ENGL 3130: Business Writing

Professor:If you've never met a professor you might wonder what we do. We do research, write grant applications, write articles and books, review colleagues' work, give public presentations, participate in university governance, and teach (distill hundreds of books and articles into syllabi, create quizzes and tests, assign papers, offer feedback, grade, write letters of recommendation, design new classes). Most of the professors you will meet care deeply about teaching. They just wish they had more time for it. Remember there's a difference between learning and being entertained. Remember also that you don't have to like someone to learn from them. Dr. George Pullman
Office address: 2424, 25 Park Place
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You may also make an appointment, office, Skype/FaceTime, coffee shop.

On Problem Solving and Business Proposals

What is a business proposal?

A business proposal is a document that accurately defines a problem and proposes a viable solution so convincingly that a reader would want to buy the product and invest in the company.

The format of a business proposal is the same regardless of the content:

1. Problem: Describe the problem by stating the facts and explaining the causes or contributing factors
2. Solution: Prove your solution solves the problem to the satisfaction of those involved

You might start with the problem or you might start with the solution.

If you go to work as a writer for a company, chances are they already sell a product as a solution to a known problem and your job is to help people see the solution as the best possible solution. In such cases you need to know what the competition is offering, how your company's product differs, how to highlight your superiorities and spin the inferiorities. In each of these areas of knowledge, it would help if you also had deep knowledge of the problem, the experiences of suffering from or dealing with such problems, and what its like to use each of the available solutions to such problems.

It sometimes happens that the problem is understood and a solution exists but those suffering don't know they have a problem. In these cases the people's understanding is as much of a problem as the problem itself, and so your solution will have to include both whatever solves the problem and whatever education or propaganda is required to make sure the person uses the solution and uses it correctly. See, for example, Don't mess with Texas.

Sometimes the problem isn't clearly defined and so the best possible solutions are as yet unknown. In these cases you need to research the problem, discover what kind of problem it is, what causes it or what factors contribute to it. You also need to know how the problem is experienced, so you can understand how best to sell the solution once you've found it. In that case, you need to interview people, observe them as they experience the problem, use questionnaires, gather data and analyze it to understand what impact the problem is having. Researching both the problem and the people who have it can lead to both the solution and the best way to sell the solution.

Before you write a business proposal you need to do a lot of research. You need to understand the problem and how that problem is experienced. In the corporate world, a lot of different people with various job descriptions contribute directly to a business proposal. There are the scientists and or the engineers. There are the programmers and the industrial design experts. There are also social scientists, people who spend there time learning everything there is to know about clients and potential clients as well as marketers and competitor analysts.

In the entrepreneurial world, often one person or a small group of like-minded people do most of the research, analyze the problem, test possible solutions, learn about all of the people who have the problem or profit from existing solutions, and so on, everything they need to know in order to bring a solution to market successfully.

Questions you need to answer

1. what type of problem is it? (see list below, also, see template)
2. what causes it or what factors are catalysts for it?
3. what solutions or interventions might break the chain of cause to effect or alter the effects of the various catalysts?
4. what are the consequences of leaving the problem unsolved?
5. who has the problem and what is it like to have it?
   how aware of the problem are the relevant people, how well do they understand it, and how motivated are they to solve it (or buy a solution)?
6. are there any existing solutions?
   if there are, then can you improve on any of them or make their existence better understood (education) or wider known (publicity)?
7. if there are no solutions yet, why not?
8. what are your existing resources (knowledge, time, budget, etc..) and what resources are you willing or wanting to develop?
   1. how can you prove your solution works?
   2. how much will your solution cost to produce?
   3. how much will it cost to promote?
   4. how much will it cost to maintain and support?
   5. what is your break-even point?
   6. what is the opportunity cost? (time and money spent on this instead of something else)
9. who is your audience for this business proposal and what do you want from them (prospective clients, potential investors, both?)

Once you have answered all of these questions, assuming you still have a viable solution, then write up the proposal in a problem/solution format that will make it clear to the intended audience (clients, investors) that what you propose is a viable solution to the problem as they understand it. The business proposal is not a travelogue of your journey to the solution. Rather, it is a business proposition: that's broken; this fixes it.

