Read the Public Relations Society of America's "Official Statement of Public Relations" on p. 5 of the textbook.
            Also, review the "Day in the Life of . . ." boxes found in Chapter 2.  In discussion and in your report, consider
            the following questions and others you may develop yourselves:

            What was your impression of public relations prior to taking the course?  Did you think PR was an honorable
                profession?  For example, did you think PR professionals needed to be "people persons"?  Has/have your
                opinion(s) changed over the first few class meetings and/or after your readings?

            Do you agree/disagree with the PRSA's official statement?  What would you change -- if anything?  What
                most impresses you in the statement?

            Do you think PR can help improve organizations and society?  If so, then how?  You may want to consider
                concepts related to PR such as publicity, advertising, press agentry, public affairs, issues management, lobbying,
                investor relations, and development.

Prior to the meeting, you may want to visit PRSA's web site at: http://www.prsa.org/

        You are the public relations director of Alger Tiberius Software Inc., an up and coming software development company.  Things have been exciting in the last few days since the introduction of a new software program, Manufacturing Efficiency Revolution (MER).  When integrated into the computer controls of manufacturing equipment, it will increase
the efficiency of that equipment and cut production time in half. This program will revolutionize the manufacturing industry. Magazine previews of the product have been complimentary, and it looks as if the company has an instant best seller on
its hands.

        But bad news hits one day when your morning coffee is accompanied by a newspaper clipping from the Local
Yokel Times, quoting Don T. Figgle, your president and CEO, who is particularly proud of the new product and has
taken every opportunity to brag about its merits in the press. In an off-hand comment he makes to a reporter at a local restaurant, Figgle is quoted as saying that “this product will virtually replace about fifteen percent of the American manufacturing workforce It cuts out about half of the unnecessary actions done in factory production.”

        Figgle’s quote is followed by the reaction of the AFL-CIO in response to this new information about the product.
Ned T. Green, official spokesman of the organization, is quoted as saying, “This new product was not presented with this
information to the labor and computer industries. Efficiency gains in manufacturing were discussed but not the elimination
of a sector of our workforce. AT Software in effect lied to the public about the impact this software program will have
on the American workforce.”

        Needless to say, this turn of media coverage is unexpected and unwanted Figgle was correct in saying that the
software would revolutionize the computer and manufacturing industry but his statistics were incorrect.  The product
would eliminate ten percent of jobs for the manufacturing workforce but would create jobs in a different area for other workers.  Those who would lose their jobs could be re-trained for other areas.  You arrange another press conference
for Figgle to disseminate the correct statistics available to the press, but whether the jobs are cut by fifteen percent or ten percent, loss of employment is the real story for the media.  They are already printing a tidal wave of stories with headlines
like “Computer Cover-Up Leaves Workers High and Dry” and “AT Software Sends Workers Packing.”

        By the following morning, negative media coverage has not abated.  Although the news media now have the right statistics, emphasis is on the ten percent of workers allegedly to be put out of work by the software.  To top it off, a
newly formed activist group, WACS (Workers Against Computer Software), is picketing outside of the main offices
of AT Software with signs proclaiming ‘AT Software Trades in People for Programs.”  The local TV stations are all
present to cover the protest and give up-to-the-minute reports.

        In addition the media is out in full force and has gone to the local congressman Bill Zealot for reaction.  His last
election campaign was focused on creating jobs for America.  Zealot, up for reelection in the fall, pledges his loyalty to
the hard-working American public and vows to fight “big business pushing aside the little guy and trying to make him
obsolete in the name of progress.”  It looks as if there may be legislative reaction against MER.

        Later that afternoon you receive a call from the Computer Software Programmers Association (CSPA).  Initially,
they were behind this program, but with all the bad press they’re getting a bit nervous.  They don’t want to endorse a
program that will cause so much flak. Without the backing of CSPA the future of this product is going to be difficult.
It is now 9:00 P.M. and things look a bit bleak for MER and AT Software.  Clearly what should have been a great announcement has become garbled by the gatekeepers.  You are wondering how to get the real message out to those audiences that matter.  You ask yourself:

        •  Who are those groups that are garbling my message?
        •  What other groups are likely to become involved?
        •  What are the likely behaviors of each group?
        •  How can I minimize their messages and maximize mine to the publics I would like to reach?
        •  Can I reach those publics without utilizing usual venues, in order to avoid media, political, and activist
            gatekeepers?

