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Module 8 is something of legend.  I never knew how much I would enjoy a project such as this with Padlet.  I honestly feel that its a much smoother platform than that ugly Blackboard that we have to use for FSCJ.

I know that this project was meant to be done as more of a running tally of what we have done in the class, but I chose to do it in the final week for no particular reason other than a tiny bit of possible procrastination. I think it was very beneficial to me to have done them all this way as opposed to each week because it made me go back and review every module and every assignment. I looked a terms, phrases, chapters, typed papers, discussion boards (and all the responses that no one ever checks on again), and I even re-ran some of the same google searches. Doing all of this the way that I did reinforced the data that I initially stored in my brain.   I'm proud of the work I complied here and I'll go ahead and tell the instructor that this is worth 98 points out of 100 (2 points deducted for telling everyone about my bombed quiz).

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Being out front and leading is the reason why we are all taking this class.  That or we just need the credits for whatever degree.  But even in chasing after that degree, we all want to be something higher than a grunt on the assembly line. This module exposed us to a bit of that leadership we should as know about.  Whatever style us individuals choose to utilize will be up to us.  We hear and read the cases of the good and bad leaders, but understanding that a strict leader may be a very good leader even if we dont necessarily like that person.  Go back and check that mod with the assignment about Steve Jobs, that guy was a total whacko to most people, but the consumers of his product drive apple stock to the very top of the S&P 500.

I'm sure you could imagine that my pictures and extra posts in this section will all be funny leaders to make everyone laugh. Laugh are worth more to me than points so...

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This mod got me thinking about employees and how to get the right ones.  I was exposed to the term 'hiring agency' where I discussed with my fellow classmates about the pros and cons of internal vs external hiring.  Hiring internally will get you personnel that are already familiar with company policies and some internal personnel structure, but it may take some time to find the right qualified person.  External hiring agencies could have you a person for the opening much quicker, and with the right qualifications, but for a price.  You might need to pay the agency a certain percentage of salary to get this person, or some other concoction of payment methods.

So, I completely bombed the quiz associated with this module.  I was away for thanksgiving and I was doing the assignment and killin the discussion boards, but I forgot my book at home, and we were in a cabin in the middle of the woods for the week.  Needless to say, I got a very low score on that quiz.  I'm not worried about it though, after Professor Curry sees how awesome my wall is here on Padlet, he'll surely go back into the gradebook and give me an A on that quiz....

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Look at me getting Google Maps in on the action.

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Look at me getting Google Maps in on the action.

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I found a few hiring agencies in the area (Jax) and there are a TON of them, just like everything else. My wife had her application sitting at one of these places for a little while and within a week they had her sitting at a desk holding a two month temp job. She later found a full time position on her own through someone she met at that job. And they all lived happily ever after... right?

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The satisfaction survey we created gave us some insight on what it would be like to try and get feedback from personnel.

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Headhunters, much like this guy, have been known to hunt down the most qualified people to be future executives of companies.

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Coca-cola reports that 95% of their executives are internally hired

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Sometimes it works out without planning. The challenge here it to show the bosses that it was carefully planned first...

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A good easy read of some steps in planning

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A good easy read of some steps in planning

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If you have a clear idea of where you are and where you want to go, business-wise, you can develop a realistic, achievable plan to get there. The management planning process helps your company through the steps of defining a desired outcome and developing a strategy to achieve it. Setting this planning process in motion helps you move forward with clarity, and saves you wasted time, energy and capital.

Assess Your Situation

To know where you want to go, you must first understand where you are. Gather data about your company's present situation, including sales figures and customer feedback. Identify the company's strengths and weaknesses, soliciting both the internal voices of your staff and the external voices of your clients.

Set Priorities

Determine the values and outcomes you want your company to achieve, and state them clearly. Craft a vision statement by articulating the central ideas and values that keep your business on track, such as stellar customer service or a commitment to protecting the environment. Work with your management team to clarify this vision, and make sure there is consensus around adopting it as a guiding principle for your company.

