A student of BA Organizational Communication in UP Manila is …

A student of BA Organizational Communication in UP Manila is …

• A student of BA Organizational Communication in UP Manila can be rarely seen studying and memorizing things.

• A student of BA Organizational Communication in UP Manila usually wear fashionable clothes and make-up at school, far from the popular image of a UP student who sports a “masa” look.

• A student of BA Organizational Communication in UP Manila is the perfect example of an individual who have colonial mentality because they usually converse in English.

• A student of BA Organizational Communication in UP Manila acts all superior especially if he/she is talking in a crowd.

• A student of BA Organizational Communication in UP Manila is very talkative and always makes noise in the hallways.

These are the usual things said by non-BA Organizational Communication students in UP Manila if ever they are asked about the type of students OrCom people are. A lot of OrCom people may already disagree about these things, yet a lot of students really do say these things about us.

But I myself agree to these things although I have an explanation of regarding these information.

• A student of BA Organizational Communication in UP Manila can be rarely seen studying and memorizing things.

We do memorize things on our minor subjects like Natural Science, Philosophy, History and other things. But on our major subjects, most of them requires us to use our brains more and analyze, create and explain theories for further situational applications in organizations. And some of our subjects require us more to use our speaking, writing and presenting skills rather than just memorizing data.

• A student of BA Organizational Communication in UP Manila usually wear fashionable clothes and make-up at school, far from the popular image of a UP student who sports a “masa” look.

Actually, not every OrCom people do this (I myself is an example) yet I have to agree that a number of OrCom people always dress up nicely and glamorously even if they just live on a dorm next to the school. The reason behind this is that we are taught in OrCom about “form and substance.” As UP students, not only should we have great ideas and vast knowledge but we should always have the proper attire to obtain respect and admiration from other people.

• A student of BA Organizational Communication in UP Manila is the perfect example of an individual who have colonial mentality because they usually converse in english.

We agree that a lot of OrCom students converse in english but I don’t think this is a manifestation that we have colonial mentality. We are just applying and practicing what we have learned in our classes, after all, our program is a communication course, right?! Besides, we are taught in BA Organizational Communication that in order to succeed in the globalized business world, being fluent in the English language can help us greatly in our careers.

• A student of BA Organizational Communication in UP Manila acts all superior especially if he/she is talking in a croud.

A public speaker should always exude confidence even if inside, you are already dying from nervousness. These are some of the things that we learned in OrCom. I do not think that we act superior,  it just seems that most of the time, we are confident in speaking in front. Most of our major subjects require us to speak with a crowd, be it a report, speech or debate. That’s why most of OrCom people already knows how to show confidence in speaking in front of a lot of people.

• A student of BA Organizational Communication in UP Manila is very talkative and always make noise in the hallways.

I don’t think I have a proper explanation for this… haha. joke. 😀

Actually because we are in a communication course, we have a tendency to talk, talk and talk. We like to discuss a lot of things, ranging from politics, fashion, communication, internet, people, you name it. We always want to voice out our opinion because we are taught in OrCom to properly socialize with people. We learned that although IQ is important, EQ is also a must. Being in OrCom is not only memorizing theories, it is also about managing, socializing and talking to the right people.

History of Communication videoblogs and some rantings related to them

Have you tried making a self-portrait in a big blank canvass where no themes or limitations are required?

I think that any normal person will be pressured about this because this task may require an individual to squeeze his/her brain for all the creative juices to come out, plus the subject would be very complicated knowing that it is but a self-reflection of one’s self and lastly it may be because of man’s nature to seek attention and recognition from other people.

THE PROCESS

And in our OC152 class, though we are not required to do a self-portrait, a videoblog led me and my groupmates to have a very horrendous fun experience related to this.

Immediately after I heard what the topic is, I really got scared excited yet nervous because this topic already has a lot of information available on the net (yey!). But this is also the reason why this topic can also be difficult. The information on the web regarding History of Communication are A LOT and considering that we should start from “Adam and Eve” until Social Media. WOW… imagine how many billions of years should we tell in only a three minute video. Plus the fact that we are given the freedom to present it in any way that we want.

And after a few school meetings, a sleepover at Teacher Belle’s house, a dozen of energy drink (Extra Joss, Cobra, you name it…. ewww) and spending the WHOLE day at MOMO, we finally made our video with the help of a trusty digicam, laptop cam and Youtube.

THE PRODUCT

Here is the product of our sweat, blood, tears and eyebags:

Our concept was to traditionally show the History of Communication, starting from the current to the prehistoric times. We also took into mind the word “videoblog” where we wanted our video to have a lot of personal touch, and so we watched Chris Tucker’s Leave Britney Alone video on Youtube to have fun at the sleepover to have a reference on how we can present an introduction on the video.