So the first question is, "What kind of problem is this?". Misunderstanding the nature of a problem is a first step in the wrong direction. The following taxonomy of problems might help you anticipate and adjust your thinking before you commit resources.

Types of problems

The following list of problems is not hierarchical, simplest to most complex. If you do all your professional problem-solving in a specific field, then chances are most of your problems will be of one type. If you are a social worker, for example, you will find nearly no deterministic problems related to your social work. If you are a mechanical engineer or a plumber or a mechanic or a gardener, most of your problems will be deterministic however complicated. If you are in insurance or medicine or finance or business analytics, you will deal mostly with stochastic (probabilistic) problems. In your personal life (how you live and the opinions you have), you will encounter every kind of problem and so knowing which kind is which will be helpful. The worst mistakes you can make come from mistaking a probabilistic problem for a causal one. Don't buy a ¢10 solution to a $25 dollar problem. Don't accept a permanent solution to a temporary problem either. The solution needs to fit the problem. And sometime, the best solution is to wait and see.

• Deterministic (aka mechanistic) -- single cause to known effect problems enable solutions with a single predictable outcome. Do X and Y will necessarily happen. If there there are multiple contributing factors rather than a single cause, then unless you can deal successfully with all of the factors, a single predictable outcome is very unlikely. Finding the cause is only possible in settings where phenomenon behave predictably, like the rate of gravitational acceleration or the flow of water through an aperture, or the stopping point of a loop defined by $i = 0; while $i < 100. Truly deterministic problems are quite rare outside of science, computer science, engineering, and axiomatic practices like formal logic and math. Most of the time we have to live in places where we know there are no known rules. Sometimes we have "laws" like Moore's law, predictions that have held true for long enough to garner confidence, but even those "laws" are subject to unforeseen changes that might render them irrelevant. Often the desire to solve a problem leads people to describe the problem in simplistic ways and thus recommend or legislate a deterministic "solution" to a non-deterministic problem. When that happens, problems proliferate. Prohibition didn't solve alcoholism and domestic violence but it did create racketeering and fast cars and boats, among many other things.
  Examples of deterministic (cause/effect/solution) problems
  1. the garage door opener won't open the garage door
  2. your computer won't connect to the internet
  3. cracks in the dry wall (a cosmetic solution will likely do because stabilizing a foundation is too expensive a solution for a crack in the dry wall)
  4. you ran out of money before payday
  5. a tire leaking air
  6. cold draft blowing under a door
  7. gun violence (?) -- if no guns, then no gun violence, but that's a big if
  8. illegal immigration (?) -- would a wall (assuming it could be built) stop (all) people from getting here without the government knowing they were here?)
• Stochastic -- or probabilistic problems have multiple possible outcomes, each with its own probability of occurring. There may be a single cause, but more often there are multiple contributing factors or catalysts, conditions that encourage but don't cause something to happen. Cause: when this, then that. Catalyst: if this then 30% that, 70% that.
  Weather forecasting is a common example of stochastic problem-solving. Should we have the picnic this Saturday? Medical interventions are another classic example. The correct procedure performed correctly won't guarantee the intended outcome. Any given person might respond better or worse to the therapy even if the therapy is performed flawlessly. Insurance companies and the loan industry are also examples of businesses that solve stochastic problems. What are the chances of person A defaulting on a loan (or crashing a car)? Well, what can you learn about person A, their income, employment history, home life stability, age, gender, habits, hobbies, etc... And what is the default (or crash) rate of people like this person? The higher the rate, the greater the risk, the more profit you need to make on each bet and the higher the price of your product. If a problem is stochastic, you need to determine the probability of a range of possible outcomes and offer solutions based on those probabilities. If you get the probabilities right, you will "win" more than you will "lose". But you won't know with any certainty if any given case will be a winner or a loser.
  Examples of stochastic (probabilistic) problems
  1. investment strategies
  2. health and well being regimens
  3. real-estate investment
  4. education (?)
  5. gun violence (?)
  6. illegal immigration(?)

  Deterministic VS Stochastic

  Keep in mind that how you frame a problem goes a long way to deciding what kind of solution you will pursue. Let's say you live in a cold climate. In the winter, it's cold in your house and your heating bill seems high. You look around and you see a situation like the one depicted in the image on the left. And you think, cold air must be getting in. You stand there and you feel a draft. So you go to a home goods store a buy a 5 dollar felt solution.

