Exxon Valdez

My final case study is over the Exxon Valdez case. Looking at this case like many cases it relates with public relations. The study of this case can be looked at in many ways relating to PR. One way is that the president of exxon was not on the scene to clean, which looks bad for a company. It was a disasterous scene killing so many animals, and he could have helped clean up like everyelse. This company could definately have used a crisis mangement plan. This case is horrible and if they would have had a plan, which they should have had since they are a billion dollar company, they could have moved faster and been more prepared in this incident. Also what kind of people are they hiring, the capt. of the ship was drunk when he was operating the ship when it crashed. What was he thinking when he was drinking. This case is sad, because he hurt a lot of our wildlife around Alaska. Seems like Exxon should have gone under, surprisingly they are still a profitable company.

Diversity

The links posted on the class blog, give good examples of diversity within real companies. The PRSA diversity tool kit, was awesome. I could definately see it being very useful in the future in different careers. I'm not in my career field yet, but after looking at how some companies handle diversity it is really important to get into the right job, and see how they handle diversity. If a company takes diversity importantly, than overall the company is probably going to be good. If the company doesn't take it seriously than the company is going to be shallow and filled with all people of the same ideas, which could limit the company in many ways. I like how Booz Allen Hamilton's company breaks diversity down in MANY ways. Which is great. Also I like how they put this up on the web, so people know how this company works before you even look at them. It's important to look for places who are well diversified.

Guest Speaker (Koji Fuse)

Monday's class was interesting with our guest speaker, professor Koji Fuse. Although hard to understand with his thick japanesse accent, which he explain his accent very well to us, made the class very stimulating. He spoke a lot about Japan and US and our culture differences. Mr. Fuse said the most important resasons to study interpersonal communication is as following: 1.Economic 2.Globalization (30-40% out profit US) 3.Technology 4.Demographic and 5. Peace. His discussion was very educational and fill with good information. He tried his best relating it to situations for us. My favorite part of the discussion was his stories from when he worked in Japan.

He spoke a lot about Hofstede's model and related it in comparison to Japan and US. He also spoke a lot about non-linguistic stuff and how it relates to high and low context cultures. He brought up good points and I personally took a lot from the discussion.

FDA & Mercury in Fish

This blog is about the article over industry money fans debate on fish. This article contradicts the rule of no fish while pregnant. How can something be proven for so long, then people just say something else, (like some fish is alright now) and people just go along with it. I think its important to find out the background information of where these findings are coming from. Some companies will take money and say anything for the person who gave the money. This is so ethically wrong, because people could get hurt. Especially from these findings about the fish being alright. The company took thousands of dollars to say this, and what if it isn't completely fine, and the future of Americas kids, now have birth defects because these mothers were told it was alright. I don't understand how the FDA would say its okay now about the fish, and scientist are saying its not. I sure wouldn't try eating fish if I was pregnant. It may be alright to eat fish now, but why risk it, because some company said from research that its alright, but yet they gave all this money for them to say it. Something seems 'fishy' about this whole situation.

Armstrong Williams

The article that talks about the No Child Left Behind is a sad article. This article has a lot of scandal in it. I think it is sad that the government was involved in the scandal, and no appologies were said. This was a lot of money spent, and not really broadcasted.
As for the PR spot on this issue, Ketchum was in the wrong. Ketchum sounds like a really bad PR firm. They should have advised the spokesperson. He wasn't a PR professional, and it was not his fault because he wasn't advised on how to conduct himself. It is sad that the blame was put on him, instead of the agency. They look like a bad agency especially since they just played ignorance to this whole situation.
Key in this article was the ROI. Relationships, Opinions, and Identities all three are keys to have a good company.

Corporate Social Responsibility

The article we read in class about South African Wine Industry promotes ethical practices, so a interesting article. I think they are trying to make it better, but its hard to emply rules in foreign countries where this is how they have always done things, and its their mean for survival. It is a tough issue. We discuss this issue a lot in my business classes and it is looked at more as a market/money/survival issue rather than in this class as a ethical issue. I enjoy looking at it in both ways.
The issue we brought up in class of GAP was weird. They are trying to do one thing, but yet their company all the way through the chains doesn't work that way. The child labor laws are a big issue with many companies. It is a moral and ethical decision that is hard to make by companies. The key I learned out of this article is to tell about your disclosures before someone else does. It will save your company a lot of trouble in the long run.

Eron Movie

I enjoyed watching this movie. I knew about the Eron case, but not in detail what happened like the movie protrayed. Those CEO's were awful. It is scary knowning there are people like that in corp. America. The electric scandel in California, was one of the worst things in the movie. Its sad how they just didn't care about humans at all. Money can make people do horrible things. This is a good example.
I thought it was interesting to see what other companies were involved with them. The companies I saw, are well known. Makes you wonder and judge about their characters.
The issue we brought up in class was a good one, about gas. Possibly it could be going on. You would think that they could use this case as an example to explore to make sure scandals like the Eron case are not going on.

Apple Apology

Dear loyal customers,

As Apple we are known for having loyal customers. We have messed up with the iphone. We cut the price to soon. We are sincerely sorry. We have dissappointed our first buyers. We should have let the loyal and first buyers enjoy their phones longer, and have gotten their money's worth way before we cut the price. We wanted at this time to thank our first buyers and we are thankful for appler users. For first buyers a $100 rebate is offered. We appologuise and appreciate your comments.

