2/01/2011

 

The topic of this class was leadership and dealing with a crisis. Please read the summary below and the homework assignment at the bottom.

 

Akiva presented a crisis caused by a crack in the dome that envelopes the main living quarters of Atlantis-2. His action as a leader included broadcasting the situation to all locations. It was decided that the message should not try to calm people down by telling them that there is no danger, but rather telling them the truth about the damage and that the danger is being evaluated by the engineering crew, with periodic updates as new information becomes available. The engineering crew is dispatched immediately. When the damage was estimated as severe, the evacuation of all personell that is not directly involved with the repair effort is announced. The specially trained emergency officers take measures to prevent panic and organize orderly evacuation, children and mothers first. The evacuation proceeded smoothly because of regular emergency drills and well defined emergency procedures presented as posters on the walls in public places. Because of Akiva's excellent management effort, the colony is well prepared for emergencies and when the crisis came, the danger for people was minimized.

 

Dan's crisis included a danger from the Giant Robot Monkeys, inhabitants of Neptune. In dealing with the crisis, he heavily relied on technology, especially biotechnology, represented by super dolphins capable of restraining the Monkeys and even turning them into allies.

 

In Caoilin's crisis, a man became psychotic due to nitrogen narcosis to which he was especially susceptible. He was hallucinating and became violent and presented danger to himself; his wife and children, whom he could not even recognize; and the rest of the colony. Caoilin summoned Dr. Bob Smith, a renowned psychiatrist, and instructed him to provide psychological help to those members of the colony who were traumatized by the sick man's behavior. At the same time, a crew of paramedics were dispatched to immobilize the man and deliver him urgently to the hospital on the surface for further treatment.

Caoilin, Adina, and Akiva also presented and role-played a crisis of a different nature. One of the government employees, a Robot Monkey from Neptune played by Caoilin, who recently became a citizen of Atlantis-2, encountered racist and xenophobic attitude from her boss played by Adina, who did not like "people with silver skin." The senior manager, played by Akiva, needed to resolve the situation. His first impulse was to interrogate the manager and, if found guilty as charged, fire her. After analyzing the situation, however, he decided to find out, by talking with both the manager and the employee, whether some kind of understanding between the two can be reached, whether they can find a way to work together, whether the manager can and should be educated on racial tolerance, and so on, looking for a way to save the situation rather than losing a valuable worker and replacing her with someone who needs prolonged training. Of course, if everything else failed, the xenophobic manager should be replaced. We also considered special events that would expose people of different cultures to each other to reduce prejudice and improve understanding and tolerance.

I video recorded the role-playing, at least I thought I did. Unfortunately, I apparently pushed the Record button twice, and there is no record to post here. What a shame.

 

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT:

 

The next class will be our last one. Of all topics we could still discuss, of all sciences we could still consider, the science of marketing was chosen for this class. The major idea of the class was to expose the participants to as wide a variety of scientific models of reality as possible, and marketing is one of the major activities any project requires. At the beginning, we had to market our plans to investors. Now, when the colony is established, we need to raise money by selling our products or services. For our last class, we need to design and implement a marketing campaign for our colony as a tourist attraction.

Many people think that marketing is the same as advertising. In fact, advertising is just a part of marketing, preceded by a number of major steps and decisions. Those decisions can be divided into two groups: strategic and tactical. Strategic decisions have a long-lasting effect and cannot be easily abandoned, whereas tactical decisions are less serious and could be changed easily if found "suboptimal" (a corporate euphemism for wrong). Among the strategic decisions are: the product (what we sell), segmentation and targeting (to whom we sell), branding (how our potential buyers will remember us), positioning (how we want our potential buyers to perceive us) and price. Tactical decisions include how and where to advertise, which distribution channels to use, etc.

Product: Our goal is to market our colony as a tourist attraction. Therefore, our product is tourism. That may include such services as excursions, participation in our working activities, lectures and presentations, and, of course, we need to establish a tourist infrastructure - hotels, restaurants, souvenirs, etc.

Segmentation: We can market our services to all of humanity, but marketing to different subsets of the population will be different. We may identify the following segments:

• Rich individuals who are ready to pay for expensive tickets for new exotic experiences or for bragging rights ("I could afford it, and others can't!")
• Middle-class individuals who can go for discounted trips (e.g. comfort but no luxury)
• Scientific establishments who are ready to pay for an opportunity to do research (scientific tourism)
• Sportsmen and sport organizations that would come to us for training (e.g. scuba divers)
• Children, teenagers, young people, middle-aged people, and senior citizens
• Males and females
• Whoever else you can think of

SEGMENTATION

Targeting: After identifying segments of our potential customers, we need to decide which segment (or segments) we are going to target with our marketing campaign. This will define how we position ourselves. For example, we may be seen as a world of adventure and risk to attract young males or as an edutainment facility to attract families with children during summer vacations.

TARGETING

Positioning: The choice of a target influences our positioning decisions. A good example could be to compare two restaurants, McDonalds and Restaurant Le Train Bleu in Paris, France. Both restaurants sell the same product, namely ready-for-consumption food, but target different segments and position themselves differently.

McDonalds has adjusted it's demographic orientation (targets) over the years and they have changed focus a hundred times. During the late 80's McDonalds went after seniors with ads with old people, and during the early 90's they ran a campaign for young urban professionals. Currently, McDonalds targets many segments, including low income people living within the poverty level, as well as children, teenagers and people who are in a hurry (with drive-in service). They position themselves as a fast-food chain that sells inexpensive food and is available wherever you feel hungry. Inexpensively looking interior design, the kitchen in the open view, standard "meals" - all this adds to the intended image. No surprises, the food and interior would be the same anywhere on Earth.

 

Le Train Bleu is an expensive luxurious restaurant catering to rich tourists and business people. It positions itself as a place which not everybody can afford, where you are guaranteed a certain class of people, excellent service, great choice, tasty food, and something to write home about.

Branding: McDonalds provides a great example of branding. A ubiquitous golden M on red - you can't forget it no matter how hard you try.

 

Below are a few tourist ads targeted to different segments of population. Try to figure out which is for which:

 

As homework, please design a brief marketing campaign for tourism in our colony. Besides advertisement, be ready to explain your strategic decisions, especially targeting and positioning.

Dear parents, I would highly encourage you to help you children with this assignment.

 

I look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday.

-Valéry

 

 

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