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Week One: Writing up the personal case study Choose a personal leadership experience to write a case study about. The case will have the following characteristics:  You found the situation challenging You think you can learn something about yourself and the organization from the situation You are motivated and interested in the situation to explore it throughout the course Think broadly when choosing a case situation. It need not be limited to a work setting. Many powerful personal cases have examined sports teams, family dynamics, relationships with roommates or spouses, church and volunteer groups.  The case is NOT an opportunity to show your strengths off to the instructor and fellow students. This leaves little room or motivation for exploring what you might have done differently – the paper will become “just another assignment.” As opposed to an opportunity for deep learning. Alternatively, I am asking that you not write a case about someone else. Doing so removes the opportunity to dig into your own preferences, choices, and strategies. Often the best cases are based on your own setbacks and failures.  The case write up due in week one will become the basis for the papers written in weeks 2-4 in which you integrate what you have learned about the four frames. The case write-up will be 3-5 pages using APA format. Use the following organization for your case.  Introduction: Identify the key problems and issues in the case. Discuss the primary adaptive challenge present in the case and the various mental models held by stakeholders. Background: Provide the necessary information without getting too lost in the weeds. Provide relevant facts on the most important issues. What was your role in the case? Who were the primary stakeholders? What decisions were made? What was the outcome?  Theory Integration: Use content from week one materials to deepen the discussion of the case. How does the course content help you understand the primary leadership and organizational challenge? Don’t short-change this section.  Central Inquiry Questions: What are 3-4 primary questions you are left with as a result of the case? The answer to these questions should not be clear but set the stage for later analysis. Ultimately, you should be on the hook for these questions. This means they are reflective in nature and you are at the center of the inquiry. For instance, “Why did my boss make such a bad decision?” would not be a reflective question. Rather, “What are the ways that I can effectively speak truth to power when it feels risky?” is a question that you are closely involved with.   Note that if you do not write an adequate personal case study the instructor may ask that you revise and resubmit the case study so that it can be used in the remaining papers.Use your week one case write up to analyze the case using the Structural and Human Resources frames. The organization of this analysis is flexible but a few criteria to keep in mind include.   Begin with a thesis statement (assertion) about the case based on your analysis this week and identify for the reader how you will go through a supportive discussion of that assertion.   The analysis must be packed with application of course readings AND utilize data from the case study itself. Be sure to use good citation and referencing. Balance the application of multiple frames covered in a particular week.  Tell the reader how the frame helps you understand something new about the case. Is there a way in which the frame is not helpful?  What central inquiry questions are you now left with as a result of the analysis?

Positive Self Image Change Project Make a series of notes to yourself and post them in prominent places so that you are constantly reminded of your 3-day project. You might tape a reminder on your door so that you see it every time you leave your apartment or dorm. Carry a reminder in your notebooks or textbooks that you carry around campus or on your desk at work. Specifically, your project is to be very upbeat, positive, and complimentary toward others while avoiding unnecessary negative thoughts, reactions, and interpretations. Make a list of the positive behaviors that you will pursue every day for 3 days. For example, your list might include: Looking for opportunities to compliment people for their ideas, behaviors, dress, and such (WITHOUT being phony!!); Recognizing when you think a negative thought or when you interpret a situation as being negative when you really are not sure that it is. Immediately replace such negative self-talk and interpretations with a positive alternative; Smile and greet people whom you know as well as strangers you meet on the street; Help people in need; for example, the frail old lady who is struggling to lift a bag of groceries from her shopping cart into her car, etc.; Disclose something about yourself that you are comfortable sharing with others in an attempt to allow them to know you better. Keep a daily journal about your thoughts, feelings, and reactions to this assignment as you move through the week, addressing the following questions: How did it make you feel: satisfied? pleasant? embarrassed? hypocritical? shy? Did your thoughts/feelings change during the course of the week? How so? What was the response of others? What was your response to the response of others? Was this a difficult challenge for you? What did you learn about yourself as a result of this project? Make sure that you include people in this project that you see every day. This may include family members, spouses, friends, children, etc.

