Class Blog

Pod-castic!

2007-11-28T13:31:00.000-08:00

With information being available from any kind of hand-held device, information needs to be given in a more fluid and withstanding manner. Downloading a Podcast gives the reciever a chance to listen or view the clip on their own time and not have to worry about beating a deadline to download. I am experimenting on how I can improve Redding Oil's communication and just recently I have dabbled in creating a Podcast. My theory is that there could be a page on the company's intranet that lets the employees download important messages by audio or video that they can take with them on their MP3 players, assuming they have one, or listen to straight from their desktop. These Podcasts could consist of many different and sometimes detailed subjects, from "How to Get a Job Printed Through the Printshop" to "Speech at the Annual Chirstmas Party." This could be very resourceful to the company to help employees understand the work process and keep them up to date on the different events in the company. With the company growing with younger employees they will see it as the company reaching out to them by way of technology they already use.

Does It Work?

2007-11-28T13:07:00.000-08:00

Speaking to a Human Resources representative at Redding Oil, I found out that they decided to invest in the Sametime Software to help the Human Resources stay in contact with each other during their busy time and to reach others members while they are off site. Out of this interview I have made a short Podcast about its features and how it is and will be helping the department. There is also a rumor that this can take off into what could be a company-wide standard software. If this is true there could be many changes within the company that could take place. Meetings could take place at everyones' own workstation rather than having to wait for everyone to meet up at a conference room or employees that are not at the meeting can review what was said therefore enlightening them on what they missed. I have looked into this type of corporate communication and now business are poping up all over the world to accomodate this kind of technology. The are even contract businesses that companies can hire to host this communication for a company such as WiredRed, IBM, and Adobe. With Redding Oil have so many employees off-site this gives them a chance to stay in touch with the "mother ship."

This Is The Spot

2007-11-08T07:11:00.000-08:00

Communication does not necessarily depend on the way technology helps you stay in touch with others but the way a person is able to adapt to the way they get in touch. Redding Oil is now in a new headquarters building and many of the employees are free from being enclosed within an office, they are now in cubicles that are connected to each other and are open at the top. Everyone can hear over the cubes so most of the conversations are shared so when it comes to work related conversations, there are no secrets as to who is working on what. Keeping everyone else up to date on the next steps are a key to communication in the work place and also a good work habit to show your comrades that you have them in mind. Rather than have a more informal way of keeping up with others, there could also be small collaboration meetings or blogs that keep everyone involved with the project in communication and agreeing on the way that it's heading. With this new move, the Communications department could find that this change could be better for everyone.

The Gameplan

2007-10-18T12:59:00.000-07:00

With the research that I have gathered for Redding Oil I think it is time to format a plan that will discuss some of the solutions and how other companies have utilized the many resources. My plan is to create a web-like interfaced video that explains the problems in visual animations and show how certain kinds of software like Tubes or Sametime can help our company or why the actual process can be changed or improved. I'll be showing how the communication process seems to be a little confusing for some and give examples on how the system needs to have a keyhole that informs new members of company issues or helps communication get a lot more balanced.

Another part of the presentation will be to tell about how these new systems could help Redding Oil. An article about emerging technologies speaks about social media such as wiki and RSS feeders that is could help collabotaion in companies production due to its quick communication ability. With Redding updating into the 21st century with websites and e-mail, it needs to realize that the people that know how to use this type of technology are getting younger and want to have their information faster. These are the issues I hope to bring to light with my project.

Will It Work?

2007-10-10T19:44:00.000-07:00

Searching through web there have been many debates of wheather blogging is right for corporate companies. James McGovern responds to an article of blogging in the corporate world and what companies would use for the best result for their business. An article from SearchCIO tells of Kodak and how blogging helped inform the consumer of the features of their products and lets them express their love for photography with others.

This type of social networking is good for companies that would want to get the information about their products out in the world, but maybe not that good for Redding Oil. Speaking to some employees in the Human Resources department there are just not enough people to handle the many jobs that there are to think of. Talking to an employee of a financial company I discovered that they have their own department that goes to workshops and learns different areas of the company in order to answer any questions that other employees may have. Seeing as how Redding Oil does most of its work on an internal basis, this is probably not the way it wants to go. So maybe speeding up the process of communication is the best idea for Redding.

Send it!

2007-10-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

Today people want faster results and looking on the web I have found a new way that people of the corporate and personal world share information they feel is important. This is called Tubes, a file sharing site that allows subscribers to access videos, photos, URLs or documents through their own desktop. An icon is set on your desktop and all you have to do is drag the file you want to share to the icon and Tubes takes care of the rest. Corporate companies deal with many files and some people recieve so many e-mails that they don't get to look through all of them, this way they can have and save items and files without bogging down their e-mail with large files.
Here is a video of John van Siclen, CEO of Tubes telling us some features.

Unifying

2007-09-27T07:12:00.000-07:00

After reading more about Lotus Samtime, I'm almost sure that this is a way to deal with many questions that do not get answered right away at Redding Oil. Sametime is used mainly by financial companies that have to deal with clients and have answers on hand. Most of these companies actually have a whole department that deals with these kinds of answers and guide the inquisitive employee in the right direction. Seeing as how Redding is not a client-serving company and most of the work is internal, the change is not to be that extreme. In a recent article IBM is looking to make a bigger mark in the corporate world by expanding the features of and limits of Sametime. This move could pursuade more companies that are not in the financial category, such as Redding Oil, to find some use in this software. The Communications department could use something like this among themselves to keep each other informed about jobs and the progress.

Get the Message?

