Well, time really flies; this will be last entry I am writing for my communication blog before it will be graded by my lecturer. No worries, I am not closing down this blog after it is graded for the module. In fact, I hope to transform this to a place where all my friends can gather and share their views about the topic that I will be posting on this blog on a fortnightly basis.

So let’s continue on with today’s topic which is about communicating in an organization. I presume that all of you have at least some working experiences right? No matter how little it was, you will bound to gain some experiences from it.

Well for me, I had been in various jobs before and had experience different kinds of communication styles before. The first style that I had encountered when I was working as a promoter for aromatherapy products, it was very simple. Simple in the sense that I report directly to my boss to report sales figures and also to liaise directly with her for my pay!

Next will be when I am working at a call centre that deals with payment for bills and fines etc, the communication get a bit more complex. As we do not really talk to our supervisor directly, we escalate the dispute cases we took from customer by paper escalation, which means we will need to note down the case into the template on the paper and pass it to our supervisor. The only time we talk to the supervisor is when we want to check on the progress of the case and also eating lunch together. The relationship between the supervisor and the co-workers is still considered good as they are still able to communicate with each other.

Lastly, I will be discussing my current job. As it is quite a big organization, the hierarchy system in this company is much more difficult to manage. As there is always a standard template where one will need to follow. Take for example, if customer request to speak to the overall in charge of the department, you cannot transfer the phone call directly to the in charge. What you need to do is to pass the case to your team leader, if the team leader cannot resolve the case; it will be passed on to their supervisor. But if the supervisor cannot solve the problem then they will take down customer’s contact and email them to the overall in charge of the department to give customer a callback.

Among these 3 styles, the one that I like most is the simplest one in which I report directly to the boss. Well it is because, when you communicate with each other directly, you can minimize the chance of unnecessary misunderstands and conflicts.

Desserts, I believe is the best friend for most girls. Especially those petite and dainty desserts, they are a killer to most girls. Was walking around the Central the other day with my dearies while waiting for our dear Paul to arrive, I came across this shop that sells handmade chocolates, macarons and patisserie. The shop itself was very girlish looking with pink and white tones decorating it. The things that they sell was super cute and attractive that my ‘penguins’ and me decided to go in and take a look at it.

While looking, we found a gift box that has a mixture of handmade chocolates, macarons and patisserie. We decided to purchase it and served it as a ‘birthday cake’ for James birthday. While paying at the counter, I saw their post card advertisement. It was sweet and interesting as they show all the pictures of their products on the card itself. For the macarons, they had also stated what are the flavors they have. For a postcard advertisement, I find that it is not as fragile as a flyer, thus one will be able to pass it around to their friends and family who are interested in this.

Currently, this kind of desserts is more popular with the younger generations. I think that it is mainly because of the difference in the culture of the older and the younger generations. For the older generations, they will only spend on food that will fill up their stomachs as that find that it is not necessary for them to spend money on unnecessary things. But for my generation, we believe in quality of life, we think that, sometimes we need to pamper ourselves. So this will be the time when we will treat ourselves to restaurants and those petite and dainty desserts. That is why most of the customers I observed in this shop are working young adults.If yo are interested, you can also go to their website to look at the products.

Words & Pictures by: Zhi Ning

When mummy came home from the supermarket, she showed me this small box of tissues and told me that she got it as a free gift from buying two packets of milk which worth 1 litre each. Then in my mind I was thinking, ‘ mummy you bought 2 litres of milk just to get this small box of tissue or is it that you do not know that you will be getting this box of tissue when you buy the milk.’

So I asked my mum about it and what the answer I had was that, she did not even know she will get this box of tissue until she was making her payments at the cashier. The cashier told her that actually this box of tissue was given out to all those who make a purchase of the brand of milk.

