Innovation

Is defined simply as a "new idea, device, or method" However, innovation is often also viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements. And being innovative does not only mean inventing. Innovation can mean changing your business model and adapting to changes in your environment to deliver better products or services. Successful innovation should be an in built part of your business strategy, where you create a culture of innovation and lead the way in innovative thinking and creative problem solving. Innovation can increase the likelihood of your business succeeding. Businesses that innovate create more efficient work processes and have better productivity and performance.

The following are the characteristics of new idea

1. Relative Advantage is the degree to which an idea or product is perceived as better than the existing standard. Just how much of an improvement is it over the previous generation, the higher the Relative Advantage, the greater the chance of adoption. Many of the most renowned works of art are heralded for the way in which they dramatically moved their genre forward. Relative Advantage is what most people think of when they visualize something being “innovative.

2. Compatibility. How easily can I use my past experience to understand how this new product functions or what this new work means, the higher the similarity with existing norms, the better the chances of adoption, Ideas and people that miss the Compatibility factor are often described as “ahead of their time

3. Simplicity is how easy it is for people to understand the new idea or use the new product. Is this idea a simple extension of logic? Is it an easy-to-use product? If the work or product is seen as highly complex or difficult to grasp, people will shy away from engaging with the product or adopting the idea, let take an example of Instagram, the app actually started as an unpopular called Burbn with the photos as an added bonus. It was only after the complexity was reduced to a single-purpose that its popularity took off. 

4. Trialability How effortless it is for the target audience to interact with the new concepts or experiment with the product, How easily can they try it out, The more potential users or patrons can test the product or view the work, the more likely individuals will adopt it, Listeners try for free and demonstrate their support afterward. The more they can try it, the less uncertainty there is around committing to it.

5. Observability is the noticeable results of trying or consuming the idea. When new products are highly visible, it drives more people to share it and increases the likelihood of mass adoption.

BY JOSHUA HELENA M

 BAPRM   42571

IMPORTANCE OF INTERNET

 Internet has introduced improvements in technology, communication and online entertainment, but it is also incredibly useful for education purposes as well. Teachers use the Internet to supplement their lessons, and a number of prestigious universities have opened up free online lectures and courses to everyone. It has even allowed retired teachers to read to and educate children in poorer countries. Widespread use of the Internet has opened up a substantial amount of knowledge to a much broader range of people than ever before.

The Internet has had an enormous impact on education, streamlining access to information and making it easier for individuals to engage in online learning. Distance education programs make it easier for students from a variety of backgrounds to attend classes remotely, cutting down the need for travel and reducing the resources required for education.

The Internet has also made access to information and communication far easier. Rather than searching the library, users can access vast amounts of information from home computers. Internet access has a huge impact on businesses, allowing employees to work remotely from home and communicate more efficiently. Healthcare is another field greatly affected by the advent of the Internet. Improvements in online connectivity and communication technology allow physicians much greater access to medical resources. Doctors in rural areas can also use the Internet to communicate with experts all over the world, improving the quality of patients' diagnoses and treatments.

Politics and government are another area in which the Internet is important. Government organizations use the Internet to improve organization and communication, and voters can go online to gain more information about current issues. echnological developments increase our living standards. Generally people are feeding better, dressing better and are living more comfortable. It has also a great influence on al fundamental aspects of our cultures including language, art, mobility, health care, education and religion. For example, with the use of video conferencing, the doctors can treat their patients, even though they are far away from the patients. And it also helps the judges hear the cases of hard core criminals, who are not allowed to get into the court rooms due to security reasons.

Our current “network society” is a product of the digital revolution and some major sociocultural changes. One of these is the rise of the “Me-centered society,” marked by an increased focus on individual growth and a decline in community understood in terms of space, work, family, and ascription in general. But individuation does not mean isolation, or the end of community. Instead, social relationships are being reconstructed on the basis of individual interests, values, and projects. Community is formed through individuals’ quests for like-minded people in a process that combines online interaction with offline interaction, cyberspace, and the local space.

The virtual life is becoming more social than the physical life, but it is less a virtual reality than a real virtuality, facilitating real-life work and urban living. Now, messages also flow from the many to the many, multimodally and interactively.

    By Mbogo Tausi

      BAPRM 42611

virtual community and its effects

 Online or virtual community is the gathering of people, in an online "space" where they come, communicate, connect, and get to know each other better over time. Your community will be what you and your members make of it.