Although Sir Barry saw that what Sam did on the video was a bit exaggerated, we actually wanted that effect though the reaction to that is not what we expected, still I commend Sam’s make-up on the video her impromptu acting skills at MOMO 🙂

THE UNNECESSARY PARAGRAPH

And another thing, if you ever watched the video, I was the one who looked like an idiot squealing “change” and waving my hands around. I just think that I need to explain myself here…

Actually when we filmed everyone’s part, we are asked to say the whole line “…Because you, yes you… you can make it happen… change” They said that the word “change” was just a cue of some sort as a sign to cut the recording. So after I said my lines using a serious face, I ended it with a funny “change” because I thought that it will not be included. *sigh* I clearly was betrayed by my own groupmates.

THE BETRAYAL

Anyway, back to the videoblogs in class, after I watched all the videos, I could say that my favorite was the video of Kath’s group (sorry groupmates! Im just being honest!) because I love the funny and cute animations plus it was very clear on how they presented it. Added to it was the nice background sound that they have chosen and the presentation of dates in the video.

THE ONLY PART RELATED TO THE CLASS DISCUSSION

That Saturday, after the videos have presented, the Conversation Prism was also presented to us. It looks very complicated when I saw it at first but it just basically talks about the different “tribes” of the netizens around the globe. Listing there almost all the top websites with its different purposes.

I think the main function of this prism is how it shows the Organizational Communication people like us that if ever we want to use social media as a venue for marketing, we should also realize the variety of people on the web with different interests.

When an OrCom person uses the internet to tap its targeted audience, we should not think that logging on the web and using blogs and forums is enough, there are still sub-divisions or tribes with different interests made for different purposes. So with these different tribes also comes different methods on how to properly approach them using the OrCom way.

I think the line “different strokes for different folks” is the best saying fit for this realization.

Wikinomics and the Wall

I never imagined that after spending more than 3 years in the respectable University of the Philippines Manila, me and my SENIOR classmates can still act childish and can go ballistic over a class activity. I guess it just showed how energetic and competitive our batch really is.

I remember July 4, 2009 we had a quiz regarding Wikinomics, I think I was also late in coming to class at that time because I spent the whole night reading the Wikinomics photocopy thinking that we will have a very difficult quiz. Yet to my horror delight we were only asked to do an activity that gave me a temporary hearing loss, a sore throat and an abused feet. But it was all worth-it because I do remember our team winning the activity. (yey!)

After the nostalgic activity (because it reminded me of my high school days where students would go crazy just to get the teacher’s attention during recitation) we then proceeded with a discussion regarding the topic of Wikinomics.

When I first heard of the word Wikinomics, I thought it was something related to the economic implication of Wikipedia or something. Although Wikinomics may be related to that, I learned that this concept is much broader and meaningful.

Though our readings in this topic has a lot of pages with hundreds of paragraphs, my understanding of the concept is that Wikinomics is simply about collaboration of different individuals to create something and make it significant for themselves and for others as well. Although this is a lose definition of it, that is what I basically understood about it.

Under the topic of Wikinomics, the market place has been mentioned along with consumers, producers and products. As I remember about the discussions, our professor said that Wikinomics is the new way of creating a new product by a company using other sectors to help in collaborating and developing it for a better output for the customers.

As an aspiring marketing professional, I found all these information very useful because it explains the status quo in the market place and our discussion also focused on the “wall” between the producer and the consumer.

This “wall” that was discussed is like the invisible barrier that separates the opinion of the producer on the things that they would make for the consumer and the feedback of consumer regarding the producers’ products.

In the near future, when I am at my own office surrounded by my constituents employees and collegueas as a marketing person, I would keep in mind about this barrier and would try to reach out to my consumers using Wikinomics to successfully create products that would focus, not only on what my company would want to sell but what our consumers would like to buy from us.

The long wait is over…

After two weeks of not updating my communication blog, I finally hit my head on a concrete wall, got dizzy and accidentally fell on a manhole…

Just kidding, actually it took my professor’s mentioning of my name in class for me to realize how irresponsible I had become in neglecting this blog. So after a little hiatus, I will do my best to forever update this blog ontime… *shudders*

And now I will do a bit of travel back in time – on June 27, 2009 to be exact – where we discussed the Communication Evolution with the BIS acronym.

B – broadcast

I – interactive

S – social media

I need not explain what these three models are because there will be a lot of websites that may explain these things in a more elaborate and clear manner, yet I will just share my insights regarding these things. (let’s just pretend that my insights may play a significant role in unlacking mysteries of the communication models, so the subsequent paragraphs are necessary..haha).