2007-09-26T18:47:00.000-07:00

Over time, companies' ways of communication have evovled with the help of networking. Comparing to other companies Redding Oil can take a lesson from some of the new and more effective ways of employee communication. I spoke to an employee of a financial firm that told of a software that they use which is called Lotus Sametime, an instant messaging system that allows every employee across the world to communicate with each other without the lag time of e-mail. Redding Oil could use this kind of technology to improve the communication among the new age of employees. This software allows employees to video conference over their computers. I understand that having a video on all the time is a kind of intimidating but having it on to give a new member to your team an inspiring first day message to boost morale or to give them some tips on how the company works. This is just a step up form pre-recorded messages which could be in Redding's future.

This Is Just An Example

2007-09-17T20:35:00.000-07:00

If you would like to know information about Redding Oil I regret to inform you that it does not exist. It is an alias that I am using in place of the company that I am gathering data from. I'm not sure if there are any legal issues with using the real name but just to make spare me the trouble. This project outline is not to criticize the job process of Redding Oil, but to compare how corporate companies break out of the normal way of job processing in order to make it easier and more organized for the actual worker. I want this to not just help Redding Oil but to help other companies create a keyhole into the job process. The keyhole serves as a contact that communicates with other IBUs in order let them know a department's workload and when to expect their job. This is just one example of how to make the job process a little more organized and less confusing to new members of the company.

Stay Manageable

2007-09-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

Conflict with communication can be a very costly amenity especially to large corporations that do many dealings overseas. In a recent survey that Redding Oil's Communication department took, the words "communication" and "management" came up as some of the setbacks that keep others from doing their jobs. There are many employees in the world that believe they would be able to accomplish more goals if it weren't for the decisions by the manager. Managers do take the responsibility for the work their group does, but the workers also have to be motivaed by the manager so they actually depend on each other to accomplish certain goals. After the survey discussion, it was decided that the restructure of the department would help both the workers within the department and other IBUs they deal with. The new structure would be a out of the fashion of the norm and change the way the IBUs interact with the department. An article called Management Agility speaks about the characteristics managers should have and expectations from their department. It also talks about the different ways of managing and how it has changed over time. This is similar to what is actually happening to our department, we are changing the way it has always worked in order to serve the newer, younger emloyees that are used to having their information faster. So this is a perfect time to introduce video references on the company intranet or a type of instant messaging system that is already being used as a faster way of communication aside from
e-mail. This is not saying that Redding Oil has bad communication, the time has just come to where it has realized that newer methods need to be put in place of the old because the company is growing with newer people along with newer companies.

Are You Listening?

2007-09-12T17:09:00.000-07:00

In a recent team building workshop my department, Communications, looked over and discussed the results of a survey that all of the employees of the department filled out. After reviewing the responses we found that the Communications department had a problem with communication amongst each other. The main problem was that work was being dispursed and information that some feel is needed to get to the public does not due to technology restrictions and a vacancy of certain positions that involve around the clock media alertness. With Redding Oil dealing with many IBUs that are overseas it is possible that all or most of the employees do not recieve much of the important information. Most of the answers were to hire another person just to keep track of and take ideas for intercompany stories to post, so I decided to plant the idea of a video blog at the end of the month that sums up all of the stories that were posted or maybe looked over. The reaction that I got out of that was who will do it? and when will they have the time? More into the meeting I did a bit of observing on how the rest of the department reacted to how to get the news out there or even to inform new members of the process of how to get things done. We realized that many people use the old fashioned common contacts to get something done. For example, if someone needed a design for a brochure done the way they would go about it is to call around and ask people they know what the process is and that acquaintance refers them without even knowing if that is the right person for the job , so our goal is keep them informed on what to do and who to go with without having to ask outside references. Now, the wheels start turning on a new use for the video blog or maybe a series of How To videos for certain service departments.

Corporate Blogging?

2007-09-06T18:15:00.000-07:00

Working in the corporate world allows me to see how business leaders and corporate employees get their information. The company I work for, Redding Oil, has grown over the years from a small business of only 100 employees to one of the biggest and well known companies in Dallas. Over the years, the company has acquired many subsidiaries along its path that expands it's connection from the United States to places such as Peru and Yemen. Now that the corporate world is reaching into the 21st century, the ways of communicating ideas and important announcements has become easier to acquire. Now that the company has just jumped on the internet bandwagon, I feel that there is an even easier and faster way that my company can send information to its employees or the employees can send among each other.
Redding Oil already has an intranet that only the employees can access complete with daily company news updates. Most of the employees have now gotten used to the e-mail memos and conference invites, but working with the Communications and Human Resources departments I feel that there will be something more that can be achieved on how to get more people and companies more involved and interested in knowing about Redding Oil. Since Redding is made up of thousands of employees all over the world, there is a willing to help them recieve the message or annoucement at the same time.

Just Married...Why Bother?

2007-08-29T17:42:00.000-07:00

This past summer my wife and I were joined in holy matrimony. Even though we tried to keep the actual wedding to a minimum, it ended up being a bigger hassel to try and keep it small. We come from religious families so the church was nessesary and the most important. We still had the the main players such as a reception hall complete with decorations, caterer and dj. During the process of looking for these services you find out that people do not stand a chance with a "small wedding" and couples are pretty much forced to have an extravagant wedding. While looking for a caterer we tried to find one that only fed 100 people and the companies that we found had to have a minimum of 250-300 people served. Lucky for us I was related to a chef taht worked for a catering company who happened to have the date free. As for the reception hall we had the same problem where we could find a place that was either too big and came with too many restrictions or a place that was to small. I thought getting married was supposed to be exciting but the advice that I give others is to have a church ceremony (if needed) and go straight to the honeymoon because the day goes by too fast, and litereally in flashes, to focus on any of the small detail.