Communication

Issues discussed in the Class
What is communication?
Communication and Media Technologies
Interactive Communication in Organizations

What is Communication?
Communication is a learned skill. Most people are born with the physical ability to talk, but we must learn to speak well and communicate effectively. Speaking, listening, and our ability to understand verbal and nonverbal meanings are skills we develop in various ways. We learn basic Communication skills by observing other people and modeling our behaviors based on what we see. We also are taught some Communication skills directly through education, and by practicing those skills and having them evaluated.

Communication is the process of conveying information from a sender to a receiver with the use of a medium in which the communicated information is understood the same way by both sender and receiver. It is a process that allows organisms to exchange information by several methods. Communication requires that all parties understand a common language that is exchanged, There are auditory means, such as speaking, singing and sometimes tone of voice, and nonverbal, physical means, such as body language, sign language, paralanguage, touch, eye contact, or the use of writing. Communication is defined as a process by which we assign and convey meaning in an attempt to create shared understanding. This process requires a vast repertoire of skills in intrapersonal and interpersonal processing, listening, observing, speaking, questioning, analyzing, and evaluating. Use of these processes is developmental and transfers to all areas of life: home, school, community, work, and beyond. It is through communication that collaboration and cooperation occur.

Communication is the articulation of sending a message, through different media whether it be verbal or nonverbal, so long as a being transmits a thought provoking idea, gesture, action, etc.
Communication happens at many levels (even for one single action), in many different ways, and for most beings, as well as certain machines. Several, if not all, fields of study dedicate a portion of attention to communication, so when speaking about communication it is very important to be sure about what aspects of communication one is speaking about. Definitions of communication range widely, some recognizing that animals can communicate with each other as well as human beings, and some are more narrow, only including human beings within the parameters of human symbolic interaction.

Nonetheless, communication is usually described along a few major dimensions: Content (what type of things are communicated), source, emisor, sender or encoder (by whom), form (in which form), channel (through which medium), destination, receiver, target or decoder (to whom), and the purpose or pragmatic aspect. Between parties, communication includes acts that confer knowledge and experiences, give advice and commands, and ask questions. These acts may take many forms, in one of the various manners of communication. The form depends on the abilities of the group communicating. Together, communication content and form make messages that are sent towards a destination. The target can be oneself, another person or being, another entity (such as a corporation or group of beings).

Communication and Media Technology: Telecommuting as an emerging phenomenon
Technology has overtaken personalized communication in recent years. Some of the media technologies are:
Telephone/Cell Phone
Email
Voice mail
Fax
Internet
Intranet
Audio-Visuals/CD-ROM
Wireless
An outgrowth of the communication technology explosion has led to a unique phenomenon called Telecommuting.
Telecommuting, e-commuting, e-work, telework, working at home (WAH), or working from home (WFH) is a work arrangement in which employees enjoy flexibility in working location and hours. In other words, the daily commute to a central place of work is replaced by telecommunication links. Many work from home, while others, occasionally also referred to as nomad workers or web commuters utilize mobile telecommunications technology to work from coffee shops or myriad other locations.
The roots of telecommuting lay in early 1970s technology, linking satellite offices to downtown mainframes by dumb terminals using telephone lines as a network bridge. The massive ongoing decrease in cost and increase in performance and usability of personal computers forged the way to decentralize even further, moving the office to the home. By the early 1980s, these branch offices and home workers were able to connect to the company mainframe using personal computers and terminal emulation.

The adoption of local area networks promoted sharing of resources, and client server computing allowed for even greater decentralization. Today, telecommuters can carry laptop PCs around which they can use both at the office and at home (and almost anywhere else). Telecommuters are linked to their home office by using groupware, virtual private networks, and similar technologies to collaborate and interact with team members. As the price of VPN-capable routers, high-speed Internet connections to the home, and VOIP technology has plummeted in recent years, the cost to connect a telecommuter to their employer's intranet and telecommunications system has become negligible when compared with the operating costs of conventional offices.

Advantages of Telecommuting:
Advantages of Telecommuting for the organization include increasing retention rates, maximizing office space, reducing absenteeism, sick time, and overtime pay, increasing employee productivity and job satisfaction. Telecommuting allows the employee control over the work. Besides, it helps in reducing travel time and cost and thereby augments carbon footprints in a positive manner.

Disadvantages of Telecommuting:
Decreased face to face communication
Less opportunities for socialization at the workplace
Lesser control of the managers over their employees
Sense of loneliness
Absence of office support system
Alienation from organizational culture

Interactive Communication in Organizations
Interactive Communication in an organization refers to horizontal communication. It helps in coordinated and cross functional effort in achieving organizational goals. It is widely used in networked organizations.

There are many behavioural implications in the interactive process. Communication with peers, that is, with persons of relatively equal status on the same level in an organization, provides needed social support for an individual. People can more comfortably turn to a peer for social support than to those above or below.
Purpose and Methods of Interactive Communication
Task Coordination: HODs may hold meetings on regular intervals to discuss common issues
Problem solving:Members of a particular department may meet to solve a problem
Information sharing: Members of one department may meet the members of other departments to share some information
Conflict Resolution: Employees of different departments may meet to resolve a conflict.