Why Do People Join and Build Virtual Communities?

People have been using online spaces since the beginning of the Internet to communicate. That includes prior to the World Wide Web, when electronic bulletin boards and email loops connected folks across time and space.Many found that they began to form bonds of one sort of another. Today, the online forum is viral and every where.

Types of activities people have enjoyed through these online connections.

• Socialize - meeting people, playing around, sharing jokes, stories and just taking interest in each other. Communities like this often focus around bulletin boards and chat rooms.
• Work together (business) - Distributed work groups within companies and between companies use online community to build their team, keep in touch and even work on projects together. .
• Have topical conversations - Online salons and discussion forums such as the Well Cafe Utne and others have formed communities of people who enjoy conversations about topics and shared interests. Forum One noted in 1999 that the top ten topics for forums registered at their site are around the topics of (in order): relationships (16%), "mega sites (diverse topics, aggregations of smaller conferences - 11%), business and finance (8%), health (5%), hobbies (4%), religion (3%), music (3%), international (3%). 

The Effect of Online Communities

Keeping in Touch

For more than a century now, technological advances have brought the world closer, making communication across long distances easier. Telegrams are faster than letters; phone calls, in turn, are faster than telegrams, as well as easier and more pleasant, since they require no go-between and allow users to hear each other's voice. Cell phones take this one step further, allowing people to call and speak with each other regardless of their location. Online communication of all types is the most efficient yet, with email being a near-instantaneous version of the paper letter; webcams, paired with communication programs such as Skype, iChat or Google Video Chat, make it possible to see the person you are speaking with rather than just hear his voice.

Doing Business

The same technological advances that have simplified and improved personal communication have also had the same beneficial effects on business. Communication between colleagues is near-instantaneous whether they are a few rooms or a few countries apart; video conferencing allows companies to have workers scattered around the globe while but still hold efficient meetings and discussions; business networking is made easier by social media and online networks designed specifically for that purpose, such as LinkedIn. Perhaps most importantly, companies can expand beyond their local market and gain a wider customer base simply by maintaining an active online presentation.

Reaching a Broader Audience

As people's ability to communicate improves, the reach of their messages widens. This can be especially important in politics and activism. For instance, photos and video recorded covertly through a cell phone can be quickly and easily shared online through websites such as YouTube, making it harder for oppressive regimes to keep control; social networks such as Facebook and Twitter can be used to organize and coordinate meetings and protests. The Egyptian revolution of 2011-2012 was spurred greatly by social media.

   By Segesela Blandina

       BAPRM 42663

QUALITIES OF A GOOD COMMUNICATER

Communicating is easy, but communicating well takes skill. Thinking beyond basic language rules and facilitating effective, positive exchanges of information is something not everyone can do. Fortunately, good communication habits come with regular practice, so if you know what it takes to sharpen your skills, you can proudly communicate like all the great and writers before you. Remember these seven things that good communicators always do, and make sure you’re doing them!

1. Get personal

Most of the time, people don’t care about what you’re saying unless you’re saying something they find valuable on a personal level. That personal level doesn’t have to be deep, it just has to exist.

Good communicators establish a personal connection by focusing on how their message may impact the other person. For example, good communicators in the marketing industry always explain how the company’s products or services will benefit the customer. This gives the audience a reason to listen and remember what the marketer has said.

2. Represent facts

Inaccurate information is worthless, so if you’re not sure about something you’re saying, either don’t say it or at least admit that you’re not sure about it. Sometimes, we can get carried away with a conversation and begin spewing out random things we’ve heard but don’t know to be true. Although this may seem harmless, regularly offering inaccurate information not only leads people to believe things that aren’t true, it discredits you as a valuable source of information, and sharing information is what communicating is all about.

3. Be specific

Good communicators cut to the chase and understand the value of brevity. You may love to talk, but that doesn’t mean others want to hear it. If you have something to say, say it. Ambiguity and superfluous words are likely to bore people and discredit you, causing your message to get lost in a cloud of noise. Good communicators always respect people’s time and choose simple, straightforward words.

4. Ask questions

Whether the conversation is with one person or many, good communicators always ask questions. Most importantly, they question their audience to confirm that their point has been understood.

. Ask for clarification

While it’s necessary to make sure others understand your own points, good communication also requires you to understand their points. The same way you think the information you share is important, your conversation partner likely believes the same and would love for you to truly comprehend what they’re saying. Furthermore, understanding their message is vital to responding appropriately.