  

  Problem solved? Maybe. If there are other places where cold air is getting in and, more importantly, if warm air is escaping through the roof, then you need to do some more work and spend some more money. You can't live in an air tight space, but you can make a space much more efficient and get your heating bill down. Assuming the cost of heat seals and insulation doesn't exceed the excess heating costs, you've solved your problem. If you were renting this house, weren't planning to stay, you would by the 5 dollar felt solution (because the draft was a constant, felt, annoyance) and suffer the rest, or pester the landlord, but you wouldn't insulate the roof, unless you were hyper-aware of energy waste and had money to burn, as it were. The weight of the solution would outweigh the weight of the problem.

  So here we have a slightly complex but nevertheless mechanistic problem. The cause of the excessive bill is a drafty house. There are many drafty spaces and no way to make everything completely air tight, but there's just the one cause and a limited number of plausible solutions, each of which would get you close enough for comfort.

  One way to decide if a situation deterministic or stochastic is to predict what the outcome of an intervention will be. If you are certain that a specific action will necessarily lead to a specific outcome, you have a deterministic situation. When this, then that. If, on the other hand, the outcome of a given intervention isn't certain, then the situation is stochastic. When this, then that or that or that. A third alternative is a complex contingency: if this, then that or that or that. In this abstract example there's a probability of the "if" as well as a probability for each "that."

  In situations where multiple outcomes are possible, you have to plan for each based on its probability of happening weighted against how significant its happening will be. If you want to think far ahead, you need a plan for each possible branch of possible futures.

  If the chances are small but the results catastrophic, double check your "math" and try not to dwell on it. If the result is catastrophic and the chances greater than small, get insurance, develop a recovery plan. You should have a set of next steps for each of the possible outcomes, a set of if/then plans. Our worst problems occur when we are so focused on a single outcome that when the unexpected happens we don't know what to do.

  You also need to plan for the probability of the occurrence of the event on which the various outcomes depend. If if never happens, then what?

  If you have multiple causes or contributing factors but the list is finite and you can address each one effectively, then you have a very complex but deterministic problem. If you have a single cause and a single solution but only a probability of that solution actually solving the problem, then you have a simple but stochastic problem. If you have multiple possible solutions each with its own probability, then you have a complex stochastic problem and if there are multiple contributing factors with varying degrees of effect and multiple solutions addressing different elements but not others, then you've got a complex stochastic problem.

  If you have no way of determining causes or relationships among elements or predicting the probability of possible outcomes, if every time you do something everything changes, you have a wicked problem.

• Wicked -- problems that have formal instabilities, multiple interrelated, dynamic, and sometimes conflicting contributing factors, imprecise definitions of key terms, and contradictory information that make even probabilistic thinking impossible. All of our social problems are wicked problems in the sense that there are no simple solutions no matter how tempting simplicity might seem. Scientific testing in such uncontrollable situations is unethical even if it might offer hope of discovery. Perhaps the greatest problem with wicked problems is that they may not seem wicked at first. Oversimplification and arrogance, as well as just plain ignorance, will lead people to mistake a wicked problem for a deterministic one and the consequences are almost always disastrous.

  Consider the relationship between education and poverty on the one hand and food and hunger on the other. If you feed a hungry person, they are no longer hungry. Cause to effect. If there were enough food for every mouth, there would be no hunger. But there is enough food to go around, it just doesn't get around. Logistics are part of the problem, but so is politics. If the world got together and said we will solve world hunger, hunger would be solved. But of course it's not that simple. Many of the resources, people, equipment, and so on that would be needed to solve hunger are currently being used for other needs, many of which make money for a lot of people who aren't hungry, who don't know anyone who is, and don't care. So the simple causal problem/solution hunger/food ceases to be a causal problem once more than a few mouths are involved.

