Happy 4th of July everyone! I am writing this blog from my mommy's closet. Let me tell you, hiding under her shoes are the best way to get away from the loud booms!

My final blog is on our web lecture on Democracy & Dialogue. I decided to write about democracy, but focus on a certain area. That area is Participatory democracy, which is "requires that people do more than vote‹they must actively engage in cooperative activities that will help the group achieve its goals" (online notes).

Deomocracy is important for many reasons. Frankly we live in a community and society that is starting this new revolution of actually being involved in what's going on. This will explain the past election and how much the voter turned out as changed. In business and corporations, it is important to be able to give ideas to the group that will help change things. Usually, nothing bad comes from getting involved activily and trying to change things.

For this blog, I decided to pick a term from chapter 11. It is integrity, you can find this on page 346. Integrity is "a mindful state of acting purposefully to fulfill the promises and commitments you make to others." (346).

Integrity is important to have in any and every job. I accositate integrity will not only being honest with your boss about your performances, but having the ability to say you did something wrong if you did it. Unfortunatly, in my work place there are a few people who will do something wrong and when they are called out on it, instead of saying "oh that was me, I'm sorry I'll try harder/won't do it again" and learn from the situation, they point the finger at someone else and say "nope! Not me! They did it". Now, I know I've done that before, where it was something really small and I just said I didn't do it, but after that my boss found out I lied and frankly, lost some trust with me. From that situation I have learned that, I need to actually say when I did something wrong. Then they'll at least you I am honest and am willing to learn.

This also can apply outside of the work place. It's good to have the ability to say you'll do something for a friend, then actually go through with it instead of saying "oops, my b. I didn't do it even though I promised to do it for you". You find far too many people who are like that, and it just puts a strain on any relationship.

For this blog I decided to write about performance management. You can find it in chapter 10, on page 321. Performance Management is "a name for any system that tracks and gives feedback to employees about how well they are accomplishing objectives tied to each of their key dimensions".

Performance management is important in any job. No matter what you'd doing for a living, having feedback about what you're doing is always good. This way you can know to continue to do what job you're doing or how you can change. Granted, sometimes what they say can be harsh, but in the end you're getting that feedback to help improve what you do at work. This way you can keep doing the best job you're doing already, or know what exactly you will need to change.

Our last week is upon us! I can't believe we made it :)

For my first blog this week, I have decided to do it on bullying. Bullying is in chapter 9, page 297. Bullying is "direct verbal communication such as name-calling, harsh criticism of outcomes, theats to job security, personal attack, supplying incorrect information and "dressing down"."

I think we have all experienced bullying, whether is be we are bullying someone else or we are getting bullied. I can say that I have been on both ends of it, I have experiences a manager that has threated my job security over the littlest things. She would always make these little threats about mine, and others job even when they were not in the room with us. It was always uncomfertable, and made me really not want to be at work.

I have also been on the other side of actually bullying someone. It was not my proudest moment by any means. It was when I was 15/16 and had just gotten my first job. It was immature, and I wish I still talked to the girl so I could say I'm sorry.

For the last blog this week, I have decided to pick another topic from chapter 8. This time, I have picked conflict. Conflict is "the interaction of interdependent people who percieve opposition of goals, aims and values, and who see the other parties as potentially interfering with the realization of these goals" (248).

Whoever said conflict was a good thing in a relationship..was wrong. I cannot think of a story that had a happy ending that involved conflict. Everytime I have been in conflict with a person at my work, it has ended with hurt feelings. Usually we get over it, but it takes a while for that to happen. It's best to avoid conflict as much as you can, because no matter how passionate you feel about a topic is it worth having a possible enemy at work? Or even getting in trouble with a manager because you wanted to fight for your point so much? The best policy is to keep quiet.

In todays blog I have decided to write about the differents between real and vitual communication and why it's important to have both and why one is more important than the other in the work place.

This concept can be found in our hand out, and it described as "we develop a better understanding of how groups and teams use new media....". As the title sugguests, one is face to face communication and the other is over the internet with e-mail, im, etc.

Having both of these in the work place are a very important tool. For example, having the ability to e-mail my work has it's advantaged. If we have a family that is staying where they cannot get to the phone (or calling is too expensive) there is always the option of e-mailing us. Because like the rest of the world we are checking our e-mails almost every hour. This also makes it easier to communicate with management, like if I am somewhere were I cannot call or recieve calls, I have the ability to text message one of my managers something and they will get it quickly.

Today I am blogging about teams. Teams can be found in chapter 8, page 235. Teams "are groups of empoylees with representation from a variety of functional areas within the organization to maximize the cross functional exhange of information."

The term teams is important to everyone, because no matter where you are, you're always going to be working in groups. Groups are formed at school, at work, outside of work, you always have them. The most important thing is to know what group you belong in, in a work envioronment. This way you'll be able to make work more productive. For example, depending on the day I belong to a couple of different groups at work. One day I am part of the office group, the next I might be apart of the grooming group. I have to have the ability to be a cross the information I have from both of them.