Set Goals

Use the vision you have crafted to create measurable goals. For example, if you value customer service, you may work toward the goal of responding to every piece of customer feedback; if you're committed to environmental values, you may set the goal of having a carbon-neutral workplace in three years. Be as clear and specific as possible when creating your goals, using numbers to measure progress and success, and charting timelines for achieving your objectives.

Create Accountability Systems

Develop systems for evaluating progress as you work toward achieving the goals you have set. Put different managers and staff members in charge of domains, such as tracking sales figures or carbon emissions. Create a chain of accountability showing who is ultimately responsible for different outcomes. Have backup plans so you can shift gears and dedicate additional resources if the process isn't going according to plan.

Evaluate and Review

Create formal protocols for assessing your progress. Bring as many voices as possible into this evaluation process, and encourage honesty and objectivity. Assess how well you are progressing toward your goals, but also be open to reassessing the goals themselves, as long as you do so in ways that are still consistent with your long-term vision. Technologies and circumstances may change, making your goals less achievable or relevant. But if you do revisit your goals, do so with your vision in mind so you can find other ways of expressing it in your work.

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The Basic Steps in the Management Planning Process

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If you have a clear idea of where you are and where you want to go, business-wise, you can develop a realistic, achievable plan to get there. The management planning process helps your company through the steps of defining a desired outcome and developing a strategy to achieve it.

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The SWOT analysis was one of the biggest new things I learned about in this course. Not only the process of doing a SWOT, but the ideas behind it. After doing a SWOT, I analysed my results and gave a report to my boss (who at the time was the head-honcho of In&Out burger) and gave him ideas on how to further exploit our strengths and dwindle and improve on our weaknesses. I firmly believe that whatever company I own or work for, if I am responsible and smart about my SWOT's and the analysis of them, I can achieve success throughout the duration of my career.

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I still dont know if I have the knowledge needed to base any policy making on, but I dont think there should be a quota for how many people working at one place are white, black, mexican, etc. The idea there seems to me to be forcing someone else out of a job just so a person of a particular race can be put in there. I AM NOT against any race but I think that part of freedom and living in the land of the free means you have to work for things yourself, as well as being responsible for the consequences of the things you dont work for no matter what you are.

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Introduction to the final project. I started reading this module and all of its assignments on a Tuesday for the week, then I scrolled down to the bottom and saw the big words "Final Project."  "Hell no" I said as I slammed my laptop shut.  I didnt open it back up until Sunday morning.  I still associate "MODULE 3" with dreadful, gut wrenching feelings.  "Do I try to do some now?  Do I skip the whole frigging project so I dont vomit out of nervousness?"  Those thoughts stick with me to this day.

Diversity was the big one here (besides... you know). Ive had a good stance on diversity for a while now, being in the military will give you that exposure. You think that you wouldnt act any differently around someone of a different race or treat them any differently, but the truth is, you will. People will act differently when with someone whom has a different cultural background

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I researched these three companies above and dove into their ethics. I learned about their stance on conflict of interest, and drinking and drugs.

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This mod pointed me in the direction on Googles ethics policy which I found that the employees are allowed to drink while at work. Typical rules apply (over-indulgence, recklessness), but I would totally be an advocate for this policy anywhere that I work

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Opportunities should be given to all genders, races, religions, cultures and the rest of the et cetera (etc). No person should ever be disallowed something because of the way they are (a few exceptions, of course), but that does not mean a woman = a man. They are different humans, anatomically, hormonal, emotionally, logistically, and so many other reasons. Different DOES NOT mean lesser. Women have different pros, and different cons. Women things differently which could be better or more effectively. The push for "Gender Equality" should be dissolved and just let the Equal Opportunity people take over.

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The biggest disservice we do to women is telling them that they are equal to men. We fail to prepare them for their reality and, by doing so, we set them up for a lifetime of struggle, disappointment and misery.

Men and women are not equal -- they are different. Like apples and oranges. We're all fruits, yes, and only one of us will make a decent apple pie.

This whole bringing-up-your-daughters-the-way-you'd-bring-up-your-sons business is nonsense. When did we decide that there is an ideal human being prototype and it's male? Why is no one bringing up their sons like they'd bring up their daughters?

