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“If One Has No Sense of Humor, One is In Trouble”

Upon reading the blog assignment for the week, I actually dreaded it. I have been stuck in the library for the past two weeks straight, cranking out assignment after assignment. Even though I detest the hustle and bustle of the first floor of Bertrand, I quickly skimmed the book selection parallel to the courtyard computers for a title and cover that caught my attention. I was really hoping one would not only peak my interest, but also relate back to class. However, I was drawn to the smiling face of the Betty White. Seeing Caitlyn out of the corner of my eye, I quickly grabbed the book and made my way down to the lower level to begin writing.

The works of the great Betty White that I know are her hilarious skits on SNL, where I literally cannot control my laughter. Despite being 73 and appearing on shows such as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Golden Girls, and Life With Elizabeth, all shows airing even before we were born, she is still a comedic phenomenon in her own right. In her autobiography, If You Ask Me (And of Course You Wont), the seven time Emmy winner tackles topics ranging from friendship, romance and aging to television, comedy and her fans, interjecting her own personal stories into the mix. The book is broken up into chapters and then into shorter subchapters. In reading through the contents, the Hollywood Stories chapter drew me in, specifically the chapter on SNL. Continue reading →

Finding Gold Mines of Info- Blog Prompt 8- Cited Ref Searches

Cited Reference Searches.

As Brody explained, the works cited of an article, case or book is a view BACKWARDS in time to what the author used.

A cited ref search is a look FORWARD.  It can be a very powerful and targeted search based on what you know is a good source.  The idea is to look at a piece of knowledge and see, from its point of publication, FORWARD, who else cited it.

Several tools can do this.  All are reachable here at the LIT page for management.

ABI/INFORM is one.

Google Scholar is another.

Web of Knowledge is the third, and perhaps the most sophisticated.

The differences are primarily around which databases it searches for references.  The second is the presence of BOOKS.  Only Google Scholar does books.

FOR NEXT WEEK,

1)      Take a “piece of knowledge” we have used or referenced and

2)       Do a cited reference search on it to find a

3)      New item that is useful to you.

4)      Briefly describe the new item. Continue reading →

Don’t Cry For Me Argentina

Don’t Cry For Me Argentina; the phrase flows harmoniously through my ipod headphones every long distance trip I take. Whenever I travel, I usually like to listen to full Broadway CDs to pass the time. One of my personal favorites is Evita. Originally featured on Broadway in 1979 (being revived this year with Ricky Martin) and made famous with a motion picture in 1996 by Madonna, concentrates on the life of Argentine political leader Eva Peron, second wife of former President Juan Peron. The show and movie chronicles Eva Duarte Peron from her humble beginnings as a poor girl in the countryside to her rise to power and early death. Dreams of being an actress, her first love takes her from her home to Buenos Aires, where she sleeps her way to the top, and eventually cross paths with then military Colonel Juan Peron. With her marriage to Peron and introduction to the Argentine bourgeois, Eva assists Peron on his path to the Presidency. The show culminates to the most infamous scene in the story that displays Eva, on the balcony of the Casa Rosada singing “Dont Cry for Me Argentina” in which she wins over the Argentine people.

Continue reading →

Business Ethics Guild Awards – Courtesy of the Blog Council

A Business Ethics Guild Award is an accolade given by the BGS Blog Council (BGSBC) to recognize outstanding blogging by class members. The award given features a nude male figure holding both a mask of comedy and a mask of tragedy and is called “The Blogger.” It is 16 inches tall, weighs over 12 pounds, and is cast in solid bronze.

Nominations for the awards are determined by and debated by the blog council of approximately 3-5 members. Winners are also chosen by the Blog Council and are notified through a post on the blog site.

This week’s prompt asked that we select a TV episode of our choosing and relate it to either management or business. We were asked to select an episode that on the surface seems to have little relation to business or management. Then, we were asked to analyze it in a way that clearly connects the show to our subject matter.

The Blog council thoroughly enjoyed reading about your shows and pondering your intuitive remarks about how each particular episode connected to our course. That being said, there were six categories that we focused heavily on:

1. Originality and Uniqueness of Episode/ Show Chosen
2. Integration of selected episode and thoughtful analysis with course material
3. Creativity/ Quality of Writing
4. Organization of Writing
5. Use of Comedy in Blog Post
6. Use of Drama in Blog Post

With these award categories, there were three posts this week that stole the awards show.

Amanda Skonezney’s “Drama in Beverly Hills”

Winner of:

Award for Originality and Uniqueness of Blog Post

Alyssa Kinell’s “A Jet Stream of Bullshit”

Winner of:

Award for the Best Use of Comedy in a Blog Post

Award for the Best Integration of Episode and Analysis

There is one blog post that stood out above the rest. It earned the majority of the above awards and thus distinguished itself as the best post of the week:

Caitlin Hume’s “Shady Superpowers”

Winner of:  

Award for Best Creativity/ Quality of Writing

Award for Best Use of Drama in a Blog Post

Award for Best Organization of Writing

Award for Blog Post of the Week

Congratulations Caitlin! In addition to your invisible “Blogger” statuette, you also get the opportunity to choose one week where you only have to complete half of the homework questions for FULL credit!!

