http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Communication A listing of the most recently indexed works about Articles and Communication in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Communication http://tc.eserver.org/35807.html http://tc.eserver.org/35807.html Do you know if you're promoting features or benefits in your marketing materials? The answer to this question plays a significant role in the effectiveness of your marketing message. While features are facts benefits explain why facts are important. Its these benefits that target your prospects emotions a key factor in selling situations. http://tc.eserver.org/35812.html http://tc.eserver.org/35812.html Typically, an organization's processes span multiple systems, channels, applications, departments, and external partners. In this case, how do we monitor such processes? What is the current state of the organizational processes? What is the benchmark for poorly-performing processes and exceptional processes? Most of the time, organizations are unable to answer such questions, or only have a vague idea for various reasons. Either they are monitoring the process with a very limited scope, or the mechanisms for monitoring the process are not in place to allow such details to be available. We rarely find organizations with process owners having an end-to-end view of a process. The big picture of a process is not available to the decision makers on a real-time basis. http://tc.eserver.org/35813.html http://tc.eserver.org/35813.html After new product releases or service updates, a torrent of disparate corporate information follows based on the perceived requirements for each team to show their worth. Sales collateral, Marketing webcasts, Support knowledgebase articles, Engineering release notes, and internal reference guides from formal Documentation teams stagger out like drunken sailors looking for their ship after a Cinderella liberty. Add to this meandering information all of the informal input from bloggers, social sites, forums, and independent Web sites, and you have a fog of information to stumble through to find real knowledge and employ best practices for purchased products and services. http://tc.eserver.org/35820.html http://tc.eserver.org/35820.html The intranet is often a depressingly static place even today in many organizations. But those applying Enterprise 2.0 (social, emergent, freeform approaches to business activities) can soon find that the opposite is often the case. The information captured and the knowledge shared in a social business environment is usually globally visible and lasts long after the collaboration ends. http://tc.eserver.org/35823.html http://tc.eserver.org/35823.html Are you scratching your head trying to come up with current trends on a particular white paper topic? Why not tap into Twitter? By using applications that harness the power of this vast network, you can selectively search the Twittersphere for trends in your industry. http://tc.eserver.org/35760.html http://tc.eserver.org/35760.html Today, marketing students also need to know basic HTML, design software such as the Adobe Suite, how to run a Google adwords campaign, how to optimize a Web site for search engines, how to analyze Web analytics data, develop a keyword strategy, and manage e-mail marketing campaigns. A basic knowledge of how social media including sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Twitter can be used to leverage a marketing message isn't optional—it's a requirement. http://tc.eserver.org/35735.html http://tc.eserver.org/35735.html For professional communicators, social media is like a new, wild river born from the converging streams of public relations and marketing. A good social media campaign requires the traditional PR skills of telling engaging stories and building positive relationships with constituents, and a marketer’s knack for knowing and finding “the buyer.” http://tc.eserver.org/35736.html http://tc.eserver.org/35736.html The age-old public relations tool, once crafted as fodder for print journalists, is now being applied more to the online world. A recent study by the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) found that most releases now target consumers and customers directly, rather than through the filter of the news media. Enter the social media release (SMR). http://tc.eserver.org/35737.html http://tc.eserver.org/35737.html Don’t we all want to get the conversation going in a positive direction when it comes to representing the companies and clients we work for? And while there have, of course, always been incidents of deception in journalism and PR, somehow the advent of the Internet and social media has made this a much bigger issue. As PR representatives and journalists for individuals and companies learn more about the benefits of Twitter and other forms of social media, questions are arising about how—and how not—to present information. http://tc.eserver.org/35738.html http://tc.eserver.org/35738.html New opportunities have arisen from the advent of Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. But professional communicators, in their effort to gain a better understanding of the medium, tend to make social media tools more complex than they really are. As a result, they miss out on the big breaks they need to achieve their goals. Below are tips to take the guesswork out of connecting social media with PR. Hopefully, these are steps you are already taking in your career. But if you are like me and need a friendly reminder, read on. http://tc.eserver.org/35739.html http://tc.eserver.org/35739.html Social media sites offer a range of new opportunities for communication, marketing and networking. But employees’ unfettered online engagement can be bad for business and potentially injurious to their employment and career prospects. Social media present a huge threat to organizations’ reputations, especially those that don’t inform and educate their staff about their online responsibilities. That’s why Web 2.0 education must become a priority for HR departments, who should collaborate with PR teams to brief employees about appropriate online engagement. The same Web 2.0 education must become part of new staff induction programs. http://tc.eserver.org/35740.html http://tc.eserver.org/35740.html As web workers, most of us are steeped in Web 2.0 throughout our working day (never mind that we can’t agree on what “Web 2.0″ means). Many of us have embraced online applications from Google, Yahoo, and elsewhere to do the bulk of our work, and we rely on a mishmash of social media sites to stay in touch with our peers and build our extended networks. But this connectivity comes at a cost: the internet is filled with bright, shiny distractions. http://tc.eserver.org/35753.html http://tc.eserver.org/35753.html If you have an interesting story to tell, a press release will help you to make newspaper editors aware of it. Maybe you recently won an award. Maybe you stumbled upon some interesting information in the field you work in. Or maybe your design contributed towards some kind of achievement on behalf of your client. Depending on the scale and content of your story, you can send your press release to marketing websites, marketing magazines, the relevant trade press, the regional press, and even the business section of the national press. http://tc.eserver.org/35754.html http://tc.eserver.org/35754.html A news publication gets a lot of press releases over the course of the day. In an ideal world, this document delivers valuable and maybe even actionable news and, if things are really well done, gets journalists excited about sharing it with the world. What's beautiful about this is that it is a realm over which you have some control, and improvements are easy to achieve. http://tc.eserver.org/35723.html http://tc.eserver.org/35723.html CEOs and other executives often find themselves in the role of company spokesperson. More often than not, they have neither the background nor the proper training to be effective. As the communication professional responsible for media relations at your company, there are several things you can do to help prepare your executive for the interviews to come. http://tc.eserver.org/35724.html http://tc.eserver.org/35724.html There is a significant risk of being quoted out of context during media interviews. This risk can fall anywhere along a spectrum that ranges from mild to severe. Mild risk occurs when the information included in a media story appears to be less than accurate. If you’ve ever heard a spokesperson complain that reporters never get it right, you’ve probably witnessed this type of risk firsthand. Severe risk occurs when a portion of what the spokesperson says is twisted or turned, then included in a story to deliberately fan the flames of a smoldering fire. If this occurs, an organization may need to exercise damage control, and there may be significant risk to its reputation. http://tc.eserver.org/35725.html http://tc.eserver.org/35725.html Most explanations of human behavior in the business world assume that people are best persuaded by reason and logic. Steeped in that belief, executives and senior managers have focused on delivering convincing speeches and finding “just the right words” when dealing with the public and the press. But what if that view is flawed? http://tc.eserver.org/35726.html http://tc.eserver.org/35726.html Powerful communication before a crisis and rapid communication during a crisis have the ability to move people out of harm’s way, save lives and protect reputations. Yet so many organizations