Stephane Mallarme Essays - Symbolist Poets, Prince Des Potes

Stephane Mallarme St?phane Mallarm?, a French poet, became one of the most important masters of French symbolism, a nineteenth-century movement in poetry that stressed impressions and moods rather than descriptions of reality (Online). The poetry of Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, and others strongly affected Mallarm?'s writing (Online). He used symbolism to represent human emotions to make his poems unclear, thus avoiding direct communication with his readers (Online & World Book 110,111). Mallarm? was born in Paris on March 18, 1842 (Online). After his mother died when he was seven years old, his grandmother became his parental role model. His education included upper-class boarding schools where he often felt out of place because of his middle class background. When he was fifteen, the death of his younger sister, Maria, greatly influenced his poetic development. He turned from Romantic lyricism to much more morbid subjects like Baudelaire's Les fleurs du mal. In 1860, he received his baccalaureate degree from a "lycee" in Sens. After an apprenticeship in the Registry's office, in 1862 he had his first sonnet published in Le papillon, a literary journal. In 1862 Mallarm? married Maria Gerhard and became a teacher in Tournon. The difficult duties of teaching often interrupted his poetic work and thoughts. Although his students made fun of him, Mallarm? was not discouraged and continued his writing. After translating Edgar Allan Poe's English poems into French, Mallarm?'s chief influence became Poe rather than Baudelaire. He began to compose long imaginative poems and a prose poem called Herodiade, the biblical story of Salome who caused John the Baptist's murder. Then he wrote his best-known poem L'Apr?s-midi d'un faune (Afternoon of a Faun), which explores the difference between reality and fantasy (World Book 110,111). After moving to Paris in 1875 and becoming a teacher at College Rollin, Mallarm? began to associate with such famous French poets as Theodore de Banville, Paul Verlaine, and Gustave Kahn (Online). These and others visited him on Tuesday evenings (les mardis), and these poets became known as les mardistes. Mallarm? spoke about using words as symbols and was considered an oracle. He became known as the "Master of Symbolism" because of the great effect he had on the poets of his age. To honor his colleagues, he later wrote Toast funebre and "Le tombeau d'Edgar Poe" ("The Tomb of Edgar Poe"), a poem telling of Poe's "eternal genius" despite his sad life. This poem is one of the most often quoted poems in French literature. In 1869, Mallarm? started but did not complete Igitur: ou, la folie d'Elbehnon, twelve prose fragments of different lengths (Online). Classified as a story, a prose poem, and a drama, Igitur did not appeal to feelings but to the intelligence of the reader. It shows his lifelong preoccupation with death, infinity, fantasy, and absence. Despite Mallarm?'s requests to dispose of his Igitur notes at his death, his son-in-law, Dr. Bonninot, tried to reorganize the prose fragments and published them in 1925. In his final work Un coup de des jamais n'abolira le hasard (A Throw of the Dice Never Will Abolish Chance), Mallarm? showed his interest in musical verse form and set his words in different typefaces to illustrate visually the subject of the poem and to stress the unity of thought and sound. Mallarm? thought that one should not change or paraphrase the language of a poem (Americana 143). He believed that sacred things are surrounded in mystery and that poetry has secrets that should be protected, just as religion does. According to Mallarm?, poetry is not like music because the latter cannot be understood by all. To this poet, the silences in a poem are just as important as the words. He also thought that the reason for writing poetry is the creation of poetic language; therefore, poetry itself is the subject of all poems. Although Mallarm? tried to develop a "Grand Oeuvre," he spent so much time and energy thinking about the true nature of poetry that he was unable to write this work (Online). He sometimes suffered from depression and lack of creativity due to his changing poetic intentions, his dislike for instant pleasure in literature, and his insistence that the reader himself search for the symbolic meaning in poetry. His most important contribution is to the Symbolist Movement and modern poetry, for it shows his feeling that what can not be explained in poetry is able to be understood through exact symbolic language. St?phane Mallarm? has had great influence on twentieth century poetry, although his own poetry is limited (Collier's). His attitudes, theories, and

