End of Chapter Internet Activities from Hanna/Wilson’s
Communicating in Business and Professional Settings

Chapter 1

Internet Activities

1. Open a search engine such as Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com/) or Lycos (http://www.lycos.com/). Perform separate searches using these key words: communication AND ethics; communication AND theory; communication AND perspective. Take careful note of your impressions. Prepare to discuss with your classmates what you believe the implications of the Internet and the World Wide Web are for international and interpersonal communication.
2. Locate organizations on the World Wide Web that focus on human communication. Spend enough time at their Web sites so that you can describe their concerns in detail to your classmates. A good place to start is the Southern States Communication Association home page (http://ssca.net/) or the Speech Communication Association home page (http://www.scassn.org/).

1. Open a search engine and type these words: organization AND systems. You will get about 250 "hits." Scroll down through the first ten items, then follow one of the "hot links" and notice where it takes you. Now try searching using these words: communication AND system. Where does this search take you? Make notes so that you can discuss your
exploration with class members. Do you think organizations are communication systems?
All organizations have to communicate within themselves and outside themselves. See if you can discover at least five consulting firms specializing in public relations and organizational communication that advertise themselves on World Wide Web. What services do they offer? Please prepare a report to share with your classmates.

Chapter 3

1. Open the search engine named Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com/) and type this word: leadership. You will find about 450 "hits". Scroll through the entire list (it is alphabetized) to form mental impressions. Does anything stand out for you? If so, write it down and prepare to report back to the class. What do you think the Internet and the World Wide Web will do to the way our organizations communicate in the future.?

2. If you wanted to study one of the four functions of organizational communication, what key terms would you use to study it on the Internet? Try two of these search engines, make notes and share your findings with the class.

   Pathfinder (http://pathfinder.com/@@GbAEYAYA0j1qS@H/welcome/)

   All In One (http://www.albany.net/allinone/)

   Lycos (http://www.lycos.com/)

Chapter 4

1. Open one of these search engines: InfoseekGuide (http://guide.infoseek.com/) or Altavista Search (http://www.altavista.digital.com/).

Chapter 5

1. Suppose you wanted to contract some training on the subjects of perception and listening. Use the Internet to locate at least five vendors for this training. How much information can you glean from the Internet, and what kinds of information did you need that you could not find? Bring your notes to class for comparison and contrast with your classmates’ notes.
2. I f you type the word listening into the search bar of AltaVista Search (http://www.altavista.digital.com/), what do you find? Explore both musical paths and language paths until you are confident youconfident you can participate actively in a classroom discussion of the Internet’s resources on these topics.
3. When we listen to each other in a conference, we have both visual and auditory cues that aren’t available on the Internet. What are the implications for organizations which increasingly use the World Wide Web as a means of communication?

Chapter 6

1. Suppose three new employees come to work in your department. Each speaks excellent English as a second language. One is from japanJapan, the second is from Saudi Arabia, the third is from Argentina. They are all entry-level employees, and all are in their mid-twenties. Would these facts influence how you interact with them? In particular terms, what can you find out from the Internet to guide you?

 

2. Given the same three employees, see what you can learn from the Internet about appropriate social distance. Use this chart to guide your note-taking, then bring your findings to class for comparison and contrast with the work of other students.

 

	Male, 25 years old	Female, 25 years old	Male, 60 years old	Female, 60 years old
Japanese male
Saudi Arabian male
Argentinean male
Japanese female
Saudi Arabian female
Argentinean female

Chapter 7

1. You have been asked by management to discover, then make recommendations for the purchase of, ,the best quality, mid-price-range package of computer equipment for a twenty-five-station training center. You are to present your findings to a committee in the form of a proposal. This is an exciting opportunity for you, but there is a catch- the committee is going to meet at 8:00 A.M. tomorrow. Working alone, use the Internet resources you can find to come up with this proposal, jot down your notes, and come to the meeting! Remember that you must be prepared to justify your recommendations to the management.

2. Suppose you own fifty shares of Intel sock and fifty shares of Microsoft stock. Use the Internet to discover what your stock is worth, then explain to the class how you found the information.

3. Your boss asks you, "Who published Nicholas Negoponte’s book, Being Digital, and when?" You respond, " I don’t know, but I’ll look it up and get back to you within the hour." The library is already closed, so you can’t call there for help. All you have is the Internet. How do you answer, and how did you find the answer?

