Global Privacy… Are You Being Watched?? Essay examples -- Surveillance

Global Privacy†¦ Are You Being Watched?? Introduction Privacy has grown to become an intensely complex and important human rights topic in the information age. The right to privacy underlines human dignity. One of the first privacy laws can be traced back hundreds of years, to 1361, when England enacted the Justice of the Peace Act, which allowed the arrest of eavesdroppers and peeping toms.1 About every country in the world explicitly recognizes a right of privacy in their constitution, allowing people to have a right to home communication secrecy and inviolability at the very least. Although the right to privacy is not explicitly documented in the United States’, Ireland’s or India’s Constitution, it is recognized in numerous provisions form their respective courts. The US airliner's "risk analysis" system A globally controversial topic concerns the tradeoff between privacy and security. At what point does enacting probing directives to strengthen our nation’s security impinge upon our own personal privacy? After the destruction of the twin towers on September 11th, the federal government and airliners have decided to implement a new computer system in order to gauge the level of terrorist risk posed by every single passenger on every flight in the United States. The new computer program, dubbed the â€Å"Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System II† (CAPPS II) shall assign passengers a color code based on their destination, city of departure, traveling partners and date of ticket purchase. Travelers who are coded â€Å"green† will pass through, â€Å"yellow† travelers will have to go through further screening, and red ones will be prohibited from boarding. Eight... ...screening.ap/ 8. Privacy as an Aspect of Human Dignity, [1964] 39 New York U. L.R. 9. Sara Kehaulani Goo. Fliers to Be Rated for Risk Level. September 9, 2003 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45434-2003Sep8?language=printer 10. Mark Glasser. China’s Internet Revolution. November 11, 2003 http://www.ojr.org/ojr/world_reports/1068766903.php 11. Privacy Watch – China and the US. December 2003 http://www.cotse.net/privacy/us_china.htm 12. Caslon Analytics. Caslon Analytics Privacy Guide. October 1, 2003 http://www.caslon.com.au/privacyguide6.htm 13. Stuart Millar. Europe votes to end data privacy. May 31, 2002 http://www.guardian.co.uk/internetnews/story/0,7369,725204,00.html 14. Detroit Free Press. Europe’s privacy laws cause rift with US. October 30, 1998 http://www.freep.com/tech/qdata30.htm

Cubism and Multiplicity of Narration in The Waste Land Essay

Abstract The aim of this essay is to consider the multiplicity of narration in The Waste Land and its relationship in enrichment of content and meaning in the poem. There is an attempt to convey the Cubist traits and find concrete examples in the poem. This study will try to specify evidences for conformity of cubism and multiplicity of narration in the poem. While Eliot juxtaposed so many perspectives in seemingly set of disjointed images, there is â€Å"painful task of unifying .., jarring and incompatible perspectivesâ€Å" in The Waste Land. Like a cubist painting, there is a kind of variety of narration in unity through the poem. The usage of different languages and narrations in the poem helps to convey sense of the strain of modern living in modern waste land. Introduction The Waste Land is like a cubistic painting. The cubist painters rejected the inherited concept that art should copy nature, or that they should adopt the traditional techniques of perspective, modeling, and foreshortening. They wanted instead to emphasize the two dimensionality of the canvas. So they reduced and fractured objects into geometric forms, and then realigned these forms within a relief-like space. They also used multiple or contrasting vantage points for narration of their story on canvas. The most conspicuous feature of cubist form is the abandonment of single perspective. The multiperspectivism in cubism suggests that the many appearances in the world are less true than the abstract design in which produced by their juxtaposition. Eliot dedicated an entire chapter of his doctoral thesis on the problem of solipsism. It is a problem raised by the fact that in any human experience of the world, the world is always experienced from an individual perspective or (in Bradleyâ €™s term) finite centre. An individual’s mental life consists in a changing series of such finite centres, and there is no guarantee that his centres will harmonize with others or even with themselves. There is no guarantee that one’s experience or self will be understood by others. Communication of the inner life is always a courageous act of faith across a gulf of privacy and difference. Eliot himself said in his essay â€Å"Knowledge and Experienceâ€Å" ( 1964 ) â€Å"the life of a soul does not consist in the contemplation of one consistent world but in the painful task of unifying ( to a greater or less extent ) jarring and incompatible ones , and passing , when possible , from two or more discordant viewpoints to a higher which shall somehow include and transmute them .† Therefore we see the terrifying problem of personal communication already expressed in Eliot’s works and also â€Å"the painful task of unifying .., jarring and incompatible perspectivesâ€Å" to the fr agmentation and synthesizing efforts of The Waste Land . Discussion The original title for The Waste Land was â€Å"He do the police in different voices†. The line , comes from Charles Dickens’ novel Our Mutual Friend (1864_65). It is describe that widow Betty Higden, says of her adopted foundling son Sloppy †You might not think it , but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a newspaper. He do the police in different voices.† As The Waste Land is composed of so many voices and narrations , this would help us to understand that , while there are many different voices and narrations in the poem , there is one central consciousness. We have a multiplicity of voices and narrations, male and female, young and old, in a variety of languages and styles. The shifts are unannounced, so that often we do not even know who is speaking. But the unity of the poem emerges from the fact that these all merge into a single personality, something we might call the voice of the modern consciousness. The fact that this modern consciousness cannot settle into a fixed perception of things or even into a consistent language and narration helps to convey sense of the strain of modern living . In fact, what emerges from the poem as a principal concern is the inability of the modern consciousness either to see unity in the world outside or to bring to a disordered world any sense of inner integrity. Part of this sense of the totality of the modern self adding up to a fractured variety emerges, not just from the shifting