Deliverable 2: Action Memo

The action memo (for our purposes) is a document written for decision-makers in various fields. In this assignment, you are to recommend that your organization implement collaborative online writing software in response to that organization's handling (or mishandling) of a specific natural disaster (which you will describe). During this disaster, people in the field had difficulty getting information to administrative in Washington who needed to make informed decisions. Reports and memos were not filed in a timely fashion, and were often incomplete. In response, your department has been charged with writing an "action memo" to address these shortcomings.

Your purpose is to recommend new policies and procedures to prevent further mishaps, and identify 3 potential software applications or suites that will help implement these (Such as Google Docs, Basecamp, etc.) You will eventually be selecting one of these three to write your white paper, but for now, pick three that look promising. Focus on solutions that are either free or offer free trials so that you can try out the software before you write about it.

The memo should be formatted so that it contains the most important information first, contains skimmable sections, provides enough information to make a preliminary decision, and should be relatively error-free.

Here are some examples of action memos in other fields:

Request for Council Action (Digital Billboards)

Action Memo for Time-Critical Waste Removal [pdf]

Long Island Flood Insurance [pdf]

The last example (Long Island) is probably the closest in terms of format to the one you will write, but each team's memo will be different, and there is no single correct way to write it. Remember that you are simply providing a decision maker with enough information to make a decision. Focus on describing the problem (this section may be partially recycled into the white paper itself) and how your 3 software solutions might address that problem.

Memo should run 750-1,000 words (2-3 pages, single-spaced). Pay close attention to how you divide the labor and communicate this week. I'll be interested to see how you make use of your time in the weekly memo. This is due Friday, March 11th.

Deliverable 1: Annotated Bibliography

Begin working with your teams on the annotated bibliography. It will be due next Monday at midnight. Here's a description:

The annotated bibliography is a standard research tool for cataloguing sources that are useful for a given project, and for describing or evaluating the usefulness of those sources. Because your projects deal with the difficulties of authoring reports, memos, and other documents during natural disasters, and at great distances, you should find sources that deal with crisis management and communication, collaborative writing software (like Google Docs), and anything else pertinent to the scenario you are working under.

It may be helpful at this point to pick a specific crisis that you want to model your scenario after (the midwest floods, Hurricane Katrina, etc.) in order to steer your research, but you will be describing your own disaster scenario more specifically in a later assignment.

(The Gulf oil spill, while not a 100% "natural" disaster, would certainly be a valid choice for this project, and there will certainly be a wealth of information about it online.)

You should find at least fifteen sources, and your final bibliography (with annotations) should run at least 1000 words (if not more). It is not necessary that you use a particular citation style (MLA, APA, Chicago) but your citations should be clear and consistent.

Here are two sites with explanations and examples of what an annotated bibliography is:

Purdue's Owl

Cornell Library