As I remember from our discussion, the broadcast model is just about listening to the company and being a passive audience, and compared to Social Media and Interactive model, the first one clearly shows how gullible the audience are.

Broadcast model also shows how powerful advertisers and companies are in manipulating the public into thinking that using a toothpaste will make a person meet his/her soulmate or drinking an energy drink will make a guy miraculously grow big-hard-greasy-yucky-oily-muscles.

If I compare broadcast to interactive and social media, I would think that the latter are better because they show how feedback and interaction goes. The people get to talk with one another, opinions are shared and deception in products are revealed.

Yet the broadcast model with all its deceiving advertisers and marketers (and I see myself as one in the future..haha) is still the most influential to the people compared to the two. Because although people log on to the internet, TV and newspaper is still the best place where we are irritatingly bombarded with different advertisements and shows.

Sure, we spend a lot of time on the internet, but that is not usually spent looking at forums talking about products and company websites, we go to the internet to entertain ourselves without the distraction of advertisements. Maybe that is why companies still pool in a lot of money in TV commercials, though they are aware of the power of the internet, they know that once a TV ad is repeatedly played in your favorite show, you cannot escape it. But on the cyberworld, just not clicking a banner will save you from that annoying ad.

But, I also have this feeling that soon, TV would only be a secondary source of entertainment and would be replaced by the internet with websites like Youtube as its ally. As a youtube addict myself, my interest in TV has disappeared. If I need current events, there is yahoo news, not only local stories but international as well. If need music videos, ever reliable youtube.com can give me all these videos plus it can be downloaded and repeated 1million times! If I need my cravings of asian dramas, there is mysoju.com with all the completed series and it is updated every freaking day. If I crave for a movie marathon, youtube and veoh is ever reliable. If my otaku (anime addict) blood is rising, there is crunchyroll.com.

Most of the things that we wanted may be found on the web, but the broadcast media is clearly important as well because this is still the channel by which the majority of people is still immersed in. Maybe after 5-10 years, internet would play a much bigger role in a consumer’s choices yet as long as it is not happening, I think that broadcast, interactive and social media are models that a company may use together depending on the target audience and goals that they want to accomplish.

Everyone’s addicted to himself

After reading Christopher Locke’s Internet Apocalypso, I had though of the two major topics that were discussed thoroughly in the article namely the relationship of the market with the workforce and the current power of the internet usually ignored by organizations.

The first topic, the market and the workforce deeply explains how organizations should bring these two together to have more positive effects on the company. The use of intranet by the companies and how it limits employee is also discussed in this area.

In my interpretation, Locke is saying that companies are afraid that their employees will be smarter and would be out of their control if they gave these subordinates a chance to learn and communicate in the internet. That may be true if the intranet would limit an employee with his/her capability in learning through the web but I actually have a contradicting thought in this aspect. In the company where I did my OJT, a business consultancy firm, we do not have any intranet. And everyone were simply given a computer to work on, and if a person has a laptop, then he/she can use it at work. With this fact at hand, I could see that a lot of my colleagues do unnecessary things on the internet that is completely not related to their work. Although they really do their work, I can see them sometimes checking their social network acounts and other random websites.

And I can see that the web, instead of being a venue for extracting knowledge and using it for the benefit of the company, it can even become a distraction to the employees of the organization. And true enough, I also know that the company I worked on is not the only company who has similar scenarios regardng this matter.

So in my opinion, intranet is actually a necessity in every organization to make sure that the employees stay in line with the company objectives. And to prevent what Locke think is a way of crushing an employees’ creativity and enthusiasm, development of a good intranet with sufficient place to wonder to the web for their learning is what is actually needed. Loose enough for learning yet it can limit an employee to do unnecessary things that might waste company time and resources.

The next major topic discussed in the article is how powerful the net could be, the power it already holds now and the ignorance of traditional companies on this emerging trend. According to the article the internet became a place where people can talk without constraints and without advertising. It is a “powerful multipler for intellectual capital” where people voice out their opinions if they experience dissatisfaction over products and services. The people are no longer passive audiences to be viewed as sponge ready to absorb anything, people learned to talk. And with these talking comes a powerful area where a consensus develops and individuals learn from one another.

Through the discussions on the web, the consumers began to have a wider range of choice. No longer were they satisfied with the popular brands they see on TV claiming best features. If you log on to the net, you could search for this said item, browse for people’s review and discussions about this then make up your mind if you wanted this brand. The choices became broad because the consumers were now more vocal over dissatisfactions and recommendations of other similar products, we are no longer limited to what the companies show in the TV.

