Scrubbing Bubbles@Bathroom Cleaner

Dear Sir/Madam,
Being one of the students of Business Communication class in BMCC, CUNY, I am writing to you to comment on the issue, which prof. Evans brought to our attention as per his dissatisfaction with Scrubbing Bubbles@Bathroom Cleaner and his attempt to communicate to you on this problem.
This case has been brought up in the class as a case study and applied to what we are reading in the book on Business Communication. Having analyzed the string of mutual e-mails and the phone calls, we came to the conclusion that SC Johnson, A Family Company, is not doing its best to keep the most loyal customers and is not eager to deal with their dissatisfaction and complaints. Thus, not proving the status of a "Family Company".
As far as of now, prof. Evans has not yet gotten a satisfactory resolution of his complaint. Therefore, the whole class is looking forward to it.
We hope that SC Johnson will turn to be more sensitive towards customers' complaints and more cooperative in the way of dealing with them.

Best regards,
Olena Lazurenko

Business Communication Class
Borough of Manhattan Community College

alyona_lazurenko@yahoo.com

The Walt Disney Company. 2008 Annual Report.

The Walt Disney Company 2008 Annual Report is a very well-constructed, organized and informative 104-page report. It tells us what the Walt Disney and its affiliated companies have achieved throughout the year. It is available for full download at the Disney corporate web-page as well as in its interactive single part viewing option at the same page, which gives the reader the flexibility, time efficiency and control while searching for particular information.
The major parts of the report are:

• Introduction: Financial Highlights, Letter to Shareholders and Financial Overview.
  
• Key Businesses:Studio Entertainment, Parks and Resorts, Consumer products, Media Networks, Disney Interactive Media Group, Walt Disney International, Corporate Responsibility.
  
• Financials: Board of Directors, Senior Corporate Officers and Principal Businesses, Download Annual Report in pdf.

Every part of the report has it's own inner structure: in most cases, it starts with the general information of what the particular part is devoted to, followed by the numbers and facts that support those statements, and finished by the conclusion and projections for the future.
What also needs to be mentioned is the design of the report: the most famous Disney characters and projects are coming along on the background of each page. It keeps us emotionally engaged and makes a reference to what the particular part of the report is talking about.

The Interactive variant of the report is available at http://corporate.disney.go.com/investors/annual_reports/2008/index.html
The Full Version of the report is available at http://amedia.disney.go.com/investorrelations/annual_reports/WDC-AR-2008.pdf

The Walt Disney Company. Writing a Business Message (2).

According to the fundamental stylistic principles, in order to create a more vivid piece of writing, we have to use different sentence structures. Not only does it helps to prevent the reader from getting bored of simple sentences and miss information, but also express the ideas more clear and dynamically.
The Walt Disney news release writers use the fundamental idea of different sentence types in order to sharpen their writing presentation. Let me take the beginning of the same article discussed in the previous blog post and show fours sentence types that are used in the process of conveying a massage:

George Kalogridis, a 38-year Disney veteran and former Disneyland executive, has been named president of the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California (Simple Sentence). Kalogridis most recently served as chief operating officer for Disneyland Resort Paris, where he was responsible for leading the operations team and overseeing the highly successful 15th anniversary celebration of the resort (Complex Sentence).

Kalogridis, 55, will report to Al Weiss, president of Worldwide Operations for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts (Simple Sentence). He replaces Ed Grier, who is retiring from the company (Complex Sentence).

There were no compound or complex-compound sentences in the article. It might be explained by the fact that since the compound sentence requires two subjects (doers of the actions) and two predicates in one sentence, the writer decided to keep them in separate simple sentences in order not to confuse the reader and present two ideas in separate sentences. The article is structured as a combination of simple and complex sentences. Thus, it doesn't engage the reader into a business of establishing or loosing relationship between the ideas, which could have happened if the article was overwhelmed with compound and complex-compound sentences.

The text of the article can be found at http://corporate.disney.go.com/news/corporate/2009/2009_1015_george_kalogridis.html

The Walt Disney Company. Writing a Business Message (1).

LINGUISTICS - THAT'S WHERE THE BIG MONEY IS.

Having read the news releases from the Walt Disney corporate website, I have noticed that their articles correspond to the the rules of syntax, academic writing and high degree of linguistic literacy. Thus, if we look at the structure of any paragraph, we will see that mostly each of them contains three basic element: a topic sentence, supporting sentences and transitional elements. As an example, I suggest analyzing one of the paragraphs taken from the news release:
(Topic sentence)During Kalogridis' tenure with Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, he has held numerous executive positions, gaining a breadth of experience beyond operations and sales. (Transition phrase)In addition to his leadership roles in both Paris and Anaheim, Kalogridis served as vice president of Travel Operations at Walt Disney World in Orlando. Kalogridis also served as vice president of Walt Disney World's EPCOT park, where, in addition to overseeing park operations, he led the Millennium Celebration for The Walt Disney Company(Supporting sentences, which prove his numerous executive positions).
Using these elements, the writer helps the readers comprehend the information better and not being confused. The paragraph mentioned above is the illustration-type paragraph, where the examples and explanations given support the general idea of a topic sentence.

The paragraph was taken from the article at:
http://corporate.disney.go.com/news/corporate/2009/2009_1015_george_kalogridis.html

Walt Disney. Commercial. Persuasion.

"There is so much in life we are celebrating...from the smallest events to the biggest milestones" the Disney commercial promoting free birthday admission to the theme parks says, at the same time showing the touching moments of our lives... Hearing the song and watching those moments appealing to our emotions, we are being influenced on several levels: hearing, watching, memory flashbacks, which all together undermines our feeling and emotions towards those who we love and whose accomplishments we cherish more then anything else...our children.
"What will you celebrate in the place where dreams come true?", the commercial continues, taking us to the magical atmosphere of the Disney park and enchanting us with the presence of fairy tales heroes in real life. It pushes us to the thought that our beloved children do deserve to dive into whimsical themes of Disney and its exciting entertainment for their birthday.
Thus, the commercial persuades us to register for the free birthday admission to the Disney theme park and does it extremely well, in my opinion, by the means of vocabulary chosen and influencing us on the level of hearing, watching and triggering our emotional memory.
The commercial is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz-c7Ees4QQ

The Walt Disney Company. PowerPoint Presentation.

"Ways to Finance your Disney trip" presentation talks about affordable ways to finance a trip to Disney World Theme Parks and Resorts: free trips for your birthday, Disney and third-party promotions, 0% APR Disney credit card, and a lot more!
The minimized version of the Power Point Presentation, saved as a pdf, was uploaded to:
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B8Ia7nVEI8OGM2I4N2Y5YTMtMGVhMi00MTI0LWE1MzMtMTM5MzhjMjk3ZDVi&hl=en
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