  Now consider education/poverty. Generally speaking, the more education a person has, the more money they can make. But the relationship between education and income isn't causal. For one thing, there are people with advanced degrees who can't make a living because they insist on teaching at a university. And there are people who dropped out of college and become billionaires: Mark Zukerberg, for example, and Bill Gates. The relationship between education and income isn't causal. It is correlative, as one increases, so the other tends to, but it may not and there are many, many reasons why income will or won't increase as education does in any given case. A person who eats is no longer hungry, but a person who graduates may or may not make money, may make some but spend more or he might get sick and thus be forced into poverty. Worse, the relationship between education and income isn't one way. Poverty may hamper or even in some cases disable education. And some forms of education might lead some people to impose poverty on others as a form of moral punishment. The problem isn't just correlation instead of causation. We don't agree on what education is or how to give it or even to whom to give it.

  What about homelessness? If homelessness were a causal problem, just providing homes for the homeless would solve their problems even though those problems are numerous, diverse, and persistent. It might seem ridiculous, even unethical, but there's evidence to suggest giving the homeless homes actually solves homelessness. Sometimes complexity is evidence of confusion or a conflict of values rather than actual complexity. I'm not saying homelessness is such a problem, only using it as an example of a problem that might be simpler than it appears. People often think that if something doesn't work the way they think it should, it must be broken when in fact they are just confused. Operator error and lousy design are more frequent problems than mechanical or computational failure.

  Examples of wicked problems
  1. obesity on a macro level
  2. addiction
  3. racism
  4. hunger
  5. poverty
  6. injustice
• Psychological -- problems that are the result of organic defects or problematic habits of mind: impairments, addictions, prejudices. These are complicated because they are "mental" problems that lead to "real" problems, ways of thinking that create phenomena (things); addiction can lead to debt and debt to criminality. There may be a cause to effect scenario here, or the effect and the cause may be interchangeable (self-fulfilling), or there may be no cause but rather multiple contributing factors and multiple solutions with various, probabilistic outcomes. Psychological problems are often wicked, and the ones that aren't are stochastic. There are very few, if any, psychological problems that have simple solutions at this point. We just don't understand how our brains work well enough yet to come close to cause/effect solutions. Minority Report is a splendid fantasy, but criminality algorithms are seriously problematic.
  Examples of psychological problems
  1. xenophobia
  2. depression
  3. low self-esteem
  4. over confidence
• Temporary -- If a problem of any kind has a temporal or contextual dimension, you need to consider the timing carefully. Some problems are transient (they will go away) and inconsequential, so a reasonable strategy is to wait until whatever it is passes. Other problems are transient but consequential, in which case you prepare to deal with the aftermath while you wait for the storm to pass.
  Examples of temporary problems
  1. power outage
  2. situational stress (exams, getting marries, serious health issues)
  3. down turn in the market
  4. age related conditions (adolescents, old age)
• Contingent -- problems that will arrive only if something else happens first. The likelihood of the precipitating event should influence how you think about contingencies. If the prior event is actually a chain of events, then you have to consider the likelihood of each event in the chain. Contingency thinking is sometimes referred to as if/then thinking. While you should plan a solution in advance of the precipitating event, if its arrival is likely, you shouldn't spend a lot of time actually trying to solve problems that aren't yet real because they may not become real (see worries problems below).
  Examples of contingent problems
  1. flooding along the lowest points in our coastlines
  2. finding an alternative if the goal can't be obtained -- the class you wanted is full before you can signup
  3. dealing with a profoundly negative or positive event, getting fired, winning the lottery
  4. premature death -- life insurance
• Manufactured -- problems created for the purpose of exploitation --