sense of the images and the multiplicity of narration , but also from the variety in the verse style. It’s as if in the modern age, there cannot be a single authoritative way of expressing how one feels. There is not enough confidence in the forms of language itself. Just as the traditional community has become the unreal city, a vision of a modern inferno. So The Waste Land is abundant with multiplicity of narration in different language and set of seemingly disordered images. The images in The Waste Land are supported by two distinct ways of narration. The lyric voice opening the poem uses metaphoric, often symbolic images and speaks in repetitive, stylized syntax. It has suggested on the one hand order and propriety, and on the other hand stasis. This voice speaks with authority and finality as it recurs in scenes throughout the poem where the vision of barrenness and revulsion from life is intensely clear and controlled. This voice contrasts with many voices speaking in metonymically rendered narrative scenes full of movement and change. These other voices resist categorization. These voices rang from vivid characters such as Marie, the hyacinth girl, Stetson’s friend, Madame Sosostris, the nervous woman, the pub woman, Tiresias, and the Thames daughters, to the non-human voices of the nightingale, the cock, and the thunder. In the poem there is also a progress in debt of experience from the voice of Madame Sosostris, the fortuneteller with a bad cold, to the voice of God in the thunder. In the first part of The Waste Land, we have four voices: 1) 2) 3) 4) First voice: Marie, an aristocratic German recounting childhood. Second voice: Prophetic and acpocalyptic , recalling a more innocent past Third voice : Madame Sosostris , tarot reader Forth voice : Walker in surreal London , seeing Stetson , an old comrade In the beginning of The Burial of the Dead we hear a â€Å"voice of propriety† that wishes to stop all new movement, change, or development. In The Burial of the Dead Eliot has examined the limitations of a purely romantic view of life. It makes life arid and unreal. In the second part of The Waste Land, we have at least seven voices: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) Initial narrator The nightingale The neurotic woman Her companion The gramophone The maid The bar keeper The use of different narration in this kind of collage in A Game of Chess allows the poet to distance himself from any single statement. In this regards Louis Menand ( 1952 _ ) has mentioned that â€Å" nothing in [the poem] can be said to point to the poet, since none of its stylistic features is continuous, and it has no phrases or images that cannot be suspected of—where they are not in fact identified as— belonging to someone else†¦.. Eliot appears nowhere, but his fingerprints are on everything â€Å"(The Cambridge introduction to modernism, 2007, p.179). A Game of Chess seems to be thematically centered on a sterile vision of modern life. This vision is countered by the narrative animation of the scenes: the sensuous movement of objects in the boudoir, the hysterical woman’s insistent questioning, the playful mutation of Shakespeare to a â€Å"Shakespeherian Ragâ€Å", and the pub lady’s vivid chatter. In the third part of the poem, The Fire Sermon, we are introduced to Tiresias as Eliot himself introduced him: Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a ‘character’, is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest. Just as the one-eyed merchant, seller of currants, melts into the Phoenician Sailor, and the latter is not wholly distinct from Ferdinand Prince of Naples, so all the women are one woman, and the two sexes meet in Tiresias. What Tiresias sees, in fact, is the substance of the poem (Eliot’s note). All through the poem we hear one voice, the persona of Tiresias who assumes the various characters in the poem. Tiresias is not a definite character with definite views on life, but an anonymous carrier of a state of mind. In the poem, scenes and dialogues are so arranged to express state of mind. It is through Tiresias that we have been conscious of The Waste Land. In the fourth part, Death by Water, Madame Sosostris is overcome because there occurs what we had been told to fear: â€Å"a death by water†. There is a sense of peace in such annihilation, but the death does not end The Waste Land. We are also shown a Christ-like figure post-resurrection. It is the first explicit sign within the poem that intimates an occurrence of resurrection and redemption. It is also points to the reader’s own mortality. The last part of the poem, What the Thunder Said, returns to a barren waste and an inhuman landscape where repetition suggests a pointless circularity. This section is made up of textual fragments from Dante, Elizabethan drama, a sacred Hindu text and children’s song. What the Thunder Said directly appeals to Eastern philosophy, specifically, Hinduism. The variety of voices and narrations in this part, speaking in different languages and different tones, indicates a world rich with possibility as well as confusion, with salvation as well as loss. The ending is deeply improper, not respecting boundaries between poems, between cultures, or between voices. The passionate and paradoxical desire to end desires leads only to the continuation of life in all its variousness, confusions, tragedies, and improper desires. The proliferation of perspectives obvious in cubism is basic to Eliot’s poetry. Here we have mentioned the examples in The Waste Land that are similar to the cubist painting: The female portrait at the center of â€Å" The Waste Land â€Å" is a cubist portrait , comprehending facets of clairvoyante and Cleopatra , a nervous contemporary women at her dressing table , a pub gossip , and many others. We see different characters and different narrations by diffrent moods and temperament but totally all these characters shape a single one , â€Å" Tiresias â€Å" . Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, Had a bad cold, nevertheless Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe. ( lines 43_45 ) , The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne, Glowed on the marble, where the glass Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines From which a golden Cupidon peeped out (Another hid his eyes behind his wing) Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra Reflecting light upon the table as The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it . ( lines 77_84 ) , When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself, HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart . ( lines 139_142 ) Eliot presents many broken perspectives on many cities in and out of time. The juxtaposition of these many partial fleeting perspectives leads to the formation of an abstract city (Unreal city) in the poem. For instance, in the Unreal City passage which concludes the first part of poem , lines 60-76 , Eliot begins by alluding to Baudelaire’s â€Å" Les sept Vieillards â€Å", moves on to the Infreno (â€Å" I had not thought death had undone so many â€Å" ), then to hour of Christ’s crucifixion ( â€Å" a dead sound on the final stroke of nine â€Å"), to the Punic Wars (â€Å" You who were with me in the ships at Mylae â€Å"), to Webster’s White Devil (â€Å" Oh keep the Dog far hence that’s friend to men â€Å"), and finally back to Baudelaire’s preface to the Fleurs du Mal (â€Å" You ! hypocrite lecteur!