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The lecture that stuck with me throughout the term was when a Ted talk video was shown to us about Ronny Edry, an Israeli graphic designer and this campaign that he created The Peace Factory, an online movement in the Middle East. The campaign is made up of posters, people from Israel would send photos of themselves to take part in it, to say, despite our countries being at war with each other we care for you. This lesson highlighted how social media can be used as a tool to communicate to other people. It shows us that everyone has a voice, the internet and social media is a platform for everyone to be heard. This lesson also shows how increasingly connected our society has been. Basically everyone has access to the internet, distance is no longer an obstacle for people since the advent of the internet and new technology people have been radically connected to each other (Morgan, 2013). Organizations should use this tool as a means to communicate the message that it wants to impart to its target publics. Most organizations have slowly transitioned to the digital scene, coming up with their own websites, different social media accounts to showcase what their organization is all about.

Organizations have realized that the internet is a platform for everyone to voice their opinions, but not all of the things posted are relevant, some are just white noise. Organizations need to communicate a message that’s uniquely their own and relevant so as to set it apart from all the other things that are posted. The internet is full of white noise and sometimes the messages and the identity of an organization gets muddled (Klepic, 2015). As a future OrgComm practitioner, may it be job as a PR director or a video editor, it’s important that the I make sure that the message of the organization is relevant to its publics, that it’s communicated effectively, meaning, it can be identified whose message it is, showing that it’s uniquely the organization’s message and not anyone else’s but tailoring it on the brand identity of the organization and also making sure that it’s meaning when sent across is without any distortion as it is disseminated into different channels.

References:

Klepic, J. (2015, December 9). The Digital Age Has Changed Culture, Communication and Business Management Skills. Retrieved from http://arcompany.co/the-digital-age-has-changed-culture-communication-and-business-management-skills/.

McCrory, K. (2015 February 25). How social media & technology is changing the way we do business. Retrieved from http://www.virgin.com/unite/business-innovation/how-social-media-technology-is-changing-the-way-we-do-business.

Morgan, N. (2013, May 21). How Digital Technology Has Changed Communication - First Of Three Posts. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorgan/2013/05/21/how-digital-technology-has-changed-communication-first-of-three-posts/.

For our final output for our major class, TECHCOM we were tasked to propose interventions which uses communication technologies to help an organization grow and develop.

For our group, we chose to use the Ortigas Foundation Library. An associated but separate entity with the Ortigas Company. The main advocacy of the library is about Philippine history and culture. It aims to promote and educate every Filipino about our history through the different Filipiniana collections and exhibits that the library has and through the different merchandise that they sell.

The goal for this project is to make people aware of the organization by increasing the organization’s only presence and also, market the organization to its weakest market (the youth) by creating content that cater to the youth’s taste.

For the organization to increase its online presence, the group thought that creating an Instagram account for the sole purpose of selling their merchandise would help them get following from younger audience. The account would have well composed photos of the different products that they offer so that it would be more appealing to the young consumers. As for their current Facebook page, we suggested having posts that are more attuned to that tastes of their target market and posting content that only showcase their exhibits and collections, posts that would entice potential patrons to go visit the library, no posts of their merchandise on this page. Creating a specified purpose and content for each social media accounts would clearly communicate the organization’s message.

For their existing website, we propose that updating the layout and the design of the website would make it more inviting and appealing for younger audiences, helping them gain exposure to their weakest market.

Mock Ups

Instagram:

Facebook post:

New website layout:

Individual contribution

The group collective thought of the interventions that were going to be proposed for the organization. We tried to see whether the interventions were appropriate for the organization and for the group’s goal for this project.

As more and more new companies and organizations pop up it is important to make sure that the product or solutions that an organization plan to develop is relevant to your target customers and not just another book to be placed in a shelf. The 6-step validation process which illustrates the main message that Mitchell Harper wanted to impart to the readers of his blog article, The Startup Framework to Validate Your Idea before You Spend $1. As our group ventures on developing our output for our next activity for this class, there are 3 things that I got out from this framework which will be helpful in the guiding us on how to properly communicate the importance of knowing and understanding the cultural history of our country.

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION IS ALWAYS THE FIRST STEP.

When you have this concept in mind which you think is a great solution to implement. It has always been the norm to identify the number one problem that needs to be solved, doing so avoids the waste of time, effort and money of every member involved in the implementation of the project. It also helps the organization find its main area of focus, by identifying one focus area the organization is more inclined to making quality solutions compared to having no focus and having substandard solutions for multiple problems. One example worth noting is from the organization that I am currently part of in the university, in AIESEC each department and the Executive board, aside from the weekly and monthly meetings, semi-annual meetings are conducted this is when they evaluate the progress of the department and the whole organization to see what can be further improved to have better outcomes and be more productive. On those meetings, areas of improvements are identified, categorized by level of importance and possible solutions are thought out for these problems.

RESEARCH IS EVERYTHING.

Before implementing solutions that we have in mind, its best to see if those ideas that we have are appropriate to the problem area identified before. Doing research gives a deeper insight on the problem and gives the organization an idea on how to go about the problem, it identifies the stakeholders affected by the problem, past solutions to the problem. It will help an organization fine tune the solution that an organization has in mind in a given problem and create better solutions from the data gathered in the research process.

TECHNOLOGY IS YOUR FRIEND.

Now that everything is moving so fast and organizations are transitioning to the digital scene new technological inventions are created to make an organization more effective. Whether it be communicating their mission to possible customers or keeping contact with old ones. Communication technologies, such as the various Google online softwares, Dropbox, iCloud, various social media, etcetera, these inventions can help in mobilizing the organizations work in the research stage of the implementation of the solution that they have in mind. Organizations can gain valuable information by researching the problems in the organization, doing informal interviews through Skype, email pertinent people questions about the problem.

It can also positively affect the Customer Relation Management of an organization to its clients or customers, having websites or social media accounts organizations have a wider reach to their intended audience and they also can take care of any issues that their customers have with the organization. Internally, communication will help the organization run smoothly as members of the organization can access documents easily, easy communication to other employees can be facilitated through chats, and alternative work areas are offered such as Google Docs gives room more open discussions and interactive communication.

With all these ideas in mind, the framework that Mitchell Harper introduces is a good tool for all organizations not just start-ups. It will be a great blueprint for solutions when any problem arise in an organization.

References:

MacKechnie, C. (n.d.). Information technology & its role in the modern organization. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/information-technology-its-role-modern-organization-1800.html

Pierce, S. (2005 May 31). Steps for turning your invention ideas into a product. Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/77962.