Chapter 8

1. One of the people who wrote this book is Mike Hanna. What does he require of students in his course, CA 211, Interpersonal Communication, to get an A grade? How do you know? Does he answer his email? How do you know? What else could you find out about him? How did youdid you find it?
2. If you didn’t already own this book and only knew the title, but you wanted to study the table of contents so that you could make a decision whether to buy it, where would you look on the Internet?
3. Is it interpersonal communication when you order a garment from Lands’ End online (http://www.Landsend.com/)? Prepare to defend your answer in a discussion with your classmates.

Chapter 9

1. Use Infoseek Guide (http://guide.infoseek.com/) or AltaVista Search (http://www.altavista.digital.com/) to discover if anyone on the World Wide Web offers third- party conflict intervention services on a consulting basis to corporations. Is someone near your town offering such services? Suppose your CEO directs you to locate "a reputable consulting firm" to provide this service. How would you go about evaluating the reputation of the service provider? Could you make this evaluation using the Internet?
2. You would like to improve your negotiation and bargaining skills because you have decided to buy a new car. Take it as a given that he dealer will sell you a car if he can make $1,000 over costs. You are considering a Toyota Camry, A Ford Taurus, and a Honda Accord. You want the car to come with power windows, a sunroof, leather upholstery, and a really good stereo system. What’s the bargaining range you should stay within? One of the search engines will help you find current prices. Type Car+Broker into Yahoo's search engine. (http://search.yahoo.com/search/options).

Chapter 10

1. Do you think that the many commercial employment services available on the World Wide Web are helpful? How do you determine the qualifications and quality the advice they provide? Go to (http://www.yahoo.com/) and type "jobs" without the quotemarks.

2. Suppose your annual performance appraisal review resulted in the suggestion that you take a course about interpersonal communication in interview settings. Check out your local college or university’s offerings on the Internet, and make notes to share with your classmates. What did you discover about the institution? Who teaches the courses? Can you take such a course online? Where? How? How much will it cost?

Chapter 11

1. You are going to interview for a postionposition with an on-campus recruiter. In order for you to prpareprepare, you wantna to research the commpanycompany, which you can do using the Internet. What can you find out from Moody’s (http://www.moodys.com/) about your chosen company? How would that be useful?
2. Can you find any help on the World Wide Web for designing your résumé? Keep notes and report back to the class.

Chapter 12

1. Type "group AND decision-making" in the search box of the Excite search engine (http://www.excite.com/). What help can you find for a decision-making task group? Would you recommend using the Internet for this purpose?

2. Leadership is one of the hottest topics in business and professional organizations. Can you determine who is trying to make a profit from this fact on the Internet? Record path through the Internet, then report your findings and how you arrived at them to the class.

Chapter 13

1. In Chapter 7, Karen Burton described a number of software and hardware technologies that help organizations communicate within groups- whether in the same room or across the world. Locate five World Wide Web sites that address uses of technology to communicate with a group or staff in particularly useful or interesting ways. Write down the Internet addresses carefully, and come to class prepared to make your classmates familiar with these useful or interesting Web sites.
2. Chapter 7 describes Intranet applications for communicating with a group or staff. Can you find anything on the World Wide Web that would help manager s to decide to develop an Intranet for their company? What? Where?

Chapter 14

1. Type the words public speaking in the search box of the Yahoo! Search engine (http://www.yahoo.com). You will find about thirty five "hits." How would you characterize these Web sites?
2. Type the words visual aids onto the search box at AltaVista Search (http://www.yahoo.com). You will find about thirty-five "hits." Bring your impressions and notes to class for review.

Chapter 15

1. Select any topic for a presentation. Visit the World Wide Web Virtual Library ( http://vlib.stanford.edu/Overview.html). List at least ten resources directly related to your topic. Share your findings with your classmates.
2. Spend fifteen minutes lurking on the HUGE List (http://www.thehugelist.com/). Jot down your impressions and bring them to class for a discussion.
3. The Internet is full of help-and free software-for people who have trouble organizing ideas. What do you make of what you find at "Square Note" ( http://sqn.com/sqn5.html)?

Chapter 16

1. Enter the Lycos search engine (http://www.lycos.com/) and type "delivering a presentation" You’ll get nearly 12,000 "hits." What three hits on the first two pages seemed most helpful to you? Why?
2. Open Minnesota Western’s tutorial (http://www.minnwest.com/tutorial.html). Click on the hot link help you make educated and informed presentation decisions. Enjoy. Come to class prepared to discuss in detail what you found.

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