  advertising

  Examples of manufactured problems
  1. gear lust
  2. fashion -- apparel as self-expression was never a widespread problem until mechanization made cloth cheap
  3. scapegoats -- some people have argued that the temperance movement was really an anti-immigrant, anti-urbanization movement dressed up to look like moral outrage and public health concern. Alcohol wasn't a problem until xenophobia and power anxiety made it so.
  4. social media FOMO crazes
• Historical or legacy problems -- current conditions that were created in the past by events that can no longer be dealt with. The problem with historical problems is the tendency we have to focus on the cause when in fact we need to focus on consequences: the cause is over; the consequences persist. The solution to historical problems often takes the form of acceptance or accommodation or consolation rather than solution in the sense of restoring something to its original condition or starting over from scratch -- some legacies are irrevocable. Perhaps the greatest problem with historical problems is that their historical nature is hard to accept (or even see in some cases). We are generally inclined to inspect the barn door long after the horse left where as we should be looking for the horse -- that shit already happened; deal with it.
  Examples of legacy problems
  1. out-dated computer systems
  2. cultural lag
  3. global warming (?)
  4. bad vision -- before Lasik surgery and of course for everyone who doesn't want or can't get it, glasses are a great solution, but they don't fix your eyes, just your vision.
• Pain points, pinch points -- small problems that render a solution suboptimal. Most of the time a pain point can be adequately addressed by tweaking the solution, but sometimes the problem needs to be reframed, understood in a different way. A pain point may be a sign of a larger problem, in other words. Should you get a bigger belt or more exercise?
  Examples of pain points
  1. having to enter all your contact information when buying something with a credit card online -- Amazon's "one click" solution was brilliant
  2. weak phone batteries, infrequent electrical outlets
  3. monthly payments -- automatic withdrawal is a solution but one that might be problematic
  4. standing in a line -- surge pricing models are a kind of (bogus?) solution to waiting
  5. bad credit -- there are a lot of pseudo solutions to this pinch point, the underlying problem being not the score but the spending habits or necessities that led to the score.
• First world problems -- inconveniences, irritations, frustrations, longings, most of which are created by a super abundance of resources, primarily money and time. There is money to be made by catering to the rich.
  Examples of first world problems
  1. range anxiety (battery will run out before you get your Tesla home)
  2. no wi-fi
  3. GPS stress
  4. service complaints
  5. standing in a line to get on a Disney ride
  6. your kid ordering crap via Alexi
• Other people's -- if you don't have the problem and don't know much about the people who do, you shouldn't mix in. If you think you see an opportunity, you need to research the problem and the prospective population(s) carefully. What looks problematic may not be once you understand what's going on. As someone once said, "Only an idiot would try to solve someone else's problem."
  1. this list is endless
  2. it's here just to underscore the fact that you need to fully understand both the problem and the people involved
• Audience problems -- sometimes the problem and the solution are clear, but the prospects aren't receptive, in which case you have to focus on understanding your prospective clients, how they perceive the problem and the available solutions so that you can make better sense to them.
  1. denial -- real problems that people refuse to believe exist. The link between smoking and heart disease is a classic example of denial on a societal level. Long after the link was scientifically identified (1964), people continued to disbelieve because of addiction and the public relations efforts of financially interested parties. Conspiracy theories are a symptom of widespread denial. It is hard to sell a solution to people who don't believe they have a problem, and even harder to sell it to those who accept false theories and refuse to question their beliefs.
  2. worries -- "problems" created by fear of an anticipated but not inevitable (or even very likely) negative event. Before you look for a solution to your personal worries, you need to convince yourself that there is a real problem. A lot of business cases are based on "solving" worries, possible but currently only potential problems. Home security is a worries problem solution. If people are afraid, they will want to do something, even if that something is only minimally or even indirectly effective. Hence the prevalence security systems, which are minimally effective in protecting people and property but very effective in making people feel protected. When it comes to worries problems, the solution needs to address the emotional state of the prospect because fear is the real problem.
  3. misunderstandings -- there are many kinds of interpersonal problems caused by communication failures. Misunderstandings can best be solved by providing available information or more explicit instructions or by clarifying objectives and roles. Misunderstandings are also sometimes caused by differing assumptions about the world, human behavior and motivation, language, and culture
  4. ignorance -- some problems can be solved just by gathering (research) or distributing (teaching) new information. Some people suffer from malnutrition because they never learned about food and food preparation and so they eat junk and frequent restaurants. Other people suffer from malnutrition because they don't have enough money to get healthy food. Same condition, malnutrition, very different problems. If you have money and time, learning is a plausible solution to malnutrition. No amount of information about diet and vitamins will help if you live in a food desert.

Types of potentially good solutions

This list is sorted best to least preferred from a problem sufferer's perspective. From a solution provider's perspective, the list might be inverted, since that might garner increasing income. On the other hand, if the problem is one that can be fixed and a company just patching it, someone else might come along with a permanent fix and push the temps out of business. Every problem is a potential opportunity; every solution is a potential problem.