Communications Plan Template How to Build Yours In 12 Steps

Communications Plan Template How to Build Yours In 12 Steps What message do you want to communicate to your audience? What do you want your audience to know about your organization? Whats your brands mission and purpose? These questions can leave marketers grasping at straws.   If you cant answer them clearly, though, your communications plan is bound to go off the rails. And thats exactly why weve written this post. Youre about to learn exactly how to create a consistent messaging strategy for your organization. As you go along,  youll learn how to document it all using a simple communication plan template. Plus, youll learn how to execute that plan using your blog, social media, and email marketing. Get Your Free Communication Plan Template + Bonus Calendars To make planning your communications strategy easy, we’ve built this free template. Plus, we’ve also included two calendar templates to keep your execution organized. Here’s what your kit includes: Communication Plan PowerPoint to lay out your entire communications strategy. Marketing Calendar template  to plan all of your content and campaigns. Social Media Calendar template  to schedule all of your social media messages. Download them now, and then let’s get down to work. How To Create A Communications Plan in 12 Steps (Free Template)What Is A Communication Plan For this post, a communication plan is: "A communication plan is a detailed strategy that outlines an organization's target audiences and the messages they need to receive to drive desired business outcomes." What is a communication plan, anyway?12 Steps To Develop A Solid Communication Plan Now that you know what a communication plan is, you can work on building one. The following 12 steps will help you plan a full strategy that you can share with your team. Here's how to develop a communications plan in 12 steps.Step One: Establish Your Mission Statement The first step in your communication planning process is reminding your team of your mission statement. Your mission statement is the end goal that your company wants to fulfill for your customers. Here are a few example mission statements to inspire your own (if you don’t have one yet): Starbucks:  To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time. :  Organizing the world one marketing calendar at a time. Nike:  To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world. Try using this template to format your mission statement. Our organization exists to provide [benefit], [benefit], and [benefit] through [product or service]. Once you have your mission statement record it in your communication plan template: Do you know your organization's mission statement?Step Two: Identify Your Business Objectives The next step in your process is to identify your business objectives. Business objectives are goals your company or organization needs to hit to be successful. Every goal your team sets needs to contribute back to these objectives. If you’re unaware of what you’re aiming for, you’ll miss every time. Talk to or schedule a meeting with your manager to find these objectives. Once you have them record them in your template: Step Three: Develop Audience Personas The next step is to find your target audience or audiences. These are the people your organization is trying to reach. Therefore, you need to identify who they are and what makes them tick so you can create messages that connect with them. Identify Your Target Audience Before you start developing your audience personas, you need to identify your target audience. Your target audience is the group of people who are most likely to purchase your product or service. Here are a few ways to learn more about your target audiences: Survey current customers to learn more about them.  Try using tools like SurveyMonkey  or Google Forms  to gather data from your audience. Ask demographic style questions  to gather the information you are looking for. Dig into Google Analytics  to learn more about who is currently visiting your website. Search through your competitors  social media followers to see who they appear to be attracting (and compare that to your own followers). Once you’ve gathered the data, you need to create a one to two sentence description about your audience. It could look something like this: Our target audience is made up of professional 20 to 28-year-olds who have just started their first job after graduating from college with a four-year degree. Remember to keep it brief, as you’ll go into more detail later. Record these statements in your communications template: Are you using personas in your communication plan?Develop Your Audience Persona Once you’ve determined the basic information of your target audience, you can use the survey information you collected earlier to create a detailed audience persona. Each persona should contain the basic information about each of your target audiences including: Age Gender Job Title Location Income There’s also space to fill out interests and hobbies of your audiences as well as the problems they are currently facing. Recommended Reading: How To Find Your Target Audience With A Marketing Persona Step Four: Identify Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) To craft effective communication, you need to know your unique selling proposition. What is a USP? According to Entrepreneur, a unique selling proposition is: The factor or consideration presented by a seller as the reason that one product or service is different from and better than that of the competition. Let’s take a look at an example. Casper is an online mattress retailer, and their USP is focused around one simple idea. Since their product is sold directly to the consumer, they can offer lower prices than what you would find if you went to a brick and mortar store.  Unbeatable low cost sets them apart. Big or small, identifying your USP  will make a huge difference in your communication strategy. Work with your team to come up with your USP and record it in your template. What's your unique selling proposition?Step Five: Draft Your Calls To Action Each one of your target audiences will have a call to action. What do you want your audience to do after they have read or heard your message? For example, let’s say your organization is a budgeting program  designed to help people create financial freedom.   Your target audience is ages 20-28, starting their first job and dealing with a   mountain of student loan debt. Your call to action would be to sign up for a free consultation to help them get their loans paid off as soon as possible. You know what you want them to do; now you have to figure out the right phrasing that creates the final push they need to take action. This graphic is packed full of 54 different words that you can include in your CTA: If we go back to our example some CTAs that this company could use are: Discover how to get ahead of your student loan payments and sign up for a free consultation. Register for a free consultation and take advantage of this special offer before it’s gone. These CTAs should identify the action and general messaging your organization needs to communicate to each audience. Record them  in your template. Does your communication plan include clear calls to action?Step Six: Choose Your Channels The next step in your communication plan process is choosing the channels that you’re going to share your message on. Blogging According to Express Writers, featuring a blog  as a key part of your website increases your chance of better search engine rankings by 434%. Blog posts are great for sharing a variety of news including: Company events. Company news. Feel good projects your organization has taken on. How-to content. Updates to products and services. Launches of new products and services. Recommended Reading: How to Create Effective Blog Posts That Convert Like Crazy Email A second channel option to consider is email. According to Imagination, emails usually generate 38 dollars for every 1 dollar spent. That’s a 3,800% return on investment. So how can you use email to spread your message? Some common tactics are: Email Newsletters that keep your audience up to date with your latest content and news. Press Relations:  Need to get a press release out in a hurry? Email is a great way send your press releases out to your press contacts. Sales Offers:  Having a limited time offer to entice your customers to buy from you? Let them know with a quick email blast that is full of message copy that encourages them to buy. Tools like MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, and Wordfly  can help you get started. Social Media If you decide to use social media, ensure that your organization is using the best channels for your purposes. Here’s are some facts to keep in mind about each network. You can also choose your networks based on where your audience would be most active. According to the Pew Research Center, this the most updated audience demographic data as of 2016. Source: pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/social-media-update-2016/ Use this data to see where your target audience is most active. Recommended Reading: How To Automate Your Social Media With And Get Your Time Back Choose your channels and record them in your template. Step Seven: Decide Your Publishing Frequency Now that you have your channels decided, your next step is to determine how often you’re going to publish your content. Each channel has its own set of best practices regarding publishing frequency. Blog Post Publishing Frequency Your blog post publishing frequency will vary a lot depending on your content team’s work span and how often they can write full blog posts. Start small and grow your blog post publishing