second-guess what they should say, who should say it and when. Here are some rules to follow in these circumstances. http://tc.eserver.org/35727.html http://tc.eserver.org/35727.html How can you build the right following? The question is important because like it or not, as communicators, we’re expected to lead the way in our organizations’ use of social media. http://tc.eserver.org/35728.html http://tc.eserver.org/35728.html Treat others the way you would want to be treated. It seems ridiculous to think that one of the most common rules taught to children somehow hinders effective business communication when these children become adults. But it’s true. To be effective at communicating with customers (for example, internal audiences who buy into ideas or messages, or external audiences who buy products or services), one must turn away from this standard rule and focus instead on treating others the way they want to be treated. http://tc.eserver.org/35729.html http://tc.eserver.org/35729.html Many companies continue to discount the power and potential of social media. Others are just beginning to flirt with the idea of using this new form of communication, while still others are in the process of developing social media policies to establish what employees can and cannot do. Then, there are those companies that have started allowing their communication specialists to engage in social media on behalf of the organization. But how many are teaching non-communication staff how to use this new media? http://tc.eserver.org/35731.html http://tc.eserver.org/35731.html Identifying the right corporate spokesperson for traditional and new media strategies - including public relations, blogging, video marketing, etc. - is an important task. Whether they are speaking to Katie Couric, a New York Times reporter or a blogger, it is essential that they be well versed on the do's and don't's of effective communication. Whether its a formal, televised interview or an informal email thread that leads to a story in a blog, the spokesperson should represent the image and persona of the company at all times. http://tc.eserver.org/35732.html http://tc.eserver.org/35732.html A fire has destroyed your manufacturing facility that produces 80% of your products. Your staff has nowhere to work, your suppliers have nowhere to ship goods, and your customers start looking for new suppliers. Now what? http://tc.eserver.org/35734.html http://tc.eserver.org/35734.html Every company – no matter what size, whether public or private – faces crises. While the scale may be different compared to these corporate giants, crises happen all the time. Crises are all around us. Is your company prepared to handle one? http://tc.eserver.org/35695.html http://tc.eserver.org/35695.html As companies have their offices spread across more and more geographic locations and a large scale of employees working in different countries, it becomes even harder to represent a single organization as one unique entity. The key lies in raising awareness for the company’s vision and mission as well as equipping staff in all locations with the latest technologies. Advancements in communication technology have led to a deeper focus on knowledge management activities – benefiting both the organization and the individual. http://tc.eserver.org/35650.html http://tc.eserver.org/35650.html The key to intranet success is to provide value to employees and give them a reason to visit the site repeatedly. One of the primary ways to achieve this is to connect employees with the people and groups with whom they need to collaborate. Workgroups, or communities of practice, provide the basis for a living, growing, vibrant space in which people can access the information they need, share best practices, and contribute to a shared knowledge base. This article discusses the role of communities of practice within organizations and provides a framework for planning research and design activities to maximize their effectiveness. http://tc.eserver.org/35659.html http://tc.eserver.org/35659.html An enormous amount of knowledge resides within international organizations. But how can the knowledge management (KM) team unlock this information and make it available to a large number of employees around the globe? How much knowledge should actually be shared and what kind of experience should not be passed on because it might hinder innovation and creative thinking? In an interview with tcworld KM expert Patrick Lambe answered these and many other questions. http://tc.eserver.org/35661.html http://tc.eserver.org/35661.html More and more organizations are establishing cross-border teams to take advantage of global talent and global markets. Location and time are no longer impediments to building the 'dream team' but in our rush to take advantage of these new media of e-mail, video conferences and the like we may not realize that there is also some learning for us to do on the cultural front. http://tc.eserver.org/35662.html http://tc.eserver.org/35662.html The generic term “mergers & acquisitions (M&A)” appeared for the first time at the end of the 19th century in the United States. In times of increased global competition, M&A activities have reached all regions of the world and are not solely concerning large enterprises. However, with many M&A projects never reaching the synergy effects that were expected of them, the successful integration of one company into another remains a challenge. http://tc.eserver.org/35663.html http://tc.eserver.org/35663.html Being active in 190 countries around the world, mergers and acquistions are part of the business routine for the engineering conglemerate Siemens AG. A smooth integration process is vital for business success. Supporting this integration process is one of the tasks of Robert Gibson, senior consultant for training and projects at the Siemens headquarters in Munich, Germany. tcworld spoke to him about the challenge of integrating new corporate and national cultures. http://tc.eserver.org/35686.html http://tc.eserver.org/35686.html Doing business in a foreign country and encountering an unfamiliar business culture can be a complex and strenuous activity. Even more so, if the country is torn between three different business cultures and mentalities. This is the case in contemporary Russia. http://tc.eserver.org/35687.html http://tc.eserver.org/35687.html Cross-cultural encounters are experienced on different levels: While some managers head home from a business trip feeling that the world is small and essentially the same everywhere, others have the ability to sense the hidden differences. These "multiculturalists" see the deep culture that lies behind the curtains of globalization. http://tc.eserver.org/35690.html http://tc.eserver.org/35690.html Along with the prospects of success and benefits, negotiations in any business environment bear definite risks. They require thorough preparation, patience, time, and flexibility. Negotiating with people from different cultures might sometimes feel like sitting at a poker table, with all participants following their own rules, which remain mysterious for the rest. The result of this game is obvious: Pretty soon, both parties will be frustrated and confused. http://tc.eserver.org/35691.html http://tc.eserver.org/35691.html Some visitors to Japan are disappointed. The images on tourist posters – the graceful curves of a temple, the enigmatic smile of the geisha – are hard to find in this industrialized, high-tech, post-modern society. “Westernization” is everywhere. Geishas and Samurais do not walk among the skyscrapers of the Shinjuku district in Tokyo. For foreigners doing business in Japan this perception gap can be a challenge. http://tc.eserver.org/35532.html http://tc.eserver.org/35532.html I saw this question posed in a discussion on LinkedIn, and thought that it deserved an answer from an IT Process Automation (ITPA) perspective. One respondent to the question stated it well: "The answer is simple, if there is not a common bond and governance mechanism between process documentation and the technology that is executing the process, the documentation eventually atrophies and collects dust." In my days as an independent ITIL consultant, I found that training and getting personnel to use process as part of their daily routine was at least as difficult as maintaining and updating process documentation. There is a chasm between theory and practice when it comes to process execution. http://tc.eserver.org/35502.html http://tc.eserver.org/35502.html Ainsworth’s (2006) DeFT framework posits that different representations may lead learners to use different strategies. We wanted to investigate whether students use different strategies, and more broadly, different cognitive activities in diagrams versus in running text. In order to do so, we collected think-aloud protocol and other measures from 91 beginning biology majors reading an 8-page passage from their own textbook which included 7 complex diagrams. We coded the protocols for a wide range of cognitive activities, including strategy use, inference, background knowledge, vocabulary, and word reading. Comparisons of verbalizations while reading running text vs. reading diagrams showed that high-level cognitive activities—inferences and high-level strategy use—were used a higher proportion of the time when comprehending diagrams compared to when reading text. However, in running text vs. diagrams participants used a wider range of different individual cognitive activities (e.g., more different types of inferences). Our results suggest that instructors might consider