Option A Create a Corporate Story: You can tell a corporate story for your own company (family's company!), OR one that you want to create in the future! You can use a corporate story for the company you work for as well. Make your story personal, interesting, and use your imagination on description. A great example is Burt's Bees.    Corporate Story Telling Option B Layoff Memo: Your company has directed you to close your department and layoff 12 people. You are not even certain about your own future. You do not know if any of them will be called to return to work or even if your company will survive. Create a memo that you will personally deliver to each employee (no script necessary!): The memo should thank the employee for their good work over the last several years; makes it clear this is not about work performance; offer to provide a positive letter of recommendation; and, if the job returns in the future, you would be delighted to invite them to return.      Negative Messages Option C   New Product Memo: You have been providing polo-shirts and t-shirts with sports teams imprints on them to 20 regional stores in southern California. You have just come out with a new product of face masks, t-shirts, and shorts with the imprint of the various major sports teams in baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and soccer and would like to introduce this to the 20 stores you serve via a Zoom meeting next week. Persuasive Messages

Summarize what you learned from each of the following topics in the Say It Straight Workbook: Being Passive-Aggressive Being Super-Reasonable Being Irrelevant, Disrupting Sharing Positive Support. Please write in separate paragraphs. Include in each paragraph a quotation from the course text, How To Improve Your Interpersonal Communication Skills, that relates to the topic in the paragraph. Make sure you use textbook citations to support your ideas (Saba, Chapter 1) (Golden & Golden Say It Straight).  There should be 2 citations in each paragraph, one from the Say It Straight Workbook, and one from How To Improve your Interpersonal Communication Skills. Textbook References: Clear references to the textbook are required in both the original thread post and both peer responses for all course DBs. Textbook references should come from the chapter(s) specified in the assignment prompt and be clearly connected to your post and the assignment topic. Be sure and include the chapter and page number from the textbook in your posts, for example (chapter 2, 59), just as you would do for any research paper/post!

Briefly describe the topic, your audience, and the key points of your persuasive presentation. How will you ensure you cover the key points in the allotted time? Will you use an outline? What tone will you aim for – serious, friendly, humorous, or a mixture? What is your strategy for getting and holding your audience’s attention? How will you “hook” your audience at the start and ensure you have a powerful wrap-up and call to action at the end?

In presenting your ideas, you will address the key issues suggested on the LMS as follows: understanding the contradictory trajectories of media convergence challenges in governing digital media who will control 'digital culture'? There are no new reading materials, but you can

