XML as a programming tool Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

XML as a programming tool - Essay Example Deriving an electronic representation of the paper documents would allow users to view them on a computer screen, take their printouts or store them in the database; however, to achieve this objective, standard forms for different document types and accompanying style sheets would be required. At present, still most of the exchange of information in the health care industry is carried out through printed documents that convey the information in two ways: the content of the document that contains the words, pictures and other information, and the format of the content that provides visual clues for font, font size and location (Sokolowski & Dudeck, 1999). Recently, XML (eXtensible Markup Language), a subset of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), has gained widespread popularity in the health care industry because it provides a mechanism to encode healthcare documents and their types into electronic form, and therefore, has led to the development of implementation recommendations in the form of a set of standard DTDs to standardize and match the electronic document requirements in the health care industry (Sokolowski & Dudeck, 1999). DTDs (Data Type Definitions) are crucial for health care informatics as they provide a facility for standardizing formats with style sheets, provide a document information model, provide context for narrative text, and allow for agreement on high-level structures. They describe the structure of the document, the names of the allowable elements, the content of each element type, the structure of the document including the order in which the elements must appear (Sokolowski & Dudeck, 1999). The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is designed to provide an XML framework for developing product documentation and has seen rapid adoption and implementation as compared to other approaches for purpose of

A Good Man Is Hard to Find Essay Example for Free

A Good Man Is Hard to Find Essay One might think that Grandmothers are sweet and loving, and often innocent due to their advanced age and condition. We, as society, think of them as great examples of people that radiate love, mentors, and defenders of morality and good manners. However, this is not the case in A Good Man Is Hard to Find, by Flannery O’Connor. As the story unfolds, her personality reflects that hidden evil we all carry inside and how detouring on a route takes a whole family to face disastrous consequences, yet one person finds redemption from that evil. A Good Man Is Hard to Find is a story that symbolizes redemption, because there is a sinner, there is a journey, and there is redemption. In our society we tend to minimize, and sometimes erase the word â€Å"sin† because, for the most part, it bothers people’s conscience. Although the word â€Å"sin† is not explicitly exposed in the story A Good Man is Hard to Find, the action and consequences of sin are vividly present throughout the story, in all the characters, especially the Grandmother. The main character and sinner in the story is the Grandmother because she is described as an egocentric person, since the situation they face is that they are all captives of the serial killer, â€Å"The Misfit†, and she bargains for her life only. The grandmother said, â€Å"You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you? † (Flannery O’Connor 313). This is an obvious example of how she doesn’t stop to think about the rest of her family. In addition, one might think that in various occasions the Grandmother makes simple comments that compare different times of her life, the present and how things used to be. On the other hand, Grandmothers’ comments represent the comparison between the dark past of society and the reality that it hasn’t changed much. During the trip, Grandmother makes a comment that reflects her comparisons; she said â€Å"In my time, children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then† (Flannery O’Connor 308). In the same scene, Grandmother contradicts herself by saying, â€Å"Little niggers in the country don’t have things like we do. If I could paint, I’d paint that picture,† (Flannery O’Connor 308). No argument, she is a barefaced hypocrite. Furthermore, the way she dressed to go on a road trip, as the author describes the grandmother, â€Å"Had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on a brim and a navy dress with a small white dot on print. †(Flannery O’Connor 307). Also, her jewelry â€Å"her collars and cuffs where white organdy trimmed with lace and her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. (Flannery O’Connor 307). Her exaggerated outfit, plus the extreme jewelry for a road trip reflects her ego and her desire to be noticed as a lady. Whether one believes in God, or not, we all embark on the journey of life, in which we experience an inner transformation. Any journey has a destination; however, decisions made during the trip may alter