Answer & Explanation:Case Study Augmentation – Find two additional journal
articles to supplement one of this week’s case studies. Write 3-4 full pages not including the cover and ref pages. summary and apply articles to
current week’s case study.
Grading requirements case study.docBlogger in the Midst Week 4.pdfFollow all directions and scalarary references at least 3 sources. Original and plagiarism free. Also enclosed is the grading requirement please exceed all requirements.
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Criteria
Requirements
Identification of the
main issues and/or
problems.
Literature research &
review.
3-5 issues and/or
problems.
10%
Majority (at least 60%
or higher) of articles
and/or references
must be within last 10
years.
15%
Analysis of the key
issues.
Alternative solutions
and/or options.
All issues must be
analyzed.
Provide method of
comparison between
alternatives.
Include short-term and
long-term
recommendations;
Included should be
realistic time frames,
designation of roles
and responsibilities of
all stakeholders and
an appropriate
evaluation program.
Includes overall
composition, structure,
grammar, spelling, and
punctuation.
25%
Observations and/or
recommendations on
effective solutions.
Writing
Skills/Professional
Presentation.
Weight
20%
20%
10%
Score
Distinguished/ Excellent (4)
Identifies and understands all
the main issues in the case
study.
Excellent research with clearly
documented associations
between problems or questions
and key course concepts and
good (3 or more) use of
corroborating sources.
Insightful and thorough analysis
of all the key issues.
Alternatives cover all the key
issues with method to evaluate
all equally.
Well-reasoned, logical,
relevant observations and
recommendations on effective
solutions to most of the
problems/issues.
Writing is totally free of
grammar and spelling errors.
Clear, concise and creative
presentation of ideas and
properly referenced.
HBR CASE STUDV
A Blogger
in Their Midst
by HalleySuitt
Lancaster-Webb’s surgical gloves are fiying off the shelves, thanks
to the on-line endorsements of an otherwise indiscreet employee.
Should the CEO consider her a priceless marketing weapon or
a grave security risk?
W
ILL SOMERSET, the CEO
of
Lancaster-Webb Medical Supply, a manufacturer of disposable gloves and other medical products, needed time alone to think, and
he had hoped an early morning jog
would provide it. But even at 6 AM, as he
walked out to the edge of the luscious
lawn surrounding Disney World’s Swan
Hotel, Will had unwanted companions:
Mickey and Minnie Mouse were in his
line of sight, waving their oversized,
gloved hands and grinning at him. Instead of smiling back at the costumed
characters, he grimaced. He was about
to lose a million-dollar sale and a talented employee, both in the same day.
Will finished his hamstring stretches
and began his laps around the grounds.
leaving the mice in the dust and recalling eventsfromthe day before. Industry
conferences are always a little tense,
but never to the extent this one had
tumed out to be. Lancaster-Webb – by far
the best-known brand in the medicaldisposables arena-was introducing a
remarkable nitrile glove at the gathering. Will was good at announcements
like this; during his 30-year career, he
had probably given more speeches and
launched more products at trade conferences than any other chief executive
in his field. But attendance at yesterday’s rollout event had been sparse.
Evan Jones, vice president of marketing at Lancaster-Webb, had guaranteed
the appearance of a big sales prospect,
Samuel Taylor, medical director of the
HBR’s cases, which are fictional, present common managerial dilemmas
and offer concrete solutions from experts.
30
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
Houston Clinic. Will knew that impressing Taylor could mean a million-dollar
sale for Lancaster-Webb. But before the
presentation, Evan was nervously checking his shiny Rolex, as if by doing so he
could make Sam Taylor materialize in
one of the empty seats in the Pelican
room. At five minutes to show time, oniy
about 15 conference-goers had shown
up to hear Will, and Taylor was nowhere
in sight.
Will walked out of the ballroom to
steady his nerves. He noticed a spillover
crowd down the hall. He made a” Whafs
up?” gesture to Judy Chen, the communications chief at Lancaster-Webb. She
came over.
“It’s Glove Girl. You know, the blogger,” she said, as if this explained anything.”! think she may have stolen your
crowd, boss.”
“Who is she?” Will asked.
SEPTEMBER 2003
Judy’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean
you don’t read her stuff on the Web?”
Will’s expression proved he didn’t.”Evan
hasn’t talked to you about her?” Will
gave her another blank look. “OK, um,
she works for us. And you know how
we’ve been seeing all this new demand
for the old SteriTouch glove? She’s the
one behind it. She’s been on a roll for a
while, talking it up on her blog.”
Evan joined them in the hall just in
time to catch the end of Judy’s comments. “Right,” he said. “Glove Girl.
Guess I’d better go hear what she’s
telling folks.” He glanced at his boss,
a little sheepishly. “You won’t mind, I
hope, if I’m not in the room for your
presentation?”