Many people are afraid to ask for clarification for fear of offending the other person, but that fear is unneeded. Everyone comes from a different background, so everyone associates different words, phrases, and even body language with different meanings. If you aren’t sure what someone means, ask for clarification! Simply asking “What do you mean?” is not only a good way to understand better, it’s also a great vehicle for moving conversations forward.

6. Listen

A big part of communicating well is responding appropriately to what someone else communicates. This requires knowing how to actively listen and making every effort to understand what they’re telling you. If you don’t listen and then respond inappropriately, that can make people feel unimportant and literally unheard. In addition to responding appropriately, attentive listening makes the exchange enjoyable for your conversation partner.

BY MUSA LILIAN BAPRM 42631

Societies in Transition to the Network Society

Societies in Transition to the
Network Society

Several analysts have put forward the idea that societies are currently experiencing significant change characterized by two parallel trends that frame social behavior: individualism and communalism (Castells, 2003b).
Individualism, in this context, denotes the construction of meaning around the realization of individual projects. Communalism, in turn, can be defined as the construction of meaning around a set of values defined by a restricted collective group and internalized by the group’s members.
Various observers have looked at these two trends as potential sources of disintegration of current societies, as the institutions on which they are based lose their integrating capacity, i.e. they become increasingly incapable to giving meaning to the citizens: the patriarchal family model, the civic associations, companies and, above all, representative democracy and the nation state.

 These institutions have been, to some extent, fundamental pillars of the relationship between society and the citizens throughout the 20th century (Castells 2003; 2004, Giddens 2000). However, another hypothesis is possible. Perhaps what we are witnessing is not the disintegration and fractioning of society, but the reconstruction of the social institutions and, indeed, of the structure of society itself, proceeding from autonomous projects carried out by society members. This independence (i.e. independence from society’s institutions and organizations) can be regarded as individual or collective, in the latter case in relation to a specific social group defined by its autonomous culture.

In this perspective, the autonomization of individuals and groups is followed by the attempt to reconstruct meaning in a new social structure on the basis their self-defined projects. By supplying the technological resources for the socialization of the projects of each individual in a network of similar subjects, the Internet, together with the mass media, becomes a powerful social reconstruction tool and not a cause of disintegration. This social (re)construction, giving rise to the new structure, will not have to follow the same values logic of the late industrial society.

However, as the Internet is a technology, its appropriation and domestication (Silverstone 1994) may also take place in a conservative way and thus act merely to perpetuate social life as it had already existed.

The examples are manifold. If we wish to expand our field of vision we can look at the Internet as, for example, an instrument for the maintenance of a patriarchal society rooted in a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, when we see it being used for the recruitment of volunteers for al-Qaeda, or as an instrument for the perpetuation of old public administration models, when the websites of the ministries offer nothing more than the telephone numbers of the various services, in what amounts to the mere substitution of the yellow pages, in hardcopy form, by hypertext in a closed institutional circuit. Or when we limit ourselves to constructing a personal page in which we center content around our own personality and identity without any connection to any entities to which we belong or are affiliated, thus rejecting the logic of sharing in a network of interests.
By Msele Musa
BAPRM 42626

International public relations

Refers to the strategic communications and actions carried out by private, government or non- profit organizations to build and maintain relationships with publics in socio-economic and political environments outside their home location. (William, J. 2002).

The following are importance of research in the practice of international public relations;

 Research is a fundamental part of identifying important issues to the organization, developing strategically based publicrelations programs, and measuring the impact of those programs on the organization. Without public relations research, practitioners are left with little but outputs and hunches to report. Without research, practitioners cannot show how public relations make a difference. So in the practice of international public relations this helps a practitioner to identify important issues like public awareness and perceptions towards an organization.

Researchgives the hard data necessary to provide value to the organization, and helps provide information to make decisions that have real impact. Research is critical to international public relations practice because it focuses on providing necessary and first important data that gives an organization a profit and provide a gate way for the organization to succeed in the international business.

Research helps to maintain the two-way symmetrical model, the role of researchin the practice of international public relations should not be simplyto deliver the organization’s messages, at times referred to as an inside out approach to communication. In the open systems model, public relations research also takes an outside-in approach by communicating the beliefs, feelings, and concerns of key publics back to the organization. So by doing that it helps an organization to understand the needs of the public and the type of the public they are dealing with so as to satisfy the needs of the customers.

