Tag: isaac

1. Cori Wong makes a really important stance in the ongoing organizational culture reform; Equality is not going to fix all our issues. For thousands of years, the oppressed minority groups of our population have received inequality and profiling nonexclusive to organizational culture. To combat this, on a moral viewpoint, equality will not make everyone satisfied, or make everything fair. There are several good quotes from Wong’s article that precisely tell the reader why this is true, and what really needs to be done. In pages 2 and 3 of the article, equity is contrasted with equality, and it helps solidify the argument that the answer isn’t a flat, fair playing field, but rather one that adapts to people’s needs. Especially when there is prejudice and hate involved. Racial and gender bias is a huge epidemic in our lives and social culture, for organizations to say “to make things look better we will finally give you what you deserve” is not helping the minority groups, it is pushing the problem under the rug. In order to have an effective change in the treatment of these subgroups, we must listen to their needs and address and understand them as if they were our own. These groups have a completely different perspective on life and issues because the majority population continually told them they are different, wrong, and unwanted. It is the organization’s job to reverse those preconceptions that we place on them, and that doesn’t mean to just stop putting them in the disadvantaged position. Rather,  we need to help them get into the advantaged seat.
2. Throughout Wong’s article, there are dozens of examples of smooth connections using transition words and phrases. Organizational culture is a complex topic, and addressing its issues creates many subtopics within itself. Wongs ability to move from one topic to another in a coherent and smooth manner helps the reader comprehend it better. “Our differences are inherent to our experience as human beings,”(Wong, page 3) this sentence may be considered a filler sentence, but it actually does more than that. It is the first sentence in the concluding paragraph of a section, but it refers back to the previous section involving the metaphor using a group of runners as an example of how equality is not the answer to inequality. Wong starts the conclusion of one section with a connection to the previous section, thus connecting the sections as a whole and how their main ideas are based on the same mindset.

1. To find the scholarly sources, I’ve used the SU library database primarily. I’ve noticed that when searching for articles its best to use unique describing words to find a specific subject, my searches typically bring up 10,000 or more articles, and that’s with 5-6 keywords. When searching with less than that I got results that varied much farther out of my topic, and it was much harder to search through the list to find ones that pertain to my subject. My major at SU is Fashion design, and I have only written three essays that have needed scholarly sources. So, in general, I’m not that experienced in the art of critical research, I haven’t run into any roadblocks when researching, and recently have found some great articles for our canon.
2. My research has landed me on the subject of the diversity and profiling of children in the education system. The recent article I used was written by four early childhood professors, and addressed this issue and collected data from studies involving student teachers learning to form connections with their students and learning how to form equity in the classroom. Their insights were very informative and introduced me more to what the current education majors in college need to focus on when they start their professional careers. I’d like to find an article that a current teacher who teaches ages 6-12 has written and addresses the disadvantages the children face because of a physical or social difference from their classmates. This issue usually is too complex for the children to give an appropriate response to, so I hope to find an article that addresses the teacher’s role in the classroom and with their fellow teachers and how they work towards a level playing field for all students. Issues, in public schools especially, can range from racial, gender, and sexuality bias, as well as a child’s social class and physical appearance. These issues may not all align in a single article, so I plan on widening my search to books and journals, as well as multiple articles that could focus more on one specific issue rather than all or most of them.

1. While reading the posts from my classmates I began realizing a pattern in what is taking place in our world. The population of the world is continuously growing exponentially, and where there was once a large barrier separating our world there is now connectivity that engages everyone into the global network. Through solid research, there is an endless list of minority groups and subgroups who face serious disadvantges in all aspects of life. The ideology behind a homogenous world can not work with such a connected population, and where there was once separation between cities and countries there is now a thorough mix of personalities and people spread around the world. 

I found myself struggling with pulling certain quotes or passages that align with many others, because everyone has found a new dark corner that needs attention. It seems like our world strives for the future but we are forgetting about who we may be leaving in the past. The disadvantaged groups such as women, people of color, neurodiverse individuals, and the LGBTQ+ community have struggled for centuries for an equal opportunity in life. The role that social media and the internet has played in connecting people with their minority groups and forming communities has been crucial, and the tools have given people who are born into a life of struggle a helping hand in a difficult world.

This class discussion has enabled me to peek behind the curtain of many industries I’m not fully engaged in, although most have the same underlying issue of the outdated organizational culture. The bar graph that reflects the racial proportions of the students in a school district and in the Gifted and Talented Education Program helps the reader visualize how much a person’s physical appearance can affect their lives. I found this post the most engaging because of how important the life of a child is; it is the time in a persons life where they learn what it means to be a person in our society, and to give a child a skewed perspective of our world can seriously hinder their chances at a successful life.

