The purpose of this report is to complete the case study in Critical Thinking (see Johnson-Sheehan, 2011, Ch. 6, case study “In the Vapor,” pp. 163-164).
The e-mail communication form is selected. This is caused by the particular circumstances of the studied case: the message should be quite informal because it deals with the information confidentially shared with Linda by Thomas (it is even possible to say that they had something like a secret meeting). For such informal situations, e-mails are recommended (see Johnson-Sheehan, 2011, p. 96). On the other hand, a memo might be considered for such a case because one employee of a company is writing to another employee of a same company, while memos a recommended for such situations (see Johnson-Sheehan, 2011, p. 94). However, taking into account that the communication should be informal (and quite confidential in a way), Linda’s decision is to prefer the email medium.
The following choice for Linda’s actions is supposed: to try to convince the management to continue the project. The reasons for this choice are as follows.
This way doesn’t block the other two: being refused, Linda can play along or leak the truth to the blogs (as Plan B), while another order of plans is impossible.
This way has good chances for success taking into account the technical background of the story.
The suggested Linda’s e-mail follows below.
Cc
Bcc
Thomas,
Thank you for the explanation of the case with the ‘‘leaked’’ blog story about our FlashTime prototype. I am glad that it corresponds to our plans and it ends to an advantage of Gink. However, I still believe that, stopping the FlashTime project, our company loses a lot, and there is another way to act such that we increase our advantage largely. Now, I am writing to you to justify that my opinion and to ask you to rise this issue in front of our management.
So, let me pass to the reasoning. First, note that the race towards the new projection technology (I mean the possibility to project video games to any blank wall) is not over at all: the ‘‘leaked’’ blog story was too accurate and detailed so everyone know now that such a screenless video-game solutions are achievable. In fact, we have succeeded to bench only one our competitor, i.e., CrisMark. Indeed, it is our main competitor. Indeed, we have taken away a considerable part of their marketshare (thanks to the blog FlashTime operation) and we are far ahead of them now. But, Thomas, there are other participants in this race! For instance, look at SHOWWX+ project of Microvision (trustedreviews.com/microvision-showwx-review) or RoomAlive concept of Microsoft (projection-mapping.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/RoomAlive_UIST2014.pdf).
Screenless video-game technologies are too attractive to expect that our competitors would quit this idea. At the moment, we are ahead of everyone (not only CrisMark) because only we have a workable prototype. The potential market is huge. Just compare: the blog vapor operation against CrisMark yielded a part of their marketshare i.e., a part of the marketshare of a particular company (and I honestly agree that it is a big success), while the new revolutionary technology, which is within one step from us, but only from us (so fare), would open a whole new market for us. Doesn’t is really worth to continue the project under such circumstances?
On the other hand, let us look how much it would cost for Gink to continue the FlashTime project. I certainly cannot provide exact figures right now, but we can outline the main points. A workable code is composed, compiled, and tested: you saw the prototype and it really works. Thus, the main software job is done. It is definitely left a lot to design new games, but it would be usual software development for profit: you design a game according to consumer demands and sell it so a cash flow is generated. I can assure you that several initial games can be designed by our team within three months, and those games are to bring the company much more than our salary for the same period. Look, two games are already completed, this took just two months, and a great part of those two months were swallowed by absolutely else activity – we were developing the console itself. Thus, my three-month estimate for several (say, at least three) new innovative games is quite realistic. Being seriously cut, we would handle within six months. Compare both estimates with the current plan to slow-track the project where at least three of us are to be paid for nothing during twelve months.
Indeed, the above considerations refer to the software only. Taking into account hardware costs, we certainly increase the operating expenses estimate very much, but this is our common practice: Gink sells a lot of compound products (hardware plus software) as whole solutions and it is profitable. In any case, we can sell our software screenless solution separately and leave all this mess with hardware: this would be profitable as well though, in my opinion, it would be more wisely to act as usual, i.e., to sell the console as a unified solution and sell new games (as far as each one is ready) then.
Finally, let’s look at the reputation venture of the company. Consumer electronic blogs will definitely continue to follow the situation because the “leaked” story was very impressive and the general public is waiting for that new technology to be market-available. We are going to snail during a year and say “Sorry, we were trying as much as we can, but we finally failed” then. It is not quite likely to be believable, isn’t it? The bloggers won’t provide us that year: readers saw the prototype (or, at least, read about it) so they want to know how the case is developing. On the other hand, I cannot exclude that our people worked under the project might share the true story. Nevertheless, even if we succeed to convince everyone that we eventually failed, it won’t improve our reputation at all – “OK, they are not liars, they are just losers.” Just compare such a reputation with our current one (the winner of CrisMark at its battle-field) and with our prospective one (the discoverer of a new revolutionary technology).
Thank you for your time spent to read this long e-mail. I hope that you appreciate my point: our company has achieved a success and I propose to develop this success. The only my request is to provide me three days: I shall prepare a detailed business plan (or road map or call it whatever else) of the next phase of the project you (and the management) to review it.
Regards,
Linda
References
Johnson-Sheehan, R. (2011). Technical Communication Today. Harlow: Longman.
Williams, A. (2012, February 23). Microvision SHOWWX+ review. Retrieved from
http://www.trustedreviews.com/microvision-showwx-review
Jones, B., Sodhi, R., Murdock, M., Mehra, R., Benko, H., Wilson A. D., Ofek J., MacIntyre, B., Raghuvanshi, N., & Shapira, L. (January 2014). RoomAlive: magical experiences enabled by scalable, adaptive projector-camera units. Retrieved from
http://projection-mapping.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/RoomAlive_UIST2014.pdf
