6.5 Marketing,...Public Relations

After reading Box 5.4 (p.119, Cheney, et al) I found myself right in the middle of the discussion. You see over the last three years I've been involved in the "marketing campaign" to attract new members to our department. I was brought on to the project after a manager thought he wanted my input on what his subordinates were developing. As I sat at the meeting I was introduced, to what appeared to be months of design and development of a new logo, and posters that were targeting a specific audience. After all of the presentations I had my turn at the floor.

I just couldn't see the value in what was happening at this meeting. I went up to the white board and I asked? Why do we need a new logo? The new logo had been designed with the physical image of our state behind the star. One person said, "people don't know where we are located." That's when I realized that we, as an organization (at least this group), weren't confident about our "brand". I spent the last 15 minutes discussing the merits of our existing logo; a logo that we have had for the last 30 years; how we were the oldest, largest, and most progressive agency in Northern, California.

I began to realize that I wasn't only developing and designing marketing materials for the target audience (potential candidates to join our department), but I needed to create brand awareness for the members of the department, and begin to take advantage of exposing the community to our brand. This organization was realizing that it needed to be mindful of the message (the brand) within the organization in order to take advantage of creating a positive message outside of the organization.

6.4 Creating Identities

I remember when I saw my first Mac. My wife had received it as a reward for doing some great work for the school district (1990). It came with a bundle of software and a large black and white monitor (Radius, swivel type). Anyway, I learned to use the Mac and found the operating system to be intuitive for the most part. Soon, I was exposed to PC’s at work and I managed the Microsoft operating system.

Fast-forward ten years and at least 10 more Mac’s, my allegiance to the Apple brand was clearly solidified. My loyalty to the brand gave me a sense of pride in knowing that "my company" (Apple) was the designer of the most popular and interesting machines of our time. They (Macs) may have not have been in every home, but the attention to design; the high cost; the exclusive software packages; and the creative users that owned them; gave me more satisfaction as a Mac person. Even as the Apple Company was facing extinction years ago, I wondered how could a machine designed so well be dismissed? The rise of the company and the introduction of the iPod brought many new converts to the community of “well designed things”. Today the Apple logo thrives and is as “cool” as ever.

6.3 - Memorable Messages

After reading Box 4.10 I thought about some memorable messages at my organization. I do recall a message in a newsletter from a supervisor I had worked for. I had worked for him for about one year. He had been newly promoted and turned out to be a very fair and decisive leader. In this newsletter, he was saying farewell to the organization after 25+ years of service. As you read the letter you could see that he had experienced a lot in the organization. The places and assignments that he had worked made you think, “boy, what a great time he had”.

For the last 3 years he had been a helicopter pilot for the department and prior to that he was a motorcycle officer for 5 years. Although I'm not a pilot or ride a motorcycle, he made the assignments seem rather exciting and out of the norm. His final words were, "can you image I was getting paid to do this?"

We were obviously reading a message from someone who had fulfilled his goal of making his job a career filled with enjoyment and satisfaction. The personal message being delivered was a part of the organizational communication stream and it filled with satisfaction, enjoyment, pride, and accomplishment. That's the message I got from it. Interestingly enough, during his career he had been passed up for promotions several times and was bitter for a few years. I guess in the end the snapshot of our time with the organization is much better than we experienced. Maybe we just want to be retiring from a really good place.

6.2 - Doing Culture

In Chapter 4, p.94, the book describes how organizations "do culture -- or communicate culture -- simultaneously at several levels". When I reflect on the weekly meetings I attend I can't help but realize that there is culture within the unit being communicated to the entire bureau. The leader sits in the same location every time while being flanked by his managers on one side, the rest of sit as far away as possible in order to not be the focus. The banter begins as the leader beings to either poke fun at the support personnel, or criticize the attire of the new member of the unit. If the new member takes the ribbing in stride, he's passed the test and the leader can move on to business. If the new member is sensitive and reacts with sensitivity, the others in the room smell blood and proceed to join in. Call it a hazing of sorts, but in the first few minutes of the scheduled weekly meeting it does make for some humorous times.

6.1 - Culture, Subcultures, and Organizational Socialization

After reading Box 4.5, Baseball and Culture (p.90), I decided to reflect on the last eight years of: attending, volunteering, coaching, and watching little league baseball. When I think about little league in the functionalist perspective, I find many positive attributes for the child and the parents involved. As an organization, the hundreds of volunteers all contribute to the culture of fair play, team building, competition, gaining skills, and promoting the game that we (as parents) either played or enjoyed watching. From the practices with the boys; conducting drills; diagramming plays; giving speeches before games; and counseling; the parents coaching the kids were providing some guidance and building a better community.

On game day, the stands would fill with parents, friends, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Most of the time they cheered and many times they were impressed with the skills of the boys. For 2.5 hours on game day, the boys could leave their real world behind and be a part of a team that recognized them; that looked to them for contribution. For some of the boys, it was an opportunity to be a part of an organized group that had welcomed structure and hierarchy.