Personally, I think that the milk company has made quite an interesting choice of advertising method, by printing their advertisement on the tissue box. Even though, some people may just bring home the tissues, used it up and throw it away. But at least, there is still a chance of people looking at it for at least once as I believe no one will use all the tissues in the box at one go. Well, to me, I like the concept of the advertisement. I find that the advertisers cleverly make use of the colour pink to associate it with strawberries. That’s why you can see a cow with pink patches on it and also a pink background. The tagline of it is also associated with pink, ‘be in the pink’. The tagline sorts of tell us that for one to be in good health, they need to have milk in their daily life. So when the consumers want to buy milk, the first think that will come into their mind will be this brand of milk no matter what flavor they are choosing.On the tissue box, it is also suggested that this strawberry milk is much healthier that other brands as it has ‘the perfect balance of Highs and Lows’ and it is made with real strawberry juice.

Words & Pictures by: Zhi Ning

I came across this interesting website that allowed users to get to know each other via the web page. The aim of the creator of this website is to allow people to widen their social circle by interacting with each other through the site and if they are comfortable with each other, they can move on to online ‘dating’, slowly they can become couple in real life.

Here are some screen shots from the website:

In the main page itself, one will always see different artiste and promotions  for each month as this will attract the fans of the artiste to join this website. Advertisements for those sponsors of this website are often seen all over in the website and they seem to be trying to get  the attention of the users as their advertisements are always those flashing banners. I personally do not take much notice of these banners except for those event ones.

Next, in the setting page itself, the users can change the privacy settings and choose what are the information they want to show to people. This is also the main page where users are able to see how many ‘crystals’ they have earned from games and what is their membership like, be it VVIP, VIP or normal members. In this page, users can also see how many people is inviting them to go into ‘cohabitation’  mode, where they will choose to stay in either one’s ‘apartment’ and do things together like keeping a pet.

In this website itself, the users can also dress up their character to attract more views to their profiles and draw potential ‘friends’ or ‘future partner’ to them. One can choose a nice background to match his/her dressing style.Take for example,the character in the picture, dream-like background and nice dress and matching boots are used to show that she is the dreamy kind of girl.

The diary function also allows users on this website to understand one another better through the entries that they input into the diary.

Lastly, not forgetting the events that they are having every month. All these events are planned in a way to encourage the users to interact with one another. Through these interactions, the creator aims to help people to find their ‘ true love’ from his website.

Since this website has generated such a great response from people, a variety show was created for it, 速配男女 (Super Match) , hosted by a famous Taiwanese host, 陶晶莹(Momoko Tao). In every week of the show, a combination of 4 guys and 3 girls or 4 girls and 3 guys will be brought overseas for a show trip and all these participants in the show will be chosen from some of the lucky ‘tenants’ in i-Partment.In this trip, activities were pre-planned for them and throughout the show, the participants are to interact with one another through chatting or their actions of interest and see if anyone of them will click with him/her. If there is one that he/she like, on the last day of the trip,they will be able to do a confession to their loved. The person who received the confessions can choose whether or not he/she would like to give that person a chance.

Here is a commercial clip for the variety show:

Written By: Zhi Ning

Valentine’s Day (V-day) is a day in which lovers will express their love for one another by giving each other flowers, chocolates, cards etc.

For the older generations, some of them will have this negative perception that V-day is a day where people will lose their virginity under the influence of alcohol and some is due to the atmosphere. The atmosphere may be too comfortable for them to think or act. Therefore, often they will act on impulse.

As for the younger generations, their perception will be quite different as they will treat this day as a very important day where they will need to spend it with their partners. No matter how busy they are on this day, they will still put aside some time to accompany their loved ones. They may be just go for a movie or a meal, but to them this is definitely sufficient.

Today, people often have expectations. In my perspective, most of the girls will expect very simple things like a stalk of rose, a dinner together or just spending some quality time together by doing something that both of them will enjoy. On the other hand, from what I had gathered from my male friends, they find that spending quality time together is the most important thing while the others are just superficial.

Thus, this creates a conflict in both girl’s and guy’s mindset. As girl will think that roses, a meal and spending time together are equally important, but guy will not agree to it as they will think that only spending quality time together is important. The next stage that will happen in the relationship will be miscommunication.