“No problem,” Will said. He watched
Evan and Judy hurry toward the room
down the hall. With a sigh, he headed
back into the Pelican room. As he deliv-
ered his remarks to the small group that
had gathered, the words “blog” and
“Glove Girl” and that wonderful but
mystifying news about the surge in
SteriTouch sales kept swimming around
in his head. The speech he gave was
shorter than usual. In fact, he was already on his way to the Mockingbird
room when Glove Girl’s session ended
in applause.
As the doors opened and people
began streaming into the corridor, Will
spotted her. She was wearing a gold
lamd cocktail dress and a pair of pale
green surgical gloves. They looked like
evening gloves on hen Extraordinary.
But the peoplefilingpast him appeared
to have taken her quite seriously.”! liked
how she handled the last question,”one
was saying. Will overheard Judy talking
to Evan: “She’s very good, isn’t she?”
And Evan’s response; “No kidding.”
HBR CASE STUDY • A Blogger in Their Midst
Will pulled both of his employees
aside.”We need to have a meeting about
this. ASAP.”
Beware the Blog
That evening, the three were in Will’s
suite, huddled around a speakerphone.
Conferencing in from Lancaster-Webb’s
headquarters in Cupertino, Califomia,
were Jordan Longstreth.the company’s
legal counsel, and Tom Heffeman, vice
president of human resources. Judy was
briefing them all on blogging, who
Glove Girl was, and what she could possibly be up to.
as an assistant foreman at the Compton
plant of Lancaster-Webb’s surgical gloves
unit. Few would mistake Glove Girl’s
blog for Lancaster-Webb’s own site, but
they might not know the company
hadn’t authorized it.
The site’s existence wasn’t so troubling by itself. Will thought. But when
Judy explained that Glove Girl had been
blogging about the pending launch of
the nitrile gloves and about competitors’ products and customers’ practices.
Will became alamied. To top things off,
Judy revealed – somewhat hesitantlythat last week Glove Girl had written
on her site, “Will Somerset wears a hairpiece.” The room went siJent.
Evan then described how surprised
he was to hear that the company’s older
SteriTouch gloves had suddenly started
flying out ofthe warehouse.”We hadn’t
been marketing them lately. The thing
was. Glove Girl was raving about them
on-line. Sales shot up right after she
linked her blog to one of our Web pages.
You remember that book Gonzo Marketing ! gave you last year. Will? Her
blog works just like that. These things
get close to the customer in ways that an
ad campaign just can’t.”
“Can ! give you more bad news,
boss?” Judy asked. “She’s got a pen pal
in our factory in China who’s been writ”It’s short for Web logging,” Judy exing about conditions there. Glove Girl
plained to the group. “A blog is basically
an on-line joumal where the author”OK, she’s outta here. Get her a copy doesn’t always paint a pretty picture.”
the blogger-keeps a running account of Who Moved My Cheese?” he said to Evan jumped in again.”Wait a minute.
of whatever she’s thinking about. Every his team, knowing it would get a big Did you search the whole blog? There
day or so, the blogger posts a paragraph laugh in the room and on the speaker- were also some e-mails from people
or two on some subject. She may even phone. “All right, I’ll join the Hair Club saying we should be paying our plant
weave hyperlinks to related Web sites for Men. Now tell me the really bad workers in China what the workers get
into the text.”
news: What did she write about the here. And Glove Girl defended us really
“It’s amazing the stuff some of these Houston Clinic deal? Are we going to well on that point.”
people write,” Evan added, “and how lose it?”
“Tell me,” Will said,”how the heck did
many people find their way to the sites.
Before Judy could answer, Jordan’s she end up on the conference schedule?”
My brother-in-law, who lives in New voice came over the line: “Can I add one
“Apparently, the chief organizer is a
York, is a blogger. And he gets e-mail thing? Getting fired would be just the big Glove Girl fan and asked her to disfrom the weirdest places-Iceland, Libe- beginning of her troubles if she’s shar- cuss blogging as ‘the ultimate customer
ria…everywhere.
ing confidential product information.” intimacy tool,'” Judy said with a sigh.
“One day, a blogger might write someJudy explained that Glove Girl had “I’m sorry.! tried to get him to change
thing about her cat, the next day about reported on her site that Lancaster- the time of her session.”
the technology conference she just at- Webb would be making a big sales pitch
“! know it’s late,” Will told his team,
tended, or software bug fixes, or her to the Houston Clinic. Glove Girl had “but before we make any decisions about
coworkers,” Evan went on. “Youfindthat leamed that the clinic’s cesarean deliv- Glove Girl, I’m heading to the business
kind of thing especially in the blogs of ery rate was off the charts, and she was center to look at her blog. Evan, appardot-com casualties; they never leamed questioning the ethics of doing busi- ently you know your way around it.
to separate their work lives from their ness with a facility like that. Fort Worth Why don’t you come with me?”
personal lives.”
