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The Case aka Rhetorical Situation ENG 360 Advanced Proposal and Report Writing - Spring 2012 other pages welcome | course | syllabus | case | internet | reports this page new media ventures | project summaries next steps in planning | progress written reports | oral reports report formatting

Product vs Process

In this course, you are going to follow a process. Even though you will end up with a product, various written documents, the course will emphasize the process.

A high-quality product is almost always the result of a high-quality process.
Low-quality processes are unlikely to produce high-quality products.

Thus, follow the process, trust the process. A successful process will often produce an unsuccessful product. In fact, almost all products, be they research articles, widgets, small businesses, or grant proposals, fail. You don't have much control over that. What you can control is the process.

The research and writing/thinking techniques that you're learning are transferable skills. You can use them all your life and take them from job to job.

The amount of information on the Internet that addresses the concerns of this course is voluminous and contradictory. This course will make no attempt to comprehensively cover the field. Instead, it will guide you through a process of media development. It's like walking through a forest. You can't walk through all the forests; you can't walk through the whole of any one forest. You can only walk down one path at a time, and that's all this course will try to do. Every time you write or, more likely, help to write a research article, the forest will be different. But it will still be a forest and you will still be walking through it.

The Media Development Process is similar to other processes you already know from writing essays or from sports.

New Media Ventures, Inc.

For the purposes of this course, we will say that you are working for New Media Ventures, Inc., a web development company, for example, Machus Corporation in San Francisco and Synacor in Buffalo. You are a business resource development (BRD) specialist. In exchange for a very handsome paycheck, your develop new client relationships by providing proof-of-concept web sites.

Your job is to find the clients for whom you can identify a need, make a proposal, provide a proof-of-concept web site, and make a presentation to the client about it so that they will want to sign a contract for New Media Ventures to implement the concept for them.

Also, for purposes of this course, we are not going to worry about money. In real life, costs would be an issue throughout the process. Lack of agreement could derail the process at any time. New Media Ventures, Inc., is taking a risk that the time you spend developing these proof-of-concept web sites will eventually pay off with sufficient long-term client relationships.

Plausible client

Your first task is to find a plausible client by filling out this form: (no longer works - 17 Feb 12)

Suggestions:

Your client should be a representative of a community. The representative could be official or unofficial, but it should be one person, with a name and job title or at least informal functional title.

The community can have varying degrees of organization and various numbers of potential members. For example, it could be a very organized corporate HR department. Or it could be a very unorganized political movement like Occupy Wall Street.

I would recommend a community with lots of members and a wide geographical distribution. Also, try to find something that would have a lot of images or videos related in some way.

Some examples:

people affected by a rare disease or condition
the Buffalo theater community
an extended family planning a big reunion
people interested in a rare sport, like korfbal

Project Summaries

MySQL Server: 216.117.152.174

image editing: Pixlr

transparent gifs and pngs (example of right) and other image editing: Iaza

metadata

metadata is information about information

data about the structure (containers)

data about the content

sign up for a Google Analytics account

make a site map for planning your menus

taxonomy - disambiguation

folk taxonomy - family relationships are all relative to position on one of many possible family trees, each growing from a single "self".

folksonomy

A folksonomy is a system of classification derived from the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content; this practice is also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing, and social tagging.

tag

In information systems, a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information (such as an Internet bookmark, digital image, or computer file). This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching. Tags are generally chosen informally and personally by the item's creator or by its viewer, depending on the system.

Hashtag

Hashtags are words or phrases prefixed with the symbol #, a form of metadata tag. They are used within IRC networks to identify groups and topics, as well as short messages on microblogging social networking services such as Twitter, identi.ca or Google+ may be tagged by including one or more with multiple words concatenated, such as those in:

#Wikipedia is an #encyclopedia

Then, a person can search for the string #Wikipedia and this tagged word will appear in the search engine results.

LivePlasma - adding taxonomies to interactive data visualization

WordPress taxonomies

Your theme may include Tags and Categories, and they'll take you a long way. But only so far.

Ultimate Taxonomy Manager for WordPress

WordPress | Ultimate Taxonomy Manager - Easy to use Taxonomy Manager to Customize Taxonomies and its Custom Fields.