the destination and its outcome. Flannery O’Connor uses the road trip to represent the pilgrimage Grandmother and her family must go through. Since the beginning of the trip, Grandmother took unnecessary stuff, â€Å"her big black valise that looked like a head of a hippopotamus†, and her mascot â€Å"Pitty Sing, the cat† (Flannery O’Connor 307), knowing that this action will incommode the family and eventually be a factor of the cause of the accident. One might think that the baggage represents only inconvenience; nonetheless, this represents ones’ regrets or transgressions that haven’t been forgiven nor forgotten. During the trip, the Grandmother makes an important remark about her past when she used to date Mr. Teagarden by saying, â€Å"She would of have done well to marry Mr. Teagarden because he was a gentleman and had bought Coca-Cola stock when first came out and that he had died only a few years ago, a very wealthy man. † (Flannery O’Connor 309). It shows her nostalgia and regret of not marrying that man but it certainly also shows her ambition. She evidently hasn’t experienced true love. Thus, it certainly shows that her baggage did not consist only of clothing and jewelry, but of nostalgia and regret. In addition, the same illusion of her romance with Mr. Teagarden triggered the inner desire in her dream to go visit the plantation and the house where, as Grandmother said, â€Å"You sat down with your suitor after a stroll in the garden. † (Flannery O’Connor 311). Eventually, in a self-centered act, she â€Å"craftily† (Flannery O’Connor 311) lies, causing the detouring of the route. They have taken a dangerous dirty road, as the author describes it â€Å"was hilly and there were sudden washes in it and sharp curves on dangerous embankments† (Flannery O’Connor 312). As a result, while driving on that dangerous road, the accident happened due to Grandmother’s recklessness. This situation metaphors the choices one makes in life and their consequences. The accident is just a sign of how one falls through the journey. There could not be a redemption story without a Savior, and a sinner to whom needs to be redeemed. After the accident, everyone got out of the car and saw the car approaching far away, â€Å"on top of a hill†, giving the sense that help is coming from above, which in a Biblical way, is symbolically showing that help is coming from heaven. In addition, when they arrived, â€Å"the Misfit† gets out, standing in front of them, â€Å"looking down at them† (Flannery O’Connor 313). He is accompanied by two fellows; one wearing a â€Å"shirt with a silver stallion†. All of these details represent a Redeemer, or a Godly figure. In addition, the Redeemer quickly finds who is in need to be redeemed when Grandmother makes a terrible mistake by recognizing the criminal â€Å"You’re the Misfit† she said (Flannery O’Connor 313). At this point, she has commended her whole family and The Misfit confirms that saying â€Å"it would have been better for all of you, lady, if you hadn’t reckernized me. † (Flannery O’Connor 313). Grandmother responds, â€Å"You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you? † (Flannery O’Connor 313). This action confirms the Misfit that she is the sinner who hasn’t repented from all her sins since she reflects the egocentrism of worrying about her life only, without any given thought about the whole family, not even the children. The Misfit uses the desperation and impotence of the lady to make her realize that there is no escape from the inevitable. As he starts killing the family using the help from his assistants, Grandmother starts to appeal to the Misfit’s heart by saying, â€Å"You’ve got good blood! I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady! † (Flannery O’Connor 316). As the other half of the family was killed, Grandmother tells the Misfit, â€Å"You are one of my own children† (Flannery O’Connor 317) appealing that he would feel loved and would let her live. Nonetheless, she got shot and the Misfit said, â€Å"She would have been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life. † (Flannery O’Connor 317). This is the vivid example of redemption because in order to know good, and be good, we must face that adversary that puts one to the test and pulls out the good from within. One might relate to the Grandmothers’ feelings of impotence and desperation because when suffering, or facing death, one realizes the true beauty of life and its richness that most of the time are unnoticed due to one’s blindness from sin. In conclusion, A Goodman is Hard to Find is a story that symbolizes redemption because there is a sinner, there is a journey, and there is redemption. As the story unfolds, her personality reflects that hidden evil we all carry inside and how a route’s detour takes a whole family to face disastrous consequences, yet one person finds redemption from that evil. One might think that Grandmothers are all sweet, loving, often innocent, mentors, and defenders of morality and good manners. Nonetheless, this was not the case in this story.