teaching students how to draw inferences in both text and diagrams. They also show an interesting paradox that warrants further research—students often skipped over or superficially skimmed diagrams, but when they did read the diagrams they engaged in more high-level cognitive activity. http://tc.eserver.org/35472.html http://tc.eserver.org/35472.html White papers are a fundamental part of your marketing arsenal. And if you think technical writers don't need to worry about marketing, read on to see why white paper writing is an essential skill, and how to turn a ho-hum paper into a killer communications tool. http://tc.eserver.org/35458.html http://tc.eserver.org/35458.html Whether you are getting a client to sign off on a website’s design or persuade a user to complete a call to action, we all need to know how to be convincing. Like many in the Web design industry, I have a strange job. I am part salesperson, part consultant and part user experience designer. One day I could be pitching a new idea to a board of directors, the next I might be designing an e-commerce purchasing process. There is, however, a common theme: I spend most of my time persuading people. http://tc.eserver.org/35401.html http://tc.eserver.org/35401.html As a policies and procedures (P&P) practitioner, do you delve into P&P content development projects without a clear understanding of the organizational context? Astute P&P practitioners add more than documentation skills to assignments--they apply an understanding of the organizational context from three perspectives. http://tc.eserver.org/35402.html http://tc.eserver.org/35402.html Have you struggled with job position names and titles in your policies and procedures (P&P) content? Here are several style rules to follow. http://tc.eserver.org/35382.html http://tc.eserver.org/35382.html Cisco's $3.2 billion intended acquisition of WebEx has me thinking of what Charles Giancarlo, Cisco's chief development officer, calls "this next wave of business communications." What do you suppose he means? http://tc.eserver.org/35355.html http://tc.eserver.org/35355.html Examines focus group data about Spanish speakers' preferences for health communication. Contrasts known preferences of Mexican Spanish speakers with Spanish speakers in the U.S. Makes recommendations from the data for communicating health information to Spanish speakers within the U.S. http://tc.eserver.org/35282.html http://tc.eserver.org/35282.html Now that Twitter’s 140 character limit has become commonplace, web shorthand techniques are once again in full use. So what should you, as a businessperson, know about grammar use on the web? Is it ever appropriate to use this type of language shorthand? It’s actually a complicated matter, which is why I’ve written up this short guide on grammar on the web for business. http://tc.eserver.org/35270.html http://tc.eserver.org/35270.html Social technology has risen to meet this challenge over the last few years. And while there are a lot of social tools to choose from, one type stands out for this type of collaboration: the wiki. The unique communication model inherent in the wiki makes it ideal for becoming a central business tool for your entire team. The following is an overview of using wiki software for small business. http://tc.eserver.org/35269.html http://tc.eserver.org/35269.html The study reported here explored the broadband digital divide in the context of Internet- based health communication. Inequities in the adoption of broadband technology were examined and the comprehensive model of health information seeking (CMIS) was used to make predictions about the implications of broadband Internet for personal health. Data from a population-based survey conducted by the National Cancer Institute in 2005 (N = 5,586) were analyzed. Results showed that those who were younger, more educated, and lived in an urban area were more likely to have a broad- band Internet connection in their home. Furthermore, consistent with the CMIS, those with a broadband connection were more likely to use the Internet for health-related information seeking and communication than those with a dial-up connection. http://tc.eserver.org/35241.html http://tc.eserver.org/35241.html From different public and private requirements, mechanisms have been set in action that allow for companies to obtain information in order to make decisions with a stronger foundation. This article is focused on the description of an entire information system for the business world, developed in the realm of the Chambers of Commerce of Spain, which has given rise to the creation of an authentic network of inter-chamber information. In Spain, the obligatory membership of businesses to the Chambers of Commerce in their geographic areas, and therefore the compulsory payment of member quotas, has traditionally generated some polemics, above all because many firms have not perceived a material usefulness of the services offered by these Chambers. Notwithstanding, the 85 Chambers currently existing in Spain, as well as the organization that coordinates them – the Upper Council or Consejo Superior de Cámaras de Comercio – and the company created expressly to commercialize information services online, Camerdata, have developed genuinely informative tools that cover a good part of the information demands that a business might claim, and these are described here. http://tc.eserver.org/35243.html http://tc.eserver.org/35243.html In this article, Nigel Spencer compares and contrasts his experience of delivering fee-based business information research from 1987 to 2008. Although the article is written from the perspective of the British Library priced research services, many points made could also apply to the changing role of the business information professional. http://tc.eserver.org/35244.html http://tc.eserver.org/35244.html Change management is the subject of many books but what is it like to have to lead staff who are finding it difficult? Gina Lane has extensive experience of change in local government, and Non Departmental Public Body and a charity, and in this article provides insight and practical tips for how to support and lead your team as the organization undergoes change. http://tc.eserver.org/35245.html http://tc.eserver.org/35245.html This article reminds us that risk needs to be identified before it can be quantified. It points out that risk models are only as good as the people who devised them and the basic assumption needs to be frequently re-examined. http://tc.eserver.org/35248.html http://tc.eserver.org/35248.html This article describes how the author investigated the business case for the operation of online customer communities, and evaluated their impact. This was achieved through analysis of opinions from members in company-sponsored and member-initiated online customer communities. The research aimed to understand the relationship between customer and company in online communities, explore the motivations of customers to participate in online customer communities, and the benefits of these communities to companies. The main findings of the research revealed that online customer communities are beneficial to both company and customer. The evaluation concludes with a set of recommendations to companies on how online customer communities might be effectively created and managed. http://tc.eserver.org/35249.html http://tc.eserver.org/35249.html In this article, Neil Infield shares with us the way in which the BIPC has successfully used social media to reach its diverse audience of inventors, entrepreneurs and small business owner. http://tc.eserver.org/35254.html http://tc.eserver.org/35254.html Explores the importance of organizational research as a tool to support business change and improvement. Describes a tried and tested research methodology that has been used within public and private sector organizations and can be easily adapted by in-house research and information services. Demonstrates how research can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of learning and development products and services. Includes a case study from a central government department that investigates the role of the line manager in learning. http://tc.eserver.org/35257.html http://tc.eserver.org/35257.html Market Data and Business information have traditionally been two disciplines that have been very separate with no overlap. However, changes in content and delivery now mean that the two professions are much closer than previously and many of the issues and content sets are now common to both. Looking at some of the issues involved we can see how each side can benefit from the experience of the other. http://tc.eserver.org/35185.html http://tc.eserver.org/35185.html Consider a plan that identifies who in your company will address phone or other inquiries if something goes viral (read the article and you’ll see what I mean). http://tc.eserver.org/35128.html http://tc.eserver.org/35128.html Although previous researchers have proposed organizational demography as an important determinant of communication, no one has tested this relationship directly. http://tc.eserver.org/35135.html http://tc.eserver.org/35135.html Although extensive research has been done on teaching emails and on the use of emails in organisations, little research exists about how to incorporate organizational practitioners' views as the voices of the community of social practice. To remedy this pedagogical gap, this article uses a genre approach to discuss organizational practitioners' views on the use of email in organizational settings. It also develops