3. The first rhetorical move I picked up on in Ian Bogost’s article was the writing style that uses smaller paragraphs to organize the information as it descends toward the conclusion.  This style of writing allows a reader to skim the article over with ease, and is a more practical set up for displaying the information. 

“But that’s an aspirational hope. Tech-industry diversity is improving, but it’s still pretty terrible. Women, black, and Latinx representation is particularly poor. That makes diversity a necessary but insufficient solution to social equity in computing systems.” 

This paragraphs only goal was to act as a transition between two longer informative paragraphs. It acts as a cushion between the two, and is made up of conclusion statements for the previous paragraph and introductory statements to open the reader up to what is next. Bogost uses this same method on a smaller scale as well. When two paragraphs involve each other they don’t need a transition paragraph, but they use a concluding/introductory statement or two at the beginning of the second paragraph. This is roughly the same idea as a transition paragraph just on a smaller scale. 

The introductory paragraph to Ian Bogost’s article “The Problem with Diversity in Computing” exemplifies the story of an injured Amy Webb and features her firsthand experience facing the ignorance of computer software. This is the first rhetorical move Bogost makes, and it introduces an issue the majority of people don’t have to worry about, but should care about. People of color, especially black and Latinx, and women face an inclusion problem that can have severe consequences when computer software is relied on in countless fields.

“Among them is the Constellations Center for Equity in Computing at Georgia Tech, where I hold faculty positions in the colleges of computing and liberal arts,” Bogost states his position at Georgia Tech to inform the reader of his legitimacy of the information he is sharing. Following this quote, Bogost expands on how the computer-science center at Georgia Tech is working towards expanding access to computer-science to people of color and women, and their ongoing funding going to public schools in Atlanta for computer-science classes. 

The use of survey data is used to solidify key examples of Bogost’s argument. He addresses Google’s workforce which is made up of 95% White or Asian people, this fact adds to the idea that systemic privilege prevents minorities from being given the same opportunities in the computing industry. Data collected from China is used as well, “There, kindergarten-age students nationwide will begin studying a textbook this year that’s designed to teach students the new basics of knowledge they need to succeed in a computational future,”. The addition of this fact is used to inform the reader on steps that are already being taken to improve computational skills elsewhere in the world. China makes up roughly 18% of the global population and is a leading country in the computer-science industry, the steps they are taking education-wise are important to know because of how large of an impact China can have on our world. 

In Ian Bogost’s article, quotes from his colleagues are used to develop an emotional aspect that is less informative, and more compassionate.“The integration of women, people of color, and other underrepresented voices would mean that the behavior of the entire industry would change as a result of their presence in that community. ‘Diversity is just membership,’ Isbell said. ‘Integration is influence, power, and partnership.’” The quote opens the reader up to a new definition of diversity, where organizations in our current culture are obligated to diversify their workforce, although many are reluctant to fully integrate the minority groups because of the prejudices they have towards them.

The last statement made in Ian Bogost’s article provides the reader with an idea where deeper thinking is necessary. “That culture replaces all knowledge and interests with the pursuit of technological solutions at maximum speed. “Anyone who falls outside of that core group of interests are not being represented,” Webb said. If she’s right, then the problem with computing isn’t just that it doesn’t represent a diverse public’s needs. Instead, the problem with computing is computing.” The quote follows a series of paragraphs addressing the economic mentality of many of the large companies that run our computing world. In the post-industrial capitalist world, we tend to forget about the moral codes we stand by personally, and to combat the ongoing inclusion issues in the computing industry, we must stop computing for computing’s sake, and start computing for our fellow human’s sake.

1. The presentation Margaret Heffernan gave felt very passionate, her use of strong phrasing and deliberate personal connections helped solidify her point of view and she was able to deliver quite a powerful TEDtalk about a topic I had yet to fully address. Humans worldwide are racing toward the future, although no one can really predict what we are racing to. Heffernan uses experiments conducted in nursing homes, supermarkets, and professional sports teams that provide solid evidence for the ideology that efficiency has become more dangerous than prosperous as we keep pushing ourselves toward the future. Many of the statements made by Heffernan resonated with me, including “What all of these technologies attempt to do is to force-fit a standardized model of a predictable reality onto a world that is infinitely surprising. What gets left out? Anything that can’t be measured — which is just about everything that counts.” Humans can use technology to make many advancements for our race, although when we start to place our own future into the hands of technology to lead us we are giving up the idea that humans and our lives are naturally unpredictable. I believe the statement resonated with the whole audience since it received an applause; it addresses human lives as being the center of attention as they should be, and something our capitalist world isn’t good at doing at all. With all the emotion flowing through the 8 billion people on this planet we must focus on creating a welcoming future, rather than creating the first future we can get to.
2. Jason Fried’s approach to the idea of reforming the standard business office system is fueled with the idea that while we are working with efficiency in mind many businesses could be unknowingly slowing down productivity because of interruptions that only occur in the office. He speaks to the audience with a tone of someone who has been in the unproductive office setting that many know, and by listing examples of everyday occurrences he changes the perspective on what is actually helping people work and what only looks like it is helping people work. Fried talks about the question he has asked many people, “where do you go when you really need to get something done?” The answers vary, but all stray from the office; typically, individuals work the most efficiently when they are alone. This idea is completely offensive to the way offices work, they’re designed to be an open environment that is meant to make an organization operate together without physical boundaries separating the workforce, Fried makes this very evident in his statements. Using words like “toxic” and “poisonous” to describe a meeting, but when he breaks his opinion down into the fact that a one-hour meeting with 10 individuals is actually a 10-hour meeting, you can see how his perspective has solid points. When standards are put in place and enforced by a manager, you take away the control someone has on their specific task, forcing a team to stop what they are doing and turn their attention to a meeting only one person has on their mind can completely wipe away the deep workflow people find themselves in when they are left alone.