_mon semblable,_mon frere! â€Å"). All these references are folded into what begins as a naturalistic description of the City of London but then becomes an increasingly horrific city of dreams. Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. Flowed up the hill and down King William Street, To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying â€Å"Stetson! â€Å"You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! â€Å"That corpse you planted last year in your garden, â€Å"Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? â€Å"Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? â€Å"Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men, â€Å"Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again! â€Å"You! hypocrite lecteur! – mon semblable, – mon frere!à ¢â‚¬  (lines 60_76) , Unreal City Under the brown fog of a winter noon Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants C.i.f. London: documents at sight, Asked me in demotic French To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel Followed by a weekend at the Metropole. (lines 207_214) , What is the city over the mountains Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air Falling towers Jerusalem Athens Alexandria Vienna London Unreal ( lines 372_377 ) The main sign in the poem to show us cubist’s vein is the central and most important personage in the poem, Tiresias. Eliot thus suggests that all the many voices and narrations in the poem may be aspects of two voices, those of one man and one woman, or indeed of a single voice, that of Tiresias, the man who was changed into a woman and back into a man, according to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, who foresaw the destruction of Thebes, according to Sophocles’s Oedipus the King, and who was visited by Odysseus in the underworld in book eleven of the Odyssey. The central role of Tiresias suggests that the various voices of the poem can be understood as a sort of chorus, with each part being spoken by representatives of one sex or the other. I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives, Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea ( lines 218_221 ) Eliot brings the chaos of the modern civilization into his narrative structure, but he also shows a ray of hope to come out of the decay. The protagonist of the poem, Tiersias is a soothsayer from Greek legend, who narrates to the readers the situation of The Waste Land. Eliot forces multiperspectivism upon his readers. He juxtaposes many perspectives of the same idea or object by so many characters and multiplicity of narration. It let us to be aware of the limits of every perspective and of the desirability of moving from one perspective to another and, finally, of comprehending many perspectives at once. Eliot thus came to insist on an ideal of â€Å"variety in unityâ€Å" and as he mentioned in his Notes Towards the Definition of Culture ( 1948 ) â€Å" the variety is as essential as the unity â€Å". For Eliot, difference of perspective is not only necessary given our different sociohistorical situations, but its productive tension can provide for richer understanding and wider experience. The variety of voices and narrations, speaking in different languages, and different tones, indicates a world rich with possibility as well as confusion, with salvation as well as loss. Bibliography Antliff , Mark . Leighten , Patricia . A Cubism Reader: Documents and Criticism, 1906-1914. University Of Chicago Press, 2008. Barkaoui , Selma Mokrani . The Waste Land and The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock: A Comprative Approximation. University of Annaba, 2000. Bressler, Charles. 4th ed. Literary Criticism: an Introduction to Theory and Practice. New Jersey : Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Brooker , Jewel Spears . Bentley, Joseph. Reading the Waste Land: Modernism and the Limits of Interpretation .University of Massachusetts ,Press, 1992. Castle, Gregory. The Blackwell Guide to Literary Theory. Oxford: The Blackwell Publishing, 2007. Cottington , David. Cubism (Movements in Modern Art). Cambridge University Press, 1998. Cudden, J.A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York: Penguin Books, 1982. Dwivedi , Amar Nath. T.s. Eliot A Critical Study. Atlantic Publishing , India , 2002 . Eliot ,T.S. Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley. Faber and Faber ,1964. Eliot ,T.S. Notes Towards the Definition of Culture. Harcourt; First American Edition edition , 1949 . The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia. Columbia University Press, 2004. Frazer, Sir James George. The Golden bough: A Study of Magic and Religion. ed. Robert Frazer. Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 1998. Gantefà ¼hrer-Trier, Anne . Cubism.Taschen, 2004. Glaser , Brian. A Hegelian Reading of T.S . Eliot’s Negativity. University of California, Berkeley , 2005. Guerin, Wilfred L. et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Harper & Row Publisher, 1992. Gwinn, Robert et al. Encyclopidia Britanica, Vol. 1. Chicago :Encyclopidia Britanica, Inc 1990. H.Timmerman , John . The Aristotelian Mr. Eliot: structure and strategy in The Waste Land. Calvin College , 2007 . http: //WWW.answer.com http:// WWW. Wikipedia.org Johnston , Ian . Lecture on T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Waste Land . A lecture delivered, in part, to the Liberal Studies 402 class on January 16, 1997. Maddrey , Joseph . The Making of T.S. Eliot: A Study of the Literary Influences. McFarland & Co Inc, 2009. Merrian-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield: Merrian- Webster, Inc , 2003. Moody , Anthony David .The Cambridge Companion to T. S. Eliot. Cambridge University Press , 1994. Quinn, Edward. Collins Dictionary of Literary Terms. Glasgow: Harper Collins Publisher. 2004. Radha, M.B. T.S.Eliot’s The Waste Land and Other Poems: Narain’s University Series of English Literature, 1977. Rajimwalve, Sharad. Dictionary of Literary Terms. New Delhi: K. S. Paperback, 1998. Rocha , Luiz Carlos Moreira . The Contemporaneity of T. S. Eliot’s Poetry and Thought. Ma. in Literary Theory (UFJF); Doctorating in Science of Literature (UFRJ). Wolfreys, Julian et al. Key Concepts in Literary Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002. Young ,R.V . Withered Stumps of Time: The Waste Land and Mythic Disillusion. The Intercollegiate Review , 2003 .

