7. Core Competencies and Competitive Advantage

Core Competency

     Your core competencies are the skills or other advantages your business has that other businesses don’t—or, at least, not to the same degree or in the same combination that you have them. Because you are better at those things than other businesses are, you have those advantages over other businesses.

     For example, two core competencies of FedEx® is that FedEx® can deliver packages faster and more reliably than anyone else. To give another example, the core competency of the hardware chain HQ is that it sells almost any hardware item you may need. You can make all your purchases in one place.

Competitive Advantage

     Competitive advantage is as the words suggest. You’re competing against other businesses, and you have an advantage over them.

     Your competitive advantage always comes from your core competencies. Whether your business is large or small, you must always protect your core competency.

     Many years ago, a young man watched a potter at work. As the potter removed her day’s work from the kiln (a structure or container where clay is heated to hardness), she separated the high-quality pottery from the ones with imperfections.

     The potter told the young man that she would smash the imperfect pottery. Surprised, the young man asked, “Why don’t you just sell them at a lower price?”

     The potter replied, “Because I want my name associated with high-quality pottery.”

     This potter had already decided that high quality—not low price—was her core competency and the source of her competitive advantage. Lower-quality pottery—even at a lower price—would have weakened her competitive advantage.

Discussion:

     Almost everyone knows that China’s core competencies—leading to competitive advantage—are cheap labor and an undervalued yuan.

     During the mid-1990’s, China’s labor force worked for an average of 30% less than the labor forces of other manufacturing companies. That led to a competitive advantage and a booming economy.

     As of 2009, their labor force was only 6% less than that of other countries, including India.

     Question: How safe from Indian competition is China’s competitive advantage?

     Answer: It’s safe for now but possibly not for long.

     Reason: As you will learn in Lesson 11 a good reputation can be a core competency leading to competitive advantage. China has a worldwide reputation for shoddy, unsafe, or counterfeit merchandise. India’s products, which have been subject to numerous recalls, have not yet gained a bad reputation. Because India doesn’t have as large a manufacturing base as China, fewer Indian products have been recalled.

     China’s cheaper labor force makes their products less than 3% cheaper than India’s. China’s reputation for poor quality, unsafe foods, and counterfeit goods may soon tip the scales in favor of India.

     News Item: At the height of the lead-tainted toys scandals and melamine scandals in 2008-2009, a Chinese official promised that “99% of all Chinese products are safe.”

     Question: If it’s true that 99% of all Chinese products are safe, how safe are we in using Chinese products?

     Answer: Not very safe. It means that, if we use Chinese products on more than 50 occasions, we’ll probably be harmed.

     Remember Social Exchange Theory:

1. Cost

2. Trust

3. Reward

     It’s the most important rule of marketing. We’ll further discuss gaining and keeping your customers’ trust in lessons 11 and 15.

Core Competencies and Boundary Conditions:

     Boundary conditions are conditions that must be met in order for you to successfully reach your goal. In this case, the goal is to establish your core competencies and turn them into competitive advantage.

     Suppose there are seven boundary conditions for this task. Suppose you can successfully meet six of these conditions but will fail to meet just one.  In that case, you must change your goal or abandon your goal altogether.

An Example of Boundary Conditions:

Suppose you wanted to market an all-natural, environmentally friendly health drink. You market only the drink—not the container. Your boundary conditions may be as follows:

1. Customers must realize that it’s healthy.

2. Customers must realize that it’s all natural.

3. It must be delicious.

4. Customers must understand the environmental need to limit the use of plastic bottles.

5. Customers must approve of the requirement that they provide their own containers.

6. It must be marketed where the target customer frequently goes.

7. The product must comply with all laws and regulations.

     If you label the drink as healthy, you’re legally required to list all of its known nutrients and how much of each nutrient is in each bottle. If you were marketing a drink with artificial nutrients—for example, putting ascorbic acid in it and calling it vitamin C—that would be no problem. You would know exactly how much ascorbic acid you had put in it.

     Nature, however, doesn’t work that way. Two oranges from the same tree don’t contain the same amount of vitamin C. By law, you’d have to list the minimum amount of vitamin C that your product would have. That would make your drink look less healthy than it really is. Then you would not have met the boundary condition of marketing an all-natural health drink that customers know is healthy.