History Of The Fertile Crescent History Essay

History Of The Fertile Crescent History Essay The Fertile Crescent has been called the Cradle of Civilization for many years. The Cradle of Civilization is the key to understanding when the human population began to thirve and create vilages, cities, and ultimantly states. With out the domestication and cultivation of the land there would have never been enough food to support such a dence population of people. Hunting and collecting entirely from the wild could not possibly support even a tiny fraction of the worlds current population (Bellwood, 1). There were seven core domesticates in the Fertile Crescent, they include sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, emmer wheat, einkorn wheat and barley. All of these species were domesticated and had an important role in the Fertile Crescent throughout the two millennia emergence of agrarian societies between 10000 and 8000 B.P. We can best understand the events of this period by first focusing on the developmental history of the individual species of plants and animals that were brought under d omestication, and then combining those individual histories into the more complex overall story in the emergence of the agriculture in the region (Smith, 51). The story of the Fertile Crescent starts much before the emergence of the hunter- gatherers were raviging the forests and grass lands. By 10000 B.P. the beginning of the 2000 year period that would witness the development of agriculture, human societies had taken advantage of the post-Pleistocene proliferation of plant and animal resources, and the fertile crescent was inhabited by a diverse array of hunter-gatherer societies (Smith, 51). The Pleistocene era had ended with a much warmer climate that also brought a much moister climate to the area. This climate change was one that favored the wild annual cereal grasses (Sagan, 249). Also it allowed the sparse movement of hunter-gatherer groups to move in to the area. It was there that they discovered that a more sedentary lifestyle produced more of a greater surplus of food and than that of foraging. The Fertile Crescents environmental zones are keys to understanding the development of the domestications of the plants and animals. There are three main environmental zones involved in the origin of cultivation in the Fertile Crescent. The eastern section of which comprises the foothills and margins of the Zagros Mountains (Maisels 133). The central or the north is mostly made up of the broad rolling grasslands. Lastly, the western section whose central axis is the important Levantine corridor and Jordan Valley (Smith, 51). While deliberate cultivation eventually became most intensely practiced on the alluvial plain of Mesopotamia, it did not start there because the climate was too dry, thus requiring irrigation. In the central section, habitual harvesting of wild grains did occur, and it is suggested that this abundance led to the first sedentary villages dependent on harvesting wild grains. Ali Kosh a village occupied around 9000 B.P.; herded goats, intensively collected various w ild plants, and harvested wild wheat. Deliberate cultivation most likely came in response to documented climatic changes, which led inhabitants on the fringe of the hilly flanks to artificially duplicate the dense stands of wheat and barley that grew in the hilly flanks (Sagan, 237). There were many changes that occurred due to the cultivation of a plant or animal. These changes were many times become genetic due to the consistent selection of the more adequately produced products. In wild grains, the axis or rachis is brittle, which allows the grain to reseed itself easily. Selection of the grains was at first an accidental by-product of harvesting, and later intentionally, the people selected grains in which the axis was tougher, allowing less grain to fall to the ground, thus raising yields (Sagan 247). They also selected plants that were more easily husked. The people used the same natural selection process when choosing livestock. They selected woolly animals from among wild sheep, who are not normally woolly, thus acquiring sheep better suited to lowland heat and from which to obtain wool. Fossil remains indicate that domestication of sheep and goats was accompanied by a decrease in the size of the animal. The animals domesticated in the Fertile Crescent were key to the development of the humans in the area. The readily available source of meat aided in the functions of the brain, which led to the ability to think more complexly and creatively. The brain is fueled by protein therefore with more protein in the diet the mind began to develop more completely. Thus the importance of the domestication of the animals to the human race, with out having to hunt for the meat they were getting a more readily available source of protein (Wilkinson 139). The Persian wild goat has been recognized as the ancestor to the first domesticated goat. The Persian wild goat tends to be found in the more rugged terrain. It is in the eastern section of the Fertile Crescent that we find the most evidence of goats being hunted for their meat. Specifically at the site of Ganj Dareh, which was excavated in 1970s, which found at the lowest level, which dates back to 9000 B.P. contained approximately 5000 