Persuasive Essay free essay sample

Did you know that students are now required to complete at least ten hours of community service in order to graduate? In order for students to have a more positive experience, school administrators should add more activities within the guidelines. Some activities that will give students a more positive experience are serving at food kitchens, disturbing gifts at salvation armies, and helping out at nursing homes. Community service should be a positive experience for all students. The first activity that should be included in the guidelines for community service is serving food at food kitchens. This activity will be positive for students because they’ll be helping to feed the homeless. Also students will be able to see the happiness they bring to others by giving back. This option should be added to the guidelines because it’s an amazing opportunity. Students are able to help others, which is something they’ll feel good about afterwards. We will write a custom essay sample on Persuasive Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Students are also influenced to further their education and do well in life so their never put in that predicament. Student will enjoy working in food kitchens as a community service. Students are more likely to enjoy community service if school administrators add more to the guidelines. During Christmas time, the Salvation Army would be an excellent place to earn community service hours. This is good for students because they’re helping provide families that are less fortunate gifts to give to their children. Students also help create a food box for the family to take home so they have food for the holidays. This activity should be added to the guidelines because it’ll be a life changing experience for the students. Students will be less likely to judge others because of the clothes they wear. Plus their helping some families feel more positive about Christmas. Helping in salvation armies would be a wonder experience for students as a community service. There are many activities that students could particpate in and have a positive expierence. Helping in nursing homes is one of them. This is positive cause students are able to help the elderly. Students also are able to learn from the wise and get good advice on life. This should be added to the guidelines because students are being positively influenced. Their helping those who really need it. Their also being taught new things and receiving wise advice from the elderly. Helping at nursing homes should be added to the guidelines. With these three activities, students will receive a much more positive experience while doing their community service. Students are more likely to learn more with these activities. School adminstrarors will be impressed with the effect that that these activities will have on students, which is why they should consider adding them the guildlines. Persuasive Essay free essay sample Every teacher has a different set of rules in their classroom. Anyone you talk to has that one teacher with the most irrelevant rule you could think of. In school, there is a diverse population of students that tend to need a variety of guidance to assist them through the day. One of the most common rules a teacher has is, no food in the classroom. This rule should be removed from every teacher’s classroom for the following reasons: not enough time to eat a healthy breakfast, having enough energy, and keeping focus in class. One of the many reasons students should be able to eat in class is due to that us students don’t have enough time to wake up earlier and cook our self a nice meal. We barely have enough time to get ready for school in the mornings. It is even harder, trying to eat breakfast, if a student has to ride the bus or walk everyday. We will write a custom essay sample on Persuasive Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page All of the years that I’ve been attending school there have not been a year when teachers don’t emphasize how important eating breakfast is. We have heard multiple of times â€Å"the most important mean of the day is breakfast. † This is the main reason why we should be allowed to eat. Another reason why students should be able to eat in class is because teachers are allowed to eat in front of us but we can’t do the same. We should have to follow the same rules. There has been a time where I go to school with any empty stomach and I always see a teacher eating something and it makes me focus on that. Seeing them eat doesn’t let me concentrate and it makes me hungrier seeing and smelling it. Finally, why teachers should let kids eat in class, is because kids will have energy to participate in class. Shouldn’t all teachers want to see all their students hands up wanting to answer questions? If teachers would just give it a chance and let students eat in class they would be participating in school activities and fund raisers. In conclusion, the rule, â€Å"no eating in class† should be obliterated. Because students do not have enough time to eat a healthy breakfast, having enough energy, and keeping focus in class. Students will be more active, get better grades, and overall would likely be more willing to come to school. Think about the students and what will make the environment for them easier and more enjoyable for their time in school. Persuasive Essay free essay sample Persuasive essay – bullying For many years now the issue of bullying has been present. Some people think that bullying is good on the other hand, other argue that bullying cause negative effects. In this essay I will try to convince you of this. I’m not the only one who thinks bullying causes victims and broken hearts. Many people argue that all young people have experienced some form of bullying. You can see that bullying is affecting some people and in many serious cases people are too scared to come to school. One other effect of bullying is that it causes headache or stomachache and other have trouble concentrating on school work. Children who are bullied have higher rates of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and other mental health conditions. Children who are bullied are more likely to think of suicide. Research suggests that bullying must stop. This is because is not only physical bullying; bullying can also be in the form of verbal bullying and cyber bullying. We will write a custom essay sample on Persuasive Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Verbal bullying includes teasing, name calling, racial slurs, as well as spreading gossips or rumors. On the other hand cyber bullying includes harassing emails, instant messages, as well intimidating or threatening websites, blogs and posts. All of these forms of bullying can cause psychological damage to a person which can lead to more serious problems. Can you believe that despite all of the evidence, some people still think that bullying is a good behavior and not a bad thing? People argue that bullying makes her or him popular and it’s a cool thing. How silly and crazy are these people? I hope that you’re not one of them! It doesn’t matter how you look at it, bullying causes victims and people with no friends. Bullying is very important issue that needs to be stopped. Overall it is obvious that bullying is a big issue that affects a lot of people. Do