seven teaching and learning stages for situated learning and teaching in business communication based upon the presented study findings. http://tc.eserver.org/35139.html http://tc.eserver.org/35139.html My experience as a consultant has provided a wealth of information and ideas that I often share with my college students. Perhaps the most important skill I have honed has been the ability to negotiate deals and contracts. No other factor has had such a direct impact on the success of my consulting business. The art of negotiation is understood by few people or regularly utilized, and yet most people negotiate several times a day. Each time a person buys a product or service, an internal as well as external negotiation occurs. We barter professionally, personally, and psychologically with little or no thought of improving this much-needed skill. http://tc.eserver.org/35140.html http://tc.eserver.org/35140.html Studies have shown the importance of employment interview preparation in boosting the confidence and performance of students and jobseekers when they interview. This article reviews several techniques for preparing students for mock job interviews and, hence, actual job interviews. http://tc.eserver.org/35141.html http://tc.eserver.org/35141.html Teaching business communication while performing professional business consulting is the perfect learning match. The bizarre but true stories from our consulting world provide excellent analogies for classroom learning, and feedback from students about the consulting experiences reaffirms the power of using stories for teaching. When discussing this article, we recognized that we used two distinct communication theories for consulting and then for relaying these experiences in teaching. First, we talked about the challenge of truly in-depth process consulting: determining with the client what they need, not simply what they want. This requires extensive uncertainty reduction theory--continuing to drill down until the true nature of the problem is revealed and further consulting can begin. http://tc.eserver.org/35143.html http://tc.eserver.org/35143.html The purpose of this empirical study is to explore expectations of industry insiders and identify how student interns are performing in relation to those expectations as defined by 11 performance areas. The results of a survey of 238 industry supervisors were collected over a 5-year period in the departments of English and communication at a private university in the Northeast. While the results suggest that student interns tend to meet their supervisors' expectations in many areas, performance categories such as initiative, writing skills, and oral communication skills require increased attention in the ways we prepare students for their internships and post-graduation employment and, perhaps, the ways we help onsite supervisors develop expectations for and evaluate our interns. http://tc.eserver.org/35144.html http://tc.eserver.org/35144.html In the wake of global economic crisis, some of those responsible were summoned to testify under oath before Congressional committees to explain to the public what went wrong. What they said opened a window onto the thought processes and communication abilities of major business leaders. Many of them denied responsibility, failed to explain what occurred, and undermined their own credibility; as a result they were pilloried by Congress and the media. But how are these people connected to those of us who teach and do research in business communication? Unfortunately, these are our alumni, our former students. http://tc.eserver.org/35145.html http://tc.eserver.org/35145.html We communicate via many forms every day. When what we say or write is misunderstood, the fault may lie with either party. One source of miscommunication is the different meaning people place on commonly used words and phrases. In this article, the authors report preliminary results from a study on such miscommunication and lay out an agenda for research on improving business communication based on the Integrative Model of Levels of Analysis of 'Miscommunication,' developed by Coupland, Wiemann, and Giles. http://tc.eserver.org/35146.html http://tc.eserver.org/35146.html In this article, the authors demonstrate this point through a genealogy and textual analysis of the Ricelands Habitat Partnership (RHP), an eco-collaboration between the rice industry and environmental advocates in California's Sacramento Valley. Articulated here as a story of enemies becoming friends, the RHP gives life to a vision of more (if not perfectly) sustainable agriculture, where sustaining business and the natural environment can go hand in hand. The authors argue that sustainable development (like democracy or other abstract concepts) becomes 'real' for businesses and for society at large through local enactment. http://tc.eserver.org/35147.html http://tc.eserver.org/35147.html This study investigates the relationship between strategic leader language (as embodied in Motivating Language Theory) and employee absenteeism. With a structural equation model, two perspectives were measured for the impact of leader spoken language: employee attitudes toward absenteeism and actual attendance. Results suggest that leader language does in fact have a positive, significant relationship with work attendance through the mediation effect of worker attendance attitude. http://tc.eserver.org/35111.html http://tc.eserver.org/35111.html The way to be a jack-of-all-trades is to have the right tools in place so you can spend more time on the things you're good at. Here are five simple switches that allow you to shake your fusty old habits and start using the right tools. http://tc.eserver.org/35055.html http://tc.eserver.org/35055.html Here are two main methods you can use to launch off your article marketing campaign. http://tc.eserver.org/35079.html http://tc.eserver.org/35079.html One of the big problems in document review is that reviewers often fail to recognize that their principal job as a reviewer is to act as a surrogate for the document end-user, in this case the regulatory reader. In this article, we offer a characterization of the reading style of the regulatory reader which is useful to keep in mind when reviewing any document or group of documents to be submitted to pharmaceutical and medical device regulatory agencies. http://tc.eserver.org/35044.html http://tc.eserver.org/35044.html Think DITA is just for procedural technical documents? Think again. A new OASIS DITA sub-committee has been announced whose purpose it is to explore using the popular technical documentation standard known as the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) outside technical documentation projects. http://tc.eserver.org/35049.html http://tc.eserver.org/35049.html We need context in order to live, and if the environment of electronic communication has stopped providing it, we shouldn't search online for a solution but turn back to the real world and slow down. To do this, we need to uncouple our idea of progress from speed, separate the idea of speed from effi­ciency, pause and step back enough to realize that efficiency may be good for business and governments but does not always lead to mindfulness and sustainable, rewarding relationships. http://tc.eserver.org/34993.html http://tc.eserver.org/34993.html This article builds upon the work of Richard Haswell's "NCTE/CCCC's Recent War on Scholarship" by providing an alternative framework for empirical inquiry based on principles of skepticism. It examines the literature relating to empirical research and argues that one of the issues at hand is the perceived link of empirical research to positivism, which clashes with the dominant social constructivist paradigm. It draws upon classical rhetoric and the work of radial empiricist William James to formulate an alternative framework for empirical research based on skeptical principles. http://tc.eserver.org/34995.html http://tc.eserver.org/34995.html Point-of-purchase advertising (POP) is responsible for half of the purchase decisions made in the store. Because of: 1) the influence of POP on the sale of technical consumer products and the economy; 2) our need to understand trends that shape technical and business communication; 3) the intermedial nature of POP (where spoken and written words work with place, visual image, physical structures, and multimedia integrated marketing campaigns); and 4) its theatrical and local nature, we need both a situated and theoretical exploration of POP. Drawing upon three months' participant observation in advertising, I describe a POP composing process in an integrated marketing campaign. Cognitive responses to layout and the interrelation of rhetorical canons are considered for preparing communication for a marketplace that is three-dimensional variegated, noisy, and peripatetic. http://tc.eserver.org/34996.html http://tc.eserver.org/34996.html Anti-employer blogs, those which criticize companies or their employees, are posing significant legal and ethical challenges for corporations. The important legal issue is the conflict between the employee's legal duty of loyalty to the employer and the employee's right to free speech. Although U.S. and state law describes what an employee may or may not say in a blog, corporations should encourage employees to contribute to the process of creating clear, reasonable policies that will help prevent expensive court cases. The important ethical issue concerning anti-employer blogs is whether an employee incurs an ethical duty of loyalty. In this article, I conclude