Final Portfolio

    

    Welcome. This is JDondo creations. This is where my media pieces about communications in a modern business context live.

    Below are five selections from the creative space that capture the essence of what this blog is all about.

1. Of Legos and Labour

        An effective workplace is not a place where your material needs and wants are met. Rather, we need a workplace where we are motivated to accomplish tasks and given meaning in our labour. An example of this is expressed well by Ariely in his Ted Talk What makes us feel good about our work? when he explains that it's the fruit of our labour that motivates us, far more than the actual material aspects of our labour. 

Even the people who enjoyed doing the Lego felt little joy in their work if it was shown to be futile. Work that is felt to be futile and menial, no matter how productive and efficient it is, will probably be ineffective and inefficient in the long run. 

Although specialization in labour means that things can be produced more efficiently in theory, can we foster a workplace that is specialized but gives meaning and acknowledgement? I think this is possible if we create an environment in which work is specialized but each worker participates in some way in management of the company, or carrying out the product to the larger public.

2. The Modern Organization

        This meme communicates a message using humour: for a culture that places such high value in democracy, our workplaces are rarely democratic. The interests of the organization as a whole, and its members are typically subordinate to the interests of those who have corporate stakes in the organization. This includes owners, investors, and CEO's who all profit from their ownership and financial stake in the business, without having to contribute the real, boots on the ground labour.

        I can attest to this firsthand, from my experience working for Maple Leaf. I know so many people who contributed thousands of hours and years of their lives to benefit those who had an ownership stake in the company. When its vaccine mandate rolled out from a corporate office in Hamilton and Toronto, so many essential workers lost their jobs and livelihoods. Were the employees consulted and did they decide as a whole that this was what their company stood for? No. It was a hierarchical, tyrannical decision from people who had often never met the workers they were discarding like machines.

3. The Power of Talk

        In The Power of Talk (HBR), Deborah Tannen correctly characterizes a looming hypocrisy that comes in the world of business; oftentimes, presentation and appearance matter more to success than real concrete results and competence. The way we carry ourselves has very little to do with our experience and ability to carry out projects and manage. 

        This approach that is inherent in our culture and the workplace too often rewards actors and not those who act with resolve, knowledge, and competence. How are we then to escape this reductive, restricting framework? Are we certain that subtle leaders with humility are less effective than the ones with braggadocio, pomp and arrogance? 

        One alternative to this is the vision of the leader is one expressed in verse 17 of the Tao Te Ching: "When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists. Next best is a leader who is loved. Next, one who is feared. The worst is one who is despised. If you don't trust the people, you make them untrustworthy. The Master doesn't talk, he acts. When his work is done, the people say, 'Amazing: we did it, all by ourselves!'"

4. In Praise of Conflict

    There are many areas of our lives in which conflict is wrongly antagonized in favour of common ground and unity. But where conflict is suppressed in favour for common ground, this is always a false unity. 

    I agree with Jonathan Marks that conflict between the public and private sector is often seen as taboo. One example of this is the Truckers protest that gathered in Ottawa, which caused excessive government overreach and financial surveillance, punishing law abiding Canadians for supporting a cause which happened to be in conflict with government policy.

5. Marked and Branded

        

        I used this image from the 1988 movie They Live to highlight the profound effect constant consumer culture has on our behaviour, culture, and thought patterns.

      

        Over years of innovation, companies have developed more and more elaborate ways of competing and vying for our undivided attention. 

        In the age of the internet, this process is made so much more efficient. In every aspect of our lives today, from walking down city streets to surfing the web, to hanging out with friends, we are bombarded with a constant drone of messages urging us to consume their new product. Be their new consumer. 

        Even our friends unknowingly become their salesmen and free labourers. Paying extra to be our personal walking billboards telling us to buy Champion, Crooks and Castles, and Polo shirts and sweaters.