the field of education. The types of sources I am relying on are book chapters from larger volumes dealing with diversity and inclusion, and studies that have been conducted by professors and psychologists. In the broader sense of my subject matter and what i think fellow readers of this topic would look to read, I would have to say they would key in on magazine articles (maybe educational journals and other teaching professional writings), newspaper articles dealing with teachers and their bias against minority students, and other studies that have been documented. Most (but not all) of the people who would be interested in reading this sort of thing are already involved in the fields of education and diversity studies, or are in the process of going into these fields. The studies tend to be a little longer than a normal article, but I think a good length for these readings would be between 5-20 pages in range.
Discussion – Week of 7/20
With “Shaping an Ethical Workplace Culture”, Steven Olson has written much more than an article. He has put together a handbook. Written for an audience of Human Resources professionals, “Shaping…” provides these professionals with a clear set of instructions for creating, maintaining and sustaining an ethical workplace culture.
I immediately noticed Olson’s frequent use of graphs, charts and other graphics. One of the things I was taught early in my career was that the higher up in the organization your audience is, the fewer words you should use to make. your point. PowerPoint decks which include graphs, charts, etc. which are well designed, requiring little explanation, are consistently proven to be most effective in driving the conversation, while still prompting the questions you’d expect to hear.
In this case, Olson isn’t going to be receiving real time feedback from his readers, but he is thinking of his audience when he includes those images. In so doing, he’s mitigating the risk of the reader only skimming the text, by re-phrasing it as a graph, chart or table.
I really enjoyed reading “Shaping…”. Olson inspires his readers by breaking what is admittedly a huge undertaking into manageable chunks. With the focus areas and steps clearly defined, HR professionals can take action armed with a proven method, and examples of other successful organizations to emulate.
I can’t believe I’m about to type this, but I think I’m going to create a PowerPoint presentation about the power of consumer activism. I tend to get a bit anxious when creating slides when I know they will be shared with executives, who are the audience I think I’d most like to address in this exercise. Given my topic, I want to use the data and learnings I’ve gathered in an attempt to influence corporate behavior.
Knowing my audience will be made up of executives, it’s best to keep the deck short. I’ll be lucky to get thirty minutes of their time. I’m thinking that ten slides should do the trick. The text and graphics on each slide should reinforce one another. Citing the resources via quote boxes, etc. should be particularly effective. The text can feature links to sources where appropriate, but I think adding an Appendix featuring a full list of citations would be best.
discussion 7/20, isaac
- The focus of the article “How To Create a Culture Manifesto for Your Organization (And Why It’s a Good Idea)” is clearly mentioned through the title. In this informative article, Molly West goes over examples of manifestos created for varying organizational cultures and goes over the positive role a manifesto can have in an organization. West introduces us to the topic with the realization that mission statements usually have nothing to do with the workforce behind the statement, and this helps the reader to make the inference that a companies plan should include the goals internally, not just on the exterior. There are no negatives affecting the persuasiveness of the article, making the idea of creating a culture manifesto seem like a no-brainer. Which, in fact, it is; the manifesto is purely meant to improve the environment and culture of an organization by creating a collection of shared beliefs throughout the workforce to help unify and boost morale in the employees. West’s perspective is that a culture manifesto is a necessary step in creating a positive organizational culture, rather than an extra step. After West went over the example organizations, she informs the reader on how to create their own culture manifesto. This section shows that a short list of questions and ideas, followed by a series of steps is all it takes to create a draft manifesto for an organization. The questions she uses and the conciseness she is able to describe the instructions with help solidify the idea that creating a culture manifesto is a simple, and very helpful addition to your organization’s culture.
2. Since the start of this research project, I have only read scholarly articles that range from nine to thirty pages in length. They are able to go into great detail and include experiments and studies that back up their research and analysis. At first, I thought this would be the best method for me to add my perspective to the conversation, although after developing a deeper sense of my topic I noticed I simply don’t have a strong enough grasp, or enough information to share to write a scholarly article. My main option now is to write an informative op-ed. It will be shorter compared to my sources, and can only feature quotes from peoples experiences and firsthand accounts, but it will have the same critical focus that my sources all had. Quotations from preservice teachers, early education teachers, and professors will be a main source of perspective on the complex issue, while the experiences of my close friends and my own will help me personalize papers attitude and stance.