frequency as you get ahead in your content. As you start to publish your blog posts, refer to this graphic to figure out the optimum days to post your content. Recommended Reading: When Is The Best Time To Publish Blog Posts? Email Send Frequency According to Crazy Egg, if you grow your email list by subscribers, your optimum send frequency is: Source: https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/email-marketing-frequency/ Again remember that these are just suggestions. If your audience wants to hear from you more often, give them what they’re asking for! Recommended Reading: What 10 Studies Say About The Best Time To Send Email Social Media Publishing Frequency For social media, there are two things your communications team should focus on when sending messages; how often to post and when to post. Here’s an infographic on how often you should post to social media according to 14 different studies: Recommended Reading: How Often To Post On Social Media? [Proven Research From 14 Studies] After you’ve determined how often you want to post to each of your social media channels you can move on to deciding when you’re going to post. This is important because posting at the right time helps increase the chance that your audience will see your content in their newsfeed. Check out this infographic on the best times to post on your social media channels: Recommended Reading: What 20 Studies Say About The Best Times To Post On Social Media It’s important to note that you don’t have to follow this publishing schedule exactly. Create one that works for your team and focus on growing it as you become more comfortable posting to the channel. So how do you decide what your initial publishing schedule will be? An example schedule might be: Publish 3 Facebook posts a week. Publish 15 tweets per day. Publish 2 blog posts a week. Send 3 emails a week. This publishing frequency is here to help you get started. If you can’t post as frequency as this schedule suggests, try working your way up to it instead. The main thing to focus on is consistency. Ultimately the schedule that you decide on will depend on you and your team. Once you have figured out your initial publishing schedule, record it in your template. Step Eight: What Messages Do You Need To Deliver? You have your strategy, now comes the fun part, deciding what messages you want to send. Each one of your target audiences has a specific message they need to hear to beat the final hurdle to converting. So how do you figure out what that message is? Each of your audiences experiences a particular problem that would draw them to your product or service. The messages you create for each of your audiences should address: The problem they’re currently facing. The solution your organization offers. The call to action you created in step six. Creating your messages involves a five-step process: Let’s walk through an example of this five step process. Think back to the example of the financial company who’s looking to help students who just graduated with their loans. This is how it should look in your communications plan template. Their target audience would be 20 to 28-year-olds who have just graduated from college and are in their first job. After you have identified your target audience, determine the problem they are facing and the solution your company can offer: Next, create a message your company’s target audience would connect with. Try using this fill in the blank template to start: Are you experiencing [insert problem]? See how [insert company name] can help with [product or service]. [insert the CTA that you came up with in step six.] In your template, it could look something like this. Your next step involves finding the channels that your audience would prefer to receive your message on. For this example, we could assume that 123 Accounting’s target audience would be most receptive to their message coming from a variety of social media channels. Then decide on the frequency that you will send your message out. Finally, take the CTA that you created for your target audience earlier in this post and add it to your messaging matrix. What are the core messages your brand needs to communicate?Step Nine: Determine Your Important Events and Campaign Plans Another critical part of your communication plan is going to be laying out the essential events your team needs to keep track of throughout the year. You’ll also want to start formatting the campaign plans for each of those events. To start take a look at your calendar for the next year. What common recurring events would your audience be interested in? This could be holidays, company events, anniversaries, or recurring sales or promotions. Some common holidays are: Christmas Thanksgiving (In the US) Hanukkah Easter The Fourth of July (In the US) Memorial Day (In the US) Veterans Day (In the US) Labor Day (In the US) President’s Day (In the US) Valentine’s Day Halloween St. Patrick’s Day New Year’s Day Many sales and promotions will fall around the holidays, but there are also some recurring dates to keep in mind: End of quarters (the end of every third month). End of companies fiscal year (this will depend on the organization). Beginning of a new season. End of a new season. Recurring industry conferences. Mark any of these recurring events and holidays in your calendar: Record those recurring dates in your communications plan so your team doesn’t have to flip through a previous calendar. Make sure your communication plan anticipates important events ahead of time.Step Ten: Set Your Communication Goals The next step in your communication process is to set goals that your communications team needs to reach. These goals should relate back to the business objectives you identified earlier in this post. For example, let’s say your business objective is to increase charitable donations by 50%. So a communications goal for your team could be: increase the number of event signups by 75% from last year. Each goal that you create should also be SMART or: S: Specific. M: Measureable. A: Attainable. R: Relevant. T: Timely. Try this fill in the blank template when you’re creating your goals: Our [insert team name] will reach [number] [metric] every [time frame] by [date]. So in practice, it could look something like this: Our communications team will reach 5,000 event trial sign-ups every quarter by December 2018. Once you have your goals you need to determine what metrics you’re going to track. Metrics are data points that show whether or not you are reaching your goals. If you’re looking for blog metrics some common ones are: Unique page views Total pageviews Time spent on site Bounce rate Organic search ranking Backlinks If you’re tracking email metrics, some common data points are: Email opens Number of new subscribers Total subscribers Link clicks Unscribers Finally, here are some common social media metrics your team could track: Impressions Reach Follower total New followers Engagements Once you’ve connected your goals to your metrics, record them in your template. Recommended Reading: How To Set SMART Marketing Goals Step Eleven: Using Your Marketing Calendar to Execute Your Communications Plan You finally have a full communications plan. Now comes the time to execute it. The question is how? That’s where your marketing or content calendar comes in. Using the content calendar template that you downloaded earlier, fill out each one of your events and the length of the campaign it’s related to. It could look something like this: You can add in what days your blog posts, emails and more are publishing: To schedule your social media posts open your social media calendar and use the same color codes to indicate which social media posts are related to each campaign: Do This With You may start to notice you need three, four, five maybe even six tools to get your messages out to your audience. That seems like a lot. What if there was a way you could do it all in one tool? That’s where comes in. With our marketing calendar software, you can: Manage your team’s workflows, plan all your content, and see deadlines in one place. Automate your WordPress and social media publishing schedule (and email scheduling is coming soon). Measure your content + social performance. Plus a whole lot more. Recommended Reading: The Ultimate Guide to Execute your communications plan on one marketing calendar. @will show you how.Step Twelve: Measuring Your Results The very last step in your communication plan is to measure your results. You need to know what you’re doing is working right? This is where you’ll pull the metrics that you created for each one of your goals and start tracking them to see if your efforts are indeed paying off. If you’re going to be tracking blog post metrics, Google Analytics is going to be your best friend. To find the data you need to go Behavior → Site Content → All Pages: There you’ll be able to find all the data on the metrics we mentioned earlier in this post including page views, average time spent on page and bounce rate. Email metric data should be found in your ESP or email service provider tool. Each one will vary a bit on what data they pull and where this is located on the platform. Social metrics actually need to be found and tracked in Google Analytics and the internal analytics that the app gathers. Google Analytics will let you find traffic by going to Acquisition → Social → Network Referrals: From there you’ll be able to see the number of sessions, pageviews and session durations coming from your social media channels. Another way to find your social media data is to go to the in-app analytics of each of your social media channels. Each channel holds its own series of analytics including post reach, post engagement, audience demographics and more.

