Reflection #9

   This week's simulation was a lot of fun. This was one of my favorite activities in this class, and I can't wait for the next simulation.
   I was part of the Shell group, and it was a lot of fun. My group was amazing, we all worked really well together. A lot of us were not traditional corporation lovers, gearing more towards NGOs, so it was interesting to work from this point of view. We had to think in a different way, protect ourselves first, not the people. To become more Shell-like, we gave ourselves official names and dressed up in our Shell personas, which was a lot of fun for all of us. On our notes, we had two sets of ideas, the ones we would show to the people, and our own personal notes that would have been bad if people had found out, and that was part of the fun. Such as putting Nigerians in charge of Nigeria, but between us, we agreed that he would be bribed to think our way. We had to keep certain things hush-hush and focus on certain other things that would make us seem like the protagonists. We focussed on Boko Haram and the pirates making a mess of the country, and not the fact that there was a lot of malpractice by Shell. Our video was very funny. We thought that it would be the best way to portray Shell, especially with the multicultural people popping up with every scene and the bright happy color of the whole thing.
   Interacting with the groups was also a lot of fun for me and I think for everyone else. It was a bit expected that the humanitarian groups would come together in the beginning, but later on, the groups knew that they couldn't be isolated to get their agendas done, so some of the humanitarian groups tried branching out while others were still too stubborn to work with others. While we didn't show it, we as Shell needed those groups, however, we would turn all the information to favor us. We would say that we've been in Nigeria the longest and that without us there would be chaos, and how much of the country's economy is dependant on us. But in reality, we needed their help and their good image to help ours advance.
   One thing that stuck with me after the simulation, was how quickly everyone forgot to focus on the US, their customer. We started attacking others while disregarding the US being the real main player. If we do a simulation similar to this one again, I'll have to focus on the main objective, and not get distracted by all that's around and by facts - it's the group with the best sales pitch that will do the best.

- Eli