English 420, Business Writing

Our group spent the past week finalizing our White Paper presentation and creating the paper itself. The presentation presented several challenges. When we opened up PowerPoint, for some reason the slides would blend together as you went throughout the show. This may have been because we used a background from PowerPoint 2007, even though we saved in a 2003 format. Fortunately, we made a handout which helped show changes we could make to the organizational structure.

Here is my finalized portion. See you on Sunday!

I have attached my revised white paper

This week, we were introduced to the Service Learning Project. We all brought some ideas together and came up with the Memo that was to be turned in on Friday. Fortunately, we already have a good idea who we want to work with. Early in the week, Tae went over and talked to the one who is in charge of Hungries, a new Chicago Style restaurant out at Purdue West. The manager has stated that he is willing to work with us so we feel that this is the route we will take.

Presentation

-More Seamless... no UMM...OHHs
-Board may ask question during any point during the presentation
-If you use PowerPoint... also use others
-Maybe add video within PowerPoint?

1. Ethos
-Professionalism- Business Attire
2. Initial Contact
-Walk-in, Call? Tae Walked in
3. Brainstorming Ideas
-What can you help them with? Types of projects? Reconfigure design components
4. Reciprocal Relationship
5. F/U?

What type of software do they use? To help them use it...

Here were the company possibilities we came up with for the Service Learning Project:

Hungry's
Image Source Photography
Insomnia Cookies
Scoops
Yats
Campus House Coffee Shop
Other new restaurants by Chancey Hill

Before spring break our group worked hard to put together a rough draft. We first made an outline so that we could divide out work between all four of us. I was responsible for the Management Restructuring portion of the paper. I was able to find a great source for this paper from Ruth Neil a graduate student at Iowa State University. He detailed the differences in organizational structure in terms of their high or low centralization, complexity, and formalization. He also gave different pros and cons in terms of when to use different types of organizational structures.

Our group spent the week before Spring Break writing and researching our rough draft for the White Paper. I was responsible for the introduction and our idea for developing a recruiting strategy. One of the advantages Knight Corporation has over competitors is how much it pays its employees compared to the average for the area. In researching Southern Indiana, I found the average salary is about $13,000 less than what Knight Corporation pays.

Our group spent the week before spring break working on composing the actually white paper in order to turn it in on the friday before spring break. We split the paper into four parts, Steve took the introduction and our first point, Tae took the conclusion and Matt and I took the other two. I wrote my section focusing on improving the workers we already have. I discussed seminars, workshops, and benefits to improve the work. I am trying to come up with a few ways to illustrate what I was saying as well.

For the week before the spring break, we divided our parts and worked on our rough draft individually. Steve chose to work on introduction and one solution, Joe and Matt worked on one solution each. I worked on the conclusion. I could not work on the conclusion without the other guys’ parts. So I worked on researching on the sample white papers and see how those samples conclude their papers. Many of the examples I saw concluded with bullets with advantages of making a change to the company.