10 Oct La Chancleta: Sultan of Swat
Part 5 of 6
La Chancleta. The name instills fear in children, teens, and husbands the world over. I use the Spanish version because the English “flip flop” just doesn’t evoke terror. A mom wielding this simple weapon means business and is about to employ an effective attitudinal adjustment: the SWAT. God bless you if your mother wears wooden chancletas.
This week’s readings cover the SWOT method of content analysis. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, which ironically could apply to a chancleta situation, but this is a SWOT of a different kind, as it applies to business planning and improving competitive advantage.
The final project in this class involves a SWOT analysis, and while reading about these techniques, I was fascinated to learn this framework can also apply to people. “SWOT Analysis has been used for decades to help people find their strengths and weaknesses and discover threats and opportunities in their business and personal lives.”1 How unexpected.
Even though the SWOT technique has been around since the fifties, it is still used today. It is that effective.
I came across another interesting nugget in our textbook, Enterprise Content Strategy: A Project Guide by Kevin Nichols and Ann Rockley, in a section discussing optimizing, leaving as is, or archiving company information. Unlike most companies in the U.S. that may choose to delete their information rather than archive it, publicly traded companies and financial institutions may not. They are bound by the law in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to fully archive their internal and external communications records. Of course, I had to follow that “why” rabbit—and it led to Enron, one of the companies whose scandal inspired drafting and passage of the act. Mystery solved.
Even though the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has absolutely nothing to do with my final project, it is still important to know in case I ever find myself working in content management for a bank or public company.
1 McClean, Roy. (2015 Nov 15). “Have a Problem? SWOT it!” Custom Fit Online. https://www.customfitonline.com/news/2015/9/10/swot-analysis-content-strategy/