Beautiful fall, wish it was like this more of the year.

I love this time of the year. No more heat waves, it’s cool & comfortable to go outside in jeans & a sweatshirt, & above all (because I am an OSU fan) it’s football season!

Especially this time of the year when the leaves on trees are changing color and while driving out in the country coming to & from my parent’s house I get lost in the beauty of nature. I get to reminiscing playing in the woods at the end of my grandparent’s street with my brother when we were little. I also remember playing in our neighborhood with all the neighbor kids, jumping in leaf piles, playing tag, and climbing trees. Then I get to thinking about the environment. I do a little bit here and there to help out and I always feel bad when I go to the grocery store because I usually use the plastic bags, but now try to mix it up a bit & reuse the bags.

While reading Vaidyanathan & Aggarwal (2005) I realized that my employer, last week, did exactly as they described as the ‘foot-in-the-door’ technique (Snyder and Cunningham, 1975; Uranowitz, 1975; Seligman et al., 1976; Burger, 1999). My employer passed out to everyone reusable cloth bags for groceries with the hope that we would use them instead of the plastic & paper bags. My employer, like most, used that also as a way to market themselves. By us using the bags with the company name on it, they would get the company name out there more.

What do you do to help the environment?
Any tips, small or big, that can be done at home?

Vaidyanathan, R., & Aggarwal, P. (2005, December). Using Commitments to Drive Consistency: Enhancing the Effectiveness of Cause‐related Marketing Communications. Journal of Marketing Communications, 11(4), 231-246. Retrieved October 18, 2008, doi:10.1080/0144619052000345600

What works for me

Any one else find that carrot (or money) dangling there as an attempt to motivate you by your employer not as strong as a motivation as they try to make it? Like Jeremy Bentham’s “carrot on a stick” approach (Shah & Shah, 2007). Or am I alone on that thought?
Shah & Shah (2007) discussed the attitude motivation and the competence motivation and the more reflection that is done to work situations the incentive bonuses (for us the hottest phones) as motivation attempts to renewing customers contracts with us is not as effective as it is for some of my co-workers. It is clear with representatives why corporate wants us to renew contracts and upgrade anyone who is eligible, but that sort of incentive is not effective for me.
The greater motivation is the drive to get better at my job, to be good at it, and perform consistently at a high quality - competence motivation. Knowing that I am not quite where I need to be, per our quality department & management, is very frustrating and inspires me to do my best. Where the struggle is at is dotting every ‘i’ & crossing every ‘t’ on 100 percent of the time. Most the time it is accomplished, which demonstrates that the knowledge is there. Plus several times the compliment is give, from my customers, how great my service is and how informative and helpful I am. Every call, every day I learn from my experience and focus to perform better each time.
Anyone else find it easier to relate to these theories or have discovered what may help motivate you in work & life?

Shah, K. & Shah, P. (n.d.) Motivation. Retrieved July 10, 2007, from http://www.laynetworks.com/Motivation.html.

Who would have seen this coming coming?

When I started using instant messengers (IM) and email I would have never thought that the applications would be as acceptable in corporate America. Email and IM have become convenient tools to communicate with employees and management around the office and world. The technology has been recognized as such a valuable asset to the workplace that it has become common place in the office. Over 80 percent of the companies around the world use take advantage of the benefits of IM (Warisse-Turner et al., 2006).

I found the most significant information in the articles was the exposure of the positives and negatives of the applications. Understanding those allows me to recognize when it is beneficial to the task at hand to utilize them. I discovered that it is best to use either one when the task is non-social emotional related. Depending on the number of employees needing to be involved and how time sensitive the task is would also determine which to use. Groups that used computer-mediated communication found benefits using this method and were more comfortable to participate without feeling like they were being judged (Bordia, 1997).


References:
Bordia, P. (1997, January). Face-to-Face Versus Computer-Mediated Communication: A Synthesis of the Experimental Literature. Journal of Business Communication, 34(1), 99-120. Retrieved October 4, 2008, from Business Source Complete database.
Warisse Turner, J., Grube, J., Tinsley, C., Lee, C., & O'Pell, C. (2006, July). Exploring the Dominant Media: How Does Media Use Reflect Organizational Norms and Affect Performance?. Journal of Business Communication, 43(3), 220-250. Retrieved October 4, 2008, from Business Source Complete database.

My Love for OSU

Born and raised in Piqua, OH (North of Dayton along I-75) growing up all I ever knew was Ohio State football. My mom's dad was a big Woody Hayes/ OSU football fan. I had never been to Columbus till I started looking at colleges in my junior year in high school. Though only knowing of The Ohio State University growing up was not the reason decided to come here. I had a couple schools picked out and applied to and accepted to. Ultimately it came down to what I wanted to do in college (major in Architecture) and that I had a cousin who was going to school at OSU (did I mention how close I was with my cousins). I also had several friends from high school that came here as well.

While attending school my sophomore year one of my roommates was in the pep band and several of her close friends were in the marching band. The longer I know her my love and fascination for the band (The Best Damn Band In The Land) and everything that goes along with it grows, plus I’m an alumni so it is natural for me to love the Buckeyes. I cannot picture going anywhere else for college. I believe that everything happens for a reason, though we do not know that reason till hours, days, years later.