“And make no mistake, speech once free is a powerful drug”

This sentence can reflect the notion that through the web, speech for everyone becomes available and anyone is entitled to talk and voice out an opinion. Speech becomes a drug that people craves, just like how my generation becomes addicted to blogs, facebook, youtube and twitter, where all forms of self expression exist. These things made just to be seen and be heard by the netizens.

Windy Cyclone

Hi Orcom colleagues and other interested individuals! (who probably just wandered accidentally into this page. haha)
 Welcome to my first wordpress blog! I was originally a blogspot and livejournal user, yet using another platform for this “academic-slash-communication blog” is indeed refreshing.

And to start off, I need to dig deep on what happened June 20, 2008 Saturday, for our first meeting on our OC 152 class. I remember being late at that day, (blame the LRT not me!) and when I arrived, I learned that the class was currently talking about their bad experiences on their On-the-Job-Training last Summer. Honestly, I was expecting embarrasing stories of my classmates or atleast major blunders at work but all I heard were some conflicts here and there. Not much interesting that can be retold to others, but then again, we are the “most promising” batch after all, minimal mistakes should be expected. Or were they just too shy to tell some really bad experiences?

As for myself, I really cannot think of any bad experience that I can share in class. Sure, I have plenty of complaints in my OJT at ECC International, but I think I’m just being a bitch over little concerns like the delay for the release of my allowance and the lack of free coffee in our office. Looking back at these concerns, although I am entitled to whine about my delayed money because it was not given on time, I actually should be thankful that atleast I was given a 150php allowance per day (Im not ashamed of putting the small amount here because what the heck, it pays my commuting fare!).

Plus, my allowance per day was even increased when our manager asked me to extend my OJT for another two weeks because I am finishing a project together with my fellow OJT colleague from the Arrhneo. All in all, it was a nice learning experience for me.

After the sharing of bad experiences with our respective internship (or more like sharing-of-stories-about-our-annoying-OJT-colleagues) we discussed about what we would be doing for our OC152 class Communication Trends and Styles. We’ve already discussed some of the things in the syllabus like podcasting, wikis, blogs and social bookmarking but I saw some new things like Online Reputation Management which I think would be interesting since I’ve already read this topic somewhere in the web.

Our professor Sir Barry said that this subject would be “a breeze” considering that we daily encounter these things, yet when I look at our requirements, I had to stiffle a laugh about the windy thing because I’m having a premonition that this would be a cyclone. haha.

Not that I’m complaining though, because now I have the greatest excuse to immerse myself in the internet more without my parents complaining that I speak too much adoration towards our PC compared to my concern over the household chores. (well who wouldnt? who would say “i love the dishes because it has 40GB and has a fast processor plus a lovable video converter”).

I think I’ll just show my parents our OC152 syllabus then smile smugly and say “But Mom these social network sites are a vital part of who I am as a social individual in this cyber-dependent generation plus I need to ~understand and appreciate the trends and issues in the communication evolution from traditional media to new social media~” *insert evil laugh here*

After the discussion of the syllabus, we read an article about advertising, asked to do a concept map about it then dispersed into small designated groups. The activity consisted of writing in the front paper, based on the article how the advertisers use different channels to reach their target audience while the back contains the advertising channels that we are exposed in.

This activity made me thought of the proper way in choosing the proper channel in advertising and knowing where the real audience of the brand or product lies. Like my groupmates, we discussed that there were really a lot of companies who advertise at the wrong places, not really focusing on where their target consumers usually go to. Like the billboards that we usually see towering above our heads in EDSA. These ads do attract attention but the proper target audiences were neglected. An example of these are the popular brand of clothes for teenagers where the billboards could be seen everywhere. Yet I look at my own concept map, and I see that the channels I am mostly exposed is the internet, not exactly the place these clothing brands try to atleast demand for my attention.

After a lot of reflections and flashback, I think that i need to end this post, now satisfied that I satiated my thirst in senseless blabber about my OC152 class and other things concerning my wonderful world in Organizational Communication.

PS

Not really regarding communication yet I just want to list here the links that I wanted for this blog yet unfortunately they are already unavailable and some, well, really embarrasing yet really tempting

http://www.theintrovertspeaks.wordpress.com <–somebody owned it already. pftt.
http://www.itrytoshutup.wordpress.com <– cool neh? but unfortunately other person have already thought of shutting him/herself up already
http://www.viannethegreat.wordpress.com <– i think a lot of people are expecting this, but.. what can i say.. i can be shy at times..
http://www.viannetheintrovert.wordpress.com <– tempted to use this, but im afraid that this blog would be deemed not credible once i use this. haha!
http://www.viannesrepublic.wordpress.com <– im actually saving this when i run for candidacy as future prime minister of the country.
http://www.vianneandorcom.wordpress.com <– our advertising professor will kill me for even thinking about using this