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Applying This Skill: Audience Analysis Exercise: "The Wreck"

To explore the idea of audience, in teams complete the activity below.

The Scenario: You are a sales representative for a midsized company. You've borrowed your boss's new car to take a potential client to dinner at a fancy restaurant. If the evening goes as you plan, you'll likely finalize a large contract that is important to your company.

You are anxious and excited about the dinner reservation, but you are late. On the way, you decide to take a residential street with little traffic. The borrowed car does not have great brakes, and you want to make up some time in an area with fewer cars. Light rain and darkness are falling. In a $35mph$ zone, you're going almost $50mph.$

Approaching a stop sign, you don't stop quickly enough to halt at the sign. In fact, you travel about $10$ feet into the intersection. You think about putting the car into reverse and backing out of the intersection, but after a quick look to the left, you think you can proceed. Just then, on your right, a car approaches rapidly and hits the borrowed car on the passenger side, ruining the door and denting the car.

Now you're really late!

Your Task: As a team, prepare a short recounting of the incident for the audience assigned. You will retell the details to your assigned audience using any form you wish $($e$.$g$.,$ phone call, in$-$person conversation, letter, memo, accident report, email, text, etc.$).$ You may choose to emphasize some details while deemphasizing others. You may make logical inferences and add some detail, but do not substantially change the facts. Draft your message $($written or script, if oral$)$ and be prepared to share it with the class. Your instructor will assign one of the audiences below.

The client you were to meet for dinner, who has been in three accidents during the last year

YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED #$1$ "THE CLIENT"