When miscommunication happens and no one is taking the initiative to find out what is the problem in the relationship and what solution can be done to salvage which both parties can come to a consensus with, the girl and guy will slowly drift apart. When they start to drift apart, this is the time where the break up stage in a relationship will start to form. By this time if there is still no salvage done, this relationship will confirm come to an end. The parties in this relationship will move on with each of their own life, without any interference with one another.

Words and picture by: Zhi Ning.

Picture credit :  http://www.lovematters.com.sg/en/gallery.asp?album=pressconference

Directed by : Jack Neo and Gilbert Chan

Synopsis:

“Love Matters “is a movie that looks into the relationship matters of the different age group of couples who are in their 50s, 30s and teenage years in a light hearted way and yet not losing the seriousness in discussing the issues concern relationship issues.

Understanding the movie:

In this comedy, the directors are using a humorous manner to discuss the issues in a relationship that are faced by couples who are in their 50s, 30s and teenage years.

For the couple in their 50s, even though they are leading a very routine life, they still try their best to retrieve the passion they once had in the earlier days of their marriage in attempt to save their stale love life. In this movie, the directors portray them as people who believe in ‘ hear – say ‘. They believe in all those tradition medicines will help them without any scientific proof of how reliable they are, what they merely know is just that this medicine help the other couples out there and therefore it will help them also.

For the couple in the 30s, they get to know each other in the school of the teenage boy as he faked to be the father of this boy in parents meeting session. In actual fact, he was just the teenager’s uncle. He was attracted by the teacher on their first meet and he decided to pursue her. Well for him, the director made use of the various method of meeting new people like chatting online, different pictures of him together with different girls to portray him as a playboy initially and how he decided to change for good when he met the teacher. The directors show how he got away from his old lifestyle to show the teacher that he was serious in her.

 Lastly not forgetting about the teenage couple, the boy make use of his actions to tell the audience that he is a shy boy who does not know how to confess his love to the girl he like. One day, his dream girl who is his classmate’s girlfriend invited him to her house to fix her computer; he showed delight in his face. On the day, feeling excited, he headed to the girl’s house not knowing what was prepared for him, he fall straight into the trap that is set for him.  He was known school-wide for those stupid things that he had done in the girl’s house. He felt embarrassed and in this movie he portrays his embarrassment by hiding his face when he is in school. When he decided to take revenge on the girl by posting a sexy video of her that he found coincidently , he show hesitation in submitting the video online, but in the end the video was still submitted. Well just as expected, the girl was widely known in school for her sexy video. She was ashamed by her video and decided to commit sucide.The guy who posted her video was alarmed by it and decided to stop her from committing suicide , when she decided to take the boy advice and come down from the edge of the rooftop, she missed her step and fall off the building. At instant, the boy regretted for his actions, but luckily the girl survive from the fall and the boy decided to make up for his actions by taking care of the girl when she was unconscious in the hospital. After the girl regains her consciousness, they had a talk with each other and realize each other mistake and they became friend again, soon they became an item.

Well this movie, cleverly make use of the emotions of people to show how people react in sudden situations and they made use of the attitude of people’s mindset in which that since that thing work for them and so it will work for me too.

Written By : Zhi Ning

What would your reaction be when you see this commercial for the very first time?

For me, when I see it for the first time I could not even figure out what was it about as it was subbed in Japanese. Intially, I thought that it was advertising for some new Japanese game or some new toy.Despite this, my attention was still drawn to it as I find that the animation was sort of cute and I really hoped to see what will the ending be.

I positioned myself in front of the television all the way till the end of the commercial and only figured out that it was actually advertising for this nutrition bar that is made from soy beans. I find that this commercial is quite a good one as it creates a suspense to draw viewer’s attraction.The product is only shown till nearly the end of the commercial. I personally think that this creative advertisement really deserves a smile on everyone’s face.

So I wonder, what will you be thinking about when you are viewing this commercial?

Written by : Zhi Ning

Welcome to my COM101: Principles of Communication ‘s blog.

Hope you will enjoy your stay here and understand more about communications =)

See ya.

Zhi Ning