you want to cause problems and headache for people? If not you must stop bullying today! Persuasive Essay free essay sample Aside from not having a winning record in almost a decade, the Rams have also finished in the bottom five in attendance each of the past four seasons. The NFL decided that it was time for a change and made a lot of Californians happy with this decision. The Rams will stay in the NFC West, keeping the current landscape in place, assuring the young Rams team an easy transition to California. Los Angeles is one of the biggest markets in the country; it has two basketball teams, a hockey team, a soccer team and a baseball team, all of which thrive economically. The one key ingredient that was missing was a football team. While the previous football teams that were located in L. A. faltered because of poor attendance and a struggling California economy, AEG knows that won’t be the case today. Fans have been waiting 16 long years for a football team, and attendance numbers of the cities college team, the USC Trojans, indicate that fans are still here and ready to fully support the team. We will write a custom essay sample on Persuasive Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Having the Rams move to Los Angeles was ideal for both AEG and the NFL because the Rams already had ties with the city because they played their previously. This also allows FOX, the conference’s television provider, a share of the country’s second biggest market. Construction of the new stadium, known as Farmers Field, has already begun with plans in place that it will be completed by the winter of 2012. The most intriguing statistic about the construction of the stadium is not how it looks, but how it will be built. . Farmer’s Field will set the standard in environmental sustainability with plans that used far less steel and concrete any other new stadiums and will feature solar technologies. In fact, an environmental report stated that the location selected is the best possible spot for a professional football team. Located at the â€Å"Grand Crossing†, the stadium is located on the border of four different counties meaning that the stadium would be within an hour drive of 15. 5 million. To put that into prospective, that’s five percent of the country’s entire population. With this foundation set in place, we know that the NFL and city of Los Angeles will have a strong partnership for years to come. Why St. Louis? Why not expand? When making the decision on which team AEG and the NFL wanted to relocate, two things factored into their decision, these were attendance and on-field performance. While they narrowed their list down to five teams, which included the Jacksonville Jaguars and San Diego Chargers, only one stuck out which were the Rams. Each team presented a strong case but St. Louis was the only team that struggled in both categories. The Rams have not reached the playoffs since the 2003 season, which was also the last time that Rams finished with a winning record. An even worse statistic would be that the Rams have finished in the bottom five in attendance each of the past four seasons. Here is look at the Rams 2011 attendance statistics, they finished 31st out of 32 teams. The chart shows only home attendance figures. We know that the Rams are a promising young team with a bright future and would have hated to see a team not be supported in St. Louis. We have a franchise quarterback in Sam Bradford, as well as a Pro Bowl running back in Stephen Jackson. We have no doubt that this team will soon become a threat in the NFC West and we are happy to bring the team to a city we know will support them. The Rams will play there farewell season in 2012 then make their move back to the city they once called home. When considering a new team, Commissioner Goodell also weighed the option of expanding to 34 teams. The problem with a possible expansion though is that the NFL would still have to find new homes for the struggling teams. Commissioner Goodell also is weary of changing the current landscape of the NFL. You can’t just add one team if you are going to expand because that would leave the NFL with an uneven number of teams. Two teams would have to be added and it is unknown whether the NFL is currently prepared to expand, having just recently done so in 2002 with the Houston Texans. This would also leave two divisions with five teams, creating all types of scheduling issues. In the end, Commissioner Goodell felt that if this move turns out to be a successful venture, then he would be able to expand later down the road. He would do this by adding another team, in the AFC, to Los Angeles creating a situation like that of the New York Giants and Jets. He would then be able to move another struggling team to a new city if needed. This current idea is believed to be the best case scenario for the NFL and its success now depends on the Rams. Can Los Angeles support a team? Back in 1994, when two NFL teams still called Los Angeles home, they both struggled to fill up their stadium with fans. Filling up the Coliseum, which has the capacity of 90,000, was a monumental task for any team, let alone two in the same city. The facility was old and a renovation was needed but was never passed because the city did not want to fund the project because both teams weren’t selling enough tickets. Not many people could afford every things, let alone expensive football tickets. As you know, Los Angeles is movie town before it is a sports town. It is much harder for a celebrity to be seen at a football game than if they just go to a Lakers game. The city was also going through a tough time financially and all of California was in mini recession. Unfortunately for the NFL, they were the odd man out and have never been able to return to Los Angeles until now. With all the negatives out of the way, I can now get to why we know Los Angeles can support a team this time around. 15 of the top 20 attendance figures in the NFL were in Los Angeles. The Rams also set the all-time attendance record in 1957 with over 102,000 fans packing the Coliseum. While Los Angeles and Southern California loves baseball and basketball, the huge crowds that attend football games in LA are proof enough that the city of Angels is indeed a football town. The Rams drew well above the NFL average during their existence and the USC and UCLA football programs draw well above 60 and 70 thousand fans on a regular basis. On top of the overwhelming support for the local teams, the Los Angeles area produces many college football and NFL stars. As a matter of fact, the Pac-12 conferences success has a lot to do with the vast amount of football talent in the Los Angeles area. California definitely has its problems, there is no doubt about that and the states financial crisis has reared its ugly head in San Diego and San Francisco in their search for a new stadium. Los Angeles, however, is immune from the states budget crisis because our stadium proposal will be funded 100% by private funds. While public funds may work in some cities with the right deal, L. A. is not one of those towns and this is why AEG has stepped up to the plate offering their own money to build a stadium and bring the NFL back to Los Angeles. Los Angeles’s football history was shaped by the Rams and we are happy to be bringing that tradition