that there is no such ethical duty. The legal duty of loyalty, explained in a company-written policy statement that employees must endorse as a condition of employment, offers the best means of protecting the legal and ethical rights of both employers and employees. http://tc.eserver.org/34997.html http://tc.eserver.org/34997.html Phishing e-mails deceive individuals into giving out personal information which may then be utilized for identity theft. One particular type, the Personal Solicitation E-mail (PSE) mimics personal letters—modern perversions of ars dictaminis (the classical art of letter writing). In this article, I determine and discuss 19 appeals common to the PSE. These appeals were established first by conducting generative rhetorical analysis, then by volunteer coding, on 170 e-mails collected over a 12-month period. After defining these categories, I show how these letters are excellent twenty-first century teaching tools for pathos-based argumentation, logical appeals, the creation of ethos, and kairos in the development of perceived exigency. http://tc.eserver.org/35001.html http://tc.eserver.org/35001.html A recent British national intelligence-based Assessment (2002) illustrates how one government agency communicated science to serve its policy goals. This article analyzes some of the values that drive science, public policy, and national intelligence, and traces how those values affected the Assessment writers' goals and communication strategies. Through close reading of the Assessment's foreword and first section, this study shows how the writers shaped scientific and technical information to satisfy their disciplines' values and to naturalize their "proper perspective" on the policy case. Further analysis of similar documents will extend current research on scientific rhetoric, multidisciplinary collaborative writing, and public communication. http://tc.eserver.org/35003.html http://tc.eserver.org/35003.html This article uses theories of space and findability to analyze a public information center as an example of multi-modal risk communication. The Yucca Mountain Information Center is an informational space created by the Department of Energy to inform the public about the proposed nuclear waste repository planned for Yucca Mountain, Nevada. As a public space, the Center uses fact sheets, posters, and three-dimensional displays to make arguments about the storage of nuclear waste; we argue that the physical space, text, displays, and online space are all elements of risk communication. We offer a new way to read these elements of risk communication and suggest potential opportunities for public agency. http://tc.eserver.org/35009.html http://tc.eserver.org/35009.html Editors who work with authors before a manuscript is sent for review face certain challenges. Since we’re often the first to see a manuscript, we sometimes encounter problems we must help solve before they come back to bite the author. These problems fall into a variety of categories, of which I see three repeatedly in my work. In this article, I’ll discuss the nature of these problems, provide examples from my own career as a science editor, and suggest how similar problems might arise in other types of editing. http://tc.eserver.org/34940.html http://tc.eserver.org/34940.html Evolving and improving technology can improve health and healthcare in a myriad of ways. Equipment that is designed with the user, task, and environment in mind will reduce errors and improve outcomes. New designs make it possible for patients to do things for themselves that previously only doctors could. http://tc.eserver.org/34958.html http://tc.eserver.org/34958.html This study provides a new and valuable insight into the information behaviour of visually impaired people, as well as testing the applicability of a specific and generic information model to the information behaviour of visually impaired people seeking health and social care information. http://tc.eserver.org/34960.html http://tc.eserver.org/34960.html Critical care nurses' work is rich in informative interactions. Although there have been post-hoc self report studies of nurses' information seeking, there have been no observational studies of the patterns of their on-duty information behavior. This paper seeks to address this issue. http://tc.eserver.org/34966.html http://tc.eserver.org/34966.html The purpose of this research is to analyse the behaviour of the users of a package of electronic journals using the data of consumption per IP address. The paper analyses the data of consumption at the University of Barcelona of 31 electronic journals of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in 2003. Data of sessions, articles downloaded and abstracts viewed were analysed. http://tc.eserver.org/34967.html http://tc.eserver.org/34967.html The purpose of this paper is to report on a research designed to find out how people in Scotland access and use online health information. http://tc.eserver.org/34900.html http://tc.eserver.org/34900.html "Meaning must be negotiated and confirmed." This is an important concept not just for developing a working definition for a term like knowledge management, but it is also an approach critical to the conveyance of knowledge in scientific and technical report. http://tc.eserver.org/34902.html http://tc.eserver.org/34902.html 個人投資家はあまりにも複雑なIRサイトに怖気づき、財務データのシンプルなサマリーを欲しがっている。個人投資家も投資専門家も、共に必要としているのは、企業自体のstoryとその投資ビジョンである。 http://tc.eserver.org/34883.html http://tc.eserver.org/34883.html How should we teach international business communication? What role can multiculturalism play in the business communication classroom? Can we identify a set of business communication requirements that are valid across different cultures? This article enters this discussion by presenting a small empirical study of the business communication needs expressed by postgraduate students in a North Cyprus university and comparing it to similar studies conducted in the United States and Singapore. The findings reveal some interesting correspondences between the needs expressed by students in these different countries. In addition, the multicultural environment of the North Cyprus university studied suggests that multicultural interaction increases students' sensitivity to the need for a nonethnocentric approach to international communication. The findings also indicate that respondents in multicultural settings may be more inclined to engage in groupthink because of their heightened awareness of cultural differences and their wish to avoid conflict. http://tc.eserver.org/34887.html http://tc.eserver.org/34887.html Localization includes translating, explaining, and adapting a document for use in a specific culture. This article presents the case of a form for reporting the findings and decisions of pre-production meetings held during development of electronic products. The need to localize such a document may seem less obvious or critical than the need for sales documents like manuals, but this case demonstrates the same cultural requirements and, furthermore, the requirements of corporate differences. To meet local needs, the comprehensive preparation that localization requires should follow specific methods in each step of a process corresponding to the general writing process, like the stages defined in common technical writing texts. The deliberate use of an effective writing process to localize documents will improve results. http://tc.eserver.org/34816.html http://tc.eserver.org/34816.html Studying abroad enhances the intercultural competencies of American students, but that enhancement strategy may be seen as an obstacle to those in business and technical fields who follow a tight curriculum and work to cover expenses. To meet their needs, U.S. professional communication faculty are designing short courses that can be delivered abroad during between-term periods and that foster an understanding of the situations and genres of the field within a context of cultural dislocation. Based on the courses described in this article, the best approach is to settle students in one location rather than touring; keep student numbers low by an entrepreneurial approach to keeping costs low; encourage students to live as the locals do, in apartments rather than hotels; explicitly plan appropriate access to technology; use class time to provide structure and reflection, but allow free time for collateral learning; and make sure the course grows local roots. http://tc.eserver.org/34819.html http://tc.eserver.org/34819.html In fall 2004, Merck faced a significant threat to the company's public image because of the withdrawal of VIOXX, and Merck executives were forced to defend the company's actions, its motivation for those actions, and its reputation. Confronted with enormous rhetorical challenges, Merck tried to generate public goodwill toward the company by creating a personalized image of a corporate giant worthy of understanding, sympathy, and trust. Open letters released during the initial response to the VIOXX crisis rely on the intimacy of interpersonal communication and demonstrate to students of business communication arguments based on ethos. http://tc.eserver.org/34821.html http://tc.eserver.org/34821.html This article aims to report initial findings about networking in organizational settings in Australia through the use of enterprise social software. http://tc.eserver.org/34822.html http://tc.eserver.org/34822.html Report assignments and collaborative assignments can both be fraught with risk. Report projects, if notstration) and/or can leave students wondering