Busi 650-ILP Final Essay

Table of Contents I. Abstract II. Organizational Setting III. Key Concepts a. Quality b. Total Quality Management c. Innovation d. Strategy Map e. Balanced Scorecard f. Six Sigma g. Bench Marking h. Inventory Management IV. Conclusion V. References Abstract The main purpose of the Integrative Learning Project (ILP) is to introduce an authentic or fabricated company/industry to research. The company’s organizational setting includes the mission statement of the company, who the internal/external customers are, what aspects can be contributed to achieve the organizations mission, and what role Christianity has with the organization. The research includes using eight different concepts learned throughout the course, explaining in detail how these concepts relate to the organization and the benefits the concepts offer to the organization, and what needs to be done to implement these concepts into the organization  successfully. This ILP will prove that a successful business can be run effectively and efficiently when implementing the key concepts. Organizational Setting Dover Saddlery, Inc. is a leading specialty retailer in the English-style horseback riding industry in the United States. The company offers a large selection of quality and premium equestrian products to care for, ride, train, and compete a horse. Founded in 1975 by Jim and David Powers, the company has grown to be the largest multi-channel marketer of premier equestrian products by selling through direct and retail sales. The company serves the English rider through Dover Saddlery and the western rider through Smith Brothers. The company sells their products using catalogs, the internet, and retail stores. The product line includes a variety of items such as tack, horse clothing, horse health, footwear, and specialized apparel. Dover Saddlery, Inc. is headquartered in Littleton, MA, including a warehouse and call center facility. The company has 18 retail locations in Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolin a, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Virginia. The company’s third quarter 2013 total revenues were $63.6 million, a 6.4% increase from the $59.7 million achieved in the corresponding period. Dover Saddlery, Inc. stock trades on the NASDAQ Stock Market under the symbol DOVR. The company’s mission is to grow the business by providing a broad variety of quality and most advanced equestrian apparel, equipment, stable, and horse care products to all equestrians, while operating efficiently and being profitable. The company carries 5,800 items comprising of approximately 28,000 different SKU’s. The company carries entry-level price points to the premium high-end price points to meet the wide range of customer needs and expectations. The company carries a distinctive and broad selection of need-based and high quality products at competitive prices with prompt order fulfillment ability. The company differentiates itself from competitors by their large inventory consisting of non-branded products, private label products, and premium brands. The current equestrian products market is  estimated by the American Horse Council at $7.6 billion with an estimated 9.2 millions horses in the United States. American Sports Data estimates that over 16.8 mill ion people ride horses. The equestrian industry has many indicators that the equestrian products industry will continue to grow. The company is known for their excellence in customer service and large comprehensive selection. The company promotes a culture of courteous, knowledgeable, and prompt customer service representatives. 90% of the sales and customer service representatives are horse enthusiast. The company offers customers a 100% satisfaction guarantee. The company has one of the largest detailed customer databases. The database consists of customers that have purchased items with the last 12 months and their demographic information. The use of the catalog, internet, and retail stores has enabled the company to capture customer information, cross-market products, and provide a convenient shopping experience for customers. The company’s customers are primarily females with a passion for the riding sport. The customers are affluent and luxury oriented who tend to choose to buy from the company for the high quality and premier products. The customer base shows high repurchase rates and has been ve ry loyal customers. The role Christianity has in this organization is customer service is essential and Matthew 10:31 states, â€Å"Fear not, therefore; you are more value than many sparrows† (ESV). In the service industry, customer satisfaction is key and the company has to recruit the right people and reward them for there expertise. Colossians 3:23-24 states, â€Å"23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving† (New International Version). Another verse that can be applied in this organization is 1 Peter 4:10, â€Å"As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace†. The company uses the gifts God gives us and pass them on to consumers to benefit from. The role of Christianity plays a great role in this company. Key Concepts The first key concept that is applicable to Dover Saddlery is Quality. Quality has a huge impact on the quality of products and the success of the organization. According to Dinh, Igel, & Laosirihongthong (2010), â€Å"quality, considered a key strategic factor in achieving business success, is more than ever required for competing successfully in today’s global marketplace and it has become the key slogan as organizations strive for a competitive advantage in markets characterized by liberalization, globalization, and knowledgeable customers† (p. 931). The design and performance of the product are two very important concepts of quality. Quality should start with the customer, the experience the customer has with the product or service will impact the customer’s satisfaction with the total experience. The management and control of the quality of the products and services is very important to the success of the organization. It is very important for organizations to implement a quality assurance program (QAP) to ensure the quality of the products and services. According to Rouse (2007): In developing products and services, quality assurance is any systematic process of checking to see whether a product or service being developed is meeting specified requirements. Many companies have a separate department devoted to quality assurance. A quality assurance system is said to increase customer confidence and a company’s credibility, to improve work processes and efficiency, and to enable a company to better compete with others. Quality assurance was initially introduced in World War II when munitions were inspected and tested for defects after they were made. Today’s quality assurance systems emphasize catching defects before they get into the final product (Quality Assurance). There are many advantages for the company to have a