November 2010
8 posts
Who works in PR?
From all the international business-communicators only 36.1% are working in PR. It comes to a fact, that most of the people working in PR have their degree in journalism.
People with marketing and advertising degrees don’t tend too much to work in PR. The middle position is taken by the people of social sciences with share over 15%.
“LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed. The question, “Is life worth living?” has been much discussed; particularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have written at great length in support of their view and by careful observance of the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the honors of successful controversy.”
—Ambrose Bierce
Why shouldn’t I say that?
The essence of business can not be determined or explained in terms of profit. Concept of revenue maximization is meaningless. Profit is not a goal, but restrictive factor for profitable organization. Profit is not the substantiation or cause of business decisions. Guru of management Piter Druker has rightly pointed, that the goal of business should lie beyond the business itself. In fact it should be located in the public sphere.
Specialist on organizational development Peter Senge points the false view point on organization as a machine of profit: organization should be considered as the living organism.
Arie de Geus thinks that as all the organisms, the company’s goal is life and perfection – to realize its potential and gain maximum results.
In fact profit is a remarkable goal, if it is fair. If company takes damage, it dies the same as the human, left without food. But it doesn’t sense, that the goal of life is food eating.
I’d prefer that companies determined their role as “creation and satisfying customers”, and of course it means gaining the reasonable profit. In fact, the problem is not in profits or revenues, but in their distribution.
Play
“Value of the thing is determined by the amount of work, which is saved through possession of this thing.”
—Henry George
Eroding Goals
Based on the materials of William Braun.
In the case of Eroding Goals, managers are faced with performance that fails to meet a stated goal. They seek a the symptomatic solution for changing the goal to one that appears to be more attainable rather than rigorously determining what prevents the organization from performing the fundamental solution.
Eroding Goals examines dynamic behavior in the present that is the result of forecasts of the future made in the past. The argument for adjusting the goal is not without merit - the future cannot be know with certainty, so if the forecast turned out to be wrong, what is the harm in making adjustments that reflect current knowledge about reality? Without some objective metric to autonomously assess performance the temptation to lower goals is difficult to challenge - no measurement, no data, no problem.
This archetype states that a gap between a goal and an actual condition can be resolved in two ways: by taking corrective action to achieve the goal, or by lowering the goal. It hypothesizes that when there is a gap between a goal and a condition, the goal is lowered to close the gap. Over time, lowering the goal will deteriorate performance.
Prescriptive Action for Eroding Goals:
• Anchor goals to an external frame of reference
to keep them from sliding
• Determine whether the drift in performance is the result of conflicts between the stated goal and the implicit goals of the system
• Establish a clear transition plan from current reality to the goal, including a realistic time frame for achieving the goal.
Seven Action Steps
• Identify drifting performance measure.
• Look for goals that conflict with the stated goal.
• Identify standard procedures for closing the gap.
• Examine the past history of the goal. Has the goal itself been lowered over time.
• Anchor the goal to an external reference.
• Clarify a compelling vision that will involve everyone.
• Create a clear transition plan.
Eroding Goals has two important ramifications for systems managers. First, the immediate
short-term effect is the failure to critically examine the underlying causes that explain why 1) performance is lacking and 2) managers feel pressure to revise goals to match what the organization is currently capable of achieving.
Second, repeatedly falling into the trap of Eroding Goals eventually becomes embedded in the organization’s culture as a justifiable and even reasonable thing to do. Over time, the organization falls farther and farther behind the expectations of its customers and eventually fails altogether.
On the other hand, how do managers assess whether the original goals were attainable? What about managers who repeatedly set goals that everyone knows are unattainable and uses them as catalysts to prod people into higher and higher levels of performance?
A customer-dominant market logic
A customer-dominant market logic positions the customer in the center, rather than the service provider or the interacrion of the system. The focus is shifted from the companys involving in customer, to the customer multi-contextual value formation,involving the company. This leads to a new look focused in to the mental life of customer. From ths follows a need to accumulate expiriences in the consumers life.
How to aim the value formation from a custpmer dominant logic perspective?
1. Value formation is contrasted to earilier views on the company’s role in value creation by using a framework of how, who, when and what;
2. Implications of the chosen characteristics of value formation to earlier approaches;
3. Some tentative suggestions of how this perespective would affect marketing.
Value formation perespective leads to posing questions about the customer and arising the role of a servise for the customer. This insight might be used in service developement and innovation.