White Collar Crime. Ponzi Schemes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

White Collar Crime. Ponzi Schemes - Essay Example Essentially, the newer set of investors is made to finance the dividend earnings of earlier investors. Other than this, there is no other income from the investment such that the scheme eventually cracks as not enough investors are generated to support the dividend earnings of earlier investors. Victims lose money and the perpetrator of the ponzi attempts to run away from the scene of the crime. In the United States, there are laws against the ponzi and recovery of assets or some of the assets is possible. Ponzi Schemes According to the National Check Fraud Center (2011) based in South Carolina, the Ponzi scheme is one of the 22 white-collar crimes that schemes. In addition to the white-collar schemes are 22 white-collar crimes. The 22 white-collar crimes include bank fraud, blackmail, bribery, cellular phone fraud, computer fraud, counterfeiting, credit card fraud, currency scheme, embezzlement, environmental scheme, extortion, forgery, health care fraud, insider trading, insurance fraud, investment scheme, kickback, larceny/theft, money laundering, securities fraud, and tax evasion (National Fraud Center, 2011). On the other hand, the white-collar schemes include advanced fee schemes, airport scams, auto repair schemes, check kiting, coupon redemption, directory advertising, fortune telling, gypsies, home improvement, inferior equipment, Jamaican Switch, land fraud, odometer fraud, pigeon drop, police impersonation, ponzi, pyramid, quick change, shell game, utilities impersonation, VCR scam, and West African investment scam (National Fraud Center, 2011). The ponzi scheme is a type of an investment â€Å"where the actor solicits investors in a business venture, promising extremely high financial returns or dividends in a very short period of time† (National Fraud Center, 2011). The perpetrator in the ponzi scheme usually promises high returns simultaneous with a claim of zero or little risks on the investment (Securities and Exchange Commission, 2011). In many ponzi schemes, the perpetrator focuses on attracting new money from earlier investors so he can build credibility and entice more victims to make an investment (Securities and Exchange Commission, 2011). In the ponzi scheme, the actor or the criminal does not invest the money but pays dividends from the investments of new investors (National Fraud Center, 2011). As the initial investors are pleased with the payment of dividends, the initial investors bring in new investors from which payments for the dividends of the earlier investors are derived. (National Fraud Center, 2011). The ponzi scheme pays dividends from the investment funds of earlier investors but the scheme surely falls apart when the perpetrator no longer has sufficient investors from which to pay dividends for the earlier investors (National Fraud Center, 2011). When payments to the dividends of earlier investors are no longer possible from the investments of new investors, the perpetrator takes all the money and leaves his or her ponzi area (National Fraud Center, 2011). Ponzi schemes collapse because it is unable to consistently derive money from new investments (Securities and Exchange Commission, 2011). According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (2011), the ponzi scheme generally falls apart because sufficient investors cannot be found to allow the continuous payments of dividends. The scheme obtained the name from Charles Ponzi of Boston, Massachussetts in the early 1900s who launched a scheme that guaranteed 50 percent profit (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2011). The promise of 50% returns was only for 90 days (Securities and E

The Secret Behind Music Industry Research Paper

The Secret Behind Music Industry - Research Paper Example The other secret involves building some diversity. For instance, when one is building some roster for management, he or she should pick bands that are of the same gender. The bands should be of the same scene, and this is because the bands will have to play together and influence chances off every other including matching the managers music taste. Here, the negatives are usually disregarded while the positives are quite considered. Therefore, in order for one to venture into the music industry, he or she should consider diversity quite remarkably seriously. When one follows such a path, his or her responsibilities will be equal across the music genres. One should not work in only one area. Partnerships and missions also are some of the secrets of the music industry. Almost all bands should purpose to sit down and make some writing about two separate documents. The two documents should form the stamina of the band’s working relationship, and this is whichever one is playing in his or her grandma’s stadium. The first document, in which case it involves the partnership, should contain the names of people in the band, creative splits between the members of the band, the financial agreements, parting agreements, and sharing of money from the band. The second document, in which case it involves the mission statements, should address why every member is playing in the band, including what the band is trying to achieve. The stamen should be realistic and should be re-examined after some period (Byron). The other secret behind the music industry involves the press shots. Press shots are the most significant tools that the bands have at their disposal. However, there exists some crucial... The paper describes the secret about the music industry which involves connection or rather just a plan. The other secret behind the music industry, and which is quite advantageous, involves personal branding. In fact, most of the band managers name their companies using their own names and also booking agents transfer from one booking agency to another, but they have to pull their own brand across with them. Personal branding should not be taken as too personal, in which case one will lose a lot. The last secret involves putting the budget as the first consideration. One should look for a producer who is able to market him or her. Indeed leading producers are quite exclusive, and hence, one should put enough consideration to the budget. Budgeting is crucial in the music industry because one has to record the music, promote, press, and also create some video clips. Lastly, the current world involves the use of technology, in which case the internet and other new electronic allotment platforms play the prominent role, the new artist can display their talents to any person that may be having the computer or any portable electronic device. Some can use the internet to hear from the artist. In addition, the paper talks that most youthful people like using the internet, and hence, the internet will play a big role in the music industry.