what they are supposed to have learned—all while creating a major grading burden for the instructor. Poorly planned group projects can cause similar difficulties, with the added danger of creating interpersonal stress in the student groups. Yet for many reasons, the report assignment is the perfect choice for the collaborative project. Because of its extra length and complexity, the report enables several students to contribute meaningful research, writing, and document design decisions to one product or a related set of products. If the project goes well, each student will learn important lessons both about report writing and about teamwork. To maximize the likelihood that the project will go well, the instructor must think through a wide range of variables and decide, based upon his or her learning objectives, what the features of the project will be. http://tc.eserver.org/34823.html http://tc.eserver.org/34823.html One of the largest team-based projects that I worked on in industry involved a team of more than a dozen members, a multiyear timeline, and a budget well into six figures. Our task was to deliver a new corporate Web site. As the business owner of that project, I remember sitting down with our IT manager, who explained that she would be assisting the team in managing the cost, scope, and time involved in delivering the end product. I was thrilled to have someone who would help ensure we were successful across those variables, until she told me that I had to pick one of the three as the most important. When the team ran into issues, she said her team would sacrifice aspects of the other two. Although I insisted all three were equally important, the manager ultimately decided that cost would be the controlling variable because it was the one by which she and her team would be judged by her supervisor. My experience with projects like this one has led me to think about what successful teams look like and then to determine how best to foster such teams. http://tc.eserver.org/34826.html http://tc.eserver.org/34826.html This article describes the process of planning and implementing a problem-based learning community. Business and communication students from a large university in the Western United States competed in teams to solve an authentic business problem posed by a Fortune 500 company. The company's willingness to adopt some of their recommendations testified to the professional quality of their final product. This experience gave students an opportunity to apply communication concepts to a business problem. They learned how to make vital connections between theory and practice and between shared knowledge and shared knowing. In the process, students grew personally and professionally. http://tc.eserver.org/34827.html http://tc.eserver.org/34827.html What do teams, writing, time, technology, and critiques have in common? If you said they all have the letter 't' in them, you were correct. There can be so much more, though, when we connect each of these words in our course written assignments. Most of us use teams in our graduate and undergraduate organizational communication classes. What follows is a brief description of written (letter) assignments that use student pairs in a virtual Blackboard-based discussion board. http://tc.eserver.org/34828.html http://tc.eserver.org/34828.html While institutions of higher education are enthusiastically embracing technology-mediated learning (TML), little research has been conducted to identify factors that influence student use of TML tools or determine whether use of them increases student learning. This study of business communication students at two universities found that (1) students tend to be sensing, visual, active, and sequential learners; (2) perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of TML tools are positively associated with perceived learning success; (3) learning styles do influence the students' usage behavior of certain TML tools; and (4) students' sensing/intuitive learning style is related to their perceived learning success. http://tc.eserver.org/34829.html http://tc.eserver.org/34829.html When I was assigned to teach graduate-level business writing in a Master's of Professional Communication (MPC) program, I was unsure what to do with the course. What kind of writing instruction do students need that they have not already received in their undergraduate business writing classes or in other required graduate writing courses? What makes an advanced writing class advanced? In order to answer those questions, I began looking for articles by other teachers and scholars in the field of professional and business writing. I discovered that in terms of assignments, teachers and scholars seem to agree that client projects form the cornerstones of business writing curricula. http://tc.eserver.org/34831.html http://tc.eserver.org/34831.html Transformation wields great power. As individuals, we can define who we are and describe those essential characteristics that make us unique. Our view of ourselves, however, may not necessarily align with the opinions of those around us. Thus, the ability to reinvent oneself, to change how others see us and react to us, is critical for the process of ingratiation. http://tc.eserver.org/34832.html http://tc.eserver.org/34832.html The use of simulation games in business courses is a popular method for providing undergraduate students with experiences similar to those they might encounter in the business world. As such, in 2003 we were pleased to find a classroom simulation tool that combined the decision-making and team experiences of a senior management group with a fun, realistic, and competitive plot: We selected the Business Strategy Game, an online simulation for use with the textbook Crafting and Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage. We then enhanced the student experience by blending the simulation game with reflective writing tools that help students recognize how team experiences and decisions ripple though an enterprise. http://tc.eserver.org/34833.html http://tc.eserver.org/34833.html The authors describe a graduate capstone accounting class as a basis for building communication skills desired by both accounting practitioners and accounting faculty. An academic service-learning (ASL) component is included. Adopted as a required class for a master of science degree in accounting at two universities, this course supports accounting accreditation. Surveys offer evidence that both accounting practitioners and faculty rate, in slightly different order, the three most important skills as written communication, oral communication, and analytical/critical thinking. Accounting curricula worldwide are under pressure to develop better skills in these areas as well as to meet assessment and accreditation directives and criteria. The authors designed a communication course utilizing ASL that not only meets all of the above objectives but also provides the student with hands-on experiential learning. Information about this course provides a guide to accounting and business faculty who may wish to pursue such an approach in their schools. http://tc.eserver.org/34835.html http://tc.eserver.org/34835.html A recent survey of some Association for Business Communication members highlights changes in the organization's focus over the past 40 years. Members continue to highly value pedagogical relevance, but the Association for Business Communication clearly attracts research-active academics, suggesting potential directions for the organization. http://tc.eserver.org/34836.html http://tc.eserver.org/34836.html Despite being a practice of vital importance for corporations, investor relations commands little attention in scholarly research. The studies of investor relations from a strategic communication standpoint are almost nonexistent in the United States. At the same time, investor relations today is undergoing a major shift from financial reporting to building and maintaining relationships with shareholders. The article reviews literature to define the current body of knowledge and state of research in investor relations. Then, the article reports on a survey of Fortune 500 companies to identify major investor relations practices at corporations: investor relations activities, their target audiences, their place in organizational structure, the education of investor relations officers, and what problems investor relations officers face. http://tc.eserver.org/34838.html http://tc.eserver.org/34838.html Organizational socialization is a communicative practice that affects and is affected by organizational temporality. The relationship between organizational socialization practices and organizational temporality is empirically explored through a questionnaire focusing on Ballard and Seibold's temporality dimensions and measures emphasizing structural dimensions of socialization tactics. Findings indicate that the perception of time as scarce is related to organizational members' development of formal structures that promote socialization of newcomers. Further, findings suggest that organizational members holding a future temporal focus may engage in the development of formal socialization structures that provide social support for newcomers and help newcomers predict their career path within the organization. http://tc.eserver.org/34841.html http://tc.eserver.org/34841.html In the research project Literacy Practices in Working Life, the role played by reading and writing in common nonacademic occupations in Sweden was investigated. The results highlight not only some typical