Crisis Communication

As the article, basic principles for crisis communications, stated
"Whether the phones are ringing, camera trucks are showing up at a worksite, union leadership is speaking at a public hearing, or a regulator is issuing safety warnings about your product, it's pretty clear you've got a crisis," we have to cope with crisis problem carefully.

First, we have to know that the absolute worst time to learn crisis management is during a crisis. Crisis management therefore is not only concerned about managing risks but also about risk reduction by preventing issues from escalating.

In a crisis communication, we can take Shettz as an example.

Salmonellosis, in the Sheetz case, is an infection caused by salmonella bacteria contaminates in food or water and generally causes diarrhea, fever and cramps for up to three days. When news of the Salmonella outbreak streaked across the Associated Press wires, Sheetz executives promptly arranged interviews with local TV, wire service, and newspaper reporters. Owner-executives Steve, Stan, and Travis Sheetz answered every question, described the facts as they knew them, and personally pledged to help all customers who were made ill.

By showing they weren’t afraid to face the public and by expressing in their own words what they were doing to correct matters, members of the Sheetz family demonstrated their values and their commitment to the community.

Corporate vs. Product Advertising

Corporate Advertising
A good corporate advertising program can clarify and enhance a company's reputation, and the abscence of one can hurt packaged goods companies and retailers as well.

















WD-40
WD-40 is a lubricant/water displacement solution. This ad was designed to pull the reader in by selling a cold, utilitarian product in a very warm, sweet, and amusing manner. The corporate designed the layout in a way that makes the reader become more involved in exploring the ad, while keeping them interested so that they read the entire ad.

Product Advertising
Product advertising means this advertisement mainly promote its product rather than its corporate image.



















Mr. Goodbar
Hershey's has many famous candy bars in the market. However, in this advertisement Hershey's selects a product Mr. Goodbar that needed brand-building. The campaign began building a personality for the Mr. Goodbar brand. It would make the brand visible in the crowded candy market and give consumers a personality and image to associate with the brand name.

Mixed Corporate and Product Advertising
In our assignment, we need to find the corporate and product advertising. However, in the process of looking for appropriate advertisements, I found most advertisements mix corporate and product advertising. It used their product to build their corporate image.














Louis Vuitton

This advertisement is a good example of mixing product & corporate advertising. The model carried one LV classical bag and wore LV clothes to build its luxury product image.

Identity, Image, and Reputation

In the article, Corporate Image and Logos, the author emphasized how does corporate image is very important in an organization.

The marketplace is awash with logos, repeated in television commercials, on trucks that pass us by; on packages and signs in the supermarkets; stationery and flyers. The list is endless. It is essential, then, for a logo to have meaning; to present to the subconscious mind of the consumer a message about the corporation and/or the product it represents.

A logo does exactly that in a very subtle way. Part of a logo's impact comes from repetition, the very act of seeing a familiar symbol on a continual basis. Every company, every branded product or service needs a logo for this purpose.

Take starbucks as an example.
The logo is a "twin-tailed mermaid, or siren as she's known in Greek mythology". The logo has been streamlined over the years. In the first version, the Starbucks siren was topless and had a fully-visible double fish tail. See the picture as the following.


In the second version, her chest was covered by her flowing hair, but her navel was still visible, and the fish tail was cropped slightly. In the current version, her navel and chest are not visible at all, and only vestiges remain of the fish tails. The original logo can still be seen on the Starbucks store in Seattle's Pike Place Market and on Starbucks Anniversary Blend 1-pound coffee bags.

Now I can see this starbucks logo in the whole world. When I traveled in China, I would be very happy to see this green mermaid because there are not many good cafe shops there. Also, I like to buy Starbucks cup with this logo. I just feel I like this starbucks image.

Corporate Communication Relevance

Relevance is not limited to strictly traditional sales or client communications. In a corporate environment, there are literally hundreds of applications for the distribution of information through documents, both internally(to various departments, employees, and management), as well as externally(to clients, prospects, suppliers, investors, and government)

Relevance can enhance virtually any corporate communications whether internal or external, critical or routine, delivered automatically or on-demand to one or to thousands, by e-mail, fax, or voice, to a personal web site, or through web services.

There sre some relevant communications corporations was incorporated recently and is a software developer specializing in the development of software for corporate communications by e-mail, voice, fax, and on-demand (Internet), and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications.

