Critical Thinking
The purpose of this report is to show how to complete the case study “In the Vapor” (see Johnson-Sheehan, 2011, pp. 163-164).
Regarding the choice of the communication form, two possibilities can be considered: memos are used if both the addresser and the addressee work at a same company or organization (see Johnson-Sheehan, 2011, p. 94); emails are sent to people both inside and outside the company or organization (see Johnson-Sheehan, 2011, p. 96). However, memos are mainly used for formal situations such as to send a meeting agenda, internal report, or official proposal (see Johnson-Sheehan, 2011, p. 94). The studied case is quite else: it is much more informal. It refers to the information forwarded to Linda by Thomas confidentially and inofficially. For such cases, emails are preferable (see Johnson-Sheehan, 2011, p. 96). Thus, Linda selects the email form of communication. The same circumstances cause the style of the communication: in no way it is an official report in front of the boss, but the importance of the message is very high. Its design follows the sample provided at Fig. 5.2 of the text-book (see Johnson-Sheehan, 2011, p. 99).
Regarding the final question of the case study (see Johnson-Sheehan, 2011, p. 164), Linda selects the option to try to explain her management that the FlashTime project deserves to be continued. This is justified by the following arguments.
Starting from this option, Linda does not lose other ones: if the management refuses, then she still can play along or leak the truth to the blogs.
If her team has really done a good job to create the prototype, then the chance to convince the management should be high.
The fictitious company CrisMark is invented by the author of the text-book, but other foreseen contenders mentioned in Linda’s email below are real: Microvision implements their SHOWWX+ project (see Williams, 2012) and Microsoft works over their RoomAlive concept (see Jones et al., 2014).
Explaining economic advantages of the decision to continue the project, Linda applies theory of constraints (see Goldratt & Cox, 2004, pp. 1-389).
Thus, Linda sends the following email.
Cc
Bcc
Thomas,
Thank you again that you discovered me how the information about our FlashTime prototype has been ‘‘leaked’’ to that consumer blog. I am happy that everything was going according to our plan and serving to the aim of our company to defeat CrisMark and that this aim is achieved now. However, I sincerely believe that, continuing our work on the FlashTime project, we can strengthen our advantage over CrisMark (and not only CrisMark) a lot. So, I am writing to you to explain the reasons of this my opinion and to ask you to forward this issue to the management of our company.
So, let me expose my arguments. First, take into account that the competition for the new projection technology (I mean the technology able to display video games at any blank wall) is not finished forever. Actually, only one of our competitors, i.e., CrisMark, is pushed off the race. I agree that it is a great success because this competitor was the most dangerous, while we have got a substantial part of their marketshare now (good job of those blog ‘‘leakers’’, by the way!) However, other contenders exist! It suffices to mention SHOWWX+ project of Microvision (http://www.trustedreviews.com/microvision-showwx-review) and RoomAlive concept of Microsoft (http://projection-mapping.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/RoomAlive_UIST2014.pdf). They are just examples: screenless video-game technologies are too attractive to expect that our competitors would quit this idea, and the ‘‘leaked’’ blog story leave no doubts that such screenless video-game solutions are achievable. At the moment, we have an advantage in front of any potential competitor because we have a workable prototype, while all others just read the blog story. The potential market cannot be overestimated. Is it really worth to stop at our local victory over CrisMark? In my opinion, our company will acquire much more, continuing to develop the FlashTime project: a new revolutionary technology able to open a new market is within one step from us, while everyone else is behind (so far). Is it reasonable to spend this achievement only for the “blog vapor operation” against CrisMark?
Now, let us look what Gink loses, continuing the FlashTime project. The prototype really works so a workable code is already in our hands. It is time to pass to our standard job to design new games for a workable platform. Look, you told me that it is planned to leave me and several designers to stay on the project for a year just “to make it look like we weren’t just floating vaporware.” I have another suggestion to spend Gink’s money during those twelve months: we can design three new innovative games within a half of year. If we stay on the project full-time, then it will be done within three months. This is a realistic estimate because we have already made two games during two months. Indeed, there were more of us, but we worked over the games only during the time left from the main activity, i.e., the development of the console itself. Now, we can concentrate only on games so everything will go much faster. And those games will bring the company much more than our salary: you saw the prototype of the console and you saw the initial two games so you know that this is true.
If, apart from software expenses, we would count hardware ones, then the picture is else: hardware costs money so we will substantially increase our operation expenses. However, this is our usual expenses: Gink sells various products combining hardware and software as whole solutions, it is our standard business, and it is profitable. Another option is to sell our screenless software as a separate product to reduce the hardware costs to zero. This would be profitable as well and we (I mean me and several developers) even would be able to do that ourselves (if the company agree to endorse me the copyright). However, I still believe that our standard approach is preferable: Gink sells the console and each new game for it.
Finally, let us think about the reputation of the company. I don’t think that bloggers and the general public would believe to our story like “Yes, we succeeded to make a workable prototype within two months, but failed to get further then though we were trying very much during a year. Sorry.” Would you believe, Thomas? And the interest won’t go down: the “leaked” blog story was very accurate and very impressive so people are just thrilling, expecting the possibility to buy something related to the screenless video-game technology. Note that there is one more venture factor: nobody can guarantee that our people worked under the FlashTime project won’t discover the true story. In any case, we won’t have a good choice: if our “failure story” is not believed, then we are treated as liars; if it is then we are treated as losers.
Thank you again for everything. Please, do appreciate my point: I think that I know a better decision regarding FlashTime and I can justify my opinion. Just provide me three days to prepare a detailed business plan (road map) in order 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
Goldratt, E. M. & Cox, J. (2004). The Goal: a Process of Ongoing Improvement. Great Barrington, MA: The North River Press.
