Complete the recommendation report that you described in your proposal. The 2,500-3,000 word, single-spaced report (not including front and end matter) must do the following:
define a problem,
analyze the criteria for a satisfactory solution,
propose one or more alternative solutions, and
argue for the solution that satisfies the criteria best.
The problem may involve an institutional, technical, or public policy issue that you are working on or have worked on in your other courses; or it may concern something related to an organization to which you belong; or it may be related to a job that you’ve held or now hold; or it may connect to some other situation that interests you.
The solution to the problem may involve coming up with an original design, choosing between available alternatives, or providing needed information. See this report as a kind of “final exam” for our course—a place to demonstrate everything that you’ve learned about writing this term.
Content
Purpose
For the purposes of this report, you should find a situation in which you are writing the report to a primary reader who has “commissioned” it and who has the authority to reject or use your work. In other words, you are writing this report to someone other than your BCOMM instructor. The primary goal of your report is to convince this reader to adopt your solution.
The problem that you will attempt to solve should be real. A real situation is one that you have actually encountered and which affects other people; it might involve a current or former employer, the university, your major department, or a service group to which you belong. Ideally, you should have received authorization already from an employer or sponsor to analyze some problem or question and, using your specialized training and expertise, to find a solution. If you have been unable to obtain actual authorization, you should adopt the persona of someone who has the authority to apply his or her specialized training to a problematic situation.
Audience and Style
Your report should be written directly to a person within your real situation who has the authority to decide whether to accept your recommendations. Your tone should be appropriate to the situation; in most cases, it will be fairly formal.
Body of Report
All reports should introduce a problem, analyze criteria for a solution, evaluate at least one solution against the criteria, and recommend the best solution.
Front and End Matter
Your report should include the following:
letter or memo of transmittal (<300 words)
title page
abstract (150 words)
table of contents
body (2,500-3,000 words) including one or two visual aids
references (3 or more)
appendices, if needed
[ABOUT THE COMPANY LIVEIT and the Proposing problem]
LiveIt is a company new to Penn State that offers an interactive platform in which students can search for different events happening around campus. The goal is that Penn State students are able to create and also RSVP to these different events in a much easier fashion than they would be able to on any other type of social media website. Nowadays, college students do not get enough opportunities to be engaged with different groups and tend to have limited college experience, getting along with same people, organizations, and events. With LiveIt, students are provided with the opportunity to be consistently exposed to new experiences, allowing students to have more diversified college life.
One of the main concerns with LiveIt is their exposure on campus. As of right now, a majority of the campus has no idea what the company does and how they would be able to even use the site. Thus, in order to resolve this problem, I brainstormed companies and different social media features that were similar to LiveIt’s platform. My conclusion was that the most popularly used method of planning and advertising different events is through the use of Facebook events. In addition, Facebook has many additional benefits LiveIt currently lacks, which is the main obstacle that LiveIt faces in terms of growth. This became my main concern once we figured that the largest, most formidable competitor of LiveIt would be Facebook events. Hence, I am planning to create a survey to try and find out the views of students our age. I will specifically examine their views on Facebook events and how they thought the idea of LiveIt compared. While LiveIt may seem like a unique idea at first glance, it does have significant competition. By performing proper marketing research and applying results, LiveIt could enhance its own site to become more of a force in the online event-planning industry.