Thanks,

Steve Jobs

David Mamet's Play

The whole experience of going to a play was really awesome. I had never been so it was neat. The seating and the sounds in between the scenes was interesting. I enjoyed seeing what type of people were at the play. The experience itself was fun.
The play was a lot different than what I expected. The cursing really threw me off. The cursing was insane, so much it was kind of annoyingand shocking. I knew their was going to be some but that was a whole lot. The play was set up cool, seeing how all the characters came together. It took me a little while to figure out what was going on. I liked how it would tell a little part of the story with each group talking. It reminded me of an old mystery of who stole the leads.
For the second half of the play the scene was set up good. I finally was getting into the play. I enjoyed some of the humor thrown in every once in awhile. I could relate the play to some of the ethical behavior we will use in PR. Each character had to decide whether stealing the leads was right to do. The old man who stole them was the least likely and it was sad he did it. The play was cute with all the excitment from the characters. It was over much quicker than I expected. I thought it was a short play. Overall I liked the play and enjoyed the experience a lot.

Southwest Airlines

Last class we discussed the Southwest Airlines case. I think this case is opening up a can of worms. I kind of feel that southwest needs to be really prepared to take on this kind of dress code stuff. Southwest is known for being a cheap airline. I think it bothers me that they are installing this new rule and it has not really been broadcasted. There is no rule about dress codes on planes. Southwest use to wear really short mini shirts, so the whole idea of changing their image to a family airlines might should have been broadcasted. I think they will lose some customers over this petty dress code stuff, but they are the cheapest airfare so who knows. It will be interesting to see what works out with it.
The apology that their president gave was rediculous I thought. I saw it on the news the night they sent it. It seemed to be a joke. It was almost making fun of the incident(which they made a big deal) and it was rude. It also took them a long time to get out. I thought southwest was a good airline, but they've kind of made me question that.

Apple case

After all my reasearch on apple (which I'm so glad is done) I've decided that Steve Jobs is pretty sorry. I think the way he treated his customers in this case was terrible. Even though it is business and profitable, long-term is what is going to hurt apple. I think apple should fire him, because he is not doing whats best for their company. The price cut was done way to fast for a business. Everyone knows its eventually going to be cheaper, but not after 2 months. The rebate seemed to be even more of a money maker for apple. If I was a customer I would not have even appreciated it, because it seems to say, "We're sorry we made a mistake, so here is a rebate that you can only spend at our store, so we can make more money off you!" I think apple needs to rethink its startegies on promotions and marketing. It will be curious to see what happens on the next technology that apple comes out with.

Cowboys Scandal

The cowboys "sissorgate" scandal was pretty interesting. I thought it was even more cool, that my professor had written on it. I thought the scandal was interesting because it was kept so quiet. I had never heard of the incident, and even when I told people later on about it, they did not even remember the incident. Crazy how quiet it was kept. Still so many years later, and trying to discover the truth is impossible.
The part I thought was interesting was the questioning. Was McIver paid off, or was he concerned about his career? Who will know. Was Michael Irvin the one who stabbed him? It bothers me that these questions were not answered.
Personally I am sick and tired of profession athlete's getting away with horrible stuff such as: drugs, abuse, dog fighting. I don't understand because there are plenty of people to replace them. I hope one day that someone will make a stand for whats right.

ipod apple case

Values:

Justice-Right to treat customers. No law saying they could not do what they did.

Humaneness-Apple was trying to get customers.

Truth-Their was no transparency or openness. Apple was silent about what they were doing. They were misleading to the customers.

Stewardship-There was no concern for the customers. It was mostly about the profit they would be getting out of this publicity with the promotion they did. Then when they reduced the price they were not thinking about the customers.

Freedom-They were free to pursue a profit. Personally I don't think they did the right thing, but they were able to do it. This is a business world. The customers that wanted it, were willing to pay that amount to get it.

How does PR and Cosmopolitianism relate?

Public relations and the book Cosmopolitianism are relevant to each other. The book points out different characteristics in people and how to communicate with people who have different views than you. This is a key element in PR. Public relations is all about communication, and if we can learn to communicate better it will make us better at our jobs. The book points out different ways to look at things, and how to communicate something different to someone who doesn't understand your ways. An example i liked in the book was when the children are getting diarreha from the water and the woman tells them to boil out the spirits. This was the only way the people understood this. I liked that she related to them and got down to there level of understandance. I feel that after reading this book and relating it to my own life, and job in PR I will be more well rounded. I will be more open to possibilities of understandance.

Everybody Matters

Does everybody matter?
I believe everyone does matter. When reading the book cosmopolitanism it points this out. The book feels like everyone is someone whether it is a different view than what you have. Cosmopolitanism focuses on making people realize that their are many differences in the world, but you don't have to accept but realize it is someone view. No one knows whose right or wrong, and we are all looking for that guidance to tell us. I like this point that it points out in chapter two. Your guidance is yours and might not be shared by others but understand this is okay to have different views. I feel the book so far is pointing out that everyone does matter.
What about people within corporate America's supply chains?
Your only as good as your weakest link fits this category. Everyone is important from the bottom to the top. Everyone depends or needs someone or something to make the world work. The working world relies on this theory. The bottom person might have to do manual labor and work hard to produce a product, but without that person to do manual work we would not have the product. The upper/higher person might spend more money than the bottom person does, but that makes the economy work. Without the money spent, the bottom man can not work. Everyone relies on each other. It is a revolving world this way.