back. Finally, a very common misconception is the fact that Los Angeles is full of bandwagon fans that only support a winner. While winning helps any teams attendance figures, Los Angeles has a history of supporting teams in the good and bad years. The Los Angeles Dodgers continually have one of the highest attendance figures and they have not won a championship since 1988. Even with the troubles the team has been going through with ownership and sub-par performance on the field, the Dodgers are still in the top 10 in attendance. The Angels also have a history of fans coming out to support them even in the bad years. Before their world championship in 2002, they drew well over two million fans a season (also well above the Major League average) despite having an abysmal record and only making the playoffs three times in 42 years. After 2002, they have drawn over three million fans a season and in 2011, they are the only team in the top 5 in attendance to not make the playoffs in 2010. The Lakers obviously have a very large fan base because of their winning history, but they filled the Forum and fill Staples Center when they have down years. The Clippers, on the other hand, do not have a winning history and have only made it out of the first round of the playoffs once in franchise history. Despite the Clippers uninspiring history, they still draw above the NBA average with almost 18,000 fans a game. Los Angeles will definitely support a National Football League franchise . . . something they did for 50 years before the Rams left. Los Angeles’s pro football history is defined by the Rams, and we are hoping to return them to glory in their L. A. return. Farmers Field Farmers Field, located at Grand Crossing will set the standard in environmental sustainability with plans that used far less steel and concrete than any other stadiums. The stadium will also feature a solar technology which allows the stadium to use on average 40% less energy. All fans love new stadiums, and we have no doubt that we will have the best facilities in the NFL. The stadium will feature 75,000 seats, 12,500 club seats, and 175 suites. The capacity is much smaller than the Coliseum, creating a sense of urgency for fans that want to buy tickets. We also understand the football is football unless you tailgate, which is why we are proud that our 600-acre facility offers the perfect tailgate experience. Plans include wave pools for surfing, mountain walls for rock climbing and a one-of-a-kind skate park for future X-Games. In addition, large amounts of open space will allow for the traditional tailgate activities that fans have enjoyed for decades like grills, coolers and parking lot games. This is what football is all about! Farmers Field will also generate over 18,000 jobs and millions of dollars of revenue for the entire Southern California region without public investment. Like we mentioned previously, the stadium is 100% privately funded by AEG, meaning the stadium will produce over 700 million dollars per year for the entire region. The stadium is convenient to and accessible by three major metro rail lines (red/purple line, blue line, and exposition line), and further provides connectively to Union station. The site is also served by more than 20 freeway interchanges and 4 major freeways. The new facilities will continue using the successful traffic and parking model employed by STAPLES Center and the Los Angeles Convention Center to manage traffic and parking. This is a proven model to accommodate large events. There are currently approximately 32,000 parking spots within a 15 minute walk of Farmers Field and 10,300 of them are onsite. Farmers Field will be completed later this year and is ready to give back to the wonderful city of Los Angeles. Summary I understand that many people doubt that this relocation will work, but there is no doubt in my mind that Los Angeles is ready to fully support a football team. Franchises that are struggling financially are only hurting the NFL and cities don’t deserve to have a team is they are only going to support hem if they win. Moving a team back to Los Angeles, we already know that there is plenty of fan support here. Fans in this area are some of the most passionate fans in all of sports; we know that they will support a team through thick and thin. However, we are not just moving the team; we are changing ownership which means the tides are turning. We are not just bringing the team to Los Angeles to play football; we are bringing them here to start a new winning tradition. After 16 long years, the NFL will make its long overdue return to the city of Angels, and this time it is here to stay. Persuasive Essay free essay sample Some people believe that paying athletes would destroy the main reason of universities which is to revive education. The lifetime skills and education that athletes receive while in college cannot be equal to the amount they would receive were they to be paid. Most athletes are also on scholarship, and they are getting a very expensive education paid for, when they could just be swimming in student loans. Athletes also know about their contracts with the colleges when signing scholarship agreements.The university takes care of their living needs and gives them an opportunity to play their preferred sport at a higher level as well as earning a degree in their chosen subject. Payment is not mentioned in he contract and there should not be any expectancy of it during the students stay in the university. I believe that athletes make up the main unit of college vs. college sports. We will write a custom essay sample on Persuasive Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Despite the success of NCAA tournaments, athletes do not receive any money, even when they are the ones providing the entertainment.The main reasons provided by the NCAA for not paying their athletes are that it wants to keep its amateur ways and that payment would change and ruin the trustworthiness of different college sports. It has gotten its bigger profits from the sale of merchandise, television rights and licenses for video games. Athletes are very active in the promotion of these activities but they dont get anything from the profits that are made. This is very unethical, and can be seen as exploitation. Other students on scholarships are paid when they offer services to their schools and it should be the same for athletes. This is because athletes make more for their colleges than other students. So much that in some cases, sports have become the main thing of some colleges. Using this information, universities like Alabama and Indiana are more well known because of their football and basketball instead of academic reasons. In conclusion, I believe that non-scholarship athletes should get compensation.If not a paycheck, then at least money toward their tuition fees. They are taking time out of their day, to entertain the common people. Athletes on scholarships do get some spending money if they do well during the season. Some get paid under the table, but in my opinion it ruins their integrity and makes them become self righteous, therefore ruining their skill, and giving the colleges no reason to pay them anymore. So non-scholarship athletes should get paid. It is still in question whether or not students with a scholarship should or shouldnt get paid.

