Technical Communication Graduate Applied Projects

This applied project investigates the methods, modes, and tools used to communicate between different audiences at Divine Unity Community Church (DUCC) to create a communication guide. Communication is an integral part of the church’s function and effectiveness, not only externally to the congregation and surrounding community, but also internally to ministers, leaders, and volunteers. As the church continues to grow, it has struggled to maintain a consistent, efficient, and scalable communication culture. To document and sustain the communication culture, I drafted a communication guide that provides a comprehensive explanation of the church’s culture and tools for communicating in different contexts. The guide was developed with feedback from focus groups and observations of DUCC’s communication practices, and is being used as a training resource for leaders and volunteers.

This report details the communication training workshop from inception to implementation. The overall goal of the workshop was to give the company's internal employees the tools necessary to effectively communicate with the organization's external employees. Developing the workshop required first determining the organization's key challenges. From there it was necessary to identify which of those challenges would be improved through improved communication. The observation method was used to research where communication between internal and external employees commonly broke down. Once the significant communication challenges were identified, the workshop was developed and implemented. This report examines the effectiveness of the workshop in detail and outlines both the successes and the challenges the workshop faced. There are detailed plans to improve the workshop as well as a thorough explanation as to why permanent implementation of Communication Training Workshop will be beneficial to the organization.

The field of radio broadcast requires the cohesion of several different skill sets in order to be a success. KHEA Radio has used a traditional form of teaching, which means taking a one-on-one approach. Taking this approach has worked for years in the past and has been the only option for teaching. The down side to this method of teaching is that it requires one seasoned employee to stop their work and take the time to train a new employee. Because of the significant void in the area of instructional content for radio sound engineering, my co-worker and I had to troubleshoot this console and basically teach ourselves its functions. I saw the need for better instructional content on the Internet and in print based on my own experiences. The skills used to create the following instructional content were gained from course work at Arizona State University. The graduate department of Technical Communication makes every effort to equip students with varied skills that can be applied to different fields within the overall scheme of technical communication. This guide serves as a tool for radio broadcast novices to learn the basics of sound board operation.