Wells Fargo Fraud Story
Just this week it was found that the national back Wells Fargo was involved in a fraud scandal where the bank was caught opening millions of fake bank and credit card accounts for customers over the past five years. The phantom accounts were a way for the bank to earn extra fees from customers without their knowledge, as well as artificially inflating its sales figures. It claims Wells Fargo managers and bankers took part in unethical techniques to improve sales numbers.
"Wells Fargo's resulting market dominance has come at a significant price to the general public, because it has been achieved in large part through an ambitious and strictly enforced sales quota system," said the complaint.
This type of situation fosters a defensive work environment. There are chances that the sales quota system created a competitive environment that created issues for the organization’s communication process. The organization seems to have had issues with their communication network. With a number of employees involved estimated around 5,300, somewhere information about what was happening had to have moved upward or downward, at some point reaching the higher ups in the chain of command. It reflects poorly on the company’s reputation as well as their values and ethics, things they will most likely never be able to recover.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/16/technology/wells-fargo-lawsuit/index.html
Young muslim women meld faith and fashion through social media
Summary:
In this photo taken in Stockholm, three young Muslim women are fixing their make up, adjusting their hijabs, and dressed in fashion forward clothes. According to the reporter the three women are preparing to take a photo(s) for their instagram accounts. Like any US or foreign fashionista these women are expressing and showcasing their beauty skills and style through social media. The twist to this photo is that unlike some beauty and fashion bloggers in the US, these women are doing so in a way that maintains the sense of modesty dictated by Islamic values. The photographer who captured these women noted, "They really combine their faith and culture with Muslim values in a very organic way, which feels important to show these days where the image of Islam is very dark and people are very afraid of Muslims."
Opinion:
In my opinion I think that this article is eye opening. I personally enjoy watching makeup and hair tutorials on Instagram and YouTube. However, YouTube never recommends videos of Muslim women quite like this article. Lately the western population (US), has had a poor perception of the Muslim culture as a result of the events caused by extremist group ISIS. But these women are doing some of the exact things that young women here in the US make money doing. These women just like some of those beauty bloggers and vloggers in the US have a dominant social media presence. One of these women has an Instagram account totaling over 600k followers. Media's coverage of the Muslim culture and Islamic states can influence the way that we idealize and perceive others' culture and appearance. But this article shows us that while there are stories that cover the negatives of a foreign culture, there are also stories that show how alike different cultures can be.
Link: http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/15/style/cnnphotos-hijabistas/?iid=ob_homepage_deskrecommended_pool
These children have some advice for our future president.
Summary:
A group of middle school students, all on their student council, in New Jersey were asked their opinions about how they think the opponents handled themselves during the debate. All of the students agreed that neither candidate acted like the future leader of our country.
My Opinion:
At first, I didn’t think that this article would apply to this discussion board because it didn’t seem like outright communication but the further into it; the more it fit for this week. After looking at the students’ interview responses there were many things in common. Aside from the candidates acting like a circus act, one overall opinion came to relate to the candidates interpersonal influence. When it came to interpersonal influence the candidates lacked consideration for others by not listening to one another, interrupting each other, going over allotted time, and even their nonverbal communication when the other was speaking. Additionally, both of the candidates had openly aggressive behavior types of interpersonal communication. They both were trying to get across what they deemed the important issues were and sometimes even went onto a different topic after the interrupted the other, without fully acknowledging or answering the topic question given to them.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/27/health/presidential-debate-middle-schoolers-reaction/index.html
Teleprompter problem brightens Trump's persona.
In this brief clip Trump reacts to a broken teleprompter during his speech at the Economic Club of New York. This clip shows a more humorous side of Trump that lightens the atmosphere in the sophisticated room and eases the audience into whatever Trump is about to speak on. I actually think Trump seems more extemporaneous. Sure he could use the teleprompter, but since it’s broken that isn't one of Trumps choices. He makes a joke about being glad he printed out points of his speech, but what makes the speech better is that he links the broken teleprompter with speech point about everything being fixable, failures lending a hand to successes, and past issues paving ways for a better future. I think this looks extremely good for Trump, especially with his past being dug up and slung at him every other day. As everyone has seen Trump’s past is far from perfect and I’m sure that he never imagined then that he’d be running for president. Now this doesn't excuse Trump’s actions or statements, but it does show Trump in a different light than we've seen so far in this election. I think it’s also helped that Trump was familiar with his audience and the venue he was speaking at so it may have been more relaxing and less anxiety riddled, allowing Trump to be able to deliver a more extemporaneous speech.
FBI Gives Trump a Bump
Friday the FBI announced that they were going to review new information regarding the Hillary Clinton classified emails. With some polls Trump has pulled ahead and in others Clinton still has the lead, but the letter from FBI Director to congressional leaders has everyone reeling.
Some analysts say that this announcement, 11 days before the election, could completely reframe the whole presidential debate. Clinton’s team suggests that this is a “fishing expedition,” since the Director didn’t mention what they were looking for and that it’s a vague announcement. Associates of the Republican nominee said the FBI news resonates with doubts that voters have about Clinton. Mike Pence, Republican VP candidate, told NBC’s Meet the Press, "Frankly, I think they've also come to the conclusion that Hillary Clinton is a risky choice to be the next president of the United States.”
Clinton however would like an explanation from Comey, especially since he had said in July that the bureau would not be pursuing any further investigation into the emails and that the agency had found no evidence of the mishandling information.
Overall we will have to see how it plays out through the election, but at this point it’s up to anyone’s interpretation…typical politics.
Finding niches in our outside industry interests
I think it would be really cool to work with the event industry. I like putting attention toward little details about a holiday, event, and my work. I found this site called BizBash (link: http://www.bizbash.com/ ) that is one of the top sources for all things event industry. The article I found, among so many articles, was one about how Forbes tailored their event to millennials, perfectly.
The article is about the event that Forbes held from October 16-19th. Basically the article gives kudos to the team behind the event. Sure the summit was about 30 new innovators under the age of 30, but this time around the team excelled and overachieved the standard. Instead of having their guest sit in a ballroom for three days, they broke the event into four themes, under a cohesive picture. This allowed for the more than 6,000 attendees (mostly in the millennial generation) to choose which theme they experienced. The experience was something the summit was all about, successful innovation.
An event that had never been done before, for a group of young and creative innovators. This is beneficial for potentially working in the event industry, because they cover just about every event. The cover stories about what’s popular now, what’s up and coming, what’s working in the industry, what’s not working in the industry, and advice for if you’re just starting out in the industry.
Russia Blocks LinkedIn
This is a my midterm for the class. I used storify to follow current events related to the communications networking field and added linked social media content to enhance the presentation of the story. The link below will take you to the story/
https://storify.com/brittpredmore/russia-moves-to-block-linkedin