Social Media White Paper

Good afternoon class,
Here is the link to my social media white paper:
Alan Fairey Social Media White Paper
I hope everyone has a good weekend.

Alan

Communication Tip

One item that we discussed in class that was of particular interest to me was how to have more productive and efficient meetings.  All too often, I find myself dragged into meetings that seem to go on forever with no clear results at the close of the meeting.  We seem to have a difficult time of effectively communicating during meetings.  One very helpful tip that I found was simply put:  DON’T MEET.  The author went on to explain that we often call meetings for tasks that could be addressed with a quick email, phone call, or posting on the corporate intranet.  The key determinant as to whether or not you need a venue for one-way or two-way information sharing.  If only one-way communication is required in the situation, then a meeting probably isn’t needed.  I completely agree that many businesses seem to get “meeting happy” and schedule meetings for all sorts of issues that could be easily addressed via other means.  Going forward, I will try to encourage my co-workers to limit the number of meetings that we hold so that we can all make better use of our time.  The article goes on to give some great additional tips for meetings:

http://www.effectivemeetings.com/meetingbasics/6tips.asp

Communicating the Company's Vision

As most of you are aware, the US government is in a challenging financial situation at this time.  A majority of our income comes from government contracts so this state of affairs has the potential to adversely affect our bottom line.  We need to remain focused on creating high-quality products as we have always done but I am also asking you all to place a new emphasis on expense reduction.  As you complete your daily tasks at work, treat every dollar that needs to be spent as if it were your own money.  In  a sense, it really is your money as all of our employees are invested in the company through our profit sharing and employee savings plans.  There is no need for alarm as we are still in excellent financial standing as our stock price indicates.  We just need to be proactive in ensuring that we are all doing what we can to minimize unnecessary expenses.  I am confident that our organization will remain an industry leader for decades to come and I thank you all for your continued hard work towards our common goal of being the top aerospace producer in the world.

The State of My Company

• The primary market forces driving or threatening my company are government spending cuts and strong competition.  I work for an aerospace supplier who manufactures a lot of parts for the military and space programs.  With the recent uncertainty regarding the government’s budget, we are in limbo as to whether or not our contracts will be renewed.  We also face stiff competition from several competitors who try to undercut our bids.
• Our company’s mission is to create safe, quality products for the aerospace and industrial markets.
• The company communicates its mission to the workforce through a variety of methods.   They produce a lot of interactive computer based training courses with simulations and role playing exercises built in.  They also do the traditional mass emails and communicate through the company’s intranet page which every employee sees when they log into their computer.  Finally, management is good about verbally conveying the company’s message and clarifying any questions that employees have.
• In my opinion, the workforce is very enthusiastically engaged and committed to the company’s mission.  We have a great benefits and compensation structure and the company really does a good job of taking care of employees.  This shows as the workforce, as a whole, seems committed to helping the company excel.

Examples of Organizational Communication

Throughout my career I have seen many positive and negative examples of organizational communication.  The best example that I can think of is a recent one since I just started a new job.  The company is committed to safety and as a new hire I have taken live classes on safety, web-based training, and there are signs all around the building reminding employees to carefully assess the safety risks of any action that they might take.  My manager also has reviewed safety and emergency procedures with me on a one-on-one basis.   I think that by passing this message through multiple modes of communication and clearly describing how to prevent safety incidents, there is little chance that any employees will miss the point. 

The worst example that I can think of is from my military experience.  I can think of countless occasions when a new policy or procedure is announced only by sending out a mass email from headquarters.  Often the information is not clearly presented and the new policy usually generates numerous questions that are not answered in the email.  Supervisors are not given any advance notice or training on how to implement the policies so there is mass confusion.  I think it would be much more effective to have someone give a live or virtual class to supervisors so that they can teach their subordinates the new policy.  The class should have a question and answer session at the end so that the issues can be clarified.