American National Politics essays

American National Politics essays In the game Clue a murder is committed. The object is to dismiss the myriad of possible people, places, and weapons to finally discover the true identity of the killer. Just as in this game politics offers a number of different alternatives. The key is to choose a political ideology that seems to make the most sense and support decisions based on this idea. Being a liberal, I support the bill passed in the House of Representatives that amends the current requirements of the welfare program. To understand why this bill has my support I will first describe the ideology of liberalism, next explain how I interpret these ideals, so that finally I can express how this bill supports the liberalist movement. Liberalism is a political ideology which supports government intervention is the society in which it runs. Beyond this seemingly communistic sentence, liberals hope to increase government in order to further benefit those in society. More specifically liberals desire an action directed at those who suffer from poverty or other social diseases, hoping to find a cure in a more moderated social fabric. This is not to say that the ideology dismisses any form of individuality or freedom. On the contrary, liberals hold individuality as highly important. A more involved government is not meant to limit those on the upper portion of the social and economic ladder, but instead is designed to help the lower half in the climb. The term liberal is not always flattering, and is at times assigned to those who seem to want others to make decisions for them. And yet I still deem myself as such for three reasons: societys need for help at times, the ability of government as an outgrowth of the people to have better insight into social problems, and the individuals need for a support system. It is impossible to say that no society faces problems. Be them large or small wh...

The Other N-Words

The Other N-Words The Other N-Words The Other N-Words By Mark Nichol My recent post about terms for ethnic groups prompted a note from a site visitor proposing that I write about taboo words. I was not niggardly in my gratitude to the correspondent for his suggestion. Did your eyes just pop out when you read the fourth word in that last sentence? Unlikely, because most DailyWritingTips.com visitors know that niggardly has nothing to do with a similar-sounding offensive term for black people. But many people persist in thinking it does. In the late 1990s, an employee of the Washington, DC, mayor’s office resigned in the aftermath of his innocent use of the word, and a few years later, a schoolteacher came under fire when she included the term in a vocabulary lesson. Another person has noted that he avoids using the word renege around black people, even though it has nothing to do with the derogatory word nigger, derived from Negro. Nor does niggling, but some people argue that such near homophones should be tossed from the word-hoard because somebody, somewhere might be offended. Nitty-gritty, part of the idiomatic expression â€Å"get down to the nitty-gritty,† is a hoary word (oops perhaps I shouldn’t have used that adjective), but it’s also evocative. Unfortunately, some people believe erroneously that it originally referred to the excretory debris left in a slave ship after the cargo had been removed. Evidently, nitty-gritty was in fact originally a synonym for an adjective that rhymes with its component words, but now it is merely synonymous to business in â€Å"get down to business.† What about the original n-word? Did you flinch when I used it above? How dare I type the actual word! Well, it’s in the dictionary, for one thing, and I have a valid reason to use it in this dispassionate, scholarly context. (But I admit I’d hesitate to use it in front of one or more black people, even if I were reading this post aloud in a group setting.) Should nigger be allowed in print or online? It’s absurd to dodge it in a neutral context such as a post about usage. How about in literature? Mark Twain used it in Huckleberry Finn to further identify the fugitive slave Jim. Doing so was proper in the historical context of that work, and no one can deny that Twain considered Jim one of his most admirable characters. And anyone who refrains from using it in a valid literary context in a novel about young inner-city blacks who blithely bandy it about, for instance is self-censoring. The word is, admittedly, broadly unacceptable in written and spoken discourse. But should I be prohibited from using it in an essay about derogatory or allegedly derogatory language? Should it be stricken from reprints of Huckleberry Finn, and excuse the expression blacked out in all existing copies? Should a book about the ’hood omit it? The word is used countless times every day all over the United States. Most writers and speakers are justified in using it because they are black, and they’re taking it back, or because it’s being used in a valid context. Others, racists who use it to denigrate an ethnic group, are also justified because they are exercising a constitutional right to free speech, but that doesn’t mean I like it. Do we even have a right, if we’re not black, to decide whether to use it? It has eminently painful associations for black people, regardless of whether it has been used against them as a weapon. For that reason, I’m sensitive enough to use it only in this type of context. But I won’t refrain from using it as such, and I certainly won’t avoid writing or saying niggardly or niggling under any circumstances. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Fly, Flew, (has) FlownFlied?Taser or Tazer? Tazing or Tasering?35 Synonyms for Rain and Snow

Managers Responsibility in Setting Tone and Expectations in Hospital Assignment