     Question: How should you handle this problem?

     Possible Solution: Most people assume that, if a food product is all-natural, it must be healthier than processed foods. You can take advantage of that fact.

     In every possible way, your advertisements should stress that the drink is all natural. Illustrations in your ads should show healthy-looking people involved in healthy activities associated with the drink.

     In short, “Don’t TELL them that the drink is healthy for them; SHOW them that the drink is healthy for them.”  That’s one of the most basic rules of communication anyway.

     So, how does this become a core competency?

     If your health drink is the first such business to do away with environmentally unfriendly containers, your business will—for awhile, anyway—be the only business drawing customers who are seriously about avoiding environmental harm. Your customers will see your business as having the same social concerns that they have.

     These health-conscious, environmentally aware customers will be your niche market. Your niche market is the group of customers whose needs you’re satisfying when no one else is satisfying those needs—at least not in the same way. Because you’re—for the time being—the only one satisfying that set of customers, your ability to gain their loyalty and satisfy them is your competitive advantage.

     As your niche market grows, it will become known as your segment of the mass market.

The term mass market is easy to understand. When a niche market becomes very popular among a wider range of people, it’s no longer called a niche market. Instead, it’s simply part of the mass market; your target customers are your market segment. Your share as a percentage of the market is your market share.

Example #1:

     When the Duryea brothers invented the automobile during the 1880’s, it was called a “rich man’s toy.” Buyers of cars were a niche market consisting only of rich men who were willing to pay high prices for the amusement of driving an automobile.

     When Henry Ford began mass producing automobiles just over a century ago, cars became much less expensive. Even the middle class could own a car. Thus, car buyers—once a niche market—had become part of the mass market.

Example #2:

     During the late 1990’s two college students set up a social web site for friends at their college. A few people at one college were their niche market.

     Today, their web site is a worldwide phenomenon—definitely a part of the mass market. The name of their web site is Facebook.

     Be warned, though, that other businesses will try to copy your business model and draw your customers away from you. As part of your plan to capture a market segment and turn it to competitive advantage, you must do two other things: First, you must protect your competitive advantage by erecting barriers to entry. A barrier to entry is something that prevents others from manufacturing and marketing a product as well as you can. That’s how you turn a core competency into a competitive advantage.

Examples:

     Carrefour is capable of buying products in such large amounts that they can sell them much cheaper than a local mom-and-pop store. Thus, mom and pop must depend on the loyalty of long-time customers who know they’ll get friendly, personal service.

     Thus, Carrefour has erected a barrier—low cost—that prevents mom and pop from directly competing with them.

     Question: What barrier to entry have the mom and pop stores erected that would prevent you from competing with them?

     Answer: They have the reputation for friendly, personal, and capable service. This has gained them a degree of loyalty with which new businesses can’t compete.

     In fact, a lot of people prefer to shop at mom and pop stores when there’s only a small price difference between the small store and a hypermarket.

     Let us warn you once again that, if you design a successful business model, other businesses will try to copy your model and draw your customers away from you.

     Each year, Fortune magazine publishes the names of the 500 most successful businesses in America. It’s called the Fortune 500.

     Among the businesses on the Fortune 500 list in 1950, only half of them are still in business.

Success is often the mother of failure.

     To stay competitive, your business must always compete with itself and always find better ways of doing things. Otherwise, you will lose customers to those who innovate.

5. Six Steps to Doing Almost Anything

     Any time you have a major project to do (such as your major assignments for this course), you should ask and answer six questions. You can do anything if you answer them.

Here are the six questions:

1. What do I want to do (describe in detail)?

2. What do I need in order to do it (people, things, money, other resources)?

3. How will I get what I need?

4. From start to finish, what steps must I take to do what I want to do? (Break it up into small tasks.)

5. What can go wrong, and how will I deal with it?

6. (After the project is completed) How can I improve upon this project in the future?

1. What do I want to do?

     (I’m using an example that doesn’t require you to keep thinking of business terms and business models.)

