This paper presents an audience analysis for a business presentation proposing the development of a company intranet. It defines what an intranet is relative to the broader Internet, identifies the primary audience (company managers) and secondary audience (technical staff), and examines their differing levels of technical knowledge and distinct interests in the project. The paper also outlines the proposed presentation format and articulates the central persuasive purpose: demonstrating that a corporate intranet can offer both privacy and the connectivity benefits of the Internet for internal management communication.
Unlike the Internet, an intranet is a hub within the larger World Wide Web that involves connections among local rather than national or international sources and people. This project would involve the creation of a corporate, in-house intranet enabling the sharing of data, files, and emails among management staff. Intranets are also not typically accessible to a large network of external users. Because the project would involve the creation of an in-house corporate intranet for management alone, it would enable company members to communicate more efficiently, with greater safety and protection than would be possible on the public Internet.
The primary audience of the presentation — the company managers — would be interested in how the corporate intranet could improve employee communication. These managers are the members of the company for whom the intranet would be developed, and it would exist for their collective convenience. Although they may not possess a high level of interest in the technological details of development, they would be engaged by an explanation of the protocols governing the intranet's use, as well as by persuasive arguments emphasizing the project's usefulness and security.
The secondary audience would consist of the company's technical staff, who would be responsible for the project's implementation. This audience would need to work through the logistical and troubleshooting tasks involved in actually developing the intranet. While they might not require a basic overview of what an intranet is, they would still need to understand the primary purpose behind constructing one in this context.
Both audiences, therefore, would have a significant personal stake in the presentation, even though they would bring different levels of technical knowledge to it. Some managers might be concerned that they lack the technical proficiency to operate certain data-storage or file-sharing components of the intranet. If encouraged to raise these concerns in a question-and-answer format, members of the technical staff — the secondary audience — could become aware of those concerns and begin to address them directly.
Given the needs of both audiences, the proposed presentation would be organized into the following four parts:
1. An explanation of why an intranet is needed. 2. An explanation of what the intranet is and how it works. 3. How it would resolve current and potential management communication problems. 4. A question-and-answer session.
"Outlines the four-part presentation plan"
"States the central persuasive goal of the proposal"
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