Managers Responsibility in Setting Tone and Expectations in Hospital Setting - Assignment Example The paper tells that beyond an iota of doubt, the hospital’s success depends on the level of teamwork and participation invested by various stakeholders. The manager, in consideration of the above fact, needs to awaken to his or her duty as the tone-setter for the team. Considering the team, specifically to include nurses, doctors, administrative staff, lab assistants, support staff and other workers in the hospital setting, the hospital manager has a lot to do in respect of setting expectations and the tone. The manager should realize that his/her weaknesses and faults can easily be magnified within the team. Even though the manager should lead by example, this is no guarantee that their staff will behave positively or that performance will automatically be impressive as a result. However, it must be noted that leading by example increases the chances of having positive results and encouraging positive behavior as noted by Schulz and Johnson. The manager should take time to l isten to other people’s views and abstain from being judgmental. Yet again, he/she should honor their commitments and be interested in his staff members. Furthermore, they should be flexible, calm under pressure, effective in addressing issues, and open-minded and flexible. In addition, they should be respectful to others and work toward increasing productivity and meeting deadlines. Honesty, timeliness, optimism, and integrity should be part of the manager’s delights. The manager should be result oriented, be positively interactive and value meetings and other vital events. By setting the tone in this manner, employees are bound to follow suite, in some cases with a few exceptions. Expectations that the Manager should Communicate Understanding what mangers expect from employees is vital for improved performance, good employee relations and employee success. Saville and Higgins (2010) note that without clear work expectations, employees would waste a lot of effort due to lack of or misplaced priorities, endure a lot of stress and waste a lot of time doing unnecessary chores. They also note that when the manger defines clearly job expectations and communicate this to employees, they get to understand what is expected of them. They also understand the reasons why they are doing the work as directed. Furthermore, they get to understand how work progress and realize at the right time when to ask for assistance. This also helps employees in knowing areas where they need to make improvements (Saville and Higgins, 2010). One of the expectations that a hospital manger should

Marketing Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Marketing Analysis - Essay Example (Anonymous, 2013) The marketing campaign of the memorial hospital is done using social media (facebook, twitter and YouTube), websites and print media as media channels. This marketing campaigns focuses on the on the marketing mix and the target market of the organization. This media channels are used to advertise the services that the hospital offers such as Addictions , Allergies and Rheumatology, Back, Neck and Spine Care, Behavioral Health ,Blood Disorders and Diseases , Care, Burn ,Cancer Care and Health. The hospital has used the media channels and this can be analyzed as follows; (Mark, 2012) I. Social media. This has mostly used by the hospital to reach a specific group. The social media which include the usage of facebook twitter and YouTube is usually commonly used by a large number of people across the globe. The hospital has used the social media at a smaller extend. This can be seen in the small number of followers in the twitter and facebook.The YouTube downloads also reveals a small number of customer accesses. The hospital uses this social media to target the youth group. II. Websites. The company has effectively used the websites. This has been done in such a way that it gives links to compare the services that it offers with other hospitals in terms of price, quality and the place. The websites also link the social media and gives a place for the feedback so as to evaluate the services for the better services. It also provides testimonials compared to other hospitals that do assume, this makes the hospital to be on the competitive advantage.The websites reveal the facilities which play a major role in advertising the hospital. (Mark, 2012) III. Print media. The hospital has adopted the usage of print media. The hospital has strategized in such a way that it uses the magazines that make lot of sales, the wall street journal, to advertise its products. This has been effective in the advertisement because most of the people often read the

Evaluating The Hci Developments Over Recent Years Computer Science Essay

Evaluating The Hci Developments Over Recent Years Computer Science Essay In the following assignment I will be talking about how interfaces have improved along the years in products and computer systems, with relation to GUI (Graphical User Interfaces) and the contrast of using non graphical interfaces. For the Distinction criteria, I will explain on the improvement of using interfaces within gaming and how this has been improved with the world of motionless gaming such as Kinect. For the final Distinction criteria I will compare my interfaces with real life interfaces and talk about how they relate and how they contrast. I will conclude the assignment with my main points and any potential summaries I have. The GUI: History of the GUI: In the computing and technical world, the graphical user interface has sharpened the way we as humans have designed and improved technology over the recent years and decades. Interfaces allow the end user to look at a graphical representation on their actions which cannot be shown in real life. For example, surfing the internet and viewing landscapes that are on the other side of the world would not be possible in a real life visual perspective. The GUI (Graphical User Interface) was implemented into the Apple Lisa computer in January 1983. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak purchased the GUI technology from a corporation called Xerox at their research centre called PARC (Palo Alto Research Centre) and used the technology in the Apple Lisa computer which since then started the revolution of interfaces within technology devices. 1 The Apple Lisa Computer Before a Graphical User Interface was implemented, a fellow competitor called Microsoft developed a CLI (Command Line Interface) that resembled the name MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System) on IBM Computers in 1981. IBM (International Business Machines) is a large international company which supply computer hardware and software. They used MS-DOS on their computer systems to provide an interface that required the knowledge of commands and complex wording. This limited the market to a small amount, only professors and students was able to operate it with prior knowledge. But with the release of Apple Lisa, this broadened the audience to allow less technical people to operate a computer. 2 Image displaying the MS-DOS which was used on IBMs computers Advancements With the ongoing progress of developing interfaces and applying them to a variety of screens such as LCD and LED monitors, this has allowed technical manufacturer to explore the interface and include ways of familiarising the user with HCI (Human Computer Interaction) elements. Elements such as proximity, the ability to group similar icons together to make the human think the buttons are related. Another important element of HCI is continuity. Continuity is used in most operating systems to keep the familiar colour schemes and desktops without a drastic change. This will allow users to become familiar to the interface without the need to learn to use it again. Some more advances of interfaces over the years is the technology of 3D imagery and gaming. Games such as RTS (Real Time Strategy) Starcraft II can be played with the aid of Nvidias 3D GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) series. This allows 2D content to be rendered with 3D physics and displayed using glasses. 