Week 14 – Cross-Cultural Communication

Week 14 – Cross-Cultural Communication

Chapter 14 covers Cross-Cultural Communication. It talks about communication with other cultures through advertising, marketing and even PR. Slogans and sometimes even company names can have the translation skewed, which can sometimes offend other cultures. This chapter explains that there are also three values that must be considered when communicating with another culture—psychographics, demographics and geo-demographics. The steps to achieving this goal with potential clients are: commitment, research, local partnership, diversity, testing, evaluation, advocacy and continuing education. The content of this chapter is of the utmost importance to anyone of will be using communication as a living. At some given point down the line, anyone in the communication industry will encounter this and it is important to know what to do in that type of situation, or how to best remedy or even avoid it all together when working on a specific campaign or working with any clients.

Week 13 – Chapter 13 helpful Definitions

Week 13 – Chapter 13 helpful Definitions

Blogging about these definitions will provide me with help, thus I am doing so as a wrap-up of the chapter reading.

Advertising is the use of controlled media.

Marketing is the process of researching, creating, refining, and promoting a product or service and distributing that product or service to targeted consumers.

Public relations is the values-driven management of relationships between an organization and the publics that can affect its success.

Integrated Marketing Communications is “planned, developed, executed, and evaluated with affecting one specific consumer behavior in mind, the process of making purchases now or in the future.

Four Ps of Marketing:

Product

Price

Place

Promotion

Week 12 – Crisis!

Week 12 – Crisis!

Defining a crisis is important. The difference between problems and crises are more than just spelling of a word. According to the text, problems are common place occurrences and are fairly predictable and can usually be addressed within a limited time frame. Crises, on the other hand tend to be less predictable. They require a considerable investment of time and resources to resolve and often bring unwanted public attention. Crises are also usually able to be seen because of the advance signs of trouble. The four stages of crisis dynamics that should be considered when identifying such an even are the warning stage, point of no return, cleanup phase, and when things return to normal. The section of this chapter on the tale of two shuttle disasters is a good example because both Challenger and Columbia exhibited all four stages of a crisis and fit with the cyclical crisis dynamics model.

Week 11 – The New Revolution

Week 11 – The New Revolution

Chapter 11 focuses on the Digital Age which we have entered and where we are going with it and how it affects the public relations practitioner. With the explosion of digital media, the way we send messages has changed. No longer are we stuck with telephones and newspapers or even television, but we are in the age of computers and wireless technology. Email takes the places of typical mail, making long distance written communication lightening-fast. Instead of spending hours on the telephone attached to a wall in our house or office, we can do the same with a phone in our cars, or moreover, we can use online messaging or text messaging. Much of these are examples of convergence of media that is taking place as we speak. A dramatic convergence of media we usually see as distinct (i.e. audio, visual, and text) is now put together to create what is called hypermedia. Much of this will assuredly change before the next century rolls around, but it is fascinating to see the changes which have already taken place and how they have become such an important part of our culture.

Week 10 – Lead Paragraph

Week 10 – Lead Paragraph

DALLAS, Nov. 20, 2006 – In the event of a pandemic flu catastrophe, Southwestern Energy Matrix has released a plan of action to protect its employees and ensure continued energy generation and distribution should an emergency situation arise.

Week 9 – Fact Sheet

Week 9 – Fact Sheet

Pandemic Flu Preparation Fact Sheet

• After six months of planning, Southwestern Energy Matrix’s pandemic planning committee has come up with the list of policies and guidelines listed on this fact sheet.
• Southwestern Energy Matrix has enacted direct deposit of paychecks for all employees to help reduce the amount of travel time outside of pandemic-safe environments.
• A list of essential and non-essential employees has been created by Southwestern Energy Matrix to help ensure that only those employees necessary for the company to function are called upon during an emergency situation.
• Southwestern Energy Matrix has realigned worker sick leave and disability guidelines in case of pandemic.
• Glass-enclosed booths have been erected for customer-contact employees to help protect them from potential contact with pandemic flu carried by customers.
• Southwestern Energy Matrix is working with the company’s health insurance provider for special services should a pandemic situation arise.
• All employee emergency contact listings have been updated for the safety and efficient communication between everyone.

Week 8 – Business Continuity Plans / Isolation versus Quarantine

Week 8 – Business Continuity Plans / Isolation versus Quarantine

Continuity Plans:

Contingency (continuity) planning includes the following phases:

1. Establish Organizational Planning Guidelines
2. Business Impact Analysis (the Risk Assessment)
3. Develop detailed Contingency Plans
4. Validate
5. Communicate the Plan

An example I found online of a corporation with a continuity plan for emergency situations is Deloitte Finance:

http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/article/0,1002,sid%253D119735%2526cid%253D129871,00.html

NASD Rule 3510 requires that a member firm disclose to its clients how its Business Continuity Plan addresses possible business disruption in various scenarios and its response to those scenarios.

Deloitte & Touche Corporate Finance LLC (“DTCF”) has identified the provision advisory investment banking services to its clients as its critical task with respect to its corporate finance engagements. DTCF has a contingency plan in place for various scenarios which may cause a significant disruption of DTCF’s business, and which may affect the firm, the buildings in which the firm resides, or the city or region in which the firm maintains its offices. Types of disasters include but are not limited to:

• Natural causes
  fires
  hurricanes
  earthquakes
  floods
  tornadoes
• Technical causes
  hardware/software failures
  prolonged loss of utility service
• Human causes
  riots
  strikes

Isolation vs. Quarantine:

"Isolation refers to the separation of persons who have a specific infectious illness from those who are healthy and the restriction of their movement to stop the spread of that illness. Quarantine refers to the separation and restriction of movement of persons who, while not yet ill, have been exposed to an infectious agent and therefore may become infectious. Both isolation and quarantine are public health strategies that have proven effective in stopping the spread of infectious diseases."