Comparing to a decade ago, I believed that corporate communication relevance are involving more and more people right now. Due to the progress of technology, I feel people become more inseparate in this society. From my experience, I only need deal with people who is involving in internal organization and some suppliers and customers. However, now because of the development of internet, organizations become more transparent. Also, customers can exchange their experiences on the internet, so organizations have to realize how big is your corporate communication relevance.

Internal Communication

From the article, Effective internal communication, the author Sudipta mentioned that an organisation's successful internal communication initiative can be judged in three ways, communicating a message, assessing baseline, and the spiral of success.

Internal communication is much more than posting newsletters and holding pizza parties, the strategy has to be formulated by the top management in coordination with the executing team. The effort is not without its share of challenges.

In Taiwan, we used to communicating by one way communication which means only communicate from boss to employees, but I think a two-way communications is so important in an organization now. In internal communication, I would like to talk about feedback performance.

The importance of feedback cannot be overlooked in the internal communication process. Gopalakrishnan explains why, “Feedback forms the basis of all successful plans and raises expectations of change. Employees expect that things will improve as a result of their response and the organisation's introspection. So, responding to employees, not just with results but also with a specific action plan is very important. It is imperative that the employees see first hand the value of their contribution in the seriousness with which it is taken.”

Communication Technologies

According the article, How About an E-mail On That? , the author Bruno is talking about each new channel or media that appears slowly redefines the uses of the older existing media. She suggests: IM is currently redefining usage of short messaging; blogging is redefining the usage of e-mail; VoIP is changing the nature of a phone call. New patterns of communication emerge slowly, stabilize for a period, and then change again when new channels come along. What role does cost play in shifting usage from one channel to the other? "Cost does play a role, but it's not absolute."
She cites as evidence the fact that we use cell phones from home although it's more expensive and we have alternatives available. The cost is offset by convenience: With phone numbers stored in a cell phone's memory, it's more practical to take the device out of our pocket and push a button to place a call.

There are still some communication technologies I would like to talk as the following.

blog
There are more and more businesses have embraced the trendy communication medium-Blog, such as Dell, Microsoft, and Apple. Lenn Pryor, Microsoft's director of platform evangelism acknowledged “Blogging is a way to scale our ability to communicate with customers in an open and honest way." However, I think that blogging is very different from the kinds of communication activities that employees routinely engage in, like speaking at conferences. Independent bloggers may not have to think before they post, but corporate bloggers do since anything that goes up on the Internet is immediately available to a worldwide audience of billions.

Web Conferencing
By using Web conferencing, companies will be able to create communities in which users can share audio, video and photos, as well as post blogs, podcasts and profiles. Cisco announced it would spend $3.2 billion in cash to acquire WebEx, the No. 1 Web conferencing company.

Email
Email is a very convenient method to communicate with people in a whole entity.
Different with traditional mail, it is immediately. Some people think that since the appearance of instant message, e-mail will become a fad. However, in my experience, I still feel e-mail is the best way to communicate with your suppliers and customers.

Media Relations

From the blog, Media relation blog, Bill stated 6 tips to building better relationships with the media. Following those simple six steps consistently can make all the difference in the world between a productive day and one that ends up empty handed.

1. Identify who you are and why you are calling.
2. Ask if this is a good time to talk. If it isn't, ask the reporter to suggest the best time you should call back. Never ask a reporter to return your call. If it is a good time to talk, proceed to the next step.
3. Let the reporter know you are familiar with the publication or with stories she writes about.
4. Explain the idea in a sentence or two.
5. Explain quickly why readers will care.
6. Ask if the reporter is interested.

This reminds me about Coors cases. What you can do when your company undergo a big crisis? Espically how to deal with media relations. The 60 minutes video we watched in the class let us understand how to cope with media relations during a difficult situition. I think these 6 tips are also applied in that Coors nationwide boycott crisis. And there is still one thing I learned from this case is that don't say " no comment " to the public.

Good publicity is the best advertising. To Keep a healthy media relations is so essential in this technology age.

21st Century Communication Trends

Stephen P. Borgatti identifies five key organizational trends :
1. Globalization
2. Diversity
3. Flexibility
4. Flat
5. Networked

I would like to put my point in flexibility since this is my team topic.