     I want to organize a picnic for 300 shut-ins. The shut-ins will be handicapped or elderly people in nursing homes (state which), hospitals (state which), and private homes (contact churches and other sources of information for names and addresses of shut-ins) in the (name specific geographical area). The event will take place 9:30 A.M.-3:30 P.M. on November 19, which is two months from the day that I begin my plans. The shut-ins will have transportation to and from the site, food, and live entertainment. A local celebrity will act as emcee for the entertainment portion of the event. Medical personnel and caregivers will be available.

2. What will I need?

1. Six city buses, twenty family-sized cars, and thirty designated drivers.

2. 50 gallons of baked beans, 60 gallons of potato salad, (continue food list), 500 ten-ounce paper cups, 600 napkins, 150 pounds of ice cubes, six barbecue grills, (continue supplies list).

3. An level outdoor area of at least three acres, with an awning large enough to shade four picnic-sized food tables.

4. 350 folding chairs.

5. A popular local celebrity to act as emcee.

6. Two stand-up microphones and three wireless microphones. A sound system and someone who can operate it.

7. Pallets and risers for a 10’ X 20’ stage.

8. Popular local entertainers (Who?).

9. Newspaper, television, radio, and Internet publicity.

10. At least 12 cooks, 2 traffic handlers, and (mention each person you’ll need).

11. (The list goes on, but I’ll mention one more:) A project chairman, a project co-chairman, 6 committee directors, and 36 committee members.

3. How will I get what I need?

     Answer this question for each item or person needed. Tell how and from where you will get them. Here are a few examples:

1. Borrow risers, pallets, and sound system from the nearest high school or college (Which high school or college?).

2. Ask the local cannery to donate the canned beans and potato salad you will need. Make sure that the name of the cannery is displayed on the picnic program.

3. Ask the city bus company to volunteer buses and drivers for the day. Ask church members and others (Which others?) to pick up shut-ins at their homes and drive them to the site.

4. Buy off-white, card-stock paper for programs and use your photocopier to produce 350 copies.

4. From start to finish, what steps must I take to do what I want to do? (Break it up into small tasks)

     When completing this portion of the planning, you keep two dates in mind: today and the day of the event.

     When mapping out this portion of the planning, you begin with the day of the event and work your way back to today. You list these tasks in reverse order because each thing on the list is the answer to an implied question: “In order to do a certain thing by a certain date, what must I do at an earlier date to make it possible; and by which date must I do this?”

Here’s an example:

1. Nov. 19, 5:00 P.M.: All shut-ins have returned to their places of residence.

2. 3:30 P.M.: Complete Shut-in Picnic.

3. 9:30 A.M.: Program begins (follow schedule)

4. 9:10 A.M.: All shut-ins should have arrived at the picnic site.

5. 8:00 A.M.: All transport vehicles have left to pick up shut-ins. All locations have been notified to have shut-ins ready when transportation arrives.

6. November 18: All drivers, and the bus company have been called to make sure that everything (give details) is “go.”

7. November 12: Final project meeting. Problems discussed and resolved.

8. October 19: Transportation plans finalized.

9. October 12: Bus lines and drivers agree to plans.

10. October 5: Bus company and individual drivers are contacted with request for buses and drivers.

11. October 4: Routes taken by each vehicle mapped out.

12. September 29: Names and locations of each shut-in received from hospitals, nursing homes, churches, etc.

13. September 20: Hospitals, nursing homes, churches, etc. contacted

14. September 19: Shut-in Picnic Project meeting; roles are assigned.

5. What can go wrong, and how will I deal with it?

1. It could rain. (Make sure the event is held close to a building with a suitable interior that you can use.)

2. A bus could break down. (Have a bus on stand-by, or have an alternate transport plan.)

3. One of the shut-ins could have a physical emergency. (Arrange for at least one qualified nurse or paramedic is available from each nursing home. This should be among the needed resources in Question #2.)

     There are many other things that can go wrong, and you should address each one of them. Always assume a worst-case scenario. You may have to face one.

     Years ago, a civic group borrowed an empty store front just long enough to construct a temporary “Haunted House” for the week of Halloween. Only a couple of days before the “Haunted House” opened, the Fire Department declared the temporary structures a fire hazard.