General, she’d noticed, did a third as
With the meeting adjoumed. Will and
Evan made their way through the hotel
Evan meant that last remark to be many C-sections.
pointed. Glove Girl’s site juxtaposed her
“Maybe that’s why Taylor didn’t to the business center, discussing the
commentary on blood-bome pathogens show,” Will remarked, as the pieces issues Glove Girl had raised. As the two
men approached the entrance to the
with tales about her love life. Frequent began to come together.
visitors to her blog knew all about her
“Sorry, boss. We had a chat with her center, a petite blond was leaving. She
rags-to-riches journey from emergency a few weeks ago about discussing our held the door for them, and then walked
room nurse to COO of a Web-based customers on her blog, and she prom- away as Evan pointed and whispered,
company that peddled health advice; ised to be more careful. 1 guess it didn’t “That’s her. She was probably in here
posting a new entry. Let’s check.” He
her subsequent bankruptcy; her fruit- make much difference,” Judy said.
less attempts to land a good corporate
“You’ve documented that?” Tom typed “glove girl” into Google. Her blog
came up as the number one listing
communications position; and her life asked. Judy assured him she had.
against 1,425 hits. He clicked to it.
Halley Suitt is the director of client development at San Francisco-based Yaga.com, Evan showed his boss the post. “See
the time and date stamp? She just
a provider of payment technology for on-line businesses, and the author ofthe Web log
Halley’s Comment. She can be reached at halleys@yahoo.com.
posted this”-the entry was Glove Girl’s
32
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
A Blogger in Their Midst • HBR CASE STUDY
“Yep. The blogging interfaces reside
on Intemet servers for the most part,
not on your computer. Some people do
wireless blogging. Some do audio blogging with a cell phone. Hey, read this.
Glove Girl got a manicure with Houston’s head of nursing and found out why
the cesarean rate is so high. She’s posted
a correction.”
“My lucky day,” Will said.”! think.
Evan, do you have a clue how much
she’s said about yesterday’s product
release?”
“We can search the site. Watch.” Evan
typed in the words “nitrile gloves,” and
a few listings appeared.
They both began to read, it was clear
she’d done a very detailed job of describing the surgical gloves’benefits and
features-the same ones Will had outlined in his speech.
“She’s definitely thorough,” Evan had
to admit.
“Yes, and she’s got good questions,”
Will said as he kept reading.
that’s because Houston’s been doing
pioneering work that’s attracted hundreds of women from all over the country,” he explained. “Do you think you
can get Glove Girl to post that?”
“I’ll certainly try. This blogging thing
is new to me, you know.”
“You guys are really ahead of the
curve on this. I’d like to meet Glove
Girl,” Rex added.
• • •
So would 1, Will thought.”!’ll see what
An Underground Resource?
1 can do,” he said quickly. “I’m heading At noon, the sun was high in a cloudless
One foot in front ofthe other. That was in. I’ll talk to her about putting those sky. Will and Evan were at Kimonos,
the thing Will loved about jogging – you cesarean statistics in the right context.” waiting to be seated.
just keep putting one foot in front of
As Rex sauntered off, Will flipped
The Houston Clinic’s Sam Taylor
the other, he thought, as he took an- open his cell phone and called Evan. spotted Will. “It’s a good thing you took
other circuit around the hotel grounds. “Get her” is all he had to say.”Business care of that,” he said.
A lot easier than grappling with this center, in an hour.”
“! didn’t have anything to do with it,”
Will said, correcting him. “She’s a free
agent. You need to thank your head of
“One day, a blogger might v^rrite something about her cat, the nursing for giving her the facts.”
“I’ll do that,” Taylor said, and then
next day about the technology conference she just attended,
rather abruptly excused himself.
Rex Croft was standing a few feet
or software bugfixes,or her coworkers”
away. He came over, smiling broadly.
“We want to sign a deal-you’ll be the
blogging business. There was a lanky
Showered and shaved. Will made it exclusive supplier of our surgical gloves,”
runner ahead of him. It was Rex Croft, there before the others. Evan arrived he said.
medical director at Fort Worth General. alone-he’d come up empty-handed.
Will shook his hand happily. “Great.”
They both finished at about the same “I can’t find her. She’s not in her room.
” But we also want to hire G love Girl,”
time and greeted one another as they She didn’t respond to my e-mails.! even Rex whispered.”My people say we need
did their cooldown stretches against a lefr her a message at the front desk to her in a big way. 1 hate to admit it, but
sidewalk railing.
call my cell. Nothing so far.”
her biog is a lot more persuasive than
“Hey, Will, we love what you’re doing
“Great. Now what?” Will rolled back your advertising. Can you spare her?”
with Glove Girl. Houston’s head of nurs- in his chair.
