An Area for Your Comments.....

I couldn't figure out a way to just have a comment box for those assigned to evaluate my blog.  Please feel free to comment below this post with any helpful advice you may have to make my blog better.

Thanks in advance for your constructive criticism!

Vicky

Communicating Poor Performance

A conversation with an employee performing at a substandard level or exhibiting a hostile behavior should be addressed as soon as an issue is noticed.  However, before the conversation takes place, as the department manager I need to ensure I am prepared for the conversation.  This preparation will involve documentation, observation, and a ideas for a plan of action with to clearly define goals and objectives.  As the manager, I have the responsibility to evaluate why the employee may be performing poorly and how to bring this employee up to performance standards.

Social Networks – Are you Connected?

Social networks deliver information in real-time to many diverse audiences.  Although referred to as social networks, this big business venue goes much beyond its name.  Social networks can be built for professional reasons, advertising, just-for-fun, education, workplace, political, and not-for-profit just to give a few examples.  From blogs, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, to forums specific to common interests – social networking is the here and now way to communicate via the internet.  

Speech! Speech! Speech!

Speeches are scripted monologues with a strategy to reach a target audience.  Usually, the target audience can help fulfill a need of the speechmaker (e.g. politician asking for money or support) or share a common interest (e.g.  prominent person giving well wishes and words of wisdom to graduates).

Newspapers - a chapter for history books?

Newspaper readership and subscribers are on the decline replaced with the internet as the primary source of information.  Newspaper providers are going out of business or reducing circulation as readership and advertising dollars decline.  Readership by older generations (the highest loyalty to newspaper) is on the decline replaced by a younger generation who have different reading habits.  Younger generations prefer instant information available 24/7.  The internet provides real-time information whereas newspaper is only current to what information was available at time of press.  On-line newspapers, although not profitable, are successful because they are updated as news becomes available. 

Voicewriting

When I tell people that I am working toward a career change to court reporting the natural question I’m asked, “Will you be the person typing on that machine in the courtroom?”  My answer is “yes” and “no.”  I will be that person in the courtroom; however, I will not be typing on a machine – I will be doing voicewriting.  To clear up the puzzled look on their face, I always have to explain what a voicewriter does.

It has been created!

Welcome to my very first blog post!  Creating the blog was easy; trying to chose and customize a design was rather intimidating.  The highway design I chose resembles my journey here at Ashford.  I am coming close to the end of that journey and this blog will be a great segue on my path to a new career.  What a unique learning experience! This will be a work-in-progress over the next 5 weeks that I know will consume many hours of my time.