        1.  With those questions in mind, how would you go about creating a plan to reach key publics with one-on-one
              communication in order to stay some of the immediate damage caused by the negative reactions of those groups
              who have been most vocal?

        2. Could AT Software have avoided this negative uproar to MER? What actions should have been taken before
            presenting this product to the public through the media?

        You are nearing the end of your second year of employment as editor of the main publication for employees in one
of the three largest not-for-profit hospitals in the county. You have a good deal. Your boss, the director of public relations,
a woman of about thirty-five, listens to your ideas about the publication. You have converted it from a tabloid appearing
once a month to a weekly illustrated newsletter.  An audit shows that readers, including staff doctors and donors as well
as employees, find it more dynamic. They like it.  The only intervention you have had from your boss was near the end
of your first year.  At that time, she told you to follow the hospital’s policy of getting three competitive printing bids
annually and then to award the contract for the next year to a particular one of the three.  You noted that this bid was
not the lowest. Your boss explained that she preferred the quality of their work and added that the printing firm had
made generous financial contributions to the hospital.  At that time you followed the directions of your boss.

        The future looks bright to you, and why not?  You are aware that your boss has her eyes on the next job up, as
director of development, a position now occupied by a woman scheduled to retire in a few years.  You can see yourself succeeding your boss at that time.

        Looking back, you consider your first two years to have been a period of learning the ropes and how the game
goes in the hospital.  During this period, the owner of the printing firm doing the newsletter has established a social
relationship with your and your spouse including taking you to dinner at their country club.

        You have also noticed that the printer has a close personal relationship with your boss and the hospital’s director
of development.  You know that they receive entertainment and gifts.  When the director of development decided to buy
a new car, the printer sent her to a dealer where she got a fantastic discount.  As for the public relations director, your
boss, she was sponsored for membership in the printer’s “Executives Only” tennis club.

        Here you are, finishing up your second year.  A few clays ago, quite by coincidence, you overheard some
disconcerting comments during a cocktail party.  The comments indicated that your boss’s husband is the brother of
the printer’s wife -- this you didn’t know.  Also, your boss apparently has had some sort of financial interest in the
printing firm.  Your director of development’s daughter, you heard, has worked at the printing firm as a typist-receptionist.  Someone at the party said that she earned more than other clerical employees, including those with greater skills and experience.

        Naturally, this information is upsetting to you, and, to make matters worse, this is the week the three competitive
printing bids for next year’s contract have come in.  You have looked at them.  The present printer, whom you have
again been told to favor, has submitted a bid twenty percent higher than the lowest of the three.

        You have every right to he upset and in a quandary.  If you grant the business for the coming year, amounting
to $60,000, to the highest bidder, and someone in the treasurer’s office questions it, you could be in big trouble.  If
you tell the present printer he has to submit a second bid at a figure fifty percent lower, you will be unethical in conduct
and in contravention of the hospital’s stated policy.  Beyond that, what if one of the other bidders found out and turned in
a complaint to the consumer advocate in the state’s attorney general’s office?  If you take the matter to your boss, you
may have to confront her with what you have heard about an apparent conflict of interest on her part.

        Of course, an alternative would be to go over the boss’s head to the director of development.  She, too, has
accepted favors from the printer on a social basis.  Maybe she would just as soon not get involved.  On the other hand, perhaps she has been involved in helping the printer get work from other departments in the hospital. If so, where
would that leave you?

        Then there is the hospital administrator.  If you bypass both of your superiors in the structure, you will almost
surely wind up with a unhappy working situation -- or be out looking for a new position.

        Finally, if you do nothing, are you committed to a standard of honesty or business ethics that you cannot live
with?  Everything considered, what are you going to do -- specifically, in what sequence, with what goals, and what
personal strategy and tactics?

        Although you have graduated with a major in public relations from Armstrong Atlantic State University, you have
had no luck during the summer finding a job that will keep you in the Savannah area where your fiancée works.
It seems as if the big firms and companies are downsizing and you have lost out to experienced people changing jobs.
You haven’t given up.  You have listed with a well-known employment agency specializing in communications and
marketing jobs.  You’re living at home on the south side of Savannah, and you’re making ends meet as a waiter in a
large restaurant.  In mid-August the employment agency calls you.  There’s a growing catering service, Kitchens on
Wheels Inc., headquartered in Marietta, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta on the interstate highway.  They’re
looking for a young public relations person with some experience and interest in food services.  Its founder, George
Workard, runs the 15-year-old business.  As a kid, he was a helper in his father’s small restaurant, then he worked
in the kitchen at a large, busy highway truck stop, and by age 21 he was a cook in a company that supplied airline
meals.  After two years of that, he bought one of their damaged food trucks, had it fixed up, rented a big old vacant
building, borrowed money to equip it, and went into the catering business for himself.  Today, he has a fleet of forty
shiny, specially fitted Kitchens on Wheels with the slogan “We Bring Your Lunch Pail” painted on the side.  It’s
another Horatio Alger, Jr. success story only in America.  Naturally, you want to look into it.