TV Fun… Blgo Prompt for Blog 7 (pre-spring break)

Here is what the BC came up with on Friday.  Enjoy!  PS- if you are feeling like learning some tech skills, I recall I have had students use the VLC media player, an open source media player, which was good at extracting clips from DVDs at least.  Even if you are clipping copy-righted material, I think you are covered under the fair use clause for education.

For this week’s blog post please select a TV episode of your choosing and relate it to either management or business. We will give a reward to the most interesting post. This entails choosing an episode that on the surface seems to have little relation to business or management, but that you analyze in a way that clearly connects the show to our subject matter.

Reward: Choose one week where you only have to complete half of the homework questions for FULL credit!!

Boring post example: Connecting an episode of The Office to business or BGS topics

Exciting post example: Connecting Paranormal State to business or BGS topics.

on Behalf of BC,
Jordi

Mrs. Silverstein… Is Dana Black or White?

If you think going to Bucknell for four years was like living in a bubble, then you never grew up in Rye Brook, NY. Being raised in this homogenous community and attending the same school district, there was only one African American family in town The family, who actually lived around the corner from me, had four children; two of them graduating from my high school while the youngest two transferred before senior year. One of the girls who transferred was actually in my grade and in my kindergarten class in 1995. (In order to protect the identity of this girl, I have chosen to not use her real name. So for the purpose of this assignment, I will refer to her as Alex). For those of you who don’t know me well, I tend to get absurdly tan when I go away to tropical climates and completely change skin color (I am too embarrassed to post a picture to blog so if you are truly interested in my transformation, I’ll email you a picture)! I will never forget this story, since it’s my mother’s favorite to tell. I had just gotten back from President’s week vacation in Puerto Rico in February of 1995. Being my usual self and despite wearing massive amounts of sunscreen, I came back chocolate brown. Alex and I took the same bus to school each morning and waited together at the bus stop. The first time she saw me, she gave me the weirdest look and for the rest of the day, as we colored pictures of our vacations and ate snack, she could not stop looking at me. The next morning while we were waiting for the bus, Alex asked my mom a simple question, “Mrs. Silverstein, why is Dana black and you’re white?” Continue reading →

I Heart WordPress

I was on blogger for my own interests as far back as 2004.  And then by about 2008 or so, I started thinking about blogs in the context of teaching and writing.  I can’t remember how I found WordPress.com, but in those “dark ages” of social media, it was a life line.  See, Bucknell did not offer any good tools.  I was told that “Blackboard has a blog tool.” (Now, having nothing to do with me, Bucknell uses the open-source version, wordpres.org).

But I had seen what a good blog can do, both in function and design, and I knew that a tool embedded on a cookie-cutter course management system would not do.  It would be like telling students in a driver’s ed class, “we will drive real cars!” and then the first day they show up and see this:

WordPress.com was what I wanted:

• Simple to start to use
• Flexible
• Good-looking
• Plenty of ways to make more sophisticated
• Has a “good vibe.”

So, I started using them.  Now, I know anything “free” is not, really.  If it is free, usually you can count on the fact that YOU are the product (Facebook anyone?  Traditional broadcast TV?).  Still, wordpress.com’s revenue model kicks in when you use lots of memory or buy a domain (like myname.com).  So, for me, for class, it was great product at zero cost.

So, what kind and kewl nerds made this gift from the cyber-heaven for me?

Automattic. Continue reading →

Stuff Week: Blog Prompt for Session 5, Blog 4

For your blog post, please take an item or object, with a clear brand identity, and explore what you can learn about the maker’s stance as a company on relevant BGS questions. As a bonus, you can watch the “Story of Stuff” at the Campus Theatre next Tuesday at 7 p.m.   Your post can go many directions:

• Are they known as living their values? (For example, here is one outside group that recognizes “green” companies.)
• Do they have critics?  How does the company respond?
• Do they publicize a code of ethics?
• Do they try to affect laws or public policy?  (Open Secrets is a fantastic resource to track down information; search the site, or use on of their reports or search tools).

Please, if you discover that your favorite branded company has a questionable or even awful track record, save the guilt.  Do you know how hard it is to buy clothes NOT made in questionable conditions?!?  Feel free to imagine a different world, but guilt is not the price of admission to that conversation.

For example, I think I will do Automagic, the company that makes wordpress.  Part of the reason is I thought of a company whose product I whole-heartedly endorse with word of mouth.  “Worpdress is great, better than blogger,” is a phrase I have said many times.  A little like AIG, I am giving away my good name to this product.  I suspect as a tech start up they are venture capital-funded and therefore probably have much less public info than bigger firms.  Do what you can!

ARE YOU GOING TO THE MOVIE?  Add your name to comments below.

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