     The civic group quickly sprayed everything with a fire retardant liquid. If the “Haunted House” had not been constructed to raise money for humanitarian purposes, the fire department would never have allowed the “Haunted House” committee to go ahead with their plans.

6. How can I improve upon this project in the future?

     If you’re planning a shut-in picnic, you need to ask and answer this question only once. If you’re planning a business model, you should ask it at every opportunity.

If you have a business model that works, someone will eventually find a way to copy it and—more likely—improve upon it. Then your business model will be outdated, and your competitors will take your customers away from you.

     To keep this from happening, you have to make your business model obsolete before your competitors do. You do it by re-inventing your business early and often. The early twentieth century stage magician and escape artist Harry Houdini provides us with an easy-to-understand example of how to do this.

Houdini as a marketing strategist

     You may have heard that “a magician never gives away a trick,” but Houdini did it very often.

     Every time he came up with another illusion or escape, other performers tried to learn how he did it. Then they could do it themselves. (You might say that the other magicians were Houdini’s business competitors.) If they had succeeded, Houdini’s tricks wouldn’t have as much entertainment value.

     Houdini was always working to improve his tricks to make them more amazing, and he was always developing other tricks. He knew that other magicians would eventually figure out how he had done his tricks and would try to copy them.

     By the time one of his competitors was able to copy one of his tricks, Houdini had already come up with something even better.

     Then what do you think he did?

     Houdini would stop using a trick as soon as he had developed a new or more amazing one. Then he would write a book or magazine article and tell how he had done the trick he had stopped using.

     As a result, his audiences were more amazed than ever at his abilities. Houdini’s competitors were left with nothing because people already knew how the trick was performed.

     That’s what you should do. Success is one of the biggest obstacles to continued success. No matter how successful your business model is, you should keep your eyes and ears open to any change in the business, social, or political climate in order to update—or even replace—your business model. If you don’t, your competitors will eat your lunch. As one marketing strategist wrote, “You should eat your own lunch before your competitors do.”

     Break free of the bonds of unsustainable habits.

4. Know Your Target Consumer

     Do you know someone who likes to fish? If you do, you probably know that he doesn’t just cast a line into the water and hope that he catches some kind of fish without any idea of what kind he might catch.

     He always has an idea of what kind of fish he hopes to catch. He always chooses his fishing spot, his bait, lures, and other fishing equipment with a definite plan for catching that kind of fish.

     Your business is no different from this. At every stage from planning your business to planning your marketing strategy to planning your advertising campaign, you should follow the same rule. At every stage, design everything about your business with the idea of a certain kind of person using your product or service.

     Suppose, for example, you wanted to market shoes. For whom will your shoes be designed? For what purpose would your target consumer need or want them? Would he want them for dancing, work, a profession, sports, cheerleading, comfort, support, or for some other purpose?

     That narrows it down a bit, but it doesn’t narrow it down enough. We still haven’t clearly identified your target consumer.

     You already know that you don’t market “just a shoe;” that you have to market a certain kind of shoe. But it’s also true that you don’t just market a certain kind of shoe. You must market with a certain kind of customer in mind.

     That holds true for every step in the value chain: design, manufacture, advertising, and marketing.

     We’ll talk in depth about brand image, brand personality, and branding strategies in future lessons. For this lesson, let’s discuss target consumers and product and marketing design.

     Let’s suppose the shoes you plan to market are dancing shoes. At this point, you can forget about marketing sports supplies. You could, however, consider marketing clothing that could be worn with the dancing shoes.

     But what kind of dancers did you have in mind? Rock ‘n’ roll? Belly dancers? Ballet? Hawaiian? Retired persons? Ballroom dancers? It’s not a case of “One size fits all.” You have to narrow it down still further.

Question: 

     Why can’t you market two or more lines of clothing—for example, to both teenagers and the elderly?

Answer: 

     Most teenagers would think that a product is “uncool” if it were commonly worn by “old people,” and most older people would feel silly wearing a product that is popular among teenagers. Neither group would be pleased. If you want to market to two different target groups, you should create two separate brand names—one for each line of clothing.