identifiable goat bones (Old Goats). Brian Hesse of the University of Alabama at Birmingham studied these bones. Using new analytical techniques to try to piece together evidence of the domestication of goats. Hesse theorized that a domesticated herd should have two clear distinguishing characteristics: (1) a large percentage of animals slaughtered for meat late in their immaturity, when they had attained much of their adult size; (2) an adult breeding population in which females far outnumbered males(Smith, 60). Through complex measurements of the b ones discovered at Ganj Dareh, Hesse discovered that the males were being killed before they reached adult hood and the females overwhelmingly stood for most of the population. This stunning breakthrough specifies that an age and sex profile that closely agrees with that of a herd of domesticated goats managed to provide meat (Old Goats). Clear demographic evidence appears to indicate that goats were domesticated at Ganj Dareh as early as 9000 years ago. The increase of the proportions of goat bones among the animal remains is an indicator to the shift to goat herding. Wild Sheep were the second animal to be domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. The wild ancestor of domesticated sheep ranged throughout much of the Fertile Crescent. A large amount of evidence of wild sheep can be found in the central region (Sagon, 245). There is much data to indicate that the wild sheep was not an important prey in the areas of Levant. There is, however, evidence showing that the sheep were a prey in Jericho that date wild sheep back to 10000 to 9500 years ago (Wilkinson 149). The degree to which the hunter-gatherer societies in different parts of the Fertile Crescent relied on wild sheep for food parallels the animals abundance in their local environments 10000 to 8000 years ago. The wild sheep were most were most abundantly discovered in the central region. This is probably why around 8500 B.P. sheep were first domesticated in the central area of the Fertile Crescent. There, the land is better suited to the wild sheep thus they were a more common target for hunte rs in that area, leading to the domestication of the sheep. With the change from being wild to being domesticated, the sheep, according to the fossil record, got smaller due to the selection process of the humans tending to the animals. It is in the apex of the Fertile Crescent that sheep herding first became an important component of agricultural economies (Smith, 57). The pig was, as far as we know the third animal to be domesticated. Wild pigs were greatly hunted in the northern part of the central region. Facts have lead archeologist to date the bones of the wild pigs to 9000 B.P. The pigs continued to be a substantial part of the diet of the people in this northern area of the Fertile Crescent, even after the shift to the herding of sheep and goats (Sagan, 243). The site of Cayà ¶nà ¼ tends to be the marker for the earliest domesticated pig, in the vicinity of 8500 years ago. There have been some tentative theories that approximate the domestication of pigs to be closer to the date of 10000 B.P. (Smith, 67). It is Richard Redding who proposed this theory, that the bones of the pigs at Hallan Cemi, strongly represent the ages of bones of a possible herding community of pigs. However since we know nothing about the ages of the pigs that the hunters targeted we have no basis for making the claim that the pigs at Hallan Cemi were indeed domestica ted and herded. For now it remains unverified but the alluring prospect that pigs were domesticated much before the evidence now shows. Cattle were probably the last and least important of the four main animals that were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. The ancestors of domesticate cattle were probably considered to be a dangerous pay due to the size of the animal. However, it was also a significantly large package of meat. The area in the Levant and Jordan Valley has dated wild cattle bones to approximately 9000 to 8000 years ago. Like the pigs the cattle had a exceptionally large geographical range and extended far beyond the Fertile Crescent. There have been clear documentation of a pattern that shows the reduction of size in the cattle between 8000 and 7000 B.P. While cattle may show to be of little importance to the region between 10000 and 8000 B.P. it later became the dominant species of the market (Smith, 56). Now that we have looked at the individual histories of the animals of the seven core domesticates of the Fertile Crescent we see many patterns are emerging. The four species share common lines of evidence that include; geographical range, increase in abundance, reduction in size and change in age/sex profiles (Smith, 67). This evidence has lead to the indication that these histories were distinct and still follows the same indication of domestication. The goats were domesticated in the earliest portion of the period, at around 9000 B.P. Then the sheep, pigs and cattle soon followed after approximately 300 years after the domestication of the goats. Now that we have explored the four animals that were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent we must now turn to vegetation that grew and was domesticated in the Cradle of Civilization around the same time the animals