1. permanent -- problem solved
2. temporary -- solved for now, until fix wares off or problem recurs. A temporary solution isn't always a bad one; aspirin won't cure headache permanently, but if you don't have migraines or cluster headaches or a brain tumor, aspirin's a perfectly good fix.
3. periodic (subscription) (hiring a service, recurrent solution for recurrent problem -- periodic solution to a one-time problem is its own problem)
4. enduring solutions -- preparation, construction (materials and time) maintenance, opportunity costs, obsolescence, succession planning

Types of generally bad solutions

• overkill -- precision is desirable but not always achieved. If a problem is more complicated than our understanding of it, then we might choose a solution that does more than necessary to achieve our desired result. Prior to knowledge of infection, gangrene required amputation. If antibiotic resistant strains of disease arise, treatments long abandoned as overkill may become necessary again. Overkill is sometimes caused by panic, using a flame-thrower to wipe out a hornets' nest, sometimes by indifference or insensitivity.
• underkill -- don't buy a ¢10 solution to a $25 problem.
• cosmetic -- solutions that address the symptoms rather than cause or underlying condition; cold tablets on the one hand (best currently possible), larger jeans on the other (maybe they shrank ☺).
• pseudo -- imaginary solutions to real problems, typically created either because the purveyors don't really understand the underlying problem or can't be bothered to do the research required to find a real solution: bs, snake oil, DNA-based pseudo science, neuro plasticity brain training. A pseudo solution can "work" in the way a placebo works, or it can distract the sufferer successfully as the alcohol in snake oil might have, but it does not solve the problem.
• careless -- poorly thought out solutions that generate more problems. You can pluck a single gray hair. And you can pluck the next one. But inevitably plucking gray hairs leads to baldness.
• vicious -- a solution that perpetuates (often exacerbates) the problem it "solved" -- the addiction cycle.
• unnecessary -- don't fix what ain't broke
• regrettable -- any solution that makes the problem worse or creates terrible new problems.

Where do solutions come from?

1. Diagnosis -- symptom identification and testing
2. Trouble shooting -- trial and errors to locate cause
3. Hypothesis testing -- science
4. Information gathering interviews, surveys, literature review
5. Observation -- usability testing, anthropology,
6. Modeling -- prototype, test, fail, re-design, test, refine
7. Insight -- eureka, a sudden flash of understanding

Where do problems come from?

That may seem like an odd question because most people personally encounter the situations and conditions they want solved. But if you are looking for a way to make money, for new prospects for existing products or new problems to profit from solving, it makes sense to ask. You can start by asking yourself what's bothering you. You can also go places and watch people, so see what they are doing, what's frustrating them, what they aren't doing that they might be. And of course you can conduct interviews and surveys to find out what people are dealing with.

Worked example 1 -- the purely deterministic, cause/effect/soltion problem

Problem. Your electronic garage door opener only opens the door partway, then reverses itself. What kind of problem is this problem? Deterministic. Best approach: trouble shoot. Likely causes: obstruction in the way of the sensors, obstruction on the track. Cause: sensors fine, likely track, no visible obstruction, try lubricant.

Solution: WD40.

The business proposal? Isolated, personal incident. Maybe a common problem but the solution is hardly a money maker and there are businesses already in the segment. So no proposal.

Worked example 2 -- the obvioulsy better solution to a known problem problem

Problem: Cans were a great invention for food preservation and transport. But when you took a lid off, you created a jagged piece of metal that could cause a nasty cut. People cut themselves. Not so often that they wouldn't buy cans, but personal injury was a known issue. Along came the can opener, a cutting wheel rather than a pointed blade, and the risk of a cut was diminished, not solved but reduced. Then some smart person realized that if you turned the cutting wheel on an angle and cut the lid from under the lip, the risk of injury was almost entirely negated. Anyone who has ever used an early can opener knows the problem immediately. Anyone who has used a 1990's model can opener gets the solution immediately, thus the new can opener design sold itself by demonstration alone. The best kind of business proposal situation: known, common problem, simple, cheap, obviously effective solution.

Solution: A better tool. Problem solved. The business proposal? Too late. Innovation often comes from someone seeing something thousands, in this case millions, of people missed.