Public Utilities Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Public Utilities - Term Paper Example listically behaved sector to a private owned and liberalized one since the 1980s with the privatization of British Telecom and the introduction of competition in the US long distance services (Wallsten, 2001). Based on the theoretical perspectives on privatization, it has been argued that the privatization of telecommunication sector will result in increasing the sector’s efficiency and overall performance. The empirical studies show the results varying in different countries. Given this background, this essay critically evaluates the privatization process of telecommunications all over the world and its impact. This essay is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the privatization process of telecommunication sector all over the world. Section 3 discusses the theoretical arguments behind privatization. Section 4 discusses the empirical studies son the telecommunications privatization. Section 5 discusses the country experiences in this regard. Section 6 concludes the essay. Due to the importance of telecommunications sector as a vital part of the national infrastructure in each country, the policy makers in this sector are supposed to ensure the availability of telephone to all upon demand, accessibility to the basic services to all people at affordable prices as well as to protect and defend a country’s security interests (Maitra, 2006). Moreover, being a technology intensive sector, the policy makers need to ensure that the country is making use of the most advanced technology in this sector to make use of all the available opportunities in the technology field. The three main challenges in this sector in front of the policy makers in the 1950s and the 1960s in all countries were the fast technological change, the poor performance of the state owned sector including long waiting times for accessing services and limited financial resources for availing new technologies that facilitate the growth in this sector (Maitra, 2006). Consequently, the three

