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Final Assignment No. 5(Selected exercises from the book)(Also see blog at: http://linwang0731.blogspot.com/
Chapter 1 ( Exercise 2)

Clarifying the purpose:

In this case, the company's main purpose is to persuade the workers with the solution the company made to solve the current situation. Because of the mad cow disease, the company was affected by the decline of the orders from the international market. According to the reduction of the orders, the company has been suffering the profit dropped down. In order to solve this problem, the best way the company may consider is to lower the operating cost of the plant. So, Jason made a decision of shut down the production as well as lay off 25 percent of the workers. The main purpose of the company to establish now is to persuade the workers with the decision and get their consideration.

Having been considered most of the workers are belong to the follower type. The communication approach established to them may be different. The characteristics of the follower type are cautious, responsible; they are risk averse and prefer innovation application of proven solutions, also, they make decisions based on track records. The communication approach applied to them is present proven methods, references, and testimonials, show how the idea is safe yet innovative, use case studies, present options and provide details. So, the company may provides the workers with the current situation around the international market due to the mad cow disease with evidence such as seven countries have limited the orders with the beef products.

The employees will want to know the real situation of the production line. The company should explain this in the memo. It is also important for the employees to know about the after lay off benefit, such as if they can still get paid, and if their positions are still available after the mad cow disease will be recovered. If the company can consider the lay off benefits of the workers, the workers then will feel expected towards the company, at least they still can go back to the plant.

Generating ideas:
The approach of generating the ideas in this case is the Journalist’s Questions. The journalists answer the questions with who, what, why, when, where and how.
In this case, the memo is describing a change in company operation. The questions will be:
To whom does the change apply?
What has changed?
Why is the change in place? Why have the changes been made?
When does the change take effect?
Where should people needing more information obtain it?
How would they obtain it?
The answers according to this case are:
The change will apply to 25 percent of the employees.
The change of the company is the production will be shut down and 25 percent of the workers will be laid off.
Because of the mad cow disease, the US beef products have been highly affected, and the company met great reduction of profit. As the result, the company decided to shut down the production line and lay off the workers in order to reduce the operating cost.


Draft of the Memo

To: All Employees
From: Ben Schroeder, Plant Manager
Subject: Company solution work out

We have been announced that the mad cow disease had been discovered in a Holstein cow in Washington State. As the result, seven countries have imposed either total or partial bans on the importation of our American beef productions. Most of our shipments now are on hold.

In order to work out our current situation, we need to limit our production for a while for at least three months or until the bans get released. As well as limit the production, to help the company work across the period of mad cow disease, we have to shut down production line and lay off 25 percent of our workers.

We have tried our best to get a better solution; however, according to the great affect of the mad cow disease, the only way for us to solve the problem is to limit our cost of the factory operation. These 25 percent of the workers may obtain their positions and will be able to come back to the plant when the mad cow disease will be recovered. We are sorry for the inconvenience we brought you, and we appreciate your consideration.

Chapter 2: Creating Leadership Documents
Exercise 2:

Memos should include all the preliminary of date, to, from, and subject. The advantages of using a memo are: Memos are usually considered informal and for internal use; Memos create a permanent paper trail; and Memos allows writer to control layout.

The disadvantages of using Memo are: Memos are slower than E-mails; Memos are thought of as more informal than a letter; Memos create a permanent paper trail.

Two warnings about memos are: make sure your subject line captures the “so what”, the purpose for writing very specially, and repeat that purpose in the first sentence of the memo.

Draft of the memo:

Date: 16-May-2006
To: Site managers
From: Budget Coordinator
Subject: A budget meeting agenda


As a budget coordinator of our international petroleum company, my responsibility is to organize our company operating budget. I have noticed that costs are rising so quickly that the refinery sites may soon become uncompetitive.

As our team has been working on this over budget, we find out that a major component of refinery costs consists of an “overhead” allocation of costs, as opposed to direct refinery costs. We have received an array of critical service to each refinery, such as central maintenance, storehouse services, security, health, safety, and environmental services, human resource and refineries are combined in a centralized cost centre, that cost is subsequently allocated among the various refineries that use these services.

As we are all working for the company, I would like to share the chance with you to work out together with the over budget of the refinery cost. So, I am very willing to arrange a meeting for all the site managers and me to discuss about the budget. We want to have the result of how we can reduce the costs of the refineries according to the services we offered, of course, we would not change any of the safe and secure operations of the refineries. So, I would like you as site managers to participate in the meeting, as you can provide us the information about the component of the refineries, because we have no information about which certain items in the site services budget are true necessities.


posted by linwang @ 8:29 AM 0 comments
Monday, May 15, 2006
Final Assignment No. 4(Evidence of knowledge of report structure, letter format, memo format, email)

Business communication formats and writing generally is part of our personal lives. We need good business writing skills throughout our working days and in the day-to-day conduct of our lives. Knowledge of the conventions of business communication styles and formats is needed in order to prepare various types of letters, memos, report structure and emails.