3 With the technology of 3D arriving in the current technological world, interface design has changed in a way that humans perceive the experience. Such so that other projects have included the 3D technology such as theme park rides, 3D computer systems, computing gaming and television. This has revolutionised the way we, as humans interact with everyday devices. A large proportion of society uses technology in their everyday lives, from checking their email, surfing the internet, checking their bank balance at an ATM machine etc. Technology has been integrated into culture so deeply, that as a society we all cannot communicate and work efficiently without it. Mobile Devices and Development: In modern technological news, mobile platforms and gaming has developed on a large scale over the current years. The idea of playing simple games on a wireless mobile device anywhere started a revolution for the gaming industry, the development of computer games and interface design. In my opinion, the first major mobile platform for gaming was Snakes. Introduced to arcades in the mid 1970s. Its sequel Snakes II was eventually introduced on the Nokia 3310 in the year 2000. This successful handset was hinting game developers to in cooperate different interface design into a smaller handset device, rather than an arcade or gaming console. 4 The above image is an example of many different interfaces that Snake has been developed into. Since the thought of how to place simple gaming projects into smaller handsets and mobile phones, arguable the Smartphone and touch screen devices provided a firm platform for developers and many game companies to work with. An example of this would be the iPhone handset. The iPhone handset (iPhone 2 Generation) was implemented by Apple on January 9th 2007 and announced to the public. It was one of the most successful Smartphones and PDA (Personal Digital Assistance) integrated together. Users had the ability to surf the internet, download application to run on their handsets, make calls, take pictures and send them to another handset or computer etc. The icons were smaller, controls and commands were made for touch and point, interface design that was new to the market. 5 Current iOS interface during writing the assignment The main differences from any phone during that time, was the complexity and power of the iPhone applications and development area. Apple provided the App store to sort all applications into a centralised place for users to download and interact with. The applications correspond of utilities and maps to gaming and various map searching apps. Over the constant development of iPhone handsets it was labelled as one of the major device for mobile gaming, a label which changed the way gaming and interfaces were developed. Now devices have the ability to run high end graphics and with the iPhone 4 device, retina display was introduced (960ÃÆ'-640) and has the smallest pixels ever to be introduced on a Smartphone device. With mobile development and gaming changing the way we use interfaces, the ability to scrap the interface from touch and use our current movement was recently introduced by Microsoft, this was known as Kinect. Project Natal (Kinect) was created by Microsoft recently in late 2010 as a motion controller for gaming.  [6]  You are the controller. No gadgets, no gizmos, just you! The quote basically means that the controller is the user, and no touch or physical contact will be needed. The technology of recording motions and gestures is proving successful; with regards to future gaming it will shape the future of interfaces. 7 Mention Holograms potentai future. Comparision of Intefaces

How Organizations Can Learn from Failure Essay

Even though there is a no precise definition for failure in organizations, there is a general agreement to what failure means and could lead to. Failure is broadly defined as a condition of not meeting the intended objective or end. Failure could result in the depletion of finance, shrinking market, exit from the market, loss of market share, project failure and loss of legitimacy. We can assume that failure has negative consequences even though the final outcome may be positive, with firms learning from failure. Understanding the need for learning from failure is unquestionable; however it is tough for organizations to put this into practice. It is crucial that organizations understand failure and think about it in the right way before they can go about implementing procedures to prevent such failures from happening in the future. Learning from failure involves understanding that failure is not always bad and that learning from failure is no straightforward task. An organization cannot simply reflect on what they did wrong and expect to not make the same mistakes again. Organizations have to understand about the different degrees of failure which occur on a scale ranging from blameworthy to praiseworthy. They fall into three broad categories which are 1, failures which occur in predictable operations which could be prevented. 2, unavoidable failures which occur in complex organizations which can be managed to prevent snowballing. 3, unwanted outcomes†¦. To learn from failure, we require different strategies for each setting. It is key to detect them early, analyze failures with depth, develop hypothesis, experiments and projects to product them. In order to minimize failure employees first have to feel safe to report these failures. In the article titled strategies for learning from failure the author Amy C. Edmondson talks about http://hbr. org/2011/04/strategies-for-learning-from-failure/ar/1 First the organization has to go about understanding failure in the right way as well as all the possible side†¦ Important for managers to think about failure in the right way. Failure is not always bad. It is sometimes bad and sometimes inevitable and sometimes good. Learning from failure is not a straightforward task. The attitudes and activities required to effectively detect and analyze failures are in short supply in most companies and the need for context-specific learning strategies is underappreciated.? Organizations need new and better ways to go beyond lessons which are superficial( procedures which weren’t followed) or self serving ( The market just wasn’t ready for our