“I’m not sure,” Will said, genuinely
ing showed me the site, and it’s amazing,”
“Wait,” Evan said. He got on-line and perplexed.
Rex said, to Will’s complete surprise.
went to her Web log. “Check this out.
“She’s got the story on the clinic’s She’s in the health club blogging. There What should Lancaster-Webb do
cesareans wrong, though. It’s true that must be a terminal there.”
about Ciove Girl?
the rate is the highest in the country, but
“You can biog anywhere?”
Four commentators offer expert advice.
mild swipe at the food being served at
the conference.
“I can’t disagree with her,” the CEO
said. “So where do we start?”
Evan gave Will a quick cybertour, and
then had to run to another conference
call, leaving his boss to fend for himself.
Will spent the next hour alternately
enthralled and enraged by what he read
on Glove Girl’s blog.
SEPTEMBER 2003
33
H B R CASE C O M M E N T A R Y • What Should Lancaster-Webb Do About Clove Girl?
Glove Girl isn’t trying to do anything except talk to customers
about the things she and they care about.
L
ancaster-Webb doesn’t have a blogging
problem; it has a labeling problem.
• The solution that first occurs to CEO
Will Somerset-fireGloveGirl-would restore
order at the company, but at too great a cost.
Outside the company, Glove Girl has turned
into Lancaster-Webb’s most cost-effective
marketer. In much iesstime, and with fewer
resources, she does what the marketing department has spent big chunks of the corporate budget to do not nearly as well: She
gets customers to listen and believe. Marketing is ineffective at this precisely because
it’s on a mission: Get leads! Convert prospects! Lock in customers! In short, marketing
is engaged in a war of wills with customers.
^’
David Weinberger is the
author of Small Pieces
Loosely Joined: A Unified
Theory of the Web (Perseus,
2002) and coauthor of ihQ
Cluetrain Manifesto: The End
of Business As Usual (Perseus,
7999). He is a strategicmarketing consultant.
By contrast, Glove Girl isn’t trying to do
anything except talk to customers about the
things she and they care about Glove Girl
sounds like a human being, not a jingle or a
slogan. Her writing embodies her passions.
She thus avoids the pitfalls that marketing
departments repeatedly walk into. Her willingness to admit fallibility-the pace of daily
on-line publishing pretty well ensures that
Web biogs have the slapdash quality of first
drafts-is ironically the very thing that leads
her readers to overlook her mistakes and
trust her.
No wonder the communications department is afraid of her. After ail, from their
pointofview. Glove Girl is “off message.” She
acknowledges that not everything is perfect
at Lancaster-Webb. In alleging excessive cesarean rates at the Houston Clinic, she did
the unthinkable: She suggested that some
dollars are not worth having. Of course, that
boldness and candor are among the reasons
she’s such a good marketer.
Still, for all the good she’s doing, she does
indeed pose a problem. But it’s not a problem
unique to blogs. Suppose Glove Girl didn’t
have a blog. Suppose she were saying exactly
the same things to her neighbors over the
backyard fence. Lancaster-Webb might not
34
like what she says, but so long as she’s not violating her contract or the law, the company
doesn’t have a right to stop her. The difference is that Glove Girl’s blog identifies her
as a Lancaster-Webb employee.
That’s where the importance of clear labeling comes in. We almost always unders t a n d – i f only implicitly-the status of the
comments someone is making. For instance,
we know when the customer-support person
on the phone is giving the official line, and we
can tell when her voice drops that she’s departing from it. Likewise, we understand that
a press release is one-sided faux journalism
because it says “press release” right at the
top. We know that marketing brochures
aren’t to betaken too literally. And we know
that when Will gets up to give a keynote, he
is going to be relentlessly positive-and is
probably reading someone else’s words. But
because Web logs are so new, the public
might have trouble figuring out the status of
GloveGirl’ssite. Is it official? Does LancasterWebb stand behind what she says?
There’s an easy way to fix it so that Glove
Girl can continue being the best marketer at
Lancaster-Webb: Ask her to explain clearly
on her blog exactly whom she speaks for.
It’s a reasonable request, and it’s in everyone’s interest.
But there’s an even better way to make
the natureof her commentary clear: Publish
Web logs on the Lancaster-Webb site. (If
more of Lancaster-Webb’s employees were
blogging, they’d have caught Glove Girl’s
error regarding the cesarean births within
minutes.) Linkthe company’s blogs to related
ones-Glove Girl’s, for instance-orto blogs
at customers’ sites. Blogging should be a
group activity anyway, with lots of cross talk.
The variety of viewpoints will make it clear
that no one is just toeing the party line. …
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