1. Week 1: Orientation & Introduction to Integrated Communication
1. OBJECTIVE OF COURSE: You will learn principles of integrated organizational communication and apply them in class discussion and a project to achieve working familiarity with planning and managing communication for organizational goals.
1. Principles: We teach guidelines and rules of thumb that you will apply in daily work.
2. Integrated organizational communication: We recognize all forms of communication including written, visual, verbal, nonverbal, sensual and tactile. We believe that all forms work together to achieve corporate goals.
3. Class discussion: You will do exercises throughout the course and use these as a basis for discussion along with the text and recent business news.
1. Class discussion is 50 percent of the grade. The project is the other 50 percent.
2. You will be graded on answers that you give.
3. Class exercises and discussion should lead to the project that you will do. If you plan carefully, you can complete sections of your project through class exercises.
4. Project: The project you will complete should be based on work you do today.
1. Focus on some aspect of your company's business and communication and analyze it in detail.
2. Your project should provide actionable steps to integrate communication so it is more effective.
3. You will be graded on:
1. Accuracy: A precise statement of facts about the case that you are analyzing, concise writing and practical courses of action.
2. Brevity: Your reports should be tightly organized outlines.
3. Solutions: Your recommended solutions to the challenges that you find should be practical. Describe how you would implement the solution.
4. Persuasiveness: You will present your case in class along with your initial analysis for discussion by the class as a whole.
2. Introduction to principles of integrated communication.
1. A manager's job is to get results that ensure the survival and success of a business.
1. Managers use management tools to get a job done.
2. Corporate Communications are tools that managers use to achieve productive and profitable results.
3. Managers should know which communication tools to use at a given time and how to use them.
1. Unfortunately, few business disciplines focus on communication alone.
1. Communication is a subset or assumed part of a management craft, such as marketing, accounting, organizational behavior, etc.
2. Academics and consultants often assume that managers know how to communicate. This assumption is often wrong.
3. Business specialties often focus on aspects of a manager's task but rarely on the whole job.
4. Managers often learn some of the languages of business but fail to understand others. Hence, they are limited.
4. Communication is a fundamental part of managerial craft and stands alongside other skills that a manager practices to ensure the survival and success of a business.
1. One need not know communication theory to practice communication at a basic level, but to achieve great skill requires pragmatic understanding of communication concepts.
2. Keys to integrated communication:
1. Business is a subset of communication. One may communicate and never conduct an economic transaction, but one cannot conduct an economic transaction and not communicate.
2. Every living thing communicates in some way and is limited in how it can communicate by physical processes that it uses.
3. Every human is limited in communication by his or her environment and senses, as well as by the state of knowledge and of society before and during the time the person is alive.
4. Every human is limited in communication by how he or she views other humans.
3. Questions and Answers. Discussion.
4. Assignment for next week
1. Perform an informal written inventory of communications tools that you use.
2. Observe closely. You use more tools than you think you do.
3. Come prepared to give your list and to add to it during discussion.

Home  Top of Page