ways of using writing to frame units of work but also differences reflecting the main focus of work (“people” or “things”) and overall organizing principles. This article deals with patterns in the use of writing, which may be related to modern ways of organizing work (efficiency and flexibility, personal responsibility, identification with the company, etc.). Case studies show a range of literacy practices—running from extensive and rather complicated uses of writing connected with individual responsibility to very restricted and dependent uses of reading and writing governed by a top-down organization. Examples illustrate how emerging ways of governing work through written discourse, related to the new, knowledge-based work order, create very different roles for workers. http://tc.eserver.org/34842.html http://tc.eserver.org/34842.html Genred documents facilitate collaboration and workplace practices in many ways—particularly in the medical workplace. This article represents a portion of a larger grounded investigation of how medical professionals invoke a wide range of rhetorical strategies when deliberating about complex patient cases during weekly, multidisciplinary deliberations called Tumor Board meetings. Specifically, the author explores the role of one key document in oncological practice, the Standard of Care document. Each Standard of Care document (one for every known cancer) presents a set of national guidelines intended to standardize the treatment of cancer. Tumor Board participants invoke these guidelines as evidence for or against particular future action. In order to better understand how genred, generalizable guidelines like Standard of Care documents afford decision making amid uncertainty, the author conducts a temporal and contextual analysis of the document's use during deliberations as well as a modified Toulminian analysis of a representative sample. Results suggest that, while on its own the document achieves an authoritative, charter-like purpose, it fails to make explicit a link between individual patients' experiences and the profession's expectations for how to act. Implications for how genred, generalizable guidelines—given the way they encourage certain ways of seeing over others—organize and authorize work are discussed, and a modified Toulminian approach to understanding the relationship between claim and evidence in multimodal texts is modeled. http://tc.eserver.org/34843.html http://tc.eserver.org/34843.html Based on a sample of 22 oncology encounters, this article presents a discourse analysis of positive, neutral, or negative valence in the presentation of three elements of informed consent—purpose, benefits, and risks—in offers to participate in clinical trials. It is found that physicians regularly present these key elements of consent with a positive valence, perhaps blurring the distinction between clinical care and clinical research in trial offers. The authors argue that the rhetoric of trial offers constructs and reflects the complex relationships of two competing ethical frameworks—contemporary bioethics and professional medical ethics—both aimed at governing the discourse of trial offers. The authors consider the status of ethical or unethical persuasion within each framework, proposing what is called the best-option principle as the ethical principle governing trial offers within professional medical ethics. http://tc.eserver.org/34844.html http://tc.eserver.org/34844.html This article contributes to recent efforts to add life and movement to rhetorical studies by focusing on the representation of movement in medical texts. More specifically, this study examines medical texts, illustrations, and photographs involving movement by Johann Casper Lavater, G. B. Duchenne de Bologne, Charles Darwin, and Étienne-Jules Marey. By identifying how figures of speech epitomize arguments, this examination follows a shift in the way arguments about movement are represented, a shift from static, visual arguments to gestural enthymemes, as they are named, arguments that are made in movements; these shifts are linked to developments in medical technologies involving photography. These arguments about and using movement attempt to “capture” or express the moments within which life, through the embodied gesture, resides. This extended understanding of the enthymeme broadens current understanding of argument to include delivery, links medical and rhetorical discursive practices, and informs how we make sense of and study the relationships between technology and rhetoric both in the past and present. http://tc.eserver.org/34845.html http://tc.eserver.org/34845.html Recent scholarship has argued that the concept of profession is undertheorized and accepted uncritically. The authors address this issue by summarizing the characteristics of professions and articulating professions as institutionalized occupations. Their study of a veterinary call center suggests that profession influences the workplace through (a) knowledge providing, seeking, and sharing; (b) self-management of behavior, emotions, and productivity; (c) internal sources of motivation; (d) a service orientation; (e) the invocation of field standards; and (f) participation in a knowledge community beyond the workplace. Although these features may be distinguishable analytically, they are unified in the experience of work. Moreover, the close match in this case between the service orientations of the profession and of the organization strengthened the workers' commitment and thus the legitimacy of the organization. http://tc.eserver.org/34846.html http://tc.eserver.org/34846.html Today's organizations are challenged with attracting, developing, and retaining high-quality employees; thus, many firms seek to improve their recruitment and selection processes. One approach involves using realistic job previews (RJPs) to communicate a balanced view of the organization. The authors explored the effects of organizational culture (hierarchy, market, clan, and adhocracy), recruitment strategy (RJP vs. traditional), and personality (horizontal and vertical individualism—collectivism) on attraction to Web-based organizational profiles using a sample of 234 undergraduate students in a mixed two-factor experimental design. Results indicate that the clan culture is viewed as the most attractive. Traditional versus RJP recruitment produced higher levels of organizational attraction. Finally, predicted relationships between the personality framework of horizontal and vertical individualism—collectivism and organizational attraction were supported. http://tc.eserver.org/34849.html http://tc.eserver.org/34849.html This study explores how employees express dissent to management about the same issue on multiple occasions across time (i.e., how they practice repetition). Employees completed a survey instrument reporting how often they used varying upward dissent tactics, how often and for how long they raised the same issue, and how they perceived their supervisors responded to their concerns. Results indicate that employees relied predominantly on competent upward dissent tactics but that they adopted less competent and more face-threatening tactics as repetition progressed. In addition, employees' perceptions of their supervisors' responses to repetition related to the overall duration of repetition but not to the frequency with which employees raised issues or the amount of time that elapsed between dissent episodes. http://tc.eserver.org/34850.html http://tc.eserver.org/34850.html Duality arguments are now a common perspective employed in organizational discourse research to avoid the problematic dualism of necessarily prioritizing structure or agency. Despite this considerable philosophical maturity, not all duality approaches are created equal. In fact, duality theorizing in current organizational discourse research has developed into two perspectives— structured in action or acted in structure. This article outlines the characteristics of each research program and provides an illustration of how similar organizational phenomena may be interpreted differently depending on paradigmatic orientation. Then, methodological recommendations and two emerging theoretical myopias—duality and organizing biases—are described to challenge scholars to employ dialectically these seemingly incommensurate perspectives in their theorizing of 21st-century organizational discourse. http://tc.eserver.org/34851.html http://tc.eserver.org/34851.html Since the 1960s, Brazil has developed very close ties between academia and professionals in the marketplace. The efforts of scholars and the enthusiastic support of professionals have contributed to this development and advanced both practice and the scholarly agenda of the field. This essay examines this partnership as it formed through the growth of undergraduate education, the development of graduate programs, the establishment of the bridge between academia and the business world, and the integration of the academy and the market. http://tc.eserver.org/34852.html http://tc.eserver.org/34852.html As a professional practice and an academic subfield, organizational communication is a relatively recent addition in Brazil, dating primarily from the 1980s. In both arenas, organizational communication developed from the theory and practice of public relations. Much of its design, however, grows out of the particularities and consequences of the Brazilian social, political, and economic context. This article presents a brief profile of the history of public relations and organizational communication in this