        The employment agency sets up an appointment for you to be interviewed.  The personnel manager in Marietta
has you fill out an application, then says that anybody new in the office has to be approved by Mr. Workard. While
you wait, the personnel manager shows you around.  The office is small, the work area for cooking, sorting, packaging,
and loading is huge and has some mechanization.  Everybody handling food wears white and gloves. A few spotless
trucks are in a separate building.  You notice a few uniformed men and women who must be drivers or handle service
at kitchen stops.

        Finally, you go to Mr. Workard’s office.  It’s a shambles of sample food cartons, utensils, cups, glasses, vending apparatus, menu lists, and other paraphernalia that suppliers have left behind.  Mr. Workard, a small, rotund,
continuous-talking and fast-acting bundle of energy and nerves, darts in.  He waves the personnel man away and sits
you down.

        He tells you the business is getting too big for him to do everything.  He wants a public relations person who will
put out a newsletter “telling everybody what they should know” in order to get a better job done faster, who will work
up an instruction manual to “help my people riding the trucks,” who will “get our services written up in the local trade
papers,” and who will “get to know some of the important people around the area so they will appreciate how we do
our part for the community.”

        After describing what he wants done, Mr. Workard adds what he doesn’t want.  He doesn’t want to be bothered
by reporters “aiming to write up how he came from nowhere and didn’t get through grade school.”  He doesn’t have
time to waste sitting around on community committees that are “mostly talk.”  He’d rather give a little money after they’ve made up their minds.  He also makes it clear that he will “sell the trucks and close the business” before he will sign a
contract with a union.  He doesn’t say why he has such a deep grudge.  He does say that he has a good personnel manager
who hires only the “right kind of drivers and salesgirls.”  As for Georgia politics, he’s “got a guy over in Atlanta who
talks turkey to the politicians when they’re off base.” In running the business, he puts in his time “wherever the problem is,
and that’s not often in this room.” Finally, in his staccato fashion, he tells you the PR job is a “one-year trial at $24,000.
You get a secretary and an allowance of $20,000 for the newsletter and other expenses.  Beyond that, ask for what you need.”  Finally, Mr. Workard says, “If the job sounds right to you, say so.  If not, let’s you and me not waste each other’s time.”

        You ask him how long you have to think it over; there are the move from Savannah and other things to consider.
“What’s to think over?” he says.  “Either you want it, and can do it, or you don’t and you can’t.  If you take it, and
you do it right, you won’t see or hear much from me.  If you don’t hear anything, or see me, that’s good news. You’re
doing all right.”  Mr. Workard thinks that is really funny.  He laughs heartily.

        On the spur of the moment you decide to take the job, gambling that once you settle in, you’ll be able to straighten
Mr. Workard out as to what public relations is and isn’t, what Kitchens On Wheels should or should not do in the name
of public relations, and what his personal part in it should be.

        Preparing to show up for work, you think about the purposes of public relations, the functional elements, the roles,
tools, and media, the axioms or guidelines relevant to opinion formation and movement that you studied m school, and
how to apply them here and now on the job.  Specifically, in order for effective relationships to be a plus factor in the
long-term growth and aspirations of Kitchens On Wheels, what modifications will you have to bring about in George Workard’s notions about the function, his attitudes toward various public constituents and opposition groups, and,
perhaps, his personal style? Put another way, what aspects of the situation do you see as problems requiring change
or correction, and what do you see as opportunities to be seized, protected, and exploited?

    Try converting the problems and opportunities on paper into a set of four or five personal and private goals that might
take two or three years, and for each goal put down a specific objective to attain by six months and another to reach by
the end of your trial year.

        Looking at the objectives and the goals, write a proposal to Mr. Workard seeking his approval of a project or
two that would get you started (consider, of course, whether it is a good or bad strategy at this point to reveal how
your goals are related to him personally).