Diffusion of Innovations - the graph on the right shows variations on the classic S-curve (initial stage of growth is approximately exponential; then, as saturation begins, the growth slows, and at maturity, growth stops). The graph on the left plots the S-curve on top of the bell curve showing how anything new diffuses through a population.

student name	JaB	RyB	HoK
domain name	RunningParkour.net	MedicalMarijuanaStories.com	BeginnerKnitHowTo.com
tagline or slogan
logo
rep		John Smith, member	Janet Lee, Knitting Teacher
# members		1,000,000	1500
# core members		2,000	100
demog profile		male, < 40, $40-80K; half college	?
features
themes and models
database	db Name: runningparkournet Username: JBenkelman Password: janine360	db Name: medicalmarijuanastoriescom Username: RButcher Password: ryanb360	db Name: beginnerknithowtocom Username: SKinne360 *note* Password: sarah360
ftp user, pwd	jbenkelman, janine360	rbutcher, ryanb360	hkeiser360, holly360
	SaK	PhM	MiS
domain name	TextualAbandon.com	exMavs.com	MedailleHockey.com
tagline or slogan
logo
rep	Jason Smith, editor Writer's Chronicle	Mike Carbery, SID	?, Current player
# members	500	100's ??	hundreds to thousands
# core members	50	100's	40
demog	female, 12-19, < $20K	male, <40, college, $10-70K	male, < $100K, some college
features
themes and models
database	db Name: textualabandoncom Username: HKeiser360 *note* Password: holly360	Database Name: exmavscom Username: PMaiarana Password: philm360	Name: medaillehockeycom Username: MSimons360 Password: mitch360
ftp user, pwd	skinne360, sarah360	pmaiarana, philm360	msimons360, mitch360
	ErS	MaS	ErW
domain name	BodyMeetsHealth.com	XploreOutdoor.com	MemoryScraps.net
tagline or slogan	Live Fit, Lean Body?
logo
rep
# members	100,000	20,000,000	100,000
# core members	10,000	6,500,000	1,000
demog	15-40, < $150K, college	male, some college, <$54K	female, 15-60, < $80K
features
themes and models
database	db Name: bodymeetshealthcom Username: EStachura Password: erica360	Name: xploreoutdoorcom Username: MSuriani Password: marys360	db Name: memoryscrapsnet Username: EWiedemann Password: erinw360
ftp user, pwd	estachura, erica360	msuriani, marys360	ewiedemann, erinw360
	RoZ	SaZ	BrC
domain name	LawSchoolAid.com	SightsExplored.com	End-Bullying.com
tagline or slogan
logo
rep	Patricia A. Brennan, Director of the Law Student Division, American Bar Assn	Erin Adams, Travel agency representative and head of website division
# members	150,000	500
# core	250	100
demog	male, 18-24, <$10K, college	female, <60
features	GetShopped Support Forums AMR Events Lists and Calendars MapQuest Map Builder Polldaddy Polls & Ratings Easy Chart Builder Hikari Enhanced Comments TinyUploads Photo Uploader Chat Genesis Press Post Type (bookmark recent press coverage) Slideshow WordPress.com Stats
themes and models	Frances Wright WP - Web Directory Dalton Hurd		use this one: admin brittany360
database	db Name: lawschoolaidcom Username: RZambito Password: rocco360	db Name: sightsexploredcom Username: SZimmer360 Password: sarahz360	db Name: endbullyingcom Username: BCloutier Password: brittany360
ftp user, pwd	rzambito, rocco360	szimmer360, sarahz360	bcloutier, brittany360

Take the next steps in planning your web site.

domain name

Check whether someone already has it at WhoIs

logo

a strong simple image that can be reduced to the size of a favicon (16 x 16 pixels)

do a Google Image search for < new media logos > and get an eyeful of inspiration

color schemes

Pick three or four main colors and two or three accent colors.

When you see something you're happy with, copy and paste the hex
numbers, ex: #d13a3c

Mud Cube (Pull down the Harmony and Vision menus and drag the numbers
and sliders.)

Colrd's Palette Creator

themes

You're looking for overall structure: number of columns, positions of menus, etc. You can change any of the colors and images. But you
must choose one.