I want to inform the misinformed and the uninformed, the ignorant, and the arrogant. Misinformation has become a tool of the powerful to create masses of uneducated followers. It has also become the effect of leaders and influencers of our culture being given undeserving power over the people. In hopes to bring harmony between people, I plan on writing my research paper as an opinionated article thats focus is on the removal of the discriminatory and unjust cycle that ethnically and racially diverse people are forced into; primarily the beginning of the cycle that takes place in the education system.
Discussion week of 7/20 – Samantha Danylchuk
- The article I chose to focus on for this week’s prompt is “How To Create a Culture Manifesto for Your Organization (And Why It’s a Good Idea).” The article starts off with the mention of mission statements, and until this read, I always thought mission statements were beneficial for a company. But I agree with the second sentence in that these mission statements focus on external goals and aim to draw the customers in, while not really considering the employees / internal ways of working. One statement that stood out to me in which Mollie West explained Creative Director Sally Clarke said was, “Clarke sums up the company’s culture as “the freedom to ‘keep it weird.’ I think that a company must be authentic and unique for it to be successful, so this saying is definitely an example of turning what they learned at Method’s team and making it actionable for the reader. The article goes on to explain Etsy’s values and principles, and I believe the format of bullet points additionally makes it interactive for the reader to follow the list. By using this writing strategy, the author makes it easy and clear for the reader to understand, especially because at times simplicity is more valuable than being too specific. I believe the target audience here is anyone involved in nonprofits, a social enterprise, or B Corps. This article contains so many great tips and helpful advice that any core team of a company may find useful in attracting its consumers with. Having examples such as in the second to last paragraph with including a list of questions and then having every person come up with a “headline phrase” is extremely effective for this particular audience because it showcases what companies can implement into a daily / weekly routine at work.
- For my project proposal, the sort of texts I am basing my work on are those of scholarly sources, websites, and data tables. I am discussing the diversity of the generational gap in the workplace for the purpose that I think this topic will be so beneficial to me in a few years. My readers will have the type of level of detail that explains the characteristics of the generations in the workplace now, but my work will not be too specific where the reader may easily find themselves lost in the material. I plan to take the research I’ve done to focus on topics besides the broader picture, such as professional women and their take on what work-life balance means based off what generation they’re in, the focus on the generational gap in the HR and talent management field, the hospitality industry, etc. I would describe the writing style of my readings to be informative, knowledge-based, and interactive. APA is my citation method, and the types of evidence/sources of my project proposal contains scholarly sources, online articles, and one Ted Talk.
Week of 7/20 Discussion Post – Dominique Van Gilst
- For my response to this question, I chose to focus on “Shaping and Ethical Workplace Culture” because of the way the authors present information in a way that will make it usable for the readers of the article. I believe that the intended audience of this article is anyone in the workplace. In this article, the authors process what they have learned and make it actionable to the reader by typing main ideas in green, including bullet points that help explain their claims in an understandable way, including graphs and charts, and adding examples. All of these things that are incorporated into the article allow the reader to easily find the purpose of this article, and make the information easy to understand so that the suggestions being made can be taken by the readers. For example, on the side of page 9, there is a block of green titled, “Hallmarks of an Ethical Workplace” with a bulleted list of things that make a workplace ethical. This allows the reader to get an idea of what an ethical workplace is supposed to be. This block of ideas is actionable because it says things like, “Employees feel empowered and energized to reach for ethical and technical excellence in serving customers, clients and each other” (p. 9). When an employee or leader looks at this bullet point, they can reach out to employees and/or take a look at what they are doing as a leader, and think about what they can do to make their employees feel empowered at work.
- Some of the options that I have begun to consider for my unit 3 assignment include:
- having parents/guardians be my target audience, explain to them what it means to be inclusive, and give them examples of the benefits of inclusive classrooms → the readers would probably engage with a presentation/essay the best, and would most likely expect a longer text with lots of detail and explanation, as well as examples.
