DON'T GO WITHOUT IT

PooPouri, don't go without it. We have all gone into a bathroom and immediately turned around to find another bathroom because of the foul odors that was emanating from the back of that deep dark  dungeon. These times can be very embarrassing especially when you walk out and someone walks in at the same time and being blown over by the smell and thinking it was you. How about when visiting a friends house and dropping a bomb in the guest bath and the fan doesn't work, or you leave the fan on when leaving and hoping it sucks up the paint peeling odors that you left behind. All of this can be put behind you with the great product of PooPouri.

This add would follow under a few of Marvell and Schmitt's Taxonomy influence Tactics. To avoid the Negative Esteem of others you would use this product so no one would think bad of you because of the lingering odors. This would also fall into the Positive expertise of the influence tactics by believing her when she said that no one would believe of the mother load that she just dropped. How about the tactic of Positive Self-feeling. By using this product you will feel good about yourself after you flush and with confidence go out and wash your hands instead of waiting for everyone to leave the public bathroom before leaving your stall so that no one will see who dropped the bomb. Positive alter-casting would come into effect with this also, because smart people would always be prepared so as to overcome embarrassing moments. We all respect those who do not have a smelly butt and that is where Positive Esteem of Others would come into play here.

Through this infomercial we see it touches on a few of the process premise. First of Packards "compelling needs"  we come away with a sense of power by being able to leave the bathroom with the knowledge that we had control over the situation. We can leave the stall feeling happiness/joy and a sense of pride by being able to "Drop the mother load " and no one being the wiser.

This infomercial did a good job by bringing out the need of their product. It was done in a humorous way but touched on many needs of having such a product on hand. This looks like it would be a good product to have on hand. Its a bit bulky, whereas a woman can hide it in her purse a man would have a hard time concealing a can of PooPouri in his pocket. With that being said, for a bottle of 100 flushes the cost is $9.95. That's just under ten cents a flush, what a bargain. Don't go without it, Please don't go without it.

Out of Class Hip-Pocket

Work, work, and more work. For my out of class presentation,  I chose to talk to all the employees of Custom Finish Cabinets. Willing or not, they were my audience for my presentation as they had no choice because this was going to be a company wide meeting, and as manager it fell to me to let everyone know of the changes we are making. For the past few years we have been steadily getting busier and busier. At the first of the year we added a second shift to stay on top of the work orders of just our main eight contractors. The rest of the work we get we turn down.

A few months ago the owner and I sat down and discussed many aspects of the company. At this time I told the owner that we needed more room. The day shift crew are practically on top of one another in the shop. We have little room to move around when each division/area is doing their part of the job. I didn't want to raise our overhead after buying the building last year. I have another cabinet shop renting out the back half of our building and didn't want to loose on that income, but we needed more room. After much thought we decided to add about five thousand feet onto the back of our building and in doing so, we will take over half of the back building and have our renters keep the back half plus the new addition which will give them the same square footage as before. In doing so I keep my renters and increase my shop by five thousand feet with very little increase in overhead.

In my presentation I shut down the whole shop and had everyone gather around one of our big work tables. I explained that we are going to make a few changes in the shop. At this time I informed that we are adding on to the shop. I went down a list of changes that are going to take place over the next six months. The spray booth will be moved into the new area as well as setting up the older and smaller spray booth next to it so we can have both booths running at the same time. We are moving the boxing table (where we assemble the cabinets) into the new area also. I informed them that by moving these two divisions into the new area that it will increase the room in the front of the shop. With this extra space we are planning on getting a new machine by the end of the year. With this new machine we will be able to build a european type cabinet. This will increase our diversity in building these type of cabinets, where as if someone wants euro instead of face frame cabinets we would sub it out to a cabinet shop across the street. By doing this we can keep everything in house.

This presentation turned out to be just another meeting that we have every three to four months. It was very easy for me to present this information due to the fact that only I had this information and to the fact that I was their boss. By being their boss it gave me an advantage over those I was presenting to. The setting was informal which put me at ease in conveying this information. I used a sketch to show all the employees the new layout of the shop once the addition was completed. At this time I asked for feedback on the new layout of the shop. I have always found this to be a good thing to do for two reasons. First it gives the employees some sense of ownership and say in the shop, even if we don't go with the ideas that were mentioned. The second is a different perspective. At times I will have a thought of how I think things will work best, but then someone may come from a different frame of mind and see something that I overlooked.

In looking back I felt I did a good job in getting the information across to the employees. At the end I asked everyone how I did on the presentation. I received great reviews, which I believed were biased due to fact that earlier in the meeting I thanked everyone for working so hard and putting in a lot of hours to get these jobs done and out on time. In thanking them I handed out a fifty dollar bill to each employee and told them to take their wife out to dinner. Looking back on this I should have given them the questionnaire before I handed out the bonuses. I know from these presentations that I have done so far that if you know the information, I mean really know the information then you will not have to try to remember this information because you know it deep down inside, it's apart of you. By really knowing this information you will be able to focus all your attention on the audience and direct your presentation around them and not trying to remember what you have to say next. The more you present the better you become. There are many areas that I can improve on and by focusing on the information that I have learned in my studies and from others in class I will be able to check and better myself each time I present.

