On the Job Communicating at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Preparing a Case Analysis

¶ … JOB: Case analysis

Problem Identification:

Malaria is a killer in many parts of the world and it specifically affects a large population of young children around the globe. I need to write a report that would inform the public about the threat that malaria poses to lives and health of millions of people who due to lack of better health facilities and treatment are dying unnecessarily. These lives could have been protected had better services been available to these people. Bill Gates foundation has undertaken the task of reaching out to this underprivileged population globally. I need to write a report which can be downloaded from the website but before they do so, I need them to know about the significance of the report so the people wouldn't download it without knowing what it contains.

Since people from various walks of life visit the Bill Gates foundation website, I am not sure of the target audience. They can be NGO workers, students, philanthropists etc. belonging to different educational backgrounds and hence the only thing that would connect them is a real concern for people's health in underprivileged areas of the world. Hence I need to write the report using a professional yet simple language so everyone can easily digest the facts and understand the gravity of the issue.

Alternatives:

I have various alternatives available to me to make the report pertinent and easily readable to everyone who is genuinely interested in the issue of Malaria.

1. For one, to attract the right audience and to make sure they understand the seriousness of the issue, the report must have a catchy title. This title should indicate very succinctly the purpose of the report. Some suggestions include: Many lives that could have been- Malaria a major predator or Malaria Taking lives-Unnecessarily

2. The report should first present a brief abstract to everyone who wishes to download the file.

3. An email address should be inserted in the PDF file so users who are genuinely interested can contact the writer

4. Users can indicate their email address voluntarily before downloading in case they need to get some updates

5. A short form can be filled out by users indicating their profession so we can get information on demographics of users mostly downloading such reports

Evaluation of Alternatives

All the above alternatives can be used either independently or in combination with other alternatives. For example along with email insertion, a short form can also be introduced before download to get some general demographic information for future use or simply to get an idea of the audience for future reports.

Similarly a synopsis can either be added above the report to give an idea of what the report contains or an abstract can be flashed on the screen before downloading process starts.

We can also ask users to specifically contact us with comments on the report because these comments can help in formulating future reports and making them more relevant and informational. We must understand that more than one alternative can be easily used because they would all help in getting feedback on this current report and in the formulation of future reports.

Recommendations:

It is extremely important for writers to know who they are writing for. Once we know who the target audience is, we can form our reports. So far no mechanism exists to get this information through website downloads but this can be resolved with the introduction of a short form asking for user's email address, age and profession. That would enable us to better understand the audience who is mostly downloading such informational reports.

Report writing is a seirous business especially for this foundation because we need to distribute resources according to the gravity of a problem. We thus need to inform the public about the seriousness of an issue through informational reports which must be targeted to the people mostly genuinely interested in these subjects.