country. http://tc.eserver.org/34853.html http://tc.eserver.org/34853.html The author explores how a tobacco firm in crisis engaged in crisis communication and image repair work in a highly polarized ideological milieu. Through an analysis of the tobacco firm's public statements produced in the aftermath of a 1997 lawsuit, the author demonstrates how the firm dealt with its milieu by exploiting and embracing both of the ambient ideological poles. By embracing these poles, the firm turned critique and opposition into discursive resources for its crisis communication. The author argues that political-ideological framing of organizational communication and discursive appropriation of critique and opposition serve as critical foci for organizational communication scholarship. http://tc.eserver.org/34855.html http://tc.eserver.org/34855.html In contemporary organizations, competitive advantage can come from ideas employees communicate to supervisors for improving processes, products, and services. One approach to studying employee communications with supervisors is voice behavior. In this research, the authors consider leader— member exchange (LMX) and the individual cultural value orientation of power distance (PD) as predictors of voice. Two studies, conducted in different countries, demonstrate the unique and combined effects of these predictors. In Study 1, conducted in the United States, LMX was positively related to voice, PD was negatively related to voice, and PD made more of a difference in voice when LMX was high. In Study 2, conducted in Colombia, LMX and PD were both related to voice but did not interact. The authors discuss the implications for theory and practice. http://tc.eserver.org/34856.html http://tc.eserver.org/34856.html The complex distribution and negotiation of authority in real time is a key issue for today's organizations. The authors investigate how the negotiations that sustain authority at work actually unfold by analyzing the ways of talking and acting through which organizational members establish their authority. They argue that authority is achieved through presentification—that is, by making sources of authority present in interaction. On the basis of an empirical analysis of a naturally occurring interaction between a medical coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières and technicians of a hospital supported by her organization, the authors identify key communicative practices involved in achieving authority and discuss their implications for scholars' understanding of what being in authority at work means. http://tc.eserver.org/34858.html http://tc.eserver.org/34858.html Meetings serve an important function in organizational communication. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have infiltrated meetings and allowed a new range of communicative behaviors to emerge. This cross-organizational study relies on key elements in the social influence model to predict variables that influence engagement in electronic meeting multitasking behaviors. The observation of organizational norms and the perceptions of others' thoughts concerning the use of ICTs for multitasking during a meeting explain a considerable amount of variance in how individuals use ICTs to multitask electronically in meetings. Implications for workplace ICT use in meetings and contributions to the social influence model are also discussed. http://tc.eserver.org/34792.html http://tc.eserver.org/34792.html With the substantial move to submitting electronic documents versus paper documents to FDA, it is useful to pause and consider how a regulatory reviewer actually reads a large complex technical document on screen. http://tc.eserver.org/34793.html http://tc.eserver.org/34793.html improving document review practices is of great concern to many in the biopharmaceutical industry. The reason for this interest can be explained by the following observations which provide some insight as to why review is, or needs to be, a central focus for improving knowledge propagation and dissemination. http://tc.eserver.org/34799.html http://tc.eserver.org/34799.html One of the criticisms leveled against technical PPT slides is the overuse (perhaps abuse is a better descriptor) of the topic/subtopic organization structure. One of the simple ways PPT presentations can be improved is to follow the BLUF principle. Bottom Line Up Front. http://tc.eserver.org/34802.html http://tc.eserver.org/34802.html For some years, people, myself included, have noted the lack of interest, even disdain, that many tech writers have for business issues. This reduces these writers' ability to affect company decisions, including decisions that may affect them. Writers from fine arts or English backgrounds can rarely discuss cost-justification in finance terms, so they have little input on buying decisions. http://tc.eserver.org/34690.html http://tc.eserver.org/34690.html Top 10 tips for a winning pitch by David McDermott, MD of Edomidas. David McDermott is MD of edoMidas Ltd and is an advisor and international speaker on competitive pitching. His success is founded on thoroughly researched pitching strategies, drawing from experience of the most successful global business pitches. http://tc.eserver.org/34661.html http://tc.eserver.org/34661.html Do you have a new idea, business model, product or service? Do you want to get noticed by using a marketing method that might only cost you time? Try writing a white paper to attract people to your door. http://tc.eserver.org/34609.html http://tc.eserver.org/34609.html It does not matter if they were published 10 years ago or 100 years ago, old scientific papers may be more important than you think. http://tc.eserver.org/34612.html http://tc.eserver.org/34612.html Even when some recognize the need to scratch that collaborative itch, it can be difficult to resist the urge to impede such efforts, so you need to consciously think about what you are doing to foster trust in your organization’s CoP efforts. http://tc.eserver.org/34559.html http://tc.eserver.org/34559.html No matter how beautifully designed, if a site’s voice doesn’t ring true, it’s easy to spot an “ugh.” Rather than using this section of a site like a congratulatory press release, consider approaching “About Us” like a magazine’s Editor Letter. http://tc.eserver.org/34560.html http://tc.eserver.org/34560.html Learning about writing for the web has made me a better email communicator and project manager. Email would be much more effective if content was broken out in easy-to-understand sections with a clear guide for next steps at the end. http://tc.eserver.org/34538.html http://tc.eserver.org/34538.html Individual investors are intimidated by overly complex IR sites and need simple summaries of financial data. Both individual and professional investors want the company's own story and investment vision. http://tc.eserver.org/34523.html http://tc.eserver.org/34523.html The mere act of reading good books, if you are not stopping to scrutinize the moves and tools used by the writers, examining and dissecting the choices they have made and why they work, will do nothing for you when you sit down to write. If you want a journal to accept your paper, or a federal agency to grant you coin, you have to make clear what is at stake and why the reader should care. Then you have to put forward the strongest reasoning based on evidence you provide in the clearest language you are able to rally. And then you need to know when you need help. http://tc.eserver.org/34531.html http://tc.eserver.org/34531.html Communication plays an important role in the development of trust within an organization. While a number of researchers have studied the relationship of trust and communication, little is known about the specific linkages among quality of information, quantity of information, openness, trust, and outcomes such as employee involvement. This study tests these relationships using communication audit data from 218 employees in the oil industry. Using mediation analysis and structural equation modeling, we found that quality of information predicted trust of one's coworkers and supervisors while adequacy of information predicted one's trust of top management. Trust of coworkers, supervisors, and top management influenced perceptions of organizational openness, which in turn influenced employees' ratings of their own level of involvement in the organization's goals. This study suggests that the relationship between communication and trust is complex, and that simple strategies focusing on either quality or quantity of information may be ineffective for dealing with all members in an organization. http://tc.eserver.org/34532.html http://tc.eserver.org/34532.html Closely examining a number of contemporary speeches given by CEOs, this study highlights differentiating features of two business speech genres that together account for a large number of corporate speeches. These genres, which are exemplified by speeches given at events such as industry conferences or company ceremonies, are unlike other business speech genres in that they pursue two main communication ends at once. They take on an assignment set by the speaking occasion while simultaneously pursuing the speaker's commercial objective. CEO speakers construct the hybrid speeches of these two genres by drawing on and modifying single-purpose speech types regularly used today both in business and in other sectors. Recognizing the dual communication purpose of hybrid speeches is critical for understanding their unusual structures and for developing appropriate standards to evaluate them.