Report Structure:

It is a good idea to define the report structure early on in the process. Bear in mind that some projects, such as EU funded projects, require a particular structure. What makes business reports different from general academic reports is a real-world, practical, problem-centered orientation.

A common structure for a final evaluation report is:

Title
The title, in a few words, summarizes the most important information on the experiment that you are reporting.
Abstract
The abstract should contain a short summary, about 200 to 400 words, of the work done in the project.
Acknowledgements
This is where you should acknowledge the various parties who initiated, supervised or made contributions to the project.

Table of Contents
This is a list of the contents of the project report.
List of Symbols
The list of symbols is not always necessary, but for reports in which many mathematical symbols are used, it is preferable to include such a list in the report.

INTRODUCTION
For most reports the first chapter, as an introduction to the project, is necessary to introduce the reader to the background of the project. The motivation behind the project and a brief outline of the project work should be included in this introductory chapter.

BACKGROUND(LITERATURE REVIEW)
An up-to-date summary of relevant and related research in your area. Basically this contains a little theory and all the previous work in the area, every statement must be supported by a reference.

EXPERIMENTALPROCEDURES (METHODOLOGY/ EQUIPMENT/APPARATUS/)
Descriptions about the theory of the approach/methodology used and the steps taken when conducting the experiment.
What information does my reader need to replicate the experiment?
Simulation
The system design and the block diagram of the system, plus some brief descriptions on the theory.

RESULTS (EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS)
The function of the results section is to display the full data obtained from the experiments, whether in tabular, graphic, or other form.

DISCUSSION
In this section, the results are interpreted in terms of the ideas and theory set forth earlier. This often means that it includes:
a discussion of any special circumstances on the data

collection or analysis
the results and the errors
How should the reader interpret it within the context of the theoretical background above?
What were the most interesting results and why are they of interest?

CONCLUSION
This chapter should state briefly the achievement of the project, the conclusions from the work and suggestions for further work.
This section is meant to convey to the reader your opinion as to the nature and the significance of the results obtained.
What is the main point that the reader should know?
Appendixes
Materials which are closely related to the contents of the report, and which are themselves self-contained, may be included in the report as appendixes. While data sheets should normally not be included, detailed references to data sheets should be included to enable the reader to find them.

REFERENCES
This is a list of the references referred to in the report. There is a particular format that the reference list should follow.

Letter Format:

Letters are the oldest still the most common written communication form for business communications outside of an organization. While the less formal and less standardized use of email continues to grow, for formal and important matters, letters are required. Letters have important standards that reflect on the sender even before the message is actually read. Knowledge of letter formats and styles is, therefore, an important and easily achieved prerequisite to functional business communications.

The parts of the business letter are the following:
(your name goes only at the bottom)
Your Return AddressYour City, YO [your two letter state abbreviation] zipDate (write out either like May 12, 2006 or 12 May 2006)
First and Last Name of the Person to whom you are writing Address City, ST zip
Dear Mr./Ms. Person: [note the colon]
Times have changed, and indentations for paragraphs are usually not used because it is easier not to use them. The body paragraphs should be single spaced in a business letter. But you should double space between paragraphs when your letter contains more than one paragraph.
In a second paragraph, you will want to give a specific example of how you benefited from your contact with this person. Be sure to thank him/her for his/her time and efforts on your behalf.
Sincerely yours,
{three spaces so that your signature may appear here}
(LinWang) Student


Memo format:
Memos are the most common form of intra-organizational communication. Memos, short for memorandums, are, as the name suggests, a form of business communication with the purpose of information documentation and distribution, mostly within an organization.

Memos use the following four items at the top of the page or below the letterhead
Date:
To:
From:
Subject::
The responses to the four items should line up with the use of tabs set for the longest item, the subject.
Date: ------- May 25, 2005
To:----------- Mr. A. Soandso
From:------- Ms. B. Correcto
Subject:---- Memo Format
There should be at least two spaces after the subject colon, so that each item will be aligned and clearly visible and the pattern of spacing will add further structure to the memo. Sometimes added to the items are the abbreviated forms: CC (for copies) and the substitute of Re: for Subject in the items.
To write effective memos you should
1. Be brief
2. Use clear headings
3. Use bulletted or numbered lists rather than text alone with a series of items
4. Include tables, if relevant
5. Use short paragraphs rather than long blocks of undifferentiated text