- Having young students be my target audience, and find a way to explain inclusion and differences to them in a way that they can understand → the readers would likely engage with their teachers or parents through a story, powerpoint, song, etc. because it may help them understand the information better. The readers of this topic, since the target audience is young, may expect a short, colorful, and interactive source or presentation.
- Having teachers be my target audience, and give them suggestions/advice about how to successfully teach an inclusive classroom → the readers would likely engage with a presentation, essay, etc. The target audience may expect a longer essay with a lot of examples and evidence that proves the point being stated.
Discussion Posts Week of 7/13
- My linked article under “hold decision makers accountable” is all about how employer practices has a big effect on workplace inequality. It focuses on sensitivity and the article argues that women can evoke more sensitive behavior from others. So much so that men as well as women contribute to an increase in sensitivity in mixed gender interactions. One of the biggest problems facing organizations today according to the article is that there’s currently a lack of interpersonal sensitivity. This can be defined as the act of caring and respectful treatment towards others. Organizations don’t often help themselves when it comes to inequality. When determining pay, employers are the ones at the forefront of that and should be held accountable when there are situations where equal pay is not met. This connects to what Wynn is saying in her article titled “Individual Change Wont Create Gender Equality in Organizations.” She argues that there are many factors that go into this and many steps organizations can take to reduce the inequality that women are facing in the workplace. It is up to the higher ups and employers of these organizations to take the necessary steps to create a safe working environment for women, and less inequality all around.
- In the article, the authors are talking about the environment in the workplace initiated by the employers. I feel that first and foremost, the employers of these companies would benefit the most from reading this article seeing how some of them are the reasons for this inequality. In addition, I think that this article appeals to everyone who works and more specifically works with people of the opposite gender in groups. The article talks about sensitivity levels differentiating when in a group with people of the opposite gender. The researchers found that “the willingness to act with interpersonal sensitivity increased in interactions with women.” This is just an interesting fact that I feel people who work in groups would want to know about and read the rest of the article. This quote was in the first paragraph of the article.
Discussion Prompt Week of 7/13 – Samantha Danylchuk
- My linked article under “biases can infiltrate the process” is about the lack of women in tech. Along with Wynn, other researchers attended several introductory sessions a few years ago at West Coast University, and the observations were astronomical. These sessions provided women with uncomfortable settings, as the females received sexist jokes and imagery, geeky references, and a super competitive environment. Most women were seen setting up the venue with refreshments or raffling off tickets, while the actual presenters happened to be male. If a female engineer was invited by a company, she often did not speak or if she did, would get cut off. Wynn and a research partner Correll described “one session in which men asked 19 questions and women asked none.” This article is extremely valuable as it highlights the gender stereotype within the tech field, specifically among recruiters. For example, the article explains that “presenters often made comments that disparaged women or depicted them as sexualized objects rather than talented technical colleagues.” This Stanford research proves that first are impressions are essential in bringing success to a company, and in order to attract a more diverse workforce, companies must present themselves as diverse communities of professionals, which adds to Wynn’s larger article.
- I think “Why Are There Few Women in Tech? Watch a Recruiting Session” would be most beneficial to engineer recruiters of companies in the tech industry who host/attend these sessions. She talks a lot about recruiters and people within tech firms because that’s what the article focuses on, so they are meant to be the target audience. Broad and dramastic change, like having more women in tech, cannot happen through one individual person’s actions. A few sentences from this article that I believe would work well in capturing the point that is being made here for this group of readers is “Wynn says she has presented this research to recruiters and people within tech firms. ‘They’re astonished. They often just don’t know what’s going on in their recruiting sessions,’ she says. Another quote is “The paper also describes recruiters using gender stereotypes. One online gaming company showed a slide of a woman wearing a red, skin-tight dress and holding a burning poker card to represent its product. Another company, which makes software to help construct computer graphics, only showed pictures of men—astronauts, computer technicians, soldiers.” Creating a problem like this one and adding onto a stereotype that’s already existed for so long does not solve anything. Instead, it adds fuel to the fire and promotes this kind of humiliating representation of women in the workforce. Gender stereotypes are used so commonly now without the creators (in this case tech engineers) even recognizing them.