were being domesticated. With the more sedentary lifestyle that the people of this time were adapting to they must have turned to the land and noticed that the annual growing cycle of the plants could help them support them selves without having to harvest the wild plants. They realized that the plants could be grown to fit their needs. There were about eight species of plants that were domesticated during this time (Smith, 48). However, only three of those eight show enough evidence to be mentioned, those three are emmer wheat, einkorn wheat and barley. These three plants were developed in to crops that become overwhelmingly important to the societies that thrived during this time. The first domesticated plant was emmer wheat. Wild emmer wheat was confined in the Fertile Crescent and grew in the areas of Levant, where it was domesticated. As emmer was domesticated, the shape and size of the grain changed, as did the structure of the rachis, the miniature stem that attaches the grain to the plant (Smith, 68). The grains became heftier and the stems became and sturdier. With the grains being more fruitful and staying on the plant longer it aloud more of the grains to be harvested and less of them lost. The morphological changes indicate that the emmer was domesticated. One of the first sites to show the domesticated emmer was the site of Jericho. The grains were found to be from approximately 9800 to 9500 B.P. or perhaps earlier. The large grains of wheat with the nonbrittle rachises, the stem that connects the grain to the plant, appeared around the same time in the lower levels at the site of Aswad, near Damascus (Smith, 68). It didnt take long for the domestic ated Wheat to spread throughout the entire Fertile Crescent. By approximately 8000 B.P. the entire area was producing signs of domesticated emmer wheat. Wild einkorn wheat was the next to be plant to be domesticated. The einkorn wheat was actually harvested by the hunter-gatherers before it was domesticated and intentionally grown. The grain is practically absent from the sites in the Levant, however it occurred in grossly high amounts in the areas of the Mesopotamia and the Anatolia, however the most important sites for the domestication of this wheat were in the central part of the Crescent, at sites such as Mureybit and Abu Hureyra. It is Abu Hureyra that holds the most data for the domestication of einkorn (Smith, 68). When it was excavated in the early 1970s, Gordon Hillman and his colleagues at the Institute of Archaeology of University College, conducted a large scale flotation recovery program that provided them with an exceptionally large and diverse assemblage of charred plant remains. Painstakingly analyzing the all 712 samples recovered, each of which contained about 500 seeds representing 70 species of or genera, Hillman and his co-workers were able to reconstruct the plant food diet of both the farming community that existed at Abu Hureyra from about 9500 to 8000 B.P. and the earlier Hunter-gatherer group that lived there in a permanent year-round settlement from 11000 to 10000 years ago. Of the 157 seed-bearing species harvested by the hunter-gatherer wild einkorn was among those most frequently, its seeds showed up in almost all of the flotation samples from these early levels (Smith 69). At the nearby site of Mureybit even convincing evidence was produced clarifying the strong reliance on the grain in the hunter-gatherer tribes even before the einkorn wheat was brought under cultivation. Barley is the only plant that is present throughout the entire Fertile Crescent and through the same time period as the both the emmer wheat and the einkorn wheat. While the record of early-domesticated barley overlaps with the other two forms of wheat, it exhibits several interesting differences. There were two forms of the barley that were domesticated and have been recovered from the early farming settlements. One of the plant species had two verical rows of grains, with each grain protected by an outer hull (Smith, 71), the other species contained six rows of grains to each stalk of the plant. The two-rowed barley was domesticated about the same time as the emmer wheat, about 9800 to 9600 B.P. However the six-rowed barley produced more harvest then the two-rowed barley, therefore, it was quickly domesticated soon after that of the two-rowed stalks. By 9500 to 9000 B.P., the six-rowed barley is the only species that was domesticated along with the emmer and einkorn wheat (Sagan, 2 45). The absence of a clear pattern of crop combination is perhaps the most interesting observation that can be made regarding the early domestication of the three plants. However, the advances in storage technology, allowed the former hunter-gatherers to exploit the cereals by grinding their seeds into a mill. This mill was easily kept and this allowed for food production in the colder months when the plants did not grow (Wilkinson, 151). The use of trade had a considerable effect in the movement of the methods that of growing and cultivating the wheat and other resourceful goods. These resources gained in value through interregional trade, which in turn resulted in intensified exploitation of the resources. Another result was the movement of the grains outside their indigenous zone, where they were subjected to different