Sunday, November 18, 2007

Protecting Creative Property

According to the Gower Text, Intellectual Property is the legal name given to such intangible property such as copyrights, trademarks, and patents. Protection of Intellectual property is provided in the US constituiton. Businesses should be concerned with trademark and logos, in order to protect the goodwill of the company. If other companies are producing logos that look alike but are not as of much quality, they could be hurting their business.

Legal and Ethical restraints on PR

Being a PR professional has many restraints to think about when talking about a person. Damaging another's reputation is a very serious problem if it happens. Libel, or defamation recognizes the importance of reputation to an individual's integrity and protects individuals from false statements made about them. As a PR professional, we should be concerned and understand defamation so that we do not harm our publics. Slander and Libel are very important to us because it can ruin a PR professionals career. It all gets a little confusing to me when u add the first amendment in the mix. When a person or employee of your business you are working for is caught in this situation, it is very important to know the "red flags" and what is not excepted. Avoiding opinion, quotations, and identification can help avoid defamation.

Enron...

The story of Enron pisses me off every time I hear about it! I still to this day cannot believe that those guys were able to ruin such a large, successful company. The story hits especially close to me because my Dad worked for a company that a similiar thing happened to in 2002. My dad was let go from WorldCom after 23 years of service, and also my senior year in High School. When I watched the video in class and saw the thousands of people that lost their life savings, I totally understood their pain. My dad lost 23 years worth of 401K and savings. What Enron did was completly unethical. The sad thing about the whole situation is that they laughed the whole time they knew Enron was going down the tubes. I think it serves Jeff and everyone involved to be in Jail. One thing I will never understand is how so many well-known banks were involved in such an act of dishonest and utterly disgusting act of greed. I often wonder what the world would be like if money was not such a sign of status. I wonder why there were not whistle blowers earlier than there was, maybe if someone would have stepped in and looked at their financial reports, if this could have been stopped. I cannot imagine working for a company like this.

Glengarry Glen Ross

Ok, so this play just reminded me of America and how all people are concerned with is the next dollar they can make. This play showed how breaking the rules and "doing what ever it takes" really does happen in our business culture. I think as PR professionals we should have a "radar" for when this type of unethical behavior is taking place where we are working so that we can alert executives or choose to leave the company. It is very easy to get lost in this crazy world where everybody "wants to be a millionaire." I had never seen a play and I was very impressed with the play and the way it was presented. The fact that he stole the leads was completly unethical and not only caused himself problems but also everyone he had affected. Overall, I think this play corresponds to our class and shows us what we should not do.

PRSA Code of Ethics

Advocacy = truth- in order for the public to gain accurate knowledge, the PR practitioner must serve in the best interests for the public.

Honesty = truth- also where accuracy of information come into play.

Expertise = stewardship- the PR practitioner must research the brand in order to put their skills to work.

Independence = freedom/liberty- after the PR practitioner sends the information, the client has the right to walk away.

Loyalty = humanness- we as practitioner need to be fair to all or most, and by doing so, we need to remain loyal to our values.

Fairness = humanness, and justice- in order to do our job we need to treat everyone fairly and if not, we need to compensate for our shortcomings in order to complete our jobs successfully.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Doing the Right Thing

Before picking up this book, I knew what ethics was but I had no idea that there were so many different theories. Many of the theories I have heard of such as Aristotles theory known as the golden mean. I personally think that ethics is something that people should be taught growing up. When parents raise children they either choose to be good parents and instill good morals or they slack and some children are raised without morals. I think the end result can lead to unethical or ethical decisions in the business world. Especially in PR it is important to be well equipped to be able to make better ethical decisions. I also find it interesting how chapter 1 discussed the PRSA code of ethics and how they seem to be a little broad. I think being a PR practicioner is going to be even harder than a medical practicioner just because like the book said, we have no 'laws' or
'regulations' to follow. We are supposed to make informed, ethical decisions based on the organization, community, and our own ethics. I think all of this is easier said than done. I think to be a great PR practicioner it will take many years of guidance to and experience to decide which of the approaches would be the best one under certain circumstances. Ethics is simply the study of right and wrong behavior, in a crazy world, we have to remember that we must keep these above all other things like money and profit.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Dallas Cowboys

I think that what the Cowboys did was inhumane in 1998, in no way does violence justify playing football. I think if we had more details about the issue with Irvin more could be concluded. On the PR side I can not believe that one person did not leak, that is amazing trust in an organization.

Appiah's Cosmopolitanism

According to the Hoover Instituition, Cosmopolitans acknowledge that we sometimes must give the local and our loved ones an extra measure of concern because it may be the only practical way to do good in the world. But they nevertheless insist that our identities as human beings, first and foremost, place real and substantial demands upon us. We cannot think our own parents and children are better than or superior to anyone else’s parents and children, even if we can be justified in loving one set more than the next. In Appiah's Cosmoplitanism, we SHOULD be aware of our what is going on throughout our entire supply chain, even if it is in another country. In a so called "global economy", why are more companies not looking into these problems more in depth. I think that it is about time that companies such as GM step up to the plate. I personally would have never thought that that far down the chain, slavery and no wage workers still exist. I think it is sad that pig iron is in such high demand in the US that so many children and adults are losing their life...It is becuase of us in America and all the money we have that our economy is in a sense supporting these horrible work conditions.

iphone and Steve Jobs

I think that Apple has estblished an overall great brand and have branded themselves as unique and have created revolutionary products over the past decade. I do not think all of this could have been possible without Steve Jobs participation, although we know that he has also created problems as well. As far as the new iphone situation is considered, I think it is safe to say that both sides of the issue have a very good standpoint. People like Apple and their products because they are different. You can't simply walk into any random store and buy all of their products. I know that I bought a nano over 2 years and love it, then last semester bought the MacBook for adobe and all the great features it has. I think that Apple is quality, and consumers like the products not only because of the usability but because the atmosphere in the brick and mortar stores. When they first presented the iphone in January, Apple used lots of hype and reeally put the product on a pedastool, so when the original price came out, consumers somewhat expected the price to be steep at first. As with any technology prices change. I do not think what Apple did was completley unfair and bad stewardship but simply not a well thought out plan. I think Steve Jobs could have made his letter to the consumers a little more understanding and not so blunt. What he said is true of the technology world, but he could have put a little more heart into it. i think Apple did the appropraite thing and gave a rebate. From the PR standpoint, the iphone issue could have been handled better. I think that the bottom line to the situation is that corprate America's first and foremost goal is to make a profit. Apple took advantage of their loyal customers and made a profit. I do not think this situation will have a huge effect on customers considering once the price dropped more and more iphones were sold!

Yea, I finally found my Blog!

Dr. Lambiase, I started a new blog because I can not find the one I started a few weeks ago, I have a few and got them all mixed up with passwords and so on...So here is my new one!