Many women of my generation were "brought up like sons". We went to the best schools and colleges our parents could afford. Ambition was not just encouraged but insisted upon. We were asked to dream and we dreamt big. We were told we could do anything a man can and for the longest time we believed that. We got good grades, we made it to big jobs and did well. We married men we chose and they "allowed" us wings our mothers couldn't have dreamt of in their marriages.

And then we had babies.

Having a child is the single-more gender-defining thing a woman can do -- and cute as they may be, babies take every notion you may have had of man-woman equality and smack you in the face with it till it's all but beaten out of you and you're the exact same bag of motherhood hormones as countless women before you have been. Except now it's a lot worse.

"Why are we always wishing the mother away and looking for ways to turn her into a 'career woman', just queuing up to do all that a man can?"

Children have no idea that they are now being born in the 21st century and should treat their mothers differently. Having a child continues to be the same amount of work: childbirth continues to be a bitch and a mother's biological impulses drawing her to her child remain as strong as nature intended them to be. But our expectations from women are very different now. They are supposed to be men.

They are expected to be men, but they can't stop being women. As a result, the most competent, educated, financially independent Indian woman today is terribly ill-equipped to handle her reality.

A lot of jokes about women centre on them being moody, irrational and not knowing what they want. This isn't actually funny -- we honestly don't know what we want. Nature intended us to want near-constant physical proximity to our children and gave us a fierce instinct to protect and nurture. Capitalism and its definitions of success need us to regularly show up at work and lean bloody in. Our parents told us we could be their "sons" but will be the first to raise an alarm if we neglect our homes and children and stopped being "daughters". We are always, always torn.

We can fight it all we want, but we are not winning an argument against biology. Where is the recognition of the importance of the nurturing role a mother plays in a home? Why do we treat mothers as replaceable in a child's life by a supportive father or an efficient childcare system? This is not a "gendered" argument as some of my feminist friends might say -- the way my son's cries affect me is not the same as they would affect his father. And I am willing to go to war with you on this.

How is it then that we don't recognise this critical aspect of being a woman and let it enter our reality? Why are we always wishing the mother away and looking for ways to turn her into a "career woman", just queuing up to do all that a man can?

When I was growing up, my mother often told me that I should choose a career that would be "suitable to women". Like a school teacher or a doctor in a government hospital -- like she was -- so I could come back home at a "decent time" and have time off work to spend at home in general. It used to infuriate me then but it sounds like some seriously good advice now. In the face of things I now need and want to do, it would be a nightmare to have to deal with work that doesn't allow such benefits -- as it is for many women.

"[T]he way my son's cries affect me is not the same as they would affect his father. And I am willing to go to war with you on this."

I work in a sector that is effectively the bastion for man-woman equality, with very little room to not give employees things like maternity benefits. My boss is an exceptionally accommodating person, who allows me not just a job, but a career, with all the flexibility that I can ask for. When I think about how I managed to land this, the answer is a combination of sheer dumb luck and the fact that before I had a child, I was able to make some adventurous career moves to build skills that now make me valuable to my employer. A lot of this was a happy accident, but looking back I wish someone had given me this advice when I was contemplating my career options or planning the next work/study move. I wish someone had warned me that there will be a phase in life where my career decisions will have very little to do with my professional priorities but with everything else that'll mostly be a non-negotiable -- and had told me how to prepare for it.

Maybe it's time now to introduce our daughters to the truth of what it means to be a woman and teach them to never apologise for it.

We could start by no longer denying them their differences and teach them to negotiate their reality. Being financially independent, finding work that is meaningful and exciting, the ability to keep a foot in the door -- all this while being present for your child, without pushing yourself so hard that somewhere, something snaps. This is a critical life skill and no one is teaching it to our girls.

This is not about tempering ambition but dealing with the roadblocks. It is also about redefining ambition and bringing it in line with what women really want -- not what they're taught to want. To find and create spaces for themselves as their circumstances change, to know their biology and be better prepared for what it'll throw at them, to ask for help as traditional family structures disintegrate, to ask for flexible work hours, to build their skills in such a way that allow this kind of flexibility, to stop apologising for stepping down or stepping back when their bodies and hearts make them, to not feel compelled to fight their natural instincts only because they are striving to some ideal prototype of a woman who leans in and can have it all.