great new product) That means jettisoning old cultural beliefs and stereotypical notions. The blame game? A spectrum of reasons for failure? http://www. uk. sagepub. com/upm-data/10989_Chapter_9. pdf Failing to learn from failure reasons? -Simply experiencing a negative event is not sufficient for learning. – Learning can be a complicated process, the acquisition of knowledge and the shifts in behavior must occur at all levels of a highly complex system. â€Å"Bazerman and Watkins (2004) contend that, when organizations fail to learn failures, they become susceptible to predictable surprises. What is the difference between predictable and unpredictable surprises? Predictable surprises occur when an organization leadership ignores or fails to understand clear evidence that a potentially devastating problem to occur. There are different sort of failures and not all failures are created equally. Bazerman and Watkins( 2004) identify four ways in which organizations fail to learn from failures that occur around them: Scanning Failures: failure to pay close attention to potential problems both inside and outside the organization; this failure could be due to arrogance, a lack of resources, or simple inattentions? Intergration failures: failure to understand how pieces of potentially complicated information fit together to provide lessons of how to avoid crises. 3. Incentive Failures: failure to provide sufficient rewards to people who report problems and take actions to avoid possible crises 4. Learning Failures: failure to draw important lessons from crises and preserve their memory in the organization Organizations who face these failures potentially could damage their organizational integrity. Eg Mitroff and Anagnos 2001, Managing Crises before they happen: what every manager needs to know about crisis management. 1982, Johnson and Johnson could respond to an external crisis with their product being linked to cyanide poisoning and thus the company responded quickly by pulling their stock of capsules from the shelves and having great PR work. J and J knew how to handle their PR well and their product managed to get back to the top seller. J and J however became a victim of its previous succ ess and had not done well with ‘Predictable surprises’ where crises occurred within the company. J and J had failed to do proper product scanning and had been a different sort of failure. failure of a different type? Failure of Success. Problem 1 and 4. Learning from failure: Sitkin 1996- Mittelstaedt (2005) – Failure is an essential part of learning for many organizations. Failures, should not be hidden or avoided. Making mistakes is essential to success, a company which appears to be free from disruption may be operating unrealistically and from a uniformed perspective. â€Å"learning to identify mistakes analytically and timely is the difference between failure and success. † Too often employees and managers are unwilling to admit small failures for fear of reprisal. The unwillingness to recognize and embrace failure is also a failure to recognize and respond to potential crises. The longer these small crises build up the higher likelihood it could escalate into a major crisis. In successful organizations, failure creates recognition of risk and a motivation for change that would not exist otherwise. Describes this recognition as a â€Å"learning readiness† without failure, very difficult to produce in most organizations. Sitkin cautions that not all failures are equally effective in fostering good risk management. Organizations learn best from intelligent failures, which have these characteristics, result from planned actions, uncertain outcomes, modest in scale, and take place in domains that are familiar enough to permit effective learning. Organizations need to recognize risks by accepting and acting on failures. Learn the best when failure results from competent actions, not major crises. Still within the comfort zone and employees are eager and experienced enough to respond. These opportunities arise: Vicarious Learning – learning that occurs as a function of observing, retaining and replicating behavior observed in others. Organizations need not fail as an entity in order to learn. Successful organizations engage in vicarious learning in order to recognize risk, organizational leaders observe the failures or crises experienced by similar organizations and take action to avoid making the same mistakes. Examples of Vicarious Learning- Give!!! Organizational memory: Without learning from their own and other’s mistakes organizations stagnate and fail to respond to potential threats in an ever-changing world. Learning has no use if the knowledge is not retained. An example of failure in organizational memory is the Union carbide plant in Bhopal, India in 1984. Early in December morning, the plant leaked a deadly cloud of gas that settled over part of the sleeping city of a million residents. Within two hours 2000 of them were dead with thousands left injured? Part of the reason for the disaster was a loss in organizational memory. The plant had been slated for closure and many experienced staff had been transferred out, leaving minimal crew with little work experience, with the training for remaining crew at a minimum. The crisis was traced to staff reductions and oversight failures. Much of the blame for the tragedy rests with a rapid reduction in experienced staff that took with them a large share of organizational memory. Organizational memory comprises of, a) Acquiring knowledge, done by recognizing failures within the organization and by observing failures of similar organizations. b) Distributing knowledge is the key to organizational memory. Highly experienced employees will leave the organization and these people should be given an opportunity to share their knowledge around or those departing personnel will go along with their experience. ) Acting upon knowledge, is important for organizational memory to serve an organization. New employees need to learn from those departing ones.! New employees cannot do things their own way or else it will lead to repeat failures†¦.!!!! Employees have many opportunities to discard the hard-earned knowledge. Because organizational memory depends on exchanging information from one person to another perception change , mistreatment and stubbornness to learn can disrupt preserving organizational memory. Organizations need to learn and build from previous experiences. Unlearning: Effective organizational learning depends on an organizations ability to unlearn practices and policies that have become outdated by environmental changes. Example of Unlearning 1. Expanding Options: When organizations are unwilling to forego routine procedures during crisis or potential crisis situations, they lose the capacity to react to unique circumstances. Unlearning enables the organization to expand its options. 