Most Inportant Life Lesson For All

As I sit at my desk studying for my next test and paper for my summer classes, I look around and see that I have become an Applevillian. Through a hard choice I made years ago, I have slowly surrounded myself with Apple technology and enjoy each of them. My first purchase was the purchase of my IMac. This was a very difficult choice at the time because my IMac was almost double the price of a competing PC. After biting the bullet and having PB&J sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a long time, I know I made the right choice. Since then I have bought a couple IPads for my wife and I. Santa delivered IPods to my big girls a couple years ago. My older children with my wife and I all have IPhones, which is the only phone that has lasted over eight to ten months in my position over the last twenty years. (I am really hard on phones) Yes, I love Apple technology and the ease that all my gadgets sync with one another. This is all due to a young man at the age of twenty who chased after his dream.

Steve Jobs lived an amazing life. Like all people he had challenges and successes throughout his life. He started life as an orphan and was taken in by a loving family that raised him. When he was twenty his best friend and him created the first Apple computer in his parents garage. In a few short years Apple was a multi billion dollar company. Due to differences in the direction of the company, Steve was fired from Apple. (A Brick in the Head)  Over the next few years Steve started over and created companies like Next and Pixar. He fell in love with a beautiful woman and got married. Shortly after Apple bought Next and Steve returned to Apple and through hard work Steve became the C.E.O. of the company he started.

Under Steve's direction Apple has become the front runner in computer technology throughout the world. He changed the music business by getting rid of the bulky Walkman tape and CD players when Apple introduced the IPod. Downloading music was born and Cd's were put into the pasture. Next came the IPhone that tied cellular phones to computers. Then the laptop, MacBook pro. Then came the IPad, which changed the laptop industry forever. Now Apple has come out with the Apple watch which Steve put in the works years ago. With all these breakthroughs Steve had many trials, but through hard work and perseverance he was able to over come all. That was until he was told that he had cancer and had only a short time to live. As with everything else in his life, he fought hard to overcome this brick that had hit him in the head, but in the end he was unable to overcome this trial. He passed away October 5, 2011 leaving a legacy behind that has changed the world.

The Triumphant Individual is one of Reich's Cultural Parables that Steve Jobs clearly fits into. As stated above, Steve was the little guy that worked hard and took risks and in the end it paid off. He went against the big boys, Hewlett Packer and IBM and bucked the normal approach towards computers and stuck to his guns and came out ahead. Through the trials in his life he plunged on toward his dream and never took his eye off the ball. The ball may have changed from time to time, but his eye was always on the ball. He stayed true to himself and never compromised in his ideals which made him a maverick in the computer industry. By never giving up and sticking to his ideals Steve was able to reach his dreams and change the computer industry forever.

The process of premise in this speech would be Behavioral influences. In this speech Steve explains his behavior through the good times and hard times. Where this speech is a more motivational speech where Steve basically tells us to not give up and to follow your dreams, we are encouraged to behave likewise. Throughout his speech we also come under the Emotional influences of Steve's trials and accomplishments. We see or feel his emotion towards his wife when he mentions her and his family, and in hearing these emotions we also create an emotional response to the speech. By having this emotional response it causes some type of validity to what Steve says because we feel it and hear it.

Throughout Steve's talk he focuses on one thing, don't give up. we must not give up when trials come our way, because whey will. We must be prepared and stand strong and keep our eye on the ball. Steve said "Sometimes life can hit you in the head with a brick, don't loose faith." One of my daughters say's it this way "DON'T QUIT", Don't quit, do it. It's all about how we want to live our life. Are we going to get up after we fall or stay on the ground in the dirt and get stepped over? It's up to each of us. Are you ready?

It's our city. Let's fix it

As I look out my window at the waining light brought on by dusk at the end of the day and see children playing up and down the street on their razors and roller blades chasing others on bikes, laughing and having a good time. I think to myself it's great to be alive and live in a great community where I feel safe. Then I remember that my wife told me earlier that a teenage boy was struck down and killed by a truck less than twenty four hours ago walking down a dark street at night. I think to myself, could that accident have been prevented if there was more lights on the street or was the driver distracted? Either way this brings up a an issue with the local communities with there light pollution clauses in their city ordinances.

Alessandra Orofino talked about how we can make changes in our cities in her talk "It's our city. Let's fix it." She states that there are three aspects of city life. First, Citizens willingness to engage. Second, Cities need to include all of it's residents. Third, Our own ability to live happy and fulfilling lives. Now think for a minute, Is your city doing this for you?

Alessandra uses many of Larsen's Cultural Myths in her discourse to get her message across. First she used the wisdom of the rustic myth by stating statistics of the voting throughout certain countries and America. In municipal voting in certain cities like Los Angeles, the statistics were very low. Out of four million residents only two hundred thousand voted for their mayor. In the mid to late eighties we had the highest voting ever recorded. Since then the the voting has rapidly declined.

Another of Larsen's Cultural Myth that she used is The Value of Challenge.  She does this by challenging us to become more active in our communities.  She encourages people to be actively involved in their community and that they are empowered to make the necessary changes in their community. They do not to sit on the sidelines and wait for the elections to come every two years before they make these changes.  As a people in the community we have the strength and the power to make any changes.

Orofino uses the sense of power as a process of premise. She does this by explaining that we the people have the power to make a change at any time we need. She also uses the sense of roots as she describes  her childhood living in Rio and the choices she had to make while growing up. This is also accomplished when she describes the works she is doing in her native state of Rio to help make the change.

At the end of her presentation, she uses another cultural myth, "The Eternal Return".  She states that if we are active in our communities, to make the changes that are necessary, we will be able to achieve the three aspects of city life.  We will be able to look out our window and see our neighborhood families and children happily living in harmony with one another.  It is up to us.  We are ready.

woo hoo I did it