Wrapping up MMC 640

Wow! A lot of material covered in the two classes I took this term in the MMC program.

In assessing what we learned in MMC 640 Ethics and Decision Making, I think we did a good job of meeting the objectives stated in the beginning of the course. I was impressed with the Seven Layers book despite having a built-in bias against the publisher, AuthorHouse (their evil! Ask me about it later). The book did a good job explaining the layers and illustrating how they can occassionally come into conflict with one another. Thus, every ethical dilemma is not always black and white. I'm curious as to how you discovered the book, Professor Artz.

I enjoyed watching the two films, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and The Insider. Both films took different approaches, but did a great job of illustrating ethical conflicts in the real world. Incorporating films like these into the classroom is a great way to facilitate the learning process. Education dressed up as entertainment! A spoon full of sugar helps the point come across!

I thought Judgement in Managerial Decision Making did a good job of pointing out some of the biases that heavily influence our decision-making process, but they are so engrained that we often are not even aware of them. The strategies presented to counteract some of these should prove valuable. Since I touched on publishing a bit in the second paragraph, I'll include a note on book design here. I remember when I first paged through this book. I was a bit intimidated because the text was so dense. I think the book would read better if the text were a bit bigger and allowed to breathe more. Of course that would likely increase the size and thus the cost of the book, which as a student I'm firmly against!

All in all, I enjoyed the class and felt like I learned a few things! Can't ask for much more than that.

Staying Awake and Aware

Having completed the reading assignments for Judgement in Managerial Decision Making, I come away with the thought that in order to make sound judgements we must be aware of the issues and biases that may cloud our perceptions.

The early chapters in the book served as a reminder of the different ways of thinking which can cloud our judgements. Being aware of these issues is half the battle. Once we become aware of these issues, we can take steps to combat them. We can devise tests to look for contridictions to the conclusions we anticipate.

Later in the book we learned strategies that will help us battle these assumptions and biases including debiasing one's judgements and developing decision analysis tools.

Implementing the lessons from Judgement in Managerial Decision Making can be difficult. It has to be done with concious intent before it becomes second nature.

Just to lighten up the mood a bit: http://deadspin.com/5477230/nyu-business-school-professor-has-mastered-the-art-of-email-flaming

Notes on Ethics Class

While each of us weighs ethical decisions every day, ethics is not something many of us think about on a daily basis — at least not consciously. Over the first few weeks of this class, the things that stand out to me are the two films that we watched, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and The Insider.

For me, the Enron film served to solidify opinions that I already held about that scandal, that it exemplified an almost total lack of ethics. The upped management was all about doing whatever it took to make as much money for themselves as possible and they had no concern whatsoever for their customers and front-line employees.

I wonder if corruption and ethical lapses are more likely when dealing with something as intangible as energy commodities? Is corruption more likely in the banking and insurance industries more so than in, say, the auto industry? In the auto industry at the end of the day, you have to have a car, a tangible product. Obviously, all those industries have had their problems of late, but I am of the opinion that these intangible products lend themselves to chicanery.

With The Insider, a saw more shades of gray, more examples of the seven layers coming into conflict with one another. With both films, I saw how much we have invested in our jobs and our employers. Do we rely too much on them for things like health insurance and retirement funds? Does that grant employers too much power over our lives? Or should we expect more from our jobs and our employers? Should they mirror our own ethics? Do they already? Lots of questions!

MMC 640 - Examining Ethics Class

Business ethics always seems to be a topic in the news. Unfortunately, it seems to be because ethics rarely seem to be a factor in business decision making. The current economic downturn seems to have been precipitated by questionable decision-making at large companies like AIG and Bear Stearns.

It seems like business ethics start and ends with "greed is good."

OK, so I'll give the cynicism a bit of rest. One area that I'm interested in hearing about is communicating ethical standards to business managers and balancing ethics and the bottom line.

As a Graduate Admissions Counselor, I pay attention to issues in the online education industry. It my job and the job of my department to enroll qualified students into Bellevue's graduate program. The adjective "qualified" is very important. One of our competitors has run into some trouble with that. You can read about that here.

Week 10

Hello All!

We are in the home stretch!

In reviewing some of the tools we've used this term, I was most comfortable with the blog. I had used blogspot before, so did not have too much trouble getting reacquainted with it. The wiki was a different story. As several others have noted, I had a lot of trouble getting started because the tools are not very prominent. After a little experimentation, I was able to get some stuff posted. I never really did dive in to editing someone else's work on the wiki. I think that was true for two reasons: first I wasn't comfortable enough with the tools to do it. Second, I was just uncomfortable with the idea of changing someone else's contribution in a class environment where that work might be graded. I get the idea of it, but it still made me balk.

Thanks,
Dan

Creating Positive Buzz for BU

People – Who will I be targeting with this blog? That’s simple — YOU! As a Graduate Admissions Counselor at Bellevue University, it is my responsibility to recruit students to Bellevue’s Masters Degree programs. While each counselor recruits across the entire spectrum of Bellevue’s graduate offerings, I obviously have an affinity for the Managerial Communications program.

Word of Mouth has always been a huge factor in Bellevue’s efforts to bring in new students, so making sure current students have a positive experience is paramount. I’d love to hear what everyone thinks of the program so far. What have you liked? What have you disliked? What would you like to see changed (bonus points if you say adding a Marketing concentration. Bonus points for what, I don’t know.)? What attracted you to Bellevue University? Why did you choose the Managerial Communications program over Bellevue’s other offerings?

Objectives — The goal is to help Bellevue’s MMC program meet all of the needs and expectations of its students, gather information on what attracted them to the program in the first place and to generate positive word of mouth for Bellevue University.

Strategy – By listening to and then implementing suggestions from current students, Bellevue University will be able to better meet students wants and needs, thus creating a positive experience and positive word of mouth.

Technology – Blogging!

First post

Hello All:

I've established this blog as part of my classwork for MMC 540 21st Century Communication Technologies at Bellevue University. I've actually blogged before at http://pubguy67.blogspot.com/. I established that blog to help promote interesting authors that I worked with while employed at a self-publishing company. I had a lot of fun with that blog and got to talk to a lot of interesting people with diverse backgrounds including a New York Times bestselling author, an oceanographer, a middle school teacher, Michael Douglas' mom and a Playboy playmate. I ran the blog from September of 2005 to February of 2008, but lost interest when the company left Nebraska.

I've wanted to start a new blog for awhile, but have not found a topic that has a strong enough appeal for me. Maybe I'll be able to come up with something during the course of this class.

I've been in class with a few of you before, so we are all getting to know one another fairly well. I'm a Graduate Admissions Counselor at Bellevue University. I'm coming up on my one year anniversary at the school. I enjoy most spectator sports and am a fan of the Huskers, Royals, Dolphins and Suns. I also root for my alma mater, Drake, during the college basketball season. I like to read and participate in the One Book, One BU group that Professor Artz helps lead.

The photo I added in my profile is a few years old. I think it was taken in 1990. It is of Chris Street and I at the Iowa High School Boys Basketball State Championships. I'm the short one.

I also added a widget from Shelfari that displays books on my shelf at that site.