QAP in place, include a competitive advantage, increase in sales and market share, increased customer sat isfaction, better management control, clearly defined organizational tasks, structure, and responsibilities, more effective recalls, and price premium (Aramyan, Meuwissen, Oude Lansink, van der Vorst, van Kooten, & van der Lans, 2009, p. 624). According to Yang (2006) â€Å"several studies on quality management have demonstrated that delivering superior service quality enhances productivity, reduces costs, increases customer loyalty, improves market share, and brings other general benefits to a service organization (p.1129). The QAP helps fulfill the needs  and expectations of the customers and improves the quality of the products and services. The second key concept that is applicable to the company is total quality management (TQM). According to Richards (2012), TQM can be defined as an integrative approach to management that supports the attainment of customer satisfaction through a wide variety of tools and techniques that the end result is higher quality of goods and services (p. 37). TQM is an organizational-wide concept of continuous improvement to ensure the products and services exceed their customers’ expectations. According to Richards (2012), â€Å"this kind of quality management requires the company to always check to make sure that product or service is at the standard that both the company and customer wants is maintained† (p. 37). Exceeding the internal and external customers satisfaction is a key focus of TQM. According to Talib, et al. (2011), TQM â€Å"has received a great attention due to its effectiveness in achieving sustainable competitive advantage and enhanced business performanceâ₠¬  (p. 1331). TQM is â€Å"a total look at the quality of the organization† (Richards, 2012, p. 41). â€Å"All service industries should seek to adopt and implement TQM so that proactive identification and response to needed changes can lead to continuous improvement† (Talib, et al. 2011). â€Å"Quality-conscious companies normally have a strong quality culture, which is helpful for achieving customer satisfaction† (Delgado-Hernandez & Aspinwall, 2008, p.1016). The practice of TQM can grow a company to have a sustainable advantage in local and international markets (Richards, 2012, p. 36). The third key concept that is applicable to the company is innovation. â€Å"In the modern business world, innovation is just as important as quality, so they must go hand and hand and one complements each other† (Perodomo-Ortiz, et al. 2009, p.5088). Innovation is one if the driving forces of a successful business and allows an organization to introduce new and improve products in the market place. According to Bigliardi (2013), innovation is a complex phenomenon that involves the production, diffusion and translation of knowledge in new or modified products or services, or the development of new production processing techniques. Innovation is very important to the  success of an organization, it creates jobs and promotes the growth of organizations. The fourth key concept that is applicable to the company is the strategy map. As a strategic part of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), a strategy map provides an organization â€Å"with a tool that helps them better monitor important details about their strategic business processes, thereby enhancing their employees’ understanding of the strategy interactions, which in turn facilitates implementing the business strategy† (Meredith and Shafer, 2013, pg. 99). According to Kaplan and Norton (2004), â€Å"the strategy map provides the visual framework for integrating the organization’s objectives in the four perspectives of a Balanced Scorecard† (pg.45). According to Markiewicz (2013), a strategy map is a tool integrating the developed strategy with operating activities of various organizational units operating in an organization. A specific feature of strategy map is that it describes in a clear manner the process of creating values in organization by indicating a number of cause and effect relationships between four perspectives (learning and growth, intemal-business-processes, customer, financial) and goals adopted within these perspectives. (pg. 161-162) The four perspectives a strategy map addresses include the financial perspective, the customer perspective, the internal business process perspective, and the learning and growing perspective. According to Markiewicz (2013), a strategy map â€Å"enables illustration of cause-and-effect relationship between the processes in all four perspectives and performance indicators at the organizational level. Strategy map and performance indicators at the organizational level constitute the basis for different departments when preparing their individual effectiveness indicators† (pg. 160). The top of a strategy map is the goal that has been specified by management, the next step is how the goal be accomplished, and the remainder of the map shows the cause-and-effect relationships that manag ement has developed on how the goal can be accomplished. The strategy map is used very frequently by all organizations as a simple strategy development tool by management to report the progress of the strategy implemented in their organization to achieve its vision or mission.  The strategy map is a powerful technique that can be applied to any type of business from a public sector organization to a non-profit organization. It is very important to organizations because it encourages its managers to think logically about the elements of their strategy and how the strategic elements interact. This effective tool ensures the managers understand the role of the strategy and how the effective strategy embraces all of the organization’s activities. According to Umayal Karpagam and Suganthi (2012), the strategy map describes â€Å"how the four perspectives: financial, customer, internal process, learning and growth are linked and how they create a balance between the more tangible outcomes through intangible resources† (pg. 7). The fifth key concept that is applicable to the company is the balanced scorecard. Kaskey (2013) says the balanced scorecard â€Å"provides an organization with ways to develop and evaluate strategic objectives and goals† (pg. 22). The balanced scorecard uses financial and nonfinancial strategic information and is â€Å"an accounting report that includes the firm’s critical success factors in four areas: financial performance, customer satisfaction, internal processes, and learning and growth† (Blocher, Stout, Juras, & Cokins, 2013, pg. 11). The benefits of the scorecard include ability to implement strategy, ability to track the process of the organization in their achievement of the strategic goals, the organization’s ability to determine manager’s compensation, achieving organizational change, and the ability to achieve the critical success factors. According to Werner and Fuyuan (2012), â€Å"when the score card is adopted, employees become awa re