An overview of IKEA

An overview of IKEA 1. Introduction Undoubtedly, in the modern, technological and developed world, IT defined as the storage, protection, conversion, transmission and retrieval of data, has a significant role in various important activities and contributes in industrial development. The usage of Information technology in businesses is a useful tool in managing and administering their regular operations and activities. An example of wise and effective application of IT into business is IKEA. IKEA is the worlds largest home furnishing retailer with stores located worldwide. Every year IKEA stores welcome 565 million visitors, while more than 450 million visits have been recently recorded to its website. The followed low-price strategy coupled with a wide range of functional, well designed products that satisfy every lifestyle and life stage of its customers, who come from every age group and type of household, is responsible for its rapid growth and its enormous success. 2. The company 2.1 Company overview IKEA began to design its own furniture in 1955 and opened its first store in Sweden in 1958. In 1959 it began to produce self-assembly furniture to lower freight chargers and other costs to retail customers, an approach that continues until today. IKEA now has over 200 stores in 30 countries. Each store has about 9500 items for sale. Its 2008 sales were over â‚ ¬20 billion. The company, over time has become a leader in its niche by the choices made in that process. Nevertheless, the IKEA uniqueness presents a formidable barrier to competitors- one that supply chain planners can look in creating their own business models. The â€Å"IKEA concept† guides the company. This concept is to make â€Å"well-designed, functional home furnishing products† at low, affordable prices. In fact, the design process for a new product begins by setting the retail price. It then proceeds to design production processes that meet the cost objective. Finally, the product is designed to IKEAs style standard. This standard omits cost-adding frills that add no value in terms of functionality. Each IKEA store carries -on average a selection of 12000 products, while the core rage is the same worldwide and independently of the store size. Managing over 200 stores spread in 30 countries worldwide and having 1,600 suppliers in 55 countries, requires apart from outstanding support staff, exceptional logistics and the best information systems. IKEA, in order to maintain an integral supply chain at its most efficient level, it must incorporate the right people, the high technology and the best information systems. 2.2 IKEAs timeline 2.2 SWOT Analysis 2.3 IKEAs challenges and goals The company requires the best tools available to ensure a faultless transition and has to be able to solve any problems as quickly as possible, particularly when it is the worlds leading home furnishing retailer. The rapid development of technology creates new standards and increases demands in planning process. The company has to be modernized and able to adjust quickly to changes, place additional pressure on the whole operation of the supply network and be innovator in using the most up to date information systems. Being sustainable should remain a central part of IKEAs image. Failure to deal with new challenges and problems that arise due to market forces and to various economic factors will cost IKEA in every area of its business. Hence, to ensure that this would not happen, IKEA needs to invest in IT, helping the company to adapt quickly and easily to the developing situations (agility) and face any problems occurred. Investing in IT can achieve: Increased visibility in the sales patterns of IKEA products. Improved forecast accuracy. Improved planner experience and productivity through exception-based management. Enabled the consolidation of supplier base with a focus on low-cost countries. Increased overall supply chain visibility and efficiency. 3. IKEA and IT 3.1 IKEAs major IT systems IKEA has many company-wide IT systems. These IT systems are facilities which aim to process data and provide meaningful information to users but each of them varies in function. IT systems are able to track data and information to all resources external or internal making possible design, production processes, distribution, retailing take place in the most productive and effective way. 3.2.1 IKEAs intranet: bringing people and information together In 1997 IKEA launched its intranet, IKEA inside.At its first steps it included useful information for co-workers and had a basic although unclear structure: content was static, interactivity inexistent but it improved through trying and learning. Through time the need to share the intranets content not just with IKEAs co-workers in the service office but also with the people working in IKEAs stores emerged. What was considered critical to success was the way the site would be set up in order to match the retail personnels needs and skills. In the following years IKEA replaced its traditional paperwork system with digital equivalents which led to great accomplishments, decreasing costs and time needed to complete different kind of tasks within company. Intranet offers a wide range of applications such as online surveys, details about products, company news, customer feedback, inventory and supply management tools and material concerning marketing. Hence, is considered by employees as their second hand that promptly provides them, whenever and wherever needed, with the necessary tools and information to perform their duties. Innovation and effort for improvement through intranet in IKEA never stops. Recently in May 2008 the Swedish company launched the ico-worker which houses information about employees and it is used in general as a digital human resource centre. Applications vary from managing retirement plans to requesting time-off and accessing online pay checks. This latest addition to intranet has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars and also many hours of work for IKEAs HR department. Through intranet IKEA has managed to decrease costs in departments other than HR. The intranet consultant, Toby Ward, mentions that IKEA US has managed through intranet to decrease costs more than $500,000 per year. More precisely, it has managed to decrease paper costs by $192,000, streamlining processes and self-serve process by $4,590, modernizing communication technologies -video conference to webex- by $90,000 and finally self-service HR by $219,000. The intranet team has accomplished not only to decrease costs but also increase sales by empowering employees and sales teams. It has succeeded this goal through delivering a highly focused on sales content. Employee discussion boards and provision of information concerning sales number and metrics are only some of the tools offered on a daily basis to employees working at IKEA. IKEA inside has managed to bring people and information together in the most productive way. Other companies use intranets as well without being merely as successful. What is the element that has ensured IKEAs intranet long term success? Is it a very sophisticated technology? The answer is that the key element to success has been the provision and ability to coincide the technology based system to the people it is meant to support. Technology was definitely not the sole focus when developing IKEAs information systems and especially intranet: The emphasis has been placed more to people rather than data or technology. Specifically, the IT was designed to enhance the connection between employees and data in respect to IKEAs people-centered culture. Beth Gleba, Internal Information Manager for IKEA explains that We are a people-based company. Face-to-face time is very important. Weve built our intranet to complement this. We dont want people to feel technology replaces but enhances our c onnection to one another. Working with our culture, not against it, has been key. The Intranet as part of IKEAs information landscape has been able to decentralize work, impact the bottom line, improve IKEAs financial factors and all that because people building the intranet right from the start had in mind that it should be more than its bits and bytes, it should be able to respond to peoples needs respecting their work culture. 3.2.2 IKEAs product information assistance (pia) One of IKEA ‘s key IT systems is PIA , Product information assistance which was introduced in 1998. This system has as a core objective to help administrate product information and is therefore useful for product development projects. PIA is provided with information by project teams and product developers. Input data include several kind of information about the product: sale price, expected cost, product composition, goals. PIA is also fed with information by other specialists at IKEA who provide details about suppliers, materials etc. Product developers are the main users of output information but all of IKEAs employees have also access to the system: they can either browse information or create documents such as internal reports. When we refer to product development at IKEA we should have in mind a fully vertical integrated system: A system that provides resources and coordinates the different stages of design, manufacturing, logistics, warehousing and finally exhibition in retail stores. So, behind each product there is a vast system of internal and external resources that interact one with another. Through PIA, IKEA has been able to perform miracles: It has been able to create products -like Lack, a simple table- that had a constant price for decades although the price of input materials has increased substantially. This accomplishment was possible with the use of PIA which has combined resources in different ways to reach the same result. PIA is responsible for collection, process and diffusion of the large amounts of information needed for each product, Lack as well, to both external and internal units. Of course PIA is not yet a perfect system. Certain limitations emerge from its direct and indirect connections its passive and active users but PIA is a system which constantly evolves with changing features and patterns getting better each time. 3.2.3 Supply Chain Management IKEAs supply chain follows the â€Å"philosophy† of make to stock. This means that products are not built upon customer request and thats why there is a large dependency on demand forecasts. In the past, there was a great degree of freedom concerning stock planning and replenishment at a regional level. Through time this has led to stock outs, overstocks and obsolete inventories. But this was not the only problem faced by IKEAs previous supply chain. The fragmented and unreliable information used -coming from manual work- created