"What's wrong with 'women-friendly' jobs anyway? They are friendly to women -- that should be a good thing."

None of this is to deny the importance of fighting for equality in opportunity and maternity benefits from our institutions, nor is it an argument for pushing girls to take on only "women friendly" jobs. But wouldn't it be nice if we knew growing up that we will need to fight these battles? Maybe some of us would choose differently, maybe some of us won't. But all of us will make more informed choices.

What's wrong with "women friendly" jobs anyway? They are friendly to women -- that should be a good thing.

A friend thinks I'm doing the biggest disservice to women by "dissing the feminist movement". I'm doing no such thing. The feminist movement is thankfully nuanced enough and has made all these points in many writings -- we have just forgotten its finer arguments.

I am just saying that we've been fighting this fight forever and it's taking a toll on us -- on our peace of mind, our sanity, our relationships and our careers. We are not men, we want different things and we can offer different things. Not recognising these differences is just setting us up to fail.

A "great" father is one who can change a diaper or will show up for their child's PTA meeting. I've never heard a mother being addressed as a "great" mother. Everything mothers do is routine, standard, not worthy of any special mention. When we have such low expectations of our men, why do we set such impossible standards for ourselves? We need to stop martyring ourselves for the fight because this is not how fights are won. I wish we'd stop wearing our stressful lives as badges of honour and resist from finding such virtue in "multitasking".

Frankly, if we really want to be like men, we should never leave our parents' homes, do the bare minimum, pat ourselves on the back for every little success, blame others for any failure, and just get a beer.

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Why We Need To Stop Telling Women They're Equal To Men

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The biggest disservice we do to women is telling them that they are equal to men. We fail to prepare them for their reality and, by doing so, we set them up for a lifetime of struggle, disappointment and misery. Men and women are not equal -- they are different.

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This was a good one.  It was filled with assignments that made me dig for information pertaining to how companies put together their policies and gave me a greater stance on gender equality.

Some companies have strict policies pertaining to ethics while others relax a lot more when it comes to behavior in the work place.  I found that Google is not against people drinking at work, while working.. while WORKING.  I wish it was like that in the military, I would totally take a pay cut for that kind of benefit.

Gender equality is a bit brash in todays culture. It seems as though every time you hear about it, you hear: Men and women are exactly the same and should be treated the same; or, Women should be paid the same as men. I dont believe that this should be the structure.

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the act or art of managing : the conducting or supervising of something (such as a business); judicious use of means to accomplish an end; the collective body of those who manage or direct an enterprise... See the full definition

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Apple has shifted from Mr. Jobs' visions to almost an avant garde or different for the sake of being different isn't the way that the mega tech giant seems to have headed.

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I learned about Mr. Adkins and his amazing achievements working his way up the chain. Now formerly the Vice Pres.

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This was on the list as our first assignment! Unfortunately, we were awarded no points for all the effort we put in to carefully reading every single line of this contract and agreeing to possible life imprisonment.

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This was the first bits of the class that we all went through together to give us a standard for the foundation of the word "Management."  This gave me my first exposures to the word and definitions and an overall view of the term.  I really saw how much I didn't know about that word in this chapter even though I had filled a "manager" position before.

We also talked to each other on this very same website. I got to see what the other students looked like and read a bit about people whom had recently gotten married or new puppies or whatever. I like meeting new people in person, but this was pretty nice as well. (At least I didnt have to stalk each and every person on facebook...)

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Welcome to my page!  You'll find beautiful stones on the wallpaper and a picture of a ninja turtle as my icon.  It really sets anyone right at home for this "Semester in Review!" Just like most (i assume anyways), I'll be going mod-by-mod in a seemingly linear order posting things relating to topics/chapters/terms/assignments contained in each module so... HANG ON TO YOUR TEXTBOOKS!

Over the top?

(Nah)