     Your customers want to feel that your product was designed especially with them in mind.

     Let’s say your target consumers are teenagers and college students with active social networks. These consumers are interested in keeping up with fashions, but they’re probably not trend setters. In addition to wanting style, they also want comfort and practicality.

     Well, that’s still not specific enough for marketing, but there’s already something wrong with this business model. What is wrong with it? Your target consumers have already been targeted by someone else, and the barriers to your entry into the market have already been erected.

     Nike already has the loyalty of status seekers. Adidas already has the reputation for top quality. Levi Strauss already has the attention of those who want custom-fit clothes. 

     What is your core competency?

Brand Personality and Core Competency

1. Brand personality: In their advertising and public relations campaigns, companies “set their brands apart” from other brands by creating images for them. In some ways, those images are like personalities. We’ll discuss this further in Lesson 10.

2. Core Competency: That’s usually a quality or skill that your company can do better than other companies. You can use that skill to erect barriers to entry so that other companies can’t compete with you. We’ll discuss this further in Lesson 7.

Group Discussion:

How will you and your team organize your business model?

Who will your target consumers be?

How will you target them?

     By now, you and your team have decided on the marketing project that will occupy your attention for the rest of the year.

     Today’s homework assignment is to design your business model and decide on your target consumer. For the rest of the year, most of the business decisions you will make will be influenced by your choice of products and its target consumer.

3. Sell the Benefit

This lesson is still under construction.

2. Ideas that Create Value

     Okay, so you have an idea for a business and you think it’s a great idea. Your friends all think it’s a great idea. In fact, everyone thinks it’s a great idea.  So, it’s a great idea, and you should get rich at it, right?

WRONG!

     If everyone thinks it’s a great idea, it may be a good idea. But it won’t be a great idea. You may be able to make it work for you, but it won’t make you rich. Let’s face it: All the ideas that everyone thinks are great have already made someone else rich.

     The truly great ideas sound crazy until somebody makes them work.

1850’s:

     Colonel Edwin Drake felt that it was too time consuming to skim for oil by dragging cloth across ponds where oil had seeped to the surface. He decided to dig for oil.

Everyone laughed at him because they thought it was a crazy idea. His early efforts failed because water tended to seep into his “oil wells.” He ignored the laughter and tried something else.

     Drake invented a kind of drill that would pump oil but would keep water from seeping into the pipes. In 1856, near Oil Town, Pennsylvania, he successfully drilled for oil and became rich. His critics stopped laughing.

     Drilling for oil is no longer considered a crazy idea, but the barriers to entry are so high that it’s no longer a “great idea” for starting businessmen.

1950’s:

A Hollywood movie producer invested large sums of money to build—of all things—an amusement park that the whole family could enjoy. Amusement parks were fairly common, even in those days, but they were just—well—for amusement. This man’s park would have a theme; it would be built around movies he had produced.

That seemed like too expensive a way of amusing people, and the price of admission seemed too high. After all, who would want to spend a lot of money at an amusement park with any thought other than simple amusement? Why should an amusement park have a theme?

He named the theme park Disneyland. Today, almost everyone expects amusement parks to be theme parks.

1959:

     A new singing group was unable to get an audition from recording studios. They were told, “Groups with guitars are on the way out.”

     The name of the group was the Quarrymen. They changed their name to the Beatles.

1960’s:

     A young man named Ted Turner inherited a small, outdoor advertising company from his father. After growing the business, he gambled everything on an idea that everyone thought was crazy.

     In an era dominated by broadcast television, he would start a cable station. What was really crazy was, his station would offer no entertainment—just news. For 24 hours a day, his station would broadcast news and nothing else. His cable news network is now known as CNN.

     During the Gulf War (1991), CNN called the Pentagon for war news. A Defense Department spokesman told CNN that Pentagon war planners were getting most of their war news by watching CNN. Ted Turner’s crazy idea had gained worldwide respect. 

1970’s:

     A student working toward a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree came up with a crazy idea for his MBA dissertation.

     In his dissertation, he proposed a private business that would compete with the United States Postal Service. According to his model, this business would deliver packages any place in America in less than 24 hours. His dissertation advisor told him that the idea would never work.