Wordpress.org's Free Themes Directory

Google Search results for WordPress themes free

features

Calendars, shopping carts, slideshows, wikis, and much much more

Wordpress.org's Plugin Directory

models

Showcase

20 Remarkable Examples

30 Awesome Examples

Try it out!

WordPress sandbox

username: admin pwd: demo123

Best collection of Word Press How-to videos

Welcome /  Disclaimer Page

You need to make an index.html page with KompoZer that has information explaining that your Word Press site is a school project only.

You should use your domain name, logo, and palette. Start with my style sheet and substitute your colors and other design decisions. Feel free to copy and paste text from your proposal report.

We're using KompoZer so that you can use the table tags to structure this page. To accomplish the same thing, WordPress uses the <div> tag and positions them with the style sheet.

You should also be collecting images related to your topic into a folder for my review.

Progress of each Project

features checklist

The TikiWiki that we were going to use has about forty different features. Not all would have been useful for your particular wiki. I was going to have you make a decision about whether to use each one. In addition, I wanted you to have a rationale, that is, have an answer to the question: why did you include or not include that feature?

The answers to that question will come in very handy when you are presenting the web to the community you hope will find is attractive and useful. With WordPress, you have thousands of choices, not forty.

configuration checklist

Each feature can be configured differently, that is, adapted to your particular community. Again, deciding how to configure a feature is one thing. Knowing why you configured it as you did is what is more important.

digital assets checklist

To make the prototype work, you will need to create enough content -- users and their words and images -- to give a sense of how your wiki will work. Much of the text can be greeked, of course, but some of it will have to be in English, mostly titles and short descriptions. You and I will tailor this checklist to your specific feature set and their configuration.

Written Reports

Proposal Report

The audience for all of these reports is a representative of the community. That person has to approve your proposal. He or she wants to know what to expect. From your point of view, you don't want any misunderstandings about what you're supposed to do, so this is the opportunity for getting everyone on the same page.

Much of this report will use the information in the form you submitted about your plausible client. Here are the topics for your report, that is, your subheadings (your actual subheadings should be more specific):

Statement of the community's problem or situation, specific ex: The Knitter's Dilemma

General description of what the web site will do to address the situation (or solve the problem), ex: Knitting the Knitters Together

Specific description of what it will look like and do (features), ex: What they'll be able to do

Scope of what you are going to do (proof-of-concept prototype), including timelines through implementation

Evaluation plan - how should the rep evaluate your prototype? what can he/she expect? not expect? how will the installed site be evaluated? metrics

Budget - how much will the wiki installation (not the prototype) cost (excluding New Media Venture's fees) to set up and maintain?

While writing this, keep in mind that you will be writing a progress report based on it. So look ahead and make that progress report easier to write (and read!) by how you phrase and struture this proposal report.

Progress Report

How are you doing? This report will tell the rep how it's going. From your point of view, this is your opportunity to anticipate any problems, especially before they arise, to avoid surprises, especially unpleasant one. From the rep's point of view, this is a reassurance about how the project is going and a preview of what's coming.

The subtopics (your actual headings should be more specific):

Progress on timeline (from Scope section of proposal)

What are the problems, especially those you didn't anticipate?

What are the trade-offs? Your features and configurations checklists

How should the rep's expectations be different at this point, or are you on track to do what you said you were going to do in the proposal?

Final Report

What happened?

The subtopics (your actual headings should be more specific):

Return to your proposal and explain what happened.

Return to your evaluation plan and explain what happened.

What's the current status of the site?

What's next with the site (not with your business relationship with the rep or the community)??

Oral Reports

A very important part of business communcations is oral presentations. Making an oral presentation is one thing a computer can't do in your stead. Look around at the unemployed college graduates largely or completely replaced by computers, such as the army of accountants replaced by spreadsheets. All those computations were once done by humans and they took many minutes if not hours and were full of mistakes. Now they're done instantaneously and error-free by spreadsheets. I recommend that you develop a skill like oral presentations to stay one step ahead of the machines.

How do you come across on a screen? It's a whole lot cheaper to send your image over the Internet than it is to send your body on a plane. Plus a crappy motel with a lumpy bed and bad food. You should learn about the lighting and make-up that make you look best.