Research provides a means for the organization to scan the environment to identify key publics and issues early. Research uncoverspotential areas of concern so that the organization can build relationships, develop programs and take corrective action to prevent small problems from becoming major issues. And by doing that an organization can be able to know different issues that facing an organization and solving those problems early before they become a crisis in the practice of international public relations. And also research helps an organization to know the targeted publics and their preferences a fact which helps an organization to succeed in the international business.

 Research helps in maintaining a good relationship between the public and the organization, research emphasizes that the organization and its publics should be engaged in an ongoing dialog to build mutually beneficial relationship, practitioners use research and dialog to bring about symbiotic changes in the ideas, attitudes andbehaviors of both the organization and its publics. So in the practice of international public relations research makes the relationship between organization ant publics to be effective and beneficial to both of them.

Research helps in gaining publicity, through research an organization in international business can able to influence the media to promote the business in a beneficial and effective manner. That means by doing research an organization will be well informed over different issues concerning the media and their policies and influence that particular organizational to promote that organization business in international market hence success on that particular organization.

Research helps identify the existing knowledge, predisposition or behaviors of key publics, their preferred information sources, and how best to reach them,Excellent public relations department scan the environment and continuously bring the voices of publics,especially activist publics, into decision making so as to make those decision reflect the needs of  the target public.

Public relations research is essential for helping to determine what an enterprise’s goals should be, identifying possible barriers to achieving those goals, and providing knowledge about the environment and key publics so the organization can achieve those goals. This will ensure success of the campaign and the overall performance of an organization.

BY JOSHUA HELENA M

BAPRM 42571

 Advantages and Disadvantage of Social Networking

1. Worldwide Connectivity

No matter if you are searching for a former college roommate, your first grade teacher, or an international friend, no easier or faster way to make a connection exists than social media. Although Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest are probably the most well-known social networking communities are popping up regularly that let people connect and interact over the Web new website.

.2. Commonality of Interest

When you opt to participate in a social network community, you can pick and choose individuals whose likes and dislikes are similar to yours and build your network around those commonalities. For instance, if you are a chess aficionado, a book lover or have a particular political leaning, you can find and interact with those who share your interest.

3. Real-Time Information Sharing.

Many social networking sites incorporate an instant messaging feature, which lets people exchange information in real-time via a chat. This is a great feature for teachers to use to facilitate classroom discussions because it lets them utilize the vast store of information available on the Web.

4. Targeted Advertising

Whether you are non-profit organization that needs to get the word out about an upcoming fundraiser or a business owner marketing a new product or service, there's no better way than social media to get your message in front of millions of people.

5. Increased News Cycle Speed

Undoubtedly, social networking has revolutionized the speed of the news cycle. Most news organizations now rely on social media sites to collect and share information. Social media - especially Twitter - is steadily becoming a mainstream source for breaking news. Today an individual can know, in real time, what is happening throughout the world. This has led to the development of a nearly instantaneous news cycle as everything from terrorist attacks to local car crashes get shared on social media, quickly alerting their intended audience of the event.

Disadvantages of Social Networking

1. Backlash

A joke among friends is one thing but a joke with the world at-large is much different. When potentially offensive content is posted online, the amount of feedback can be excessive and is often brutal. This is particularly true with highly opinionated subjects like politics and religion. This backlash can also have a long-term impact on a person's future, especially in a world that has fallen prey to over-sharing.

2. Cyberbullying and Crimes Against Children

Use of social networks may expose individuals to other forms of harassment or even inappropriate contact. This can be especially true for teens and younger children. Unless parents diligently filter the Web content their family views, children could be exposed to pornography or other inappropriate content.

3. Risks of Fraud or Identity Theft

Whether you like it or not, the information you post on the Internet is available to almost anyone who is clever enough to access it. Most thieves need just a few vital pieces of personal information to make your life a nightmare.

4. Time Waster

Business Insider reports that social media is the most popular use of the Internet - surpassing email - and smartphones and other mobile devices seem to be the driving force behind this trend since 60 percent of the traffic is from a mobile source.

5. Corporate Invasion of Privacy

Social networking invites major corporations to invade your privacy and sell your personal information. Have you ever posted a comment on Facebook, only to notice an advertisement appear with content related to your post? Last year, Facebook earned an estimated $16 billion in ad revenue. That's not bad for a free site.

BY MWAKINYUKE JEREMIA

BAPRM 37576