1. While reading the assigned articles for this class I’ve noticed the main piece of information we are not focusing on is the true perspective from people in minority groups in an organizational culture. Most of the articles address minorities and subgroups that are excluded in some way, although none of the articles actually come from these subgroups. I believe our canon needs a source of information that is less about who and what these subgroups and are more about the perspective from these groups and what they believe is necessary. Using the SU Library and typical research practices I plan on finding an article from that disadvantageous side of the same central topic: How inclusion and diversity are necessary for an organization. I have not started my search yet, but an article written by someone who is part of a minority group facing challenges will stand out to me more since they have firsthand knowledge of how the issue can have negative effects on the people and the organization.

3.   In the article “The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off” there is a central example situation that the authors configured to help the reader comprehend their key points and how small variations can bring a larger impact than what is intended. The project that Kaplan and Donovan address is the importance of inclusion and diversity in a work environment, but it gets more complex than that. The standard level of inclusion and diversity is shared by the majority of organizational cultures; everyone with the qualifications should have an equal opportunity and prejudice in the workplace should be combated. Even though this statement is correct, there is a much deeper side to the idea of inclusion and diversity. The amount of actual focus that is given to this matter can be quite low, and the unconscious bias that takes place typically goes unspoken because the majority of workers are included. The articles main purpose is not to tell you why diversity is important, but to share with you the simple mistakes that go unnoticed that can have a devastating impact on the morale and performance of a company.

When it comes to diversity and inclusion in an organizational culture everybody intends to Have a positive and healthy workplace. The article ‘The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off’ uses a highly realistic fictional story to convey the difference between somethings intention and the actual impact. An example-manager the authors named Kim worked her way through a typical busy day and included how her actions and words can have a larger impact when you take a second glance. The article’s key points include unconscious bias that occurs in most decision-making settings, as well as the systematic levels and insider-outsider dynamics that form in every organizational culture. These are consequences that are formed when aspects of a culture don’t receive enough attention. For an organization to have a fully equal workplace the executives and staff must turn their focus to themselves and the people around them rather than just the company.

The article “Why Diversity Matters” highlighted the inequality that has plagued the human race for thousands of years. Since industrialization, the world has only seen the recent few decades where women and people of color are given an equal chance in the workplace, although we are far from a world filled with racial tension we have made large strides in the direction of a true blended diversity rather than the segmented groups we still must deal with today. The standards and stereotypes that have been assigned to women and people of color have become a generational problem, where the belief in a monochromatic workforce outways the idea of letting a new perspective be apart of the organization.  There’s no question that the color of your skin plays a crucial part in your perspective of our world today, to diminish a perspective that can shed light on the opposing side of the same goal is exactly what the article is proving to be the inefficient, wrong move for an organization. Racial/gender bias is developed from a mind closed to new ideas, for any type of organization to maintain a forward-thinking initiative the doors must open to the same caliber as they would for any human, regardless of the visual characteristics that segment our population today.

Cultures are formed around sets of ideas and moral codes. When an outsider enters a culture they bring their own ideology and morals, but to fully immerse yourself you and the people who make up the culture must agree and disagree together to form a community around the unique ideology you are creating and evolving. The quote from Bruce Perron stated “Organizational culture defines a jointly shared description of an organization from within.” The organizational culture is a shared collective, without everyone’s perspectives pointed toward the same direction and proper discourse the culture can not survive at its fullest potential. The author of the article, Michael Watkins, elaborated on this idea by bringing up sense-making, and states “a shared awareness and understanding out of different individuals,”. Whether there are more disagreements than agreements, the main goal of an organizational culture is to bring people together to create a shared mindset of how the organization will operate. Therefore, the culture can not be stagnant, the world is not perfect and clashing ideas are a necessary part for an organization to grow. The people that are a part of an organizational culture can have differing perspectives, although, for the culture to thrive they have they must share the same goals and beliefs for the organization.