selective pressures, resulting in different strains of wheat and barley (Sagon, 243). After the domestication and cultivation of the plants and animals the small villages began becoming states, they were becoming more and more like a modern day civilization. The early stages of food production in the Middle East were marked by gradual transition from foraging to producing economies. Many changes were caused by the production and cultivation of food. Such changes include population increase, which caused the resulting migration and forced other areas to respond and begin their own cultivation of their resources. Also, there had been a gradual population increase, this was based on the native richness of the environment, which helped spur the spread of food production (Maisels, 140). On the other hand, in the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial plain, cultivation required irrigation, which began around 7000 B.P. and changed the world of farming. Irrigation allowed farming to spread away from the normal areas that were close to the riverbanks, by bringing the water away from the r iverbanks the cultivation began to strive. By 6000 B.P., irrigation systems had become far larger and more complex, and were associated with a new political system. This new establishment was based on central government, extreme contrasts of wealth, and social classes, the beginnings of the state (Wilkinson, 141). The written and archaeological record indicates that the early Mesopotamian states were city states (Sumer and Elam), ruled by a literate theocracy that managed virtually all major aspects of the economy, which was overwhelmingly agrarian. The theocracy was replaced by 4,500 B.P., it was replaced by a secular, military monarchy, based upon an elaborate class system (Sagon, 300). Thus ended the revolution of modern humans in the world of cultivation we now knew how to farm and use the animals to our advantage. As time continues to slip by we find more and more ways to maximize the products we get from the cultivation of plants and domestication of animals (Sagan, 248). To sum everything up Southwest Asia was inhabited by small groups of hunter-gatherers. These groups, due to the climatic change, became more and more sedentary and begin to develop a source of food production. This production of food came from the domestication and cultivation of plants and animals. The herded animals provided a constant source of protein in their diet and allowed for the hunters to expend their energy in other areas of life. The cultivation of the plants allows for a reliable supply of grains in their diet. This made the people of this time able to support larger families, which turned into villages, cities, and ultimately states.

My Family: A Subculture :: Sociology Sociological Papers

My Family: A Subculture Everyone in the world belongs to a subculture. Each subculture has its own sets of traditions, relics, and artifacts. Relics and artifacts are symbolic, material possessions important to one's subculture. Relics are from the past; artifacts are from the present. These traditions, relics, and artifacts help shape the personalities of individuals and how they relate with others. Individuals know about these items through storytelling in the subculture. Families are good examples of subcultures. My family, a middle-class suburban Detroit family of Eastern European heritage, has helped shape who I am through story telling about traditions, artifacts, and relics. Throughout my life, I've heard many different stories about my family. Because of these stories, I know about my background, and they have helped form my identity. Randall Bass, professor of English at Georgetown University, agrees that stories help shape people's identities. Bass states that, "Individuals derive their sense of identity from their culture, and cultures are systems of belief that determine how people live their lives" (Bass 1). Cultural stories about family history, religion, nationality, and heritage help influence people's behavior and beliefs. Identities of different people come from their cultures. Story telling begins at home. Stories help connect people to their systems of beliefs. They sculpt people's lives by giving them a model of how to live. People receive their earliest knowledge from different stories.(Bass) One great story my family has told me is my family's history. My maternal grandmother's parents came to the United States from Ukraine by boat around 1906 or 1907. They initially settled in Export, PA, because they had relatives and friends living there. My grandmother was born in 1921 and was the seventh of eight children. A year after she was born, they moved to Warren, OH, where they stayed until my grandmother graduated from high school. The family's religion was Ukrainian Orthodox. My grandmother grew up speaking Ukrainian and English. Ukrainian was spoken in the home, and English was spoken at school. My grandmother started kindergarten at the age five knowing no English. She picked up the English language from her classmates. My grandmother's family did not own a car. Every Easter, they walked about seven miles to go to church. My grandmother grew up during the depression. She was the only girl in her family to own a doll from a store. All of her sister's dolls were homemade.