From the article, Flexibility in the workplace is an increasing concern, it indicates that longtime IT professionals place the greatest importance on a flexible work schedule. Seasoned IT staffers are almost four times more likely to cite flexible work hours as an important issue than newcomers, research shows, while veteran IT managers are almost three times as likely than newer colleagues to regard it as important.

We can find flexibility in our work environment easily, I stated it as the following:

1. On-site Daycare-
New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson, producer of personal care products for adults and children, does provide six on-site childcare facilities serving more than 500 children from 6 weeks to 6 years. They also provide a childcare referral program.

2. Part-time schedule
In Summer time, Walt Disney and Universal Studios offer part time schedule to college students because of increasing tourists. Walt Disney even offers internship to IUP students. We can see the posters everywhere.

3. Pay for skills
In Taiwan, if you can get any certifications from valid test, bank would be willing to pay for your skills. For example, portfolio-planner certification or if you can pass CFA test , you can have higher salary.

From Microsoft webpage, we can see our workplace in the future. Looks good!

Communication Theories

We might say that communication consists of transmitting information from one person to another. In fact, many scholars of communication take this as a working definition, and use Lasswell's maxim, "who says what to whom in what channel with what effect," as a means of circumscribing the field of communication theory.

A simple communication model with a sender transferring a message containing information to a receiver. Like the picture as the following.

Source: Wikipedia

From the article, communicatin theories can be helpful in studying new media, we can find that according to the uses and gratification theory, people are active media consumers and thus they choose certain media based on the gratifications they sought and obtained. Then, their key questions were what gratifications are related to internet addition. If one is addicted to the Internet because of “killing time,” intervention should be targeted at providing him or her with alternative ways of “killing time.” Here, the author is trying to use communication theories to analyse the new media phenomenon.

In this age, we use Internet as our main channel to communicate with each other. I remember there is one day my internet is dead, and then I felt so boring and nervous. Maybe I will miss some important mails or maybe someone is waitting for me on the instant message , so I keep worrying about everything could be happened. Since then, I start to realize how do I rely on the internet.

Communication Strategically

The communication strategy will support the aims and objectives of corporations, promote the activities that it organizes through a network of sub-groups, and assist the efficient running of the association.

For example, in the article “Q&A: Microsoft’s Unified Communications Strategy and Solutions”, Jeff Raikes, President of Microsoft Business Division, is talking about its communication strategy. ”We are taking a software-focused approach to bring together disparate communications technologies into a unified experience – driving down the cost and complexity of communicating and collaborating at work.” A clear communication strategy is very critical in this age.

When we are choosing a best channel to communicate, we have to be very cautious. At this time, many people struggle with too much communication in too many places. We have office numbers, home office numbers, fax numbers, mobile numbers, IM addresses, e-mail addresses, and we try to control over our communications. Delivering message appropriately is becoming crucial for a business.

The Changing Environment for Business

After two weeks class, I start to realize that Organizational communication is a real critical expertise when you run a business. At this time, I would like to talk something about the changing environment for business.

In the IT age, we can communicate with each other not only by face to face and writting way but also by many technological devices. Recently, I read an article, How About an E-mail on that. In this article, the author Bruno Giussani point that people have several ways to communicate, such as e-mail, instant messaging, text messaging, free telephony and other interactive channels such as blog and wikis. Of course, we also develop communication culture respectively at the same time. We use specialized communication in each channels. For example, e-mail is "the administrative channel", IM is "the continuous channel", and blogging is the border networking channel.

This article is pretty close to my past experience. When I worked in Taiwan, I used e-mail to contact with my customers in China regarding something about routine and administrative affair. Besides, I also used MSN to keep in touch with my customers when we were both on-line regarding something need keep discussing. We also have a blog for employees and customers presenting your own opinion. The changing environment also save our communication cost. Comparing with traditional channels, new technical channels cost almost free!

Also, the changiing environment for business brings many advantages. When I was an assistant a year ago, I start to realize how the new IT age can change our life. Since my boss is a professional consultant, he need collects a lot of information and now we can all do it on the internet. For example, there was a Tailand electronic exhibition held last year and we need many information about this activity. We found the website of BITEC , the Bangkok international trade & exhibition center, and then got many useful information, such as customs affair and floor information, even we are thousand miles away.