lack of trust between the different parts participating in the supply chain. Moreover problems in data maintenance were spotted as well as lack of the proper tools to handle deviations in demand. In order to address these problems IKEA decided to attain better control of the supply chain and improve performance. The new concept is being currently implemented and an important part of it is the IT technology being used. IKEA has reformed to a centralized planning organization with integrated planning processes and high data quality. APS (advanced planning systems) are tools used to help make decisions in this complex environment of global networks. The main idea is that one central planning engine includes all decisions concerning the supply chain: stock replenishment, sourcing, production and distribution decisions. The following figure shows the new planning concept where all forecasting activities are centralized and stock levels are under control through out the whole supply chain In the new global planning process corporate sales planning takes place first, its results are used as input in to the global need planning process. The next step is the capacity planning process and finally the planning of the distribution supply chain takes place. Most of the planning processes are supported by APS and the forecasting processes have been supported by JDA. The contribution of these two systems to the improvements described concerning the integration of the supply chain has been amazing. With the use of APS the number of forecasts has reduced from 120 to around 30 the average forecast accuracy has increased from 60% to 80% Several roles in IKEA‘s planning organization have been supported with up to date information concerning stock levels, replenishment needs and safety stock calculations. APS has improved supply chain planning in the following ways: It has helped reduce stock levels and improve services It has provided management of large amounts of data and run of â€Å" what if† scenarios to ensure the best decisions will be taken It has present results in an understandable way It has contributed to the improvement of the degree of automation planning and therefore has save time for decision making It has helped to balance the supply chain through coordination It has offered tools to detect and deal with planning problems in early stages It has improved the data quality In the year of 2001 IKEA has launched a new cooperation with JDA which in its turn provided a new solution to apply JDA Demand solutions on all company products in the international market. The primary objectives pursued by the company were to design a methodology to plan sales, to come up with real sales forecasts in order to determine capacity for stocks as well as plan for suppliers and estimate the transpiration costs. Due to this global supply chain planning system, today IKEA has the opportunity to manage its sales, capacity, inventory and distribution in an efficient and visible manner. This gives the company to better consider its sales prospects and improve the business operations as a whole. The reports state on the companys planning departments testifying about the efficiency of this method as it was vividly reflected in more accurate forecasts. 4. Future Challenges Over the next five years IKEAs strategy has been to keep expanding in the international markets which makes them to face new challenges, particularly with the distribution system. Such enormous growth urges the company constantly review its distribution structure and adapt it to the required needs. One of the primary moves the company should do is to reallocate its distribution structure in a way that the low-flow range will be stocked centrally for big regions and high-flows near to the appropriate market. Meantime, the company should work on increasing direct deliveries. The other upcoming challenge that the company is coping with is about organizing remote shopping over phone and Internet. Even though IKEA customers still prefer to visit the stores as it is a whole experience for them, however internet shopping and phone orders is on demand and in order to meet this expectations the company should find new and flexible distribution solutions. 5. Evaluation of the impact of IT in IKEAs success 5.1 ITs impact on IKEAs success As the globalization is increasing in the retail industry in terms of sales and supplies the significance of IT is rising substantially and is playing a vital role in managing the complexity of retail operations. Major retail industry players are willing to allocate larger amounts for IT costs as they realize the importance of its application in the business as it generates numerous advantages over the competitors and delivers value. IT has played a great role in IKEAs success and this is because the company was not merely integrating these systems into its operations but also combining them with its strategic goals. At the same time, IKEA was able to maintain successful in the market as it was evolving the IT systems in the company as the business was growing starting from simple and base systems to finding complex solutions to complex problems. 5.2 Competitive advantages from ITs implementation In this dynamically moving business environment it is a challenge for companies and organizations to sustain their competitiveness. Today by integrating IT systems in its everyday operations, IKEA has empowered its grounds in the market as these systems provide best information that the company needs to do its tasks more effectively. It has quick access to information and it minimizes the errors in business transactions. At the same time it serves as a powerful competitive tool for IKEA to interact with its customers, supplier and employees in an effective manner that contributes to a mutual benefit by making its stakeholders loyal to the company. Today, due to its successful Supply Chain Management system IKEA is able to achieve cost benefits and offer reduced prices to its customers. At the same time the implementation of Supply Chain Management system in its global planning has given IKEA the opportunity to reduce its stock level and increase the service level. This in its turn contributes to the overall satisfaction of the company clients and supplier. Contrary to its competitors, IKEA is able to detect and cope with problems related to the supply chain at an early stage which helps the company to have a balanced chain. It also has accuracy in its forecasts and better visibility and efficiency in its overall chain. In summary, the IT implementation in various business operations gave number of competitive advantages and benefits to IKEA. Today the company has improved its overall operations in the market and runs the company with a better and global view. These IT initiatives gave the company long-run significant competitive advantages in the market that will contribute to improved profits. 5.3 Lessons learned from IKEAs IT applications IT systems became the heart of IKEA operations and it plays an important role in alleviating pressure points in its business transactions. On the other hand, those companies who do not manage their IT systems effectively it becomes a problem rather than solution, especially when a retail industry player has to deal with advanced planning and scheduling systems, merchandizing and inventory management systems. However, these systems play crucial role in retail operations and when the company uses it effectively, it can improve efficiency and increase revenues. In IKEAs example we learn that the company matched its IT systems to its existing culture and found success in its initiatives. Their objective was not to create a sophisticated systems but systems that could promptly respond to the employees, suppliers and customers specific needs. One of the success factors that have to be taken into consideration was that IKEA did not compromise its corporate culture by using information technologies. The company was aware that these systems exist to support people and not the technologies. They understood that those tools should not have negative impacts on healthy and powerful organizational culture as these tools are not capable to replace the nuances of the human experience. Another important aspect that has to be taken into consideration is the change management in IKEA, when implementing new IT projects. Most of the IT systems integrated by IKEA have been implemented successfully as the company spent money and efforts to support workers to adapt to methods and tools by creating awareness and interest among the employees, trying out the solutions and adapting to the change. 6. Conclusion Undoubtedly, effective use of modern IT can be seen as a requirement to succeed in the markets. Information technology secures the efficient information flow needed to develop and support a growing IKEA. IT has the ability to support a global organization such as IKEA with business solutions and services that keep the company running and to develop the way the company does business by supply quick, lean and user-friendly IT services rather than just technology. IT offers countless opportunities to simplify, streamline and improve every aspect of IKEA operations. Most of the specialized jobs and projects are based in the IKEA IT centers, but IT support functions are needed in all parts of the company. Historically, IKEA has developed many of its own IT-solutions and stands as a model for various businesses worldwide. In the future, considering the globalization, internets expansion and technological growth, the role of IT will be even more critical. Given that IKEAs personnel has been proved through the companys long history as a solution-oriented and creative organization with a genuine interest in the overall success of IKEA as a home furnishings company, the future of IKEA is even promising with its IT systems to be the shortcut to success. 7. References Ward T., Sales intranet case study: IKEAin http://intranetblog.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2009/4/14/4153375.html Paul Chin, 2009. Inside IKEA ‘s human intranet approach at http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200908/ij_08_21_09a.html . Baraldi E. , Waluszewski A. 2002. Information technology at IKEA: an â€Å"open sesame† solution or just another type of facility? In http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL_udi=B6V7S-4C7VXV7-3_user=10_coverDate=09%2F30%2F2005_rdoc=1_fmt=high_orig=search_sort=d_docanchor=view=c_searchStrId=1206222647_rerunOrigin=google_acct=C000050221_version=1_urlVersion=0_userid=10md5=101bf0153f4fccb85d75fc95846140f2 The table was extracted from Jonsson P., Rudberg M. , Holmberg S. Global supply chain planning at IKEA in http://www.plan.se/files/Jonsson_Rudberg_Holmberg_08.pdf