Film Analysis Reaction Paper For your Film Analysis Paper please select a move to analyze from an Interpersonal Communication Perspective. PURPOSE: For this assignment you will watch your own chosen film/documentary, take notes, reflect on your observations, and apply communication concepts you learned from our class to analyze the communication situations found. Apply communication theories and concepts learned throughout the semester. In your paper pay attention to the communication concepts you have learned over the course of the semester. FORMAT REQUIREMENTS: This paper should be approximately 2 to 4 pages in length, typewritten, 12 point font size, 1 inch margins, double spaced, proofread, and your own work.  With this paper, you will need to turn in a typed reference page of your sources written in MLA format. Your paper should be well organized and easy to follow. You must research your topic well. It is important to be ethical in your writing. Part of this will involve using accurate and current information that is well researched. To support your analysis, incorporate quotes and examples from the film/documentary, key concepts from your textbook, and other credible communication sources. For this paper you will need at least 4 credible sources. They must be cited in-text and cited in your reference page. You may not receive credit for questionable sources (Wikipedia, .com websites, blogs, etc.) so be sure to check their credibility and reliability. Your paper is due in a traditional, college-level essay structure. Please include: An introduction with a thesis statement, Body paragraphs that elaborate on your main ideas, A conclusion with a thoughtful reflection on your main points as well as any insights you gained as a result of your analysis. You will need to watch the film multiple times: (Below is just an Idea for how to complete this assignment) Brain Storm: As you are coming up with what film/documentary to watch, ask yourself the following questions.  Why do you like the film? What draws you to this particular film? What do you think the film is trying to say? How do you think the film does this? First Watch: Just watch the film. Do not take notes, sit back and relax and try to understand the basic elements of the film. Get into the plot line, scene, summary of the film. Brain Storm: After you have watched the film, take some time to jot down notes of concepts, themes, ideas that jumped out at you. (This is for the film analysis portion of your paper) What techniques are used in this film? How do these techniques linked to the plot? How do these techniques support the tone, ideas, and theme of the plot? Second Watch: Bring writing materials and throughout the film take pauses to jot down notes that confirm, or bring you to new light to your analysis. This is when you want to start looking for what Interpersonal Communication Concepts are showing up in your film. Brain Storm: Take your notes and compare them to your original brain storm notes. At this point, go through lecture slides and chapter readings to see if you can tie any of the things you are seeing in the film to your course reading. Pick at least 3 or 4 themes/concepts/ideas that you can look at or would like to add into your analysis. Third Watch: Bring your writing material and see if you can identify the course concepts you would like to write about playing out in the film you are watching. Find examples of where they show up in the film.  YOU MAY HAVE TO WATCH THE FILM MORE TIMES! How to write a reaction paper to a documentary or film

For this week’s deliverable: Develop a quantitative study crafted as a survey of 10-20 items. State your research goal. Identify your audience for the survey respondents. Describe your approach or strategy for distributing the surveys. Develop your survey on a tool such as Qualtrics or Google Forms. You may find these resources about how to create a Qualtrics’ survey and a Google Forms survey helpful to review before you begin.  The survey items should directly connect to your market research goals from the Week 2 assignment. For instance, you may ask which aspects of your client’s organization are most appealing, whether survey respondents are familiar with the organization, their views and opinions of the organization, how likely they are to purchase from the organization, which social media channels they use, and what factors drive their purchasing decisions. You will also need to include questions about demographics. Craft the survey items to obtain as much information as possible. For instance, rather than asking, “Which social media platforms do you use most often?” create a matrix that lists several platforms and ask, “How many hours per week do you use each of these social media platforms?”. Surveys must include items on digital media use and frequency in order to learn how and where to connect with customers. Use multiple choice rather than short answer questions.  Avoid using age cohorts or categories; instead, ask respondents’ age. Then, develop a qualitative study crafted as an interview. State your research goal. Identify your audience for the interviews. Describe your approach to the interviews (i.e., the number of interviews and the means used to conduct them, such as via a virtual meeting room, in-person, or otherwise). Write 5-10 in-depth interview questions. These questions should also connect to the market research goals to gain a deeper understanding of the respondents’ opinions on various aspects of your client’s organization, how likely they are to purchase from the organization, and the factors driving their purchasing decisions. Ensure your survey and interview meet the assignment requirements. Follow the best practices for market research as provided in this week’s readings and multimedia. Ask survey and interview questions objectively. For instance, ask “What are your thoughts about…” rather than “What are your concerns about…”. Do not interview survey participants or vice versa unless one study is dependent (e.g., a follow-up) on the other study. If you choose to have multiple-choice, Likert-type items in your survey, use consistent scaling throughout the survey for the sake of accurately analyzing your data. If your survey and/or interview branches based on responses, include the logic for the question order. Here is an example of survey logic: Q2: What is your age? Dropdown Box: 1 through 100 [Survey Logic: If the answer is younger than 18, go to Q22: Disqualification Page] Provide information about both the survey and interview to respondents, including an introduction and consent.  The introduction should provide brief context regarding the purpose of the survey; however, avoid providing excessive detail as this may result in biased responses.  The consent should protect anonymity and obtain permission for participation via a digital signature. Please refer to the appropriate articles for instructions: Adding a digital signature in Qualtrics survey  Adding a digital signature in Google Forms surveys Requesting a digital signature via email (for use in interviews) You may copy and paste the following language, making changes to the yellow highlighted portions as needed: Introduction: Thank you for taking the time to participate in this survey/interview. This survey/interview should take about 10 minutes to complete. The purpose of this survey/interview is to collect data on [briefly state survey/interview topic or market research goals]. Please answer all questions as truthfully as possible.  For survey only: Questions may not be skipped, there is no back button to change answers, and the survey cannot be saved to complete later. Participants may only take the survey once unless otherwise instructed.  Consent: You are invited to participate in a survey/interview being conducted by graduate students at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The purpose of the survey/interview is to evaluate the current marketing conditions pertaining to [market category]. You must be over 18 to complete this survey/interview. Your participation in this survey/interview is completely voluntary. Your responses will not be associated with your name or other identifiable information. No names or identifying information will be included in any reports or presentations based on this data, and your responses to this survey will remain confidential.  [Insert digital signature] Provide a debrief and full disclosure at the end of the surveys and interviews. Guarantee anonymity and use pseudonyms for the interview results and reporting. You may copy and paste the following language, making changes to the highlighted portions as needed: Thank you for your participation in this survey/interview. The data collected will be used in [state market research goal]. More specifically, your responses will be used to inform strategies for this campaign. Your responses will be kept anonymous. The survey/interview results and reporting will use pseudonyms rather than your given name