Any time I am in another city, state, or country and I see something Buckeyes’ in the back of my mind I am yelling “GO BUCKS!”… to say it out loud is not always appropriate.

A couple years ago for Christmas I got several books about OSU and OSU football and unfortunately I am not a huge reader I have been slowly making my way through the books. The more I read them the more I understand my grandpa more. I see the similarities between him and Woody Hayes. My grandpa was a high school teacher, and coached football, track and country, and basketball. In his days he would slam a kid against a locker at half time if he messed up in a basketball game. He would grab a kid by the facemask of their football helmet and drag him across the field if the messed up in practice. His students in his class were scared to upset their teacher. My cousins and I were scared of him but loved him like no other. He was always fair. You may not agree with him but you understood – eventually. He placed a strong emphasis on respect, education, and doing the right thing. Woody Hayes demanded a lot of the same. Any football recruit he visited, Woody would be honest saying you may not start but you will get a degree. Woody also once said “You may not like me, but you will respect me” and his players did. I found in this spring when my grandpa passed away that not one player that I talked to did not respect him. They may not have always liked him but they later understood why he did things and respected him. Typically it was after their time playing for my grandpa that they liked him.

Jim Tressel holds a lot of the same values as Woody Hayes. It could be contributed to Jim’s dad who was also a fan of Woody’s and a good friend of his as well. Jim grew up knowing Woody. Coach Tressel, unlike Coach Hayes, shows very little emotion while coaching. He may be different in practice but during football Saturdays not often will you see Coach Tressel get animated. I absolutely love it and get teary eyed when I see it when at the end of a game Coach takes the team to the marching band and everyone, the crowd, the team, and Tressel sing Carmen Ohio.

You can bet that on my iPod, on my phone, and on my computer I have songs from The Ohio State Marching Band! A few weeks ago I drove to that state up north to watch one of my youngest cousins (Joey) play that team in their hole of a stadium and when that band came out I grabbed my phone and played ‘We don’t give a damn for the whole state of M…’ and while driving back to Columbus after the game and crossing the Ohio boarder it timed out, unintentionally, that ‘I wanna go back’ played and I just lost it laughing - that may have more to do with my traveling alone and I had been up since 5 a.m. that day and was about 12 hours later.

One of my best friends made the comment once 'Most girls its clothes, shoes, and purses. For you its Ohio State, Soccer, and clothes'


*My cousin Joe Hudson, Senior Linebacker for Miami (OH)
Joe in the middle with our family and a few friends around him. The day he played that school up north.

A long road

Life is a long road for anyone. Family and friends make the trip worth it along with music for a soundtrack. My family has always been close and since I came to The Ohio State University after graduating from high school I feel that my siblings and I have grown closer. Though we do not live in the same state and do not spend a lot of time with one another it has only strengthens our bond. It is the same way among my cousins. I recall friends who do not know or are not close with all their cousins and I feel fortunate and blessed for the bond I have with my cousins. This is by no means a simple task considering I am one of 16 grandchildren on my mom's side of the family and one of 10 on my dad's side. The family bond even extends to my mom's cousins and their families - my family is why I am who I am.

To give meaning to the picture I have as my default profile picture - Last October (Oct. 10, 2007) my cousin who is my age was one of two soldiers killed in a mortar attack on Camp Victory. Hearing of the news first thing when I woke up on Oct. 11 knocked the wind out of me for several days. I am slowly moving on, but every now and again I feel like I fall back down remembering that day. I am not sad when I talk about him, I am happy to reminisce and talk about him. I say this not to gain pity from anyone or anything of that sort. Thus far in our progress through our Master degree one thing we have talked about is context and understanding the frame of reference.

Since that day my family and friends have continued to show their support. My family has pulled closer for support and strength as we always do in hard times. My friends have seen how floored I was and when the moments come when I cannot get that day off my mind they wrap me in their arms allow me to have my moment and then find a way to make me laugh and help me move on. I could never pay my friends back for how they have helped me. With that I am reminded of a great quote that I always have in mind when doing something for a friend or family member in need. The great OSU football coach Woody Hayes told his players “You can never pay back, but you can always pay forward.”

Life
Memories of growing up
So many of my family in 1 town
Closeness of aunts & uncles, or our grandparents & their siblings
There's nothing like cousins, they’re like brothers & sisters
The Love & bond among my family
The strength among my family
The courage to continue each day among Our Family!
~Anne Heater

I almost always, except in class and work, have music playing somewhere in the background. I have several thousand songs saved on my computer and I am always looking for new (to me) music. Meaning it does not have to be the most current, music just released, just music that I may not have heard yet. A lot of the music I have is just that; music someone told me about or I heard while hanging out with my friends. A lot of times my friends will be over at my apartment and will hear something random on my computer and will run home to download or request me to burn a CD for them. My music creates the soundtrack to my life and travels. I am always interested in what music inspires and motivates everyone.

I encourage you to share what music means to you. What music turn to when feeling overwhelmed or frustrated, whether it is jazz, blues, country, good ol’ rock ‘n’ roll, or classical.

Enjoy your day!! Go Buckeys beat the Gophers!!!