that their performance will be judged based on these measures and targets. Accordingly, employees will act to achieve the established performance targets† (pg. 92). The balanced scorecard is a critical tool for organizations in todays challenging and competitive business environment. It is very important for organizations to achieve its critical success factors to help the overall performance of the organization and to stay competitive. The sixth key concept that is applicable to the company is Six Sigma. This concept is a strategy to increase employee engagement that will then increase customer satisfaction. According to Meredith and Shafer (2013), six  sigma is a comprehensive and flexible system for achieving, sustaining and maximizing business success. Six Sigma is uniquely driven by close understanding of customer needs, disciplined use of facts, data, and statistical analysis, and diligent attention to managing, improving, and reinventing business processes. (Page 129) This method is an inspiring factor for employees and employees have to be completely engaged in the program for it to be successful and impact employee satisfaction. Six Sigma has been embraced by many organizations, that drive’s improvements in processes, products, and services. When implementing the Six Sigma approach, first provide necessary leadership and resources, implement a reward system, provide ingoing training, select early p rojects, break up difficult projects, and avoid employee layoffs. â€Å"Six sigma’s popularity and success is catching fire throughout the service industry across the globe as no other process improvement (PI) movement before (Sunder, 2013, pg. 34). The seventh key concept that is applicable to the company is benchmarking. According to Cruceru (2013), benchmarking is â€Å"viewed as a continuous process of evaluation of products, services, processes and performance of competitors in order to obtain competitive advantage, benchmarking involves knowledge of all elements occurring when implementing in practice† (pg. 6). Benchmarking is a strategy where the desire to be competitive is a challenge for managers to become knowledgeable and analyze their competitors in the industry and implement competitive strategies to be successful. According to Meredith and Shafer (2013), benchmarking is used for a variety of purposes, including the following: Comparing an organization’s processes with the best organization’s processes. Comparing an organization’s product and services with those of other organizations. Identifying the best practices to emulate. Projecting trends in order to be able to respond proactively to future challenges and opportunities. (pg.133) Benchmarking involves three steps: the first step is concerned with preparing the study, the second step is collecting the data, and the third and final step is what was learned to improve the organization. This process has become one of the most valuable processes to identify performance improvement areas. Benchmarking allows an organization to analyze and improve performance, profitability, business  processes, and market share. There are many types of benchmarking including: process benchmarking-compares business processes and operations, product benchmarking-compares products and services, strategic benchmarking-compares organizational structures, internal benchmarking-internal comparison, competitive benchmarking-comparison of direct competitors, functional benchmarking- comparison of organizations in the same field, and generic benchmarking- comparison of the best com petitor in other fields. According to Cruceru (2013), â€Å"those competitors who will know to focus on benchmarking implementation in management and marketing activities of the organization will achieve increased performance and competitiveness in terms comparable to the best competitors of the time† (pg. 9). Appendix A In order to implement benchmarking in Dover Saddlery the following steps are needed: 1. Understand the company’s current process performance gaps. 2. Obtain support and approval from the executive leadership team 3. Document benchmarking objectives and scope; document the original process. 4. Agree on the primary metrics and put them in writing. 5. Agree on what to benchmark. 6. Develop a data collection plan. 7. Identify research sources and initiate data gathering. 8. Determine how to contact and screen companies. 9. Design a detailed survey to gather information. 10. Decide if gathered information meets original objectives. 11. Conduct a site visit. 12. Apply the learning to performance gaps. 13. Communicate to the executive leadership to ensure continued support. 14. Develop a recommended implementation plan with process owner. 15. Know when to update and recalibrate. The eighth key concept that is applicable to the company is inventory management. Inventory management is extremely important for the success of a organization and having the correct number of items in inventory that is necessary for operation is vital for inventory management. According to Chen (2011), â€Å"the inventory in an organization may contain a large amount of items. A logical inventory classification is necessary for managers to have efficient plan and control of the items† (pg. 1702). Inventory management can be a challenge for any business, but can be even more important for businesses with changing product life cycles or product needs. The development of information systems, has eased some challenges faced with inventory management. The introduction of advanced information system, which aim at better performance than manual product identification and inventory data-keeping procedures, hold much promise for the reduction of inventory inaccuracies. Inventories include work-in-process, raw materials, finished goods, component parts, and so on. By eliminating storage space to business is not only saving on space but also removing defective parts from being hidden until no one knows who had made them (Meredith & Shafer, 2013, p. 176). Appendix B Inventory An additional way that we differentiate ourselves from our competition is through our breadth and depth of inventory. We believe our inventory is deeper than our competitors with $10.1 million in on-hand inventory as of December 31, 2005 and more than 5,800 items comprising approximately 28,000 different SKUs. With our extensive inventory position and rapid fulfillment capability, we have historically been able to fill approximately 95% of the items ordered within an average of 1.5 business days. Based on our inventory management systems, continuous monitoring of the products we carry and the fact that we carry very few fashion products, we have historically had very little obsolete inventory. Despite the high level of inventory we have historically maintained, we have turned inventory approximately four times per year and we historically have had no material inventory write-downs. All of the products that are presented in our catalogs are available online and customers can use our websites to enter orders, shop online and check order status and inventory availability. On average, our retail stores stock inventory items represent over 70% of the merchandise  sales we make available through our direct sales channel. All items are available to customers entering our stores by either direct shipment to a customer’s home or for in-store pickup. Conclusion Dover Saddlery is a company that prides on their success and always providing 100% customer service to their customers. Utilizing these eight key concepts, along with successful implementation into the company’s initiatives, they will produce overall success and a winning organization. References Aramyan, L. H., Meuwissen, M. M., Oude Lansink, A. M., van der Vorst, J. J., van Kooten, O., & van der Lans, I. A. (2009). The perceived impacts of quality assurance systems on tomato supply chain performance. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 20(6), 633-653. Bigliardi, B. (2013). The effect of innovation on financial performance: A research study involving SMEs. Innovation: Management Policy & Practice, 15(2): 245-256. Blocher, E. J., Stout, D. E., Juras, P. E., and Cokins, G. (2013) Cost Management: A Strategic Emphasis (6th Ed). McGraw Hill: New York, NY. Chen, J. (2012). Multiple criteria ABC inventory classification using two virtual items. International Journal Of Production Research, 50(6), 1702-1713. Cruceru, A. (2013). Benchmarking – a method of improving organizational competitiveness. Romanian Journal Of Marketing, (1), 6-9. Delgado-Hernandez, D., & Aspinwall, E. (2008). A framework for building quality into construction projects – Part I. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 19(10), 1013-1028. Dinh Thai, H., Igel, B., & Laosirihongthong, T. (2010). Total quality management (TQM) strategy and organizational characteristics: Evidence from a recent WTO member. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 21(9), 931-951. Inventory. (2011). Appendix B of Dover Saddlery, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.hotstocked.com/companies/d/dover-saddlery-inc-DOVR-description-52723.html Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (2004). How Strategy Maps Frame an Organization’s Objectives. Financial Executive, 20(2), 40-45. Kaskey, V. L. (2013). The Balanced Scorecard: A Comparative Study of Accounting Education and Experience on Common Measure Bias. Advances In Management, 6(7), 22-25. Markiewicz, P. (2013). Methodical Aspects of Applying Strategy Map in an Organization. Business, Management & Education / Verslas, Vadyba Ir Studijos, 11(1), 153-167. Meredith, J. R., & Shafer , S. M. (2013). Operations management for MBAs (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Perdomo-Ortiz, J., Gonzalez-Benito, J., & Galende, J. (2009). The intervening effect of business innovation capability on the relationship between Total Quality Management and technological innovation. International Journal Of Production Research, 47(18), 5087-5107. Richards, J. (2012). Total Quality Management. Business Management & Strategy, 3(2), 36-42. Rouse, M. (2007, Feb). Quality Assurance (QA). Retrieved from http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/definition/quality-assurance. Sunder, V. (2013). Six Sigma— A Strategy for Increasing Employee Engagement. Journal for Quality & Participation, 36(2), 34-38. Talib, F., Rahman, Z., & Qureshi, M. N. (2011). Prioritising the practices of total quality management: An analytic hierarchy process analysis for the service industries. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 22(12), 1331-1351. Umayal Karpagam, P. L., & Suganthi, L. L. (2012). A Strategy Map of Balanced Scorecard in Academic Institutions for Performance Improvement. IUP Journal Of Business Strategy, 9(3), 7-16. Werner, M. L., & Fuyuan, X. (2012). Executing Strategy with the Balanced Scorecard. International Journal Of Financial Research, 3(1), 88-94. Yang, C. (2006). Establishment of a Quality-Management System for Service Industries. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 17(9), 1129-1154.

Hannah Essay Example

Hannah Essay Example Hannah Essay Hannah Essay This autobiography is called butterflies and was written by an author called Roger Dean Kisser. Roger Dean was raised up in an orphanage with kids Just like him, at that age he was between 6 and 7 years old not old but very young, every morning they would get up early and march to breakfast. This orphanage was full of beautiful creatures, butterflies, everywhere watching the anonymous house parents pinning them onto the heavy cardboard sheet, how cruel it was to kill something of such beauty, something so small can mean something special to him. In this critical essay I will be explaining how Rogers Dean uses significant language in this event, by collecting quotes throughout the biography, and proving the point, and answer the essay question which is, how Roger Dean felt being kept in an Orphanage. Ever since when he was a little boy of 6 years old, growing up in an orphanage with kids Just like him must have been trouble, One Saturday morning returning from the dormitory and witnessing the house parents pinning butterflies to a cardboard, after the phone rang which had to be answered he quickly went to check the board sheet where all he beautiful butterflies pined causing one innocent butterfly to fall over and leaving the other wing unattached, without touching anything. : A few minutes later the house parent arrived back to think he did something but he didnt, but wouldnt get believed. Roger Dean felt guilty picking up the torn wing spitting on its wing and trying to get it sick back together so it could fly away and escape this nasty place Just wasnt working, I guess. Being yelled at for absolutely nothing wasnt the best. Getting smacked with the cardboard paper across his head, pieces everywhere, throwing the roadbed on the ground telling him to pick it up and put it in the garbage. At this point roger dean was getting in trouble for things he didnt do though he was telling the truth but yet again the house parents didnt believe him at all. l sat there in the dirt by that big old tree, for the longest time trying to fit all the butterfly pieces together so I could bury them whole but was too hard to do In this quotation it explains that he was Broken and how he wanted to treat the butterfly with at least some respect by gathering all the pieces and trying to put them into place so that he an bury them whole, but was finding it really difficult. Every year when butterflies decides to enter this orphanage and try land on me I shoo them away because they did not know that the orphanage was a bad place to live and a bad place to die For Roger Dean Kisser growing up being looked after up into that orphanage, until he was older to look after himself taking half of his childhood away from him, leaving him forever with the thought of, orphanage was a bad place to live and certainly not a good place to die.