     Using money from his rich parents, he started just such a business. He called the business Federal Express. Today, FedEx delivers packages all over the world.

1970’s:

     A young movie director with a modest track record—George Lucas—is trying to get a major studio to back his idea for a movie. Two major studios turn him down. Both tell him that science fiction movies are no longer popular. Besides, since science fiction movies had always been low-budget movies, his movie would be far too expensive to make.

     The name of the movie was Star Wars.

Some popular quotes of the 1980’s:

“Nobody needs a personal computer.”

“Nobody needs a computer with more than 100 kilobytes of memory.”

“There is a market for no more than 100,000 computers in the whole world.”

(In 1979 Bill Gates and a few friends founded Microsoft.)

True or False?

“Necessity is the mother of invention.”

False.

     Before they were invented, no one felt that they needed air conditioners, washing machines, dishwashing liquids, personal computers, the Internet, the electric light, gasoline, or a host of other of today’s “necessities.” Since people got along without them for thousands of years before they were invented, people didn’t really need them.

It would be more accurate to say that invention is the mother of necessity. Even closer to the point, we should say, “Marketing is the mother of necessity.”

     Remember what you learned about Social Exchange Theory, in Lesson One? People give up money for a product or service because they place more value on the thing they’re receiving for their money.

     Marketing is the art of convincing people to place more value on what you have than they place on what they have.

Entrepreneurship:

     Entrepreneurship—the art of turning bright ideas into a money-making business model—isn’t usually about filling a need. More often, it’s about creating a desire and then offering a product or service to satisfy that desire. Sometimes that desire is for a new taste. Sometimes it’s for a more convenient way of doing something. Sometimes it’s for something else. How do you come up with money-making ideas, and how do you make them work?

Niche Marketing:

     Suppose you come up with a marketing plan, and only 5% of the people in Taiwan buy your product. Is your plan a success or a failure? Since 5% of Taiwan’s population of twenty-five million comes to a million, it would be called a success. A million people have bought your product.

     Don’t compete with established businesses. Find an area of opportunity that has not yet been exploited—especially if the idea sounds strange.

How to Think Like a Genius

1. Come up with an idea that sounds crazy.

2. Ask yourself, “To what extent do people already do it or want it?”

3. Build a marketing plan around Point #2—not Point #1.

     As an example, what about the idea of greeting cards for dead people? Nobody sends greeting cards to dead people, do they? What do people do with greeting cards? They tell other people that they’re thinking of them. Do we express our thoughts for dead people? Yes, we do. We tend their graves and put flowers on their graves. It doesn’t benefit the dead for us to do this; it benefits the living. People can experience similar benefits by placing greeting cards on the graves of their loved ones.

     Remember: A marketer doesn’t sell products or services; he sells benefits. For example, people don’t buy air conditioners because they want air conditioners; they buy them because they want comfort. SELL THE BENEFIT!

Ideas for Discussion:

1. Marketing soybean milk as a health drink.

2. Home stays with poor people as a vacation opportunity.

3. Free drinking water (minus the bottle) as a loss leader at a rest area shop.

4. Free service maps of the area (as a means of cooperative, targeted advertising.

5. Organically grown Taiwan coffee. (Taiwanese prefer its taste to that of other coffees; BUT they don’t ask for it because it’s not available; it’s not available because customers don’t ask for it.

Item:

     Under American patent law, a patent expires after 16 years. Pharmaceutical companies have found a way around the law. Before their patent on a drug expires, their researchers find a new use for the drug. Then they patent it as a new product.

Lesson:

     As a creative way to find marketing ideas, you may find a product that has passed into the public domain, find another use for it, make some changes in it, and market it as a new product. Pharmaceutical companies discovered this fact, but anyone can take advantage of it.

     None of these ideas is likely to make you rich, but they’ll give you a leg up on the competition.

Your Assignment for This Academic Year

     You and your team will decide on a business marketing project for the year. No two teams will choose the same project.

First Semester Mid-term exam project: Present your business plan.

First Semester Final exam project: Present your plan for branding your business.

Second Semester Mid-term exam project: Present your advertising plan.

Second Semester Final exam project: Present your complete marketing plan including completed advertisements.

