External Organizational Communication

1. Seminar in External Organizational Communication The Dreams of Auriane Spring Semester, 2008 A Rich Holt Joint

2. It is a troubled time in the not too distant future in an unspecified urban center in northeastern America. Victor St. Cyr, billionaire industrialist and "that filthy rich guy everyone loves to hate," faces multiple prosecutions on a number of counts of illegal trade practices.

3. However, investigators at his heels are the least of Victor’s worries. His only child, Auriane Marie, nearly 12 years old, has been blind since birth.

4. On the eve of a critical appearance before a Congressional panel almost certain to recommend indictments for his business practices, such as sweatshops, violation of child labor laws, rampant destruction of the environment, and bribery, Victor learns Auriane must, on the following morning, undergo an emergency operation to halt a progressive condition that is a primary cause of her blindness.

5. If her surgery is successful, Auriane may achieve total sight; if not, she will almost surely die. There are no halfway measures: once the operation has begun, there can be no turning back. And Auriane has declared she wants to go through with it.

6. If such a thing is possible, though, Fate has even more in store for Auriane… Despite his considerable clout, Victor cannot obtain a private room for his daughter. She has to share a room with an elderly and severely disabled Canadian woman, Edna McCauley.

7. And Edna has a very strange tale to tell.

8. Some seven years previous, Edna had worked as an instructor for the hearing impaired at the Caritas School of St. Anne in Montreal, where Auriane began her formal education.

9. But Edna saw and heard things at St. Anne's that disturbed her. There were whispers of a small but powerful radical cell of Dominican sisters, progressive in their hearts, Socialists in their politics, and mystics in their souls. Among the more outlandish prophecies they promoted was that a blind girl-child, born of a particularly loathsome and powerful capitalist robber baron, was destined to lead a bloody revolution to set the balance between rich and poor aright.

10. What caused Edna to leave, however, were not prophecies, which, frankly, her utilitarian Windsor upbringing led her to think were nonsense. Rather, it was that some of the nuns who secretly dabbled in augury using I Ching, baffling Nostradamus-like quatrains, astrology, and the Tarot, had already decided the identity of the child foretold in the prophecy: the (then) four-year-old Auriane St. Cyr, perfect casting, given her father’s unsavory business dealings.

11. Not only that, Edna heard that members of the cell had begun secretly training Auriane in mystic as well as rational and scientific arts.

12. To Edna, such training was abomination, far more likely to ruin the handicapped child than help her. Since her protests to school Administration went unheeded, Edna decided she could no longer be part of an institution that permitted such goings-on. In her final meeting with the Mother Superior, Edna was emotional and passionate and convinced that it was best for her to break all ties with Caritas St. Anne's.

13. But the Mother Superior smiled a terrible, sad smile, asking Edna, "Do you really think it's that easy? Your part in this is foretold, as is mine, as is the child's. You will meet her again."

14. And so it has happened. Now, on the eve of Auriane's critical surgery, there's a lot Edna has to tell the child but Edna, nearly gone from a degenerative bone disease, may herself have mere hours to live.

15. For both of them, this night could be longest of their lives.

16. What Auriane learns from Edna will lead her into three dreams on this night, where she'll confront images from the relentless darkness of her world and these she must use to figure out a way to save her father if she can or come to terms with a future where she becomes his mortal enemy. Her dreams will provide what she needs to fulfill her destiny, as well as determine what that destiny is to be.

17. As has been said, "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities…"

18. The Dreams of Auriane

19. Born: January 15, 1942 Kingston, Jamaica Born: December 8, 1968 Born: March 7, 1933 Tangier, Morocco Windsor, Ontario, Canada [...once heckled John Edward during psychic reading] Rosalynde St. Cyr Victor St. Cyr Dramatis personae Mother, Housewife Capitalist Robber Baron [...and excommunicated nun] [...allegedly] How I see 'em, not how you have to see 'em Edna MacCauley Teacher, Hearing Impaired

20. Born: April 8, 1996 Montreal, Quebec, Canada So I might as well begin... Out of work and down There I was completely wasting, Feel as though nobody cares As I drift from town to town All inside it's so frustrating If I live or die To put some action in my life Auriane St. Cyr

21. Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law

22. Born among bandits and by them raised Parmi les brigans, et par cestes norri Sire d'un triple royaume, par Pluton aguerri Lord of a triple realm, tested by Pluto Une armée de millions, en bataille laschez Army of millions, loosed in battle En l'aube encores naissante, un aigle se repose The eagle rests in the coming dawn

23. Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law

24. 49. Ko / Revolution (Molting) And Above, Tui, the Lake People Nine in the third place means: Starting brings misfortune. Perseverance brings danger. Below, Li, Fire When talk of revolution has gone the rounds three times, Will One may commit oneself And people will believe. Judgment: REVOLUTION. On your own day Believe you are believed. Supreme success, Furthering through perseverance.

25. Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law Breaking the law

26. The Dreams of Auriane

27. Though blind, Auriane is a devotee of first-person shooter video games. By using sound cues from multimedia video games, Auriane is able to aim, shoot, and get feedback on her performance. In fact, Auriane has proven to be such a talented player that she nearly always defeats sighted and much more experienced players in multiplayer online games. Game hosts and mod designers of games she plays online have in fact sometimes enhanced their products to allow Auriane to take advantage of her highly elevated sense of hearing. Auriane's online screen name, "darkAvenger48" refers simultaneously to her skill at vanquishing opponents and (secretly) both to the darkness of her world and to a controversial prophecy foretelling her role in fomenting a revolution (not to mention her birthdate, April 8, 1996, the astrological chart for which is one of the bases of the prophecy concerning her role in future events).

28. Like many young "gamer girls," Auriane finds comparatively few role models in the games she plays. Her favorite playing character is Lara Croft, heroine of the popular "Tomb Raider" series of games (and movies). Although she cannot of course see Lady Croft's image, she imagines her through her voice and what happens to her during her adventures. Her idea of Lara is based not only on physical stunts and action, but on what she imagines to be Lara's intelligence and courage. In recent years, and despite considerable efforts on the part of her family to protect her from increasingly scurrilous reports about her father's business problems, Auriane has learned more and more about Victor's legal and ethical difficulties. In her child's imagination, she has come to imagine Lara as more than an action heroine. Now she sees her as a kind of warrior in the arena of business "warfare," an "Info-Warrior," as it were. Indeed, she has come to think of Lara as someone who might possibly be able to save her father from the numerous media campaigns trying to--to her increasingly less innocent mind--hound and destroy him.

29. As part of her formal education, as well as whatever extra training she may (or may not) have received from other sources, Auriane has of late become intensely interested in whatever sees as a way to defend her father. Thus, at a precociously young age, she has devoured information about organizations, marketing, media--whatever she can glean to graft onto her image of the heroic Lady Croft. In her imagination, she feels she is destined to become an enhanced version of Lara Croft, dangerous not only for her physical prowess but her mind. Auriane's mythic enhancement of Lara involves five classes of resources commonly used by external organizational communication specialists, and of course also intrinsic to first-person shooter games: (1) WEAPONS (springboard, crisis management, lobbying, and power, which she imagines as, respectively, a submachine gun, a sniper rifle, a garrote, and an automatic pistol); (2) MIND TOOLS (metaphor, dialogue, and integrated marketing communication); (3) ARMOR (social capital, public relations, advertising, and marketing); (4) HEALTH (systems, embedding, and activity); (5) POWERUPS (saturating media, recognizing stakeholders, and selling).

31. Info-Warrior Weapon #1 SPRINGBOARD N E S T (Where you must take off from)

32. A springboard is a term from activity theory, referring to "...a facilitative image, technique or socio-conversational constellation (or a combination of these) misplaced or transplanted from some previous context into a new, expansively transitional activity context during an acute conflict of a double bind character. The springboard has typically only a temporary or situational function in the solution of the double bind" (Engeström, 1987). In less technical terms, the springboard is a cognitive stimulus that causes a participant in or analyst of an activity system to perceive the activity in a new way that facilitates "taking off" in a new direction, one that often leads to the fashioning of a solution where none appeared previously to exist.

33. SPRINGBOARD N E S T Not on purpose Ephemeral, not permanent Science inspiration anecdotes Taking off in a new direction

35. Info-Warrior Weapon #2 CRISIS MANAGEMENT R A M P (Because you have to "ramp up" in a crisis)

36. CRISIS MANAGEMENT R A M P Relatively recent addition to EOC Along with other EOC functions Multitude of approaches Proactive preferred

38. Info-Warrior Weapon #3 LOBBYING B U S T (What most people think non-lobbying influence is)

39. Lobbying is influence applied to those who make decisions, with a view to persuading the decision-maker to be more favorably inclined to what is desired by the lobbyist and those the lobbyist represents.

40. LOBBYING B U S T Bypass normal channels Unsavory people still out there Similar to many PR practitioners Target mostly public officials

42. Info-Warrior Weapon #4 POWER R I S E (What power enables you to do)

43. POWER R I S E Relational and reciprocal Influence central to power Significant change caused by power wielders Enabling or constraining?

45. Info-Warrior Mind Tool #1 METAPHOR D R A G (How you match images to each other)

46. Metaphor (from the Greek, metapherin) is language that compares subjects that do not appear to be related. In its most basic formulation, a metaphor might be phrased, "Subject A is Subject B": for example, "Brian Erlacher is a predator on the football field." A more technical definition is that metaphor is a rhetorical trope that describes one subject as being equal to a second subject in a certain way. Hence, qualities associated with the second subject (such as "predator") are grafted onto the first subject ("Brian Erlacher"), so that we would immediately look for qualities of predators (such as speed, sharpness and comprehensiveness of vision, aggressiveness, detachment) that might be qualities of Mr. Erlacher's defensive exploits on the football field.

47. METAPHOR D G A R Different "takes" on reality Represent more economically Advantage only temporary Giveth and taketh away

49. Info-Warrior Mind Tool #2 DIALOGUE T A L K (What most think "dialogue" is)

50. “Dialogue" is used in the sense proposed by the Russian literary and cultural critic, Mikhail Bakhtin, who originally used it to refer to a specific type of fictional literature that carries on continual exchanges, "conversations," with other works and other authors. To Bakhtin, the words "dialogue" and the associated term "dialogic" were used in contrast to monologic literature, which he claimed merely answered, corrected, extended, or silenced a previous work.