2. Contracting Options: In some cases, organizations may respond to a crisis with a strategy that has worked well in the past. In the current situation, however, the strategy from the past may actually make matters worse. In such cases, organizations must be willing to reject some strategies in favor of others. 3. Grafting: In the previous section, we discussed the need for organizations to hand down existing knowledge to new employees. If the socialization of new employees is so intense that they cannot bring new knowledge to the organization, however, the organization is doing itself a disservice. Although organizational memory is essential, some degree of unlearning Opportunity 1: Organizations should treat failure as an opportunity to recognize a potential crisis or to prevent a similar crisis in the future. Opportunity 2: Organizations can avoid crises by learning from the failures and crises of other organizations. Opportunity 3: Organizational training and planning should emphasize the preservation of previous learning in order to make organizational memory a priority. Opportunity 4: Organizations must be willing to unlearn outdated or ineffective procedures if they are to learn better crisis management strategies Bazerman, M. H. & Watkins, M. D. (2004). Predictable surprises: The disasters you should have seen coming and how to prevent them. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Huber, G. P. (1996). Organizational learning: The contributing processes and the literatures. In M. D. Cohen & L. S. Sproull (Eds. ), Organizational learning (pp. 124-162). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mitroff, I. I. , & Anagnos, G. (2001). Managing crises before they happen: What every executive and manager needs to know about crisis management. New York: AMACOM. Mittelstaedt, R. E. (2005). Will your next mistake be fatal? Avoiding the chain of mistakes that can destroy. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wharton. Sitkin, S. B. (1996). Learning through failure: The strategy of small losses. In M. D. Cohen & L. S. Sproull (Eds. ), Organizational learning (pp. 541-578). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Tompkins, P. K. (2005). Apollo, Challenger, Columbia: The decline of the space program. Los Angeles: Roxbury. Organizations who face these failures potentially could damage their organizational integrity. It is important for an organization to identify these failures and act on them while the company is still in operation. Having a crisis management team to prepare, respond and recover from a crisis is paramount in ensuring that the organization recovers and continues. Preparation must happen before a crisis occurs. In times of crisis, organizations need to systematically analyze its errors, acknowledge the errors and limits of the organization as well as address the issue with a level of sophistication. When an organization continually fails to differentiate and neglect crisis and failures it could lead to detrimental problems for the organization. Failure/ Crisis Management Case Study 1 A hypothetical example would be the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (BP oil spill) that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico from 20 April 2010 to 15 July 2010. The estimated 185 million barrels of oil first made landfall in Louisiana. By June 2010, the tar balls and oil mousse had reached the shores of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. By August, it had smeared tourist beaches, washed onto the shorelines of sleepy coastal communities, oozed into the marshy bays that fishermen have worked for generations as well as killed millions of wildlife in the process. Instead of dealing with the failure in a professional way, BP inadvertently created a PR situation synonymous with herding cats. It’s had to fight to clear up two quagmires – its oil mess and its tarnished image. (Please Refer to Appendix- New York Times, Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill) In times of crisis or failure, it is important for an organization to understand the need for a comprehensive risk analysis. Should the failure be environmentally or socially threatening, impressions demonstrations of empathy and competence are vital. BP was not prepared to successfully deal with such a catastrophe. To minimize the damage, BP should have immediately accomplished five tasks: 1. Issue regular, frequent progress reports 2. Control the pictures (even some on the Web site appeared to be canned or generic) 3. Transparency 4. Display empathy as a concerned corporate entity comprised of authentic people diligently making a good-faith effort to solve the problem Failure/ Crisis Management Case Study 2 Failure, if properly attended to and rectified is a great plus. It gives the much needed confidence to the public, client or stakeholders in the product and organization. Furthermore, with proper management, the organization will be able to assess its capacity to deal with the systemic and circumstantial deficiencies leading to failures and work out a way forward. A great example would be the Johnson and Johnson Tylenol poisoning crisis in 1982. When the Tylenol scare occurred, Johnson and Johnson responded immediately and positively, taking the analgesic off the shelves, keeping the public apprised of the investigation, and their instituting new tamper-proof seals to make their product more secure. An organization needs to be upfront and out front with their communication about the situation and what they are doing to correct it and protect the public. The organization has to keep the public’s best interests at heart when communicating the issue effectively, clearly, accurately, and promptly upon discovering the problem. Having a crisis management plan in place before a crisis occurs puts an organization in a solid position to handle it more effectively and responsibly. Detecting failure, analyising failure, promoting experiementation? Deviance Inattention Lack of Ability Process Inadequacy Task Challenge Process Complexity Uncertainty Hypothesis Testing Exploratory Testing Blameworthy Praiseworthy Violating a prescribed practice or process by choice Straying away from specifications Does not possess the necessary qualifications or skills for the task Adhering to a prescribed but faulty or incomplete task Task too difficult to be executed reliably each time Process comprises of element breaks when encountering interactions Lack of clarity causes actions which seem reasonable but produces undesired results An experiment to prove and idea, fails Experiment to increase knowledge and understand possibilities leads to an unwanted result