Last year, I was on a search committee to find a new faculty member. In the old days, we would have used the paper that the candidates sent to narrow it down to three or perhaps four to bring to campus, sometimes at great expense, for personal interviews. However, this time, we interviewed ten candidates via Skype and ended up hiring one who would not have made the cut to three in the old days. She was more impressive in person, even with the five members of the search committee huddled around one laptop, than she was on paper.

You are going to make two oral presentations in the final two weeks of this course. They will both be in one of the new classrooms that isn't full of computers. When you're in the audience, you'll be sitting at a table close to the front. When you're presenting, you'll be the only person in the room with a mouse in your hand. I recommend that you ask a classmate to click for you, but that's up to you.(Note that the guy in the picture below has someone clicking for him.)

Site tour

The first presentation is going to be to the group you made the WordPress site for. Mitch will present to the hockey team, and we'll pretend we're the players during his presentation. Sarah Kinne will present to the writers who want to use her Textual Abandon site. Phil will present to a bunch of ex-Mavs, Erin to the scrapbookers, etc.

As a presenter, you are in that hotel ballroom (see image on left) as an employee of New Media Ventures. You're the business resource development specialist (aka marketing rep), and you're showing potential clients/users the prototype WordPress site that was created by the NMV staff. Assume that the people in your audience use Facebook all the time, but that they have never used a WordPress site, and specifically this site. Take them on a tour like it was a model of a building. Show them all the parts and all the features and all things they can do and show them how to do everything.

Sell the prototype with some enthusiasm. Sell it like your paycheck is at stake, which it would be. If you don't sell those prototypes, you don't eat.

Note: This presentation is not a re-hash of your final report. This is an explanation of what it is to non-geeky people seeing it for the first time. "Folks, it's not just another website. It's ...."

How-to

The second presentation during the final week of class is going to be to your peers back at New Media Ventures. This is a how-to. Using your own site as an example, show us how to do something with WordPress from the developer's (not the user's) point of view. This can be configuring a plug-in or solving a design problem or anything else that you have learned how to do. Assume that for whatever reason, we don't know how to do it. Show us how, step by step. The key to success here is breaking it down and presenting it in a clear, orderly step-by-step process.

On my course web for ENG 260 Business And Professional Writing are two web pages full of advice about presentations.

Presentations

Oral Presentations as Theater

In addition, I do my best to practice what I preach in class when I'm lecturing or making a presentation to you. Note especially how I interact with the audience and how often there is at least one picture or graphic on the screen.

Report formatting for written reports

For the three reports you write for this course, you will use plain-text email. That is, not an attached .doc file and not enhanced or rich formatting HTML email, which is just a web page appearing to be an email. A simple ASCII file is all you need to do.

These email reports should be sent to me but written to the representative of the community for which you are making the web site. See the model on the right.

An email report presents special challenges for someone who has been trained to use a word processor for print documents. This report is not a print document, but it still needs to be attactive and accessible, that is, as readable as possible.

What will you do instead for emphasis and spacing?

If you think I'm asking you to do something unnatural -- write something for school or work without opening Microsoft Word I would point out that most of the writing you do every day is plain ASCII text. In fact, that's what it's called: texting.

In addition, I have modeled formal emails in all of the emails I have sent to you.

As you are well aware, there are constraints - things not available with ASCII text:

ASCII formatting does not recognize bold, italicized, or underlined text

_italics_
*boldfacing*

centering - must be done with spacebar; don't use it

hyphens - use in words that normally contain them but do not hyphenate words across lines.

special characters - such as mathematical symbols, not accurately transferred in the text save - avoid them

alignment - the default is left justified -- to indent a sentence or center a heading, use the spacebar.

tabs - not recognized - use the spacebar sparingly

fonts - ASCII text recognizes only the most commonly accepted fonts such as Courier, Arial and Times New Roman, so use a fixed-width font

lists - bullets - not available - use a dash or asterisk instead

URL's - use the full address, including the http://, one address only per line, flush left, and alone on the line

Plain text emails: design and format tips

Everyone advises sending both HTML and plain text versions of your emails, and people might actually get to see the latter. Not to mention that the text format still dominates transactional email (order confirmations etc.). And some audiences simply prefer text email to its HTML sibling.