Week 14 Question 3

The concept that interests me in chapter 12 is charismatic power. It was defined in the text book as “Charismatic or personal power resides in particular personalities to which others are attracted. It is elusive in that it is difficult to define, but we recognize it when we see it or feel it” (p. 241). I think this power gives people the extra edge. Whenever I go to a speaker’s event or presentation, I usually would remember the speaker the most and if he or she is a funny and personable person, it image would be with me for a long period of time. I remember I saw a video once with a psychologist talking about brain. The subject sounds boring but he is most interesting speaker I have never seen. I ended up learning a lot of useful information about brain and it is because this charismatic psychologist made the speech so much more interesting.

Week 14 Question 2

Normally I would force myself into the collaborative conflict resolution when it comes to conflict with family and closes friends. When I have conflict with my father, I would want him to understand my point of view and he usually very understanding therefore, it is worth the time and energy to communicate with him. I am very lucky that I can talk to my father and whenever we have conflict, we would identify the problems we are having and speak what we have in mind and come up with a solution that we both can agree on. When it comes to competitive conflict solution, I usually end up with destructive conflict rather than constructive. Whenever, I argue with my sister, I automatically shifted and become a difficult person and trying to “win” the argument because I am older. Needless to say, it is not the best solution for my sister and I. My sister is not appreciating this method of conflict resolution and I can see it is hurting our relationship. I think collaborative conflict resolution is more satisfying because at the end of the day we can solve our problem and not hurting our relationship.

Week 14 Question 1

A forum consists with “a public discussion in which the full audience participates, examining a topic or problem after a short presentation by the group” (p. 219). A panel is “a public format with group of four to eight experts discusses a problem or decision in front of an audience. This discussion often follows the problem-solving format but uses an informal, sometimes humorous, style of interaction to keep the audience’s attention and to effetely share information that may be technical in nature” (p. 220). However, a panel has no direct interaction between audience and panel of expert. A colloquium usually “open with short position or opinion statements by the experts and then shifts to a more interactive public discussion of the issues with audience participation, shifting back to comments by one or more of the experts, and returning again to audience comments, so that the discussion is carried on both in front of and with the participation of audience members” (p. 221). A symposium is “to present complex technical information to the audience about the problem. The speeches are well prepared, practiced, and polished presentations that are uninterrupted by the audience and presented by skilled public speakers” (p. 221). I would prefer the colloquium because I think the constant interaction between audience and speaker is very helpful. Feedbacks from the speaker is very direct and the shifting back and forth of comments would encourage audience to participate more because they would know they would get more feedback.

Week 13 Question 3

The concept that interested me in this chapter is openness, “maintaining openness-a supportive communication climate-during the problem solving process is vital for creativity” (p.194). I always like this concept because I think that is the key for more creativity. I also believe that openness is important in communication, especially group communication. I find it refreshing when I keep an open mind, how much I can be inspired. If we are closed-mind, I think its hard for us to breakthrough, and if we do not breakthrough, it even harder for us to think outside of the box and be creative. In this century, people are more competitive, and the quality employers looking for is not whether or not you can operate on Microsoft office or know how to do bookkeeping. They need an employee to have an open mind and generate new idea, be creative; this way employee can become a real asset for the company.

Week 13 Question 2

Cultural barriers include “requirement for conformity, expectation of politeness and following rules for social order, a reliance on statistical proofs, a dependence on generalization, a belief in an either/or perspective on issues” (p. 188). I think these are the reasons I experienced from being creative. Every summer, my whole family goes on a trip with about 10 family members. Sometimes the younger members in the family always think of some activity exciting to do like kayaking. However, there are older family members involved, therefore, we just always end up with some peace and more relax vacation. Plus, adults always more paranoid about exciting trips because they are more afraid of accidents. In the end, no matter how many exciting ideas my cousins and I come up with, we usually pick a place that travel agents suggest us. The pressure of conformity, expect of the elders, terrible accidents reports on trips…. etc made these trips always less exciting than they can be.

Week 13 Question 1

Creativity is explained as “going beyond the current boundaries of technology, knowledge, social norms or beliefs seeing and acting on new relationships, thereby bringing them to life” (p. 183). When I think of creativity, I think is generating some idea that catches eyes. When I was doing a skit for a debate class, each of the group has to come up with a skit for a given topic. However, my group was given the most boring topic with a limitation. Our topic was to create a skit that demonstrates a family that uses good communication skills to revolve problems. We first came up with a really boring and safe skit that basically consist each family members talk about their needs. And then I thought, if our topic is boring we could be creative in the content of the skit itself. Therefore, I came up with story that requires one daughter in the family has a problem with diarrhea and that skit was a huge success with a lot of laughers. Our group was thinking outside the box and used our creativity to turn a boring skit to an interesting one.