Intermediate Conversation Farewell Party 2010

     On the final night of classes, after the last students had made their final exam presentations, students gave a farewell party.  Of the eleven students you see in the photo below, ten of them were in my Literature or Reading classes last year. 

     In my eighteen years of teaching in Taiwan, this group was one of my three favorite classes. 

     (Front row, left to right) Angus, Sylvia, May, me, Linda, Cherry, Paloma.

(Back row) Johnny, Dennis, Allen, Vincent, Benson    

 Sylvia, May, me, and Benson

 (Photo at right provided by Angus)

 Alex, Allen, me, Jenny, Dennis

This photo was provided by Angus. 

Vincent, me, and Linda

 (First photo of us was provided by Angus)

Me, Johnny

 (Provided by Angus)

Sylvia and me.

with Angus

(Provided by, and posed by, Angus)

May and me.

May and me

     Paloma and me.  In the background, Linda is preparing the pizza, soft drinks, and snacks.

Paloma and me.

Paloma and me.  Johnny, drinking a Coke, looks on.

 

     Paloma and me.  In the background, Dennis munches on a slice of pizza.

Me, Linda.

Linda guards her skirt as I pick her up.

This pose was Linda's idea.

     A surprise visitor: Cherry, who had been my student in Literature class last year.

Cherry and me.

Glossary of News Terms

Anchor (also Anchor Man or News Anchor)

Arts and Leisure: Arts can refer to fine arts, folk arts, photography, or crafts. Leisure refers to hobbies and pastimes other than sports.

Artist’s rendering (See Composite drawing)

Artwork (see illustration): any drawing or painting of something or representing something. It may or may not be an illustration.

Attribution:

Banner: The title of the newspaper, stretched across the top of the first page.

Banner headline: a headline that stretches all the way across the page.

Bed (as in “putting the newspaper to bed”): When the work on that day’s issue of the newspaper is completed and ready to be printed, they say they’re putting the paper to bed.

Bi-weekly (see weekly, semi-weekly, and daily): Once every two weeks

Blurb:

Breaking news: News as it is happening.

Broadside: A one-page newspaper. Almost all newspapers now have more than one page.

Byline: The name of the person who wrote a newspaper article. In newspapers, it’s usually listed at the beginning of the story. In news magazines, it may be listed at the very end.

Chart (see graph and illustration) A chart is a kind of illustration showing how two or more things compare to each other, relate to each other, are similar to each other or how they differ from each other. It differs from a graph in that graphs use numbers in the comparison.

Column (1) When we speak of a newspaper column, we mean that a person regularly writes the same type of article that appears in the same part of the newspaper each time it appears.

Column (2) When we speak of a column as part of a newspaper page, we mean something like a row, except that it runs vertically instead of horizontally. For example, most of the type on this page is one column wide. The type in this part of the page is two columns wide.

Column inches That’s how the length of news stories and articles are measured. When you measure how many inches long a story is, you measure how far down a column it goes.

Companion piece/Companion article When you have two articles on the same subject, one is usually considered more important than the other. The less important one is called a companion piece or a companion article. (See Sidebar)

Companion piece/Companion article: When you have two articles on the same subject, one is usually considered more important than the other. The less important one is called a companion piece or a companion article. (See Sidebar)

Computer simulation (see reenactment)

Copy editor

Daily (see bi-weekly, weekly, and semi-weekly)

Depth

Editor

Editorial (see Op-ed)

File footage/File photo

Filler/Filler article

Graph: (see chart and illustration)

Hard news (see soft news and human interest)

Headline

Human interest (see hard news and human interest)

Illustration (see artwork, chart, and graph)

In house (or in-house)

Insert

Inset

Inverted pyramid style

Journalistic style

Kicker

Lead time

Magazine

Manuscript style

Masthead

Medium (plural: Media)

News Release

Obituary (or Obits)

Op-ed

Photo credit

Photo journalist

Product placement

Section

Seminal

Semi-weekly (see weekly, bi-weekly, and daily)

Side bar

Tabloid

Third person

Weekly (see bi-weekly, semi-weekly, and daily): Once a week.

Wire service