Disposing Nuclear Waste in Ocean Trenches

Disposing Nuclear Waste in Ocean Trenches It seems to be a perennial suggestion: lets put our most hazardous wastes into the deepest sea trenches. There, they will be drawn down into the Earths mantle well away from children and other living things. Usually, people are referring to high-level nuclear waste, which can be dangerous for thousands of years. This is why the design for the proposed waste facility at Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, is so incredibly stringent. The concept is relatively sound. Just put your barrels of waste in a trench - well dig a hole first, just to be tidy about it - and down they inexorably go, never to bring harm to humanity again. At 1600 degrees Fahrenheit, the upper mantle isnt hot enough to alter the uranium and make it nonradioactive. In fact, its not even hot enough to melt the zirconium coating that surrounds the uranium. But the purpose isnt to destroy the uranium, its to use plate tectonics to take the uranium hundreds of kilometers into the Earths depths where it can naturally decay.   Its an interesting idea, but is it plausible?   Ocean Trenches and Subduction Deep-sea trenches are areas where one plate dives beneath another (the process of subduction) to be swallowed up by the Earths hot mantle. The descending plates extend down hundreds of kilometers where they are not the least bit of a threat. It isnt completely clear whether the plates disappear by being thoroughly mixed with mantle rocks. They may persist there and become recycled through the plate-tectonic mill, but that wouldnt happen for many millions of years.   A geologist might point out that subduction is not really secure. At relatively shallow levels, subducting plates become chemically altered, releasing a slurry of serpentine minerals that eventually erupt in large mud volcanoes on the seafloor. Imagine those spewing plutonium into the sea! Fortunately, by that time, the plutonium would have long since decayed away. Why It Wont Work Even the fastest subduction is very slow - geologically slow. The fastest-subducting location in the world today is the Peru-Chile Trench, running along the west side of South America. There, the Nazca plate is plunging beneath the South America plate at around 7-8 centimeters (or approximately 3 inches) per year. It goes down at about a 30-degree angle. So if we put a barrel of nuclear waste in the Peru-Chile Trench (never mind that its in Chilean national waters), in a hundred years it will move 8 meters - as far away as your next-door neighbor. Not exactly an efficient means of transport.   High-level uranium decays to its normal, pre-mined radioactive state within  1,000-10,000 years.  In 10,000 years, those waste barrels would have moved, at maximum, just .8 kilometers (half a mile). They would also lie only a few hundred meters deep - remember that every other subduction zone is slower than this. After all of that time, they could still be easily dug up by whatever future civilization cares to retrieve them. After all, have we left the Pyramids alone? Even if future generations left the waste alone, the seawater and seafloor life would not, and the odds are good that the barrels would corrode and be breached. Ignoring geology, lets consider the logistics of containing, transporting and disposing of thousands of barrels each year. Multiply the amount of waste (which will surely grow) by the odds of shipwreck, human accidents, piracy and people cutting corners. Then estimate the costs of doing everything right, every time. A few decades ago, when the space program was new, people often speculated that we could launch nuclear waste into space, maybe into the sun. After a few rocket explosions, nobody says that any more: the cosmic incineration model is infeasible. The tectonic burial model, unfortunately, isnt any better. Edited by Brooks Mitchell

Reflective statement for previous case study Nestle Essay

Reflective statement for previous case study Nestle - Essay Example This has raised a debate on the aptness of this concept in the modern era of education. Critiques have often challenged the role of the students and have undermined the thought which reduces creativity and innovation among the students (Vita & Bernard, n.d.). Aspects like learning and reputation as well as memorising are largely outcomes of reflective studies. Competitive forces play a major role in the shaping the profitability of an organization. The analysis of the competitive forces pertaining to Nestle was done by using the Porter’s five forces model. This model analyses the competitive framework of an organization on the basis of five forces namely, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of new entrants, competition among the existing players and threat of substitutes (Hill & Jones, 2009, p.42-43). Figure 1: Tangram Analogy (Source: Vita & Bernard, n.d., p.18) The case study focussed on a lot of marketing issues, the nature of the case study an d its questions helped in analysing each of the components separately and finally generating a conclusive argument which is analogous with the tangram analogy shown in the figure above. The analysis of Ansoff’s matrix helped in predicting the possible strategies with regards to the business strategy adopted by an organization. This was helpful in analysing the case of Nestle particularly since the organization has its business units spread across diverse geographical areas of the world (Beamish & Ashford, 2007, p.59-60). During the course of analysis of the case study tools like PESTEL and SWOT were also used. These tools helped in analysing the external and internal environment of the organization (Nestle). The use of SWOT helped in analysing the strengths, weakness, opportunities and the threats being faced by the organization (Nijssen & Frambach, 2000, p.87).. PESTEL is one such tool that helped in understanding the external factors influencing the organization on one hand and also to analyse the political, economical, sociological, technological, environmental and legal factors in a particular nation (Johnson, Scholes & Whittington, 2009, p.65). Finally the process of strategy formulation does not end with framing and implementing policies but to evaluate and review the effectiveness of the strategies. The use of the balanced scorecard model helped in understanding how to evaluate a firm’s strategy based on financial as well as non financial aspects (Balanced Scorecard Institute, 2011). Question 2: In what ways, if any, did the module enhance your learning, professional and/or transferable skills? Various studies have concluded that improvement in practice or revision is largely the outcomes of a good reflective analysis which is quite contrary to the traditional school of thought (Vita & Bernard, n.d., p.5) The building synopsis which is an outcome of the American school of thought largely states that reflective studies enhance the manner in which students can apply the lessons learnt in professional life. The present module helped in generating abstract frameworks which helped in improving the writing skills (Vita & Bernard, n.d., and p.5). The module dealt with analysing the different strategic perspectives of Nestle. The large scale of operation in the organization helped in analysi

Relatioship with smart phones; Mass communication Essay

Relatioship with smart phones; Mass communication - Essay Example Furthermore, it can do most of the things a computer can do such as browsing the internet; one can access social networking sites like Facebook and Tweeter, download music and even watch TV (Kroski 2008, p.18). They are also used to determine to what social class a person belongs – the better and the more recent one’s iPhone is, the higher this person’s social class is, in people’s judgment. Despite their advantages, iPhones have negatively contributed to physical social interaction and created dependency and unhealthy addiction in users, which appears to portend the decline of some of humanities’ basic skills such as hand printing. Thanks to iPhones, people can communicate with others without being physically present, and this has led to them relegating the importance of face-to-face conversation in interpersonal communication. This often happens when someone has bad news to deliver and may opt to avoid sharing it face-to-face, so that he/she does not have to deal with another person’s reactions. Therefore, people with communication phobias and those who are nervous during conversations will find solace in the use of iPhones, may never overcome them, and may be easily falling into internet addiction (Shepherd & Edelmann 2001, p. 520). Hence, communication is stunted in that unless one is using video conferencing, which is not common, one is not able to receive immediate nonverbal feedback, and this makes communication incomplete. Unfortunately, this also makes lying easier since the recipient of the information is not privy to the cues that will allow him/her to detect deceit. Taking into consideration the use of emails and texts in communication, our writing skills will keep deteriorating, especially with technology such as iPads being introduced to young children in school. The majority of youths, especially in developed countries, rarely use a pen since they can send a text or email, which one can type on their iPhones. In addition, there is