COM502 Blog Post 4 3.6.17

The issues in this situation are:

• Kahu and Briar want to establish a social media presence to broaden their business opportunities and reach a wider audience -Maria is opposed to this because she believes their particular clients won’t respond well to social networking pressure as many of them are conservative and not very tech savvy
• Barry has found an off shore supplier who will do a better deal on most of the things I.T’s A DEAL sell and wants to progress the relationship between the two companies to lift profits – Mike and Maria feel that they owe loyalty to the suppliers who have given them good deals over the years. Barry feels frustrated that Mike and Maria are clinging onto the past when more sales could be made
• Barry can be hot headed when he feels others are not being rational and is prone to thumping the table, raising his voice and showing disregard for others when he is worked up
• Pat can see that the atmosphere is deteriorating and misses the way things were, however she also knows that that Kahu, Barry and Briar feel annoyed at the way Mike and Maria are are showing a lack of concern about missed opportunities

My goals in this situation are to find out why Kahu and Briar decided to create a social media presence against Mike and Maria’s wishes and diffuse the situation. I think that it was a good move,  however Maria just needs to be shown how social media can have a positive influence on I.T’s A DEAL and once that has done she can voice her opinion and can then make an informed decision about whether to continue using social media for marketing purposes or not. Mike and Maria need to be shown the deals that the company  Barry has found can give them so they can make a decision after thinking about it for a while after the situation has calmed down. They need to be shown the benefits of such a change and how it could positively affect their business in the long run. If after being shown the benefits of using the dealer Barry has found Mike and Maria still don’t want to go ahead with it, Barry needs to take some deep breaths, count to ten in his head and step away from the situation when it gets heated so as not to cause any emotional damage. My communication will need to be fair, I will need to arrange a meeting where I can listen to everyone’s opinions and views where everyone can have the same amount of time to speak, but also get across my own. I will listen to Barry’s, Kahu’s and Briar’s proposals and try them for a month or two to see for myself if there are any benefits to the business going in those directions. I will accomplish this by setting up a meeting with Kahu, Barry and Briar to discuss branching out onto social media and switching suppliers if feedback from customers and stakeholders is positive. then after that I will try all the options for a few months. Later on I will survey our customers and stakeholders, asking them if they like the fact that we have a social media presence and better deals with lower prices. I will also ask them if the quality of our products is still consistently up to the standard we had previously, this will help me gauge whether making these decisions was a good idea or not. Hopefully that way everyone will be satisfied and we can go back to how things were, a happy and settled business where people enjoy working.

7.3.2017 Changing company and onto new and better ventures with my

Today during class I mentioned to Belma that when I rang Webtonic and I got a call back, they didn’t want to get involved with my assignment so I decided to change to a different company. In the end I ended up choosing Xero because they make great accounting software which Mum uses at work, I’ve also had hand on experience with it because sometimes Mum wants me to help with the reconciling the accounts.

COM502 Blog Post 3 5.5.17

I feel that an effective team is a team that works together to solve issues and help each other. I don’t feel that an effective is a team that doesn’t help each other with issues even if they are all working to get the same assignment done for example. Just like what one of the members in one of my other teams was doing. I feel you can overcome ineffective team members by talking about issues and working though them. In my eyes, a great team is a team who helps each other out when they have issues, eg “I’m having issues with this”, presents issue, other teammate “Have you tried this to fix it?” other team member offers a solution. That to me is how an effective team should work.

In my we have been a very effective team so far over the assignment because we have all been working together and helping each other out. We haven’t had any conflicts at all and we have been attending meetings that we’ve set up. I love working with the team because they are all so understanding and willing to help me when I have issues that need sorting. I’m willing to do the same for them. I feel it is important to have a successful team in COM502 because the class relies on communicating. If we couldn’t communicate with each other we’d all be stuffed as we wouldn’t be able to have meetings to discuss how to proceed with assignments or other work and we wouldn’t be able to discuss issues that we’re having if any. The same applies for teams in the Bachelors Degree in IT and in future employment that I may have. Issues and other things just couldn’t be discussed if we didn’t have a tight knit team that communicates well.

COM502 Blog Post 2 7.4.17

Today we did a shape shifting activity and then we did a balloon blowing one. The shape shifting one worked well because we all communicated together as a team, though it was difficult because the person that was reconstructing it was blindfolded. We managed to kind of get it back to what is was before. It was an amusing activity to do because we had to help our team mate rearrange it by telling him where where to put the rope in order to replicate it. In my opinion we could’ve done a better job at communicating, I feel then we would’ve had a better chance at getting it. After that we did another activity where we had help a teammate to tie a balloon, all the while timing it so we could see which team finished first. One person had to hold it while the other one blew and someone else timed it. This worked well up until our balloon was let go and all the air came out so we started laughing. I think our approach worked well until the balloon was let go so all the air went out. With the bamboo stick activity I struggled to hold my right hand straight due to my weaker right side. I feel like this hampered my team’s success with this activity,, but it’s outside my control. But I tried my hardest to keep it straight so we could get it. Because I couldn’t really hold my hand straight, I would let go by accident and we’d have to start again. Even so, I enjoyed it nonetheless, because I don’t let that shortcoming (my right side) get me down.

Observation of Body Language 8.3.17

My brother Leo trudged into the kitchen to make breakfast, he was tired. We were talking and he starts to get annoyed by the subject, I could tell this by the way he was sitting up straighter in his chair and starting to lean backwards slightly, frowning a little. He was making his spoon squeak against his cereal bowl and rolling his eyes to get me to shut up.  He slides into the living room begins talking to mum about eating bananas. I can hear from the tone of his voice that he is is now annoyed. He crosses his arms and makes a final statement. I decide to move on to my next subject. Leo’s body is visibly more relaxed when he realises he doesn’t have to be a subject of my observation. Dad joins us at the breakfast table, he’s intrigued by our conversation, leaning in and wanting to join in. Dad quickly moved onto drinking his coffee and reading the paper. There was no more body language to observe.

Body language for me is tricky because being vision impaired I struggle to see it. Even so this has been an interesting exercise to do because it has made me realise how much I don’t pay attention to it, which I think I should do. On reflection, maybe breakfast time when people were still half asleep wasn’t the best time to observe body language.

1.3.2017

On Wednesday in COM502 we had did a group activity which involved discussing the differences between communication and good communication. It was a good exercise because we were able to identify ways in to spot someone who’s a good communicator and who isn’t, by narrowing the two traits into two columns.

After we found out some ways of how to spot each trait (good communicator or not) we then presented our findings to the class.

I enjoyed this activity because it taught me how to identify if someone I’m talking to is actually interested in the conversation or not.

 

Emil