Begin work on Project 4 (Plan an Event) (Steps 1-2) Submit Milestone (Draft Activity) for review at end of week Incorporate feedback; resubmit if necessary, or move on to complete the project

Skills Inventory and Gap Analysis [WLO: 2] [CLOs: 3, 4, 5, 6] Prior to beginning work on this assignment, read Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 18, and Chapter 19 from your textbook; Week 2 Weekly Lecture; Making PowerPoint Slides: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Bad SlidesLinks to an external site. PowerPoint presentation; the article The Challenge of Exceptional CommunicationLinks to an external site.; and the webpage Self-Assessment, Career Exploration, and PlanningLinks to an external site.. In preparation for the Final Paper and having real-world applicability, this week’s assignment is a PowerPoint presentation that will allow you to create a career skills inventory and associated gap analysis. Using the article, The Challenge of Exceptional Communication as a guide, the goal for this assignment is to professionally present your current skills and identifiable gaps in existing skills to promote yourself as an ideal candidate for the career of your choice. The information derived from this assignment should accurately reflect your existing skills. In your presentation, Describe      the skills you possess that make you an ideal candidate for your chosen      career. Identify      any gaps in your existing skill set that an employer may require. Explain      how you plan on honing these gaps in your existing skill set. Explain      how you would effectively and persuasively communicate this gap in a      manner that would still qualify you for your career choice. The Making PowerPoint Slides: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Bad SlidesLinks to an external site. PowerPoint is a good resource to use for tips and guidelines for creating an effective PowerPoint presentation. The Skills Inventory and Gap Analysis presentation must      be five to six double-spaced slides in length (not including title and      references slides and formatted according to APA      StyleLinks to an external site. as outlined in the Writing      Center’s How to Make a PowerPoint PresentationLinks to an      external site. resource. must      include a separate title slide with the following in title case: title       of presentation project in bold font Space        should appear between the title and the rest of the information on the        title page. student’s       name name       of institution (The University of Arizona Global Campus) course       name and number instructor’s       name due       date must      utilize academic voice. See the Academic      VoiceLinks to an external site. resource for additional      guidance. must      include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction      paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the      purpose of your paper. For       assistance on writing Introductions & ConclusionsLinks to an       external site. and Writing       a Thesis StatementLinks to an external site., refer to the       Writing Center resources. must      use at least two scholarly sources in addition to the course text (three      in total). The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible SourcesLinks       to an external site. table offers additional guidance on       appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific       source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your       instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness       of a specific source.