The biggest insight I have learned during my time at USC is that organizational communications are best done with a team. Working with a team enhances brainstorming, allows for specialization and catches mistakes so the organization can produce content that appeals to a wider audience.
My journey down the Professional and Civic Engagement pathway has been defined by the teams I have had the privilege to work with and how I have grown through their criticism and encouragement of my work. Throughout my career so far, I worked with various teams such as Rosewood Church Staff and The Daily Gamecock. Each team has had a unique mix of perspectives that imperfectly mirror the various perspectives of our audience members.
One essential function of organizational social media management that can be improved through teamwork is creating social media plans. For example, in my Social Media Marketing class, we created a social media plan as part of our final project. Though the plan was mainly drafted by two of the team members, when we went over the plan again as a full team of four people, we were able to add more specific points and brainstorm more creative types of content than the two team members were able to generate on their own.
My journey down the Professional and Civic Engagement pathway has been defined by the teams I have had the privilege to work with and how I have grown through their criticism and encouragement of my work. Throughout my career so far, I worked with various teams such as Rosewood Church Staff and The Daily Gamecock. Each team has had a unique mix of perspectives that imperfectly mirror the various perspectives of our audience members.
One essential function of organizational social media management that can be improved through teamwork is creating social media plans. For example, in my Social Media Marketing class, we created a social media plan as part of our final project. Though the plan was mainly drafted by two of the team members, when we went over the plan again as a full team of four people, we were able to add more specific points and brainstorm more creative types of content than the two team members were able to generate on their own.
Though it is important to have a point person be in control of different aspects of a project, making sure that other people are involved, at least in the final stages, can help prevent miscommunication with the audience and create a clean final product that will be more likely to please the organization’s audiences.
One of the biggest examples of my experience with this was the development of the Easter 2020 sermon series graphics with Rosewood Church. Because it was one of my first graphics for Rosewood and Easter is a really important season for churches, this series had an unusually long drafting process as I worked to get used to Rosewood’s tone and match the graphic to the messaging of the series. Through meetings with Pastor Bob Morgan and church administrator Will McMakin I was able to see their vision for the series more and more clearly, which allowed me to match the tone, marking the shift to darker colors from the first draft. Through brainstorming we also came upon the symbol of stained glass to represent the church’s upcoming move to a new building. Additionally, the process helped me avoid perpetuating mistakes, as I had not noticed that the shadow of the cross in the first draft looked like an upside-down cross, which could have been considered sacrilegious by our audience.
One of the biggest examples of my experience with this was the development of the Easter 2020 sermon series graphics with Rosewood Church. Because it was one of my first graphics for Rosewood and Easter is a really important season for churches, this series had an unusually long drafting process as I worked to get used to Rosewood’s tone and match the graphic to the messaging of the series. Through meetings with Pastor Bob Morgan and church administrator Will McMakin I was able to see their vision for the series more and more clearly, which allowed me to match the tone, marking the shift to darker colors from the first draft. Through brainstorming we also came upon the symbol of stained glass to represent the church’s upcoming move to a new building. Additionally, the process helped me avoid perpetuating mistakes, as I had not noticed that the shadow of the cross in the first draft looked like an upside-down cross, which could have been considered sacrilegious by our audience.
The economic idea of comparative advantage holds very true in communications teamwork. Each individual team member has tasks that they do more efficiently at than others. Organizing tasks so work is completed the most efficient way is vital to good teamwork. For example, Pastor Morgan has more experience doing graphic design than me but he is much more efficient writing sermons than I am, therefore I have taken on the graphic design work for the church, and he delivers the sermons without creating the graphics. This concept, colloquially known as playing to each individuals’ strengths, allows for more efficient content creation in a professional setting.
An example of how much I have grown is that for the 2021 Easter series I was able to come alongside the church staff as they planned the series and quickly return a graphic that accurately portrayed the church and the intended tone of the series.
An example of how much I have grown is that for the 2021 Easter series I was able to come alongside the church staff as they planned the series and quickly return a graphic that accurately portrayed the church and the intended tone of the series.
Peer editing is one of the biggest boons one can have in organizational communications. I saw this from multiple sides when I worked with the Daily Gamecock as a writer and copyeditor. Through this experience I was able to see that (almost) no piece of writing is perfect. Each article I edited, I corrected errors that the writer didn’t see because of the new perspective I brought to the piece. Likewise, the people that edited my pieces were able to make my writing more clear and accurate. Editing is an essential function of communications and is vastly improved with teammate participation.
My experiences have shown me that having a good team is integral to the continued success of any organizational endeavor. The teams I have been in have encouraged me to build up my own talents and allowed me to encourage and improve other’s work. In the words of Hellen Keller, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
My experiences have shown me that having a good team is integral to the continued success of any organizational endeavor. The teams I have been in have encouraged me to build up my own talents and allowed me to encourage and improve other’s work. In the words of Hellen Keller, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
Copyright © 2022 Meredith M. Edwards