Worked example 3 -- the education/propaganda problem

Problem: You work for a company that sells sunscreen. You aren't hired to create advertising strategies. You are hired to write business proposals out of which advertising strategies might come.

The problem is stochastic: Human skin is damaged (causal) by UVA and UVB rays from the sun. That damage can (probable not causal) lead to skin cancer. Assumption: Nobody wants skin cancer. Solution: Product X blocks UVA and UVB rays. Proposal: you want to buy (stock, sell, purchase the company) product X.

Where are the potential problems?

A person might
• doubt UVA and UVB damage skin
• accept they damage skin but believes she is personally immune (denial)
• accept even their own skin will be damaged (burnt) but doubt the cancer claim. (Sunburn is a temporary pain, not a long term problem)
• (resistance) or accept the cancer claim but consider exposure worth the risk because skin cancer isn't guaranteed, and even if it happens it won't happen for thirty or forty years or more.
• (skepticism) accept the entire chain of reasoning but doubt product X protects against UVA and UVB rays.
• (conspiracy) think that UVA and UVB are made up by companies to scare people into buying their products -- conspiracy defense

Solutions: Each of these specific doubts suggests a different solution section.

• Education about sun's effects on skin,
• propaganda against "tanning."
• Science-based Information about what UVA and UVB are and how they damage the skin and how that damage can become cancerous, with a discussion of probability.
• Science-based Information about how the product works
• Information about cost, usability (how to apply, how often, greasiness, smell, convenience)

Worked example 4 -- the intercultural (mis)understanding problem

Cultural misunderstanding:

This example comes from Building Cross Cultural Competence. The authors wrote a book that sold well. One day they got a lovely letter thanking them, "and conveying the 'good news' that it had been translated [into Korean] and widely used by Samsung Executives, who had found it most enlightening." (46) What's the problem? Copyright infringement. What's the solution?

The authors' publisher recommended suing Samsung for distributing an unauthorized translation. The authors, being experts on cross cultural communication, didn't call their lawyers right away. They stopped to think about the context of the event before labeling it copyright infringement. They knew that Korea had agreed to international copyright laws, but they also thought the tone of the letter suggested the writer wasn't motivated by larceny. Their research on cross cultural communication led them to conclude that while the Samsung Executive had knowingly broken copyright law, he didn't think they would object because the company had benefited greatly from their expertise and he was thanking them for the great work they had done to the company's benefit. From a Korean perspective, the authors understood, the breach of copyright wasn't malicious or larcenous and suing would alienate a huge multinational corporation and get little in return. Before doing anything beyond thinking about the situation, the authors got a copy of the translation and had it vetted. Turns out it was a very good translation, one that would have cost them at least $18,000 (US 1980s). So they asked Samsung if it could help them find a Korean publisher and let them publish the translation under Korean copyright. Samsung was delighted to do so in the spirit of you helped us, we'll help you. Thus the authors maintained their good working relationship with Samsung and made money on the subsequent Korean sales of their book. Their knowledge and restraint allowed them to find an opportunity where others saw a problem, the lawsuit solution to which would have created more problems.

Worked example 5 -- Rehabilitating a perfectly good idea -- a rhetorical solution to a rhetorical problem

The pressure cooker is a brilliant cooking innovation, from like the 1600s. Heat and pressure cook food just as well as heat alone in a fraction of the time. Problem is, heat and pressure also equal bomb. If you don't know what you are doing, or just get distracted, a pressure cooker can, well blow up. Even if it doesn't blow up, it can scald the skin off your face if you don't open it correctly. Scary. So scary the name "pressure cooker" entered common language as a metaphor for a volatile social situation. Bad PR. Along comes a company with a clever way to reintroduce the pressure cooker, wrap it in basic censors and a simple computer interface. Claim it's much safer. Call it something else. And boom, a pressure cooker on every kitchen counter top in America, whereas before you hardly ever saw them except in an expert's kitchen.

I find it fascinating that when I Googled history of the pressure cooker one of the first hits I got was Instapot's website, where there was a perfectly solid history of the product leading very logically and smoothly to the obvious superiority of their product. Good contemporary PR. Great business writing, not just the text, the words, but the fact that they own the history of their topic by means of their digital savvy. ("Own" is hyperbole because Wikipedia and four other sites came up ahead of Instapot. )