Columbine High School Shooting Essay

Tuesday, April 20, 1999, was a turning point in the lives of many Columbine students and families. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, two former students at Columbine High School, went to school on that day for one purpose, to annihilate the school building as well as the student body. Although Eric and Dylan’s bombs did not detonate, they still succeeded in destroying the lives and families of the twelve students and the one teacher that died. The Columbine High School shooting occurred because of the premeditation of the shooters, the event of the school, and the results of the shooting. Eric and Dylan were just like most kids now a days entering high school. They came not knowing what to expect and soon realized no one even cared that they were there. They were bullied and picked on all the time. Eric and Dylan started a club called the Trench Coat Mafia which was known for its violent and vulgar language. Sometimes they would walk around school wearing trench coats to make the m seem stronger and to â€Å"protect† themselves in a way. Entering tenth grade was sort of the same for them, but it seemed to get worse quick. They started to participate in drinking, smoking, and petty crimes to make them more popular. The only people they got popular with were the police because they were constantly arrested for breaking into cars, homes, and stealing from stores. Eric over the course of all this developed serious anger problems and began taking Zoloft, a depressant, to make it better, but he started abusing the drugs and selling them for money. They made videotapes in Dylan’s basement showing them making pipe bombs and other explosives and talking about killing sprees. When they finally decided that they were going to do a killing spree in Columbine, they made more videos apologizing to their parents and other people and showing their ammunition. On Tuesday, April 20, 1999, Eric and Dylan left their houses as if it were a normal day, but the night before they had packed their book bags and some duffle bags with guns, rifles, explosives, pipe bombs, and 7-8 actual bombs. It was a normal day until around 11:00 a.m., Eric and Dylan entered the cafeteria with two rifles in hand firing random s hots everywhere. People scrambled to get out of the cafeteria, some thinking it was a joke and others realizing it was real. When the cafeteria was empty, they set up two bombs at opposite ends of the cafeteria. When they did not detonate, they were mad. After this first mishap, they ran across the school campus looking  to shoot anyone in sight and then they reached the library. The library is where they kill 7 out of 13 people. They taunted and fired random shots to scare the students that scrambled under the tables trying to protect themselves. Some were successful and some were not. After the library they returned to the cafeteria and this is where they committed suicide with one of the pipe bombs. The result of the shooting brought a devastating feeling on all the families and thankfulness to the families of the students that were not harmed. â€Å"Eric and Dylan are responsible for what they did, but Columbine is responsible for creating Eric and Dylan†. The event of Columbine still haunts us today with some of the more recent school shootings such as Sandy Hook Elementary. We will always remember what happened that Tuesday and try to prevent this ring of school shootings that seems to keep growing larger and larger from occurring anymore. The Columbine High School shooting occurred because of the premeditation of the shooters, the event at the s chool, and the results of the shooting.

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Contrast the dynamics between dominant cultures and subcultures either in a work setting or in society. According to Baack (2012), a dominant culture articulates the core values shared by a majority of an organization’s members. The dominant culture is the one that has the most power and influence. This culture represents the majority in society. The subcultures consist of the minorities in societies that differ from the dominant culture. Even though they are different, they deserve to be respected. Explain why it is important to understand the impact of culture. It is important to understand culture, so that all employees will be sensitive to the differences of others and value them, in order to work together to achieve the goals of the organization. Understanding culture is important so you do not offend others which could lead to a hostile environment. Give an example where you demonstrated your awareness and or openness to understanding a cultural difference. When traveling abroad for my company, I often came into contact with managers that stood very close when talking. At first, I did not understand and would quickly back away. This gesture often times offended the person that I was speaking with. I had to learn to embrace and respect the culture, in order to close the deal for my company. Explain how these differences underscore the need for understanding diversity. Diversity is what makes the world interesting. If we were all alike; what a boring world this would be. Understanding and respecting other differences helps us to appreciate diversity. In order to appreciate diversity, one must have an open mind and be willing to change. From the information given, develop guidelines for embracing diversity. My guidelines for embracing diversity are: educate people concerning diversity, create an environment where people can share ideas, get to know everyone on the team, and reward those that appreciate diversity.

Pygmalion and its characters essays

Pygmalion and its characters essays Choose a character and analyze the standards of the fictional society in which the character exists; how the character is affected by and responds to those standards; and how the characters reactions develop meaning in the work. "Pygmalion," a play by Bernard Shaw, is a mixture of a romantic comedy and a satire in which the main character, Eliza Doolittle, is judged only based on her English dialect. Shaws play makes fun of a society that evaluates its citizens on their particular dialect rather than their character. As a result, Eliza is forced into the metamorphosis from a common flower girl into a lady. In the opening scene of Act One, Eliza has to fend for herself and vehemently asserts the virtue and sacredness of her character, which society fails to recognize. In this scene, the note taker, who will later be identified as Henry Higgins, repeats exactly what Eliza says: Cheer ap, Keptin; nbaw ya flahr orf a pore gel. At this point, he realizes she is from Lisson Grove, a less-than-wealthy area of England. Furthermore, Shaw foreshadows the importance for Eliza to improve her speech if she wishes to get ahead in life. In other words, she will spend the rest of her life as a flower girl, even though her character may be more upstanding than that of a duchess. Even in this pathetic state Eliza is not totally depraved. She is self-sufficient and capable of earning her living by selling flowers. She exhibits cleverness and a degree of resourcefulness to get the maximum value possible for her flowers. She even has enough self-respect and pride to defend her honor when, as a flower girl, she feels she is being accused of trying to molest a gentleman. Though still preoccupied with her wounded feelings because the note taker was writing down her words, she says, Hes no right to take away my character. My character is the same to me as any ladys. This statement is ...

The Legacy of the French Revolution essays

The Legacy of the French Revolution essays One of the periods of tremendous upheaval throughout Europe was the French revolution, beginning in 1789. As the people of France, from the workers to the bourgeoisie to the nobles, vied for political power and control, the country went through intense periods of terror and bloodshed. Some may argue that the revolutions end did not fulfill the desires of the French people or aid them in their search for reform. But the revolution did create the inextinguishable spark throughout Europe: the right to rebel. All over the continent oppressed countries began following Frances lead, trying to better their life through rebellion. This spark of hope in Europes lower classes is the foremost legacy of the French revolution; all people realized the power of the working man and his ability to unite a country. While the revolution, with its moderate yet useless political reform, implement the beginning of the modern age of France, the revolutions true legacy was to afford Europes lower classes wi th the confidence, cause, and motivation to change their country through rebellion. The political reforms created by the revolution in France did little to better the peoples lives or empower them through representation. As power shifted hands throughout the revolutions four stages, the demands of the lower classes remained as they had been upon the meeting of the Estates General. The peasants cry for lower taxes and less economic pressure was due to their lack of food and privileges, neither of which were addressed at all during the revolution. The drafters constitutions of the 1790s were never concerned about socialist reforms, instead they wish to empower themselves. But by 1848, the socialist peasants realized their immense oppression and soaring taxes had not been eliminated, and revolted against the revolutionaries in a violent outburst that left unrest all over France. A truly reformed country...

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