Learning Organization Essay

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY are proliferating as corporations seek to better themselves and gain an edge. Unfortunately, however, failed programs far outnumber successes, and improvement rates remain low. That’s because most companies have failed to grasp a basic truth. Before people and companies can improve, they first must learn. And to do this, they need to look beyond rhetoric and high philosophy and focus on the fundamentals. Three critical issues must be addressed before a company can truly become a learning organization, writes Harvard Business School professor David Garvin. First is the question of meaning: a well-grounded, easy-to-apply definition of a learning organization. Second comes management: clearer operational guidelines for practice. Finally, better tools for measurement can assess an organization’s rate and level of learning. Using these â€Å"three Ms† as a framework, Garvin defines learning organizations as skilled at five main activities: systematic problem solving, experimentation with new approaches, learning from past experience, learning from the best practices of others, and transferring knowledge quickly and efficiently throughout the organization. And since you can’t manage something if you can’t measure it, a complete learning audit is a must. That includes measuring cognitive and behavioral changes as well as tangible improvements in results. No learning organization is built overnight. Success comes from carefully cultivated attitudes, commitments, and management processes that accrue slowly and steadily. The first step is to foster an environment conducive to learning. Analog Devices, Chaparral Steel, Xerox, GE, and other companies provide enlightened examples. CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMS  CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMS are sprouting up all over as organizations strive to better themselves and gain an edge. The topic list is long and varied, and sometimes it seems as though a program a month is needed just to keep up. Unfortunately, failed programs far outnumber successes, and improvement rates remain distressingly low. Why? Because most companies have failed to grasp a basic truth. Continuous improvement requires a commitment to learning. How, after all, can an organization improve without first learning something new? Solving a problem, introducing a product, and reengineering a process all require seeing the world in a new light and acting accordingly. In the absence of learning, companies-and individuals -simply repeat old practices. Change remains cosmetic, and improvements are either fortuitous or short-lived. A few farsighted executives – Ray Stata of Analog Devices, Gordon Forward of Chaparral Steel, Paul Allaire of Xerox-have recognized the link between learning and continuous improvement and have begun to refocus their companies around it. Scholars too have jumped on the bandwagon, beating the drum for â€Å"learning organizations† and â€Å"knowledge-creating companies. † In rapidly changing businesses like semiconductors and consumer electronics, these ideas are fast taking hold. Yet despite the encouraging signs, the topic in large part remains murky, confused, and difficult to penetrate. Meaning, Management, and Measurement Scholars are partly to blame. Their discussions of learning organizations have often been reverential and utopian, filled with near mystical terminology. Paradise, they would have you believe, is just around the corner. Peter Senge, who popularized learning organizations in his book The Fifth Discipline, described them as places â€Å"where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together. â€Å"‘ To achieve these ends, Senge suggested the use of five â€Å"component technologies†: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning. In a similar spirit, Ikujiro Nonaka characterized knowledge-creating companies as places where â€Å"inventing new knowledge is not a specialized activity †¦ it is a way of behaving, indeed, a way of being, in which everyone is a knowledge worker. â€Å"‘ Nonaka suggested that companies use metaphors and organizational redundancy to focus thinking, encourage dialogue, and make tacit, instinctively understood ideas explicit. Sound idyllic? Absolutely. Desirable? Without question. But does it provide a framework for action? Hardly. The recommendations are far too abstract, and too many questions remain unanswered. How, for example, will managers know when their companies have become learning organizations? What concrete changes in behavior are required? What policies and programs must be in place? How do you get from here to there? Most discussions of learning organizations finesse these issues. Their focus is high philosophy and grand themes, sweeping metaphors rather than the gritty details of practice. Three critical issues are left unresolved; yet each is essential for effective implementation. First is the question of meaning. We need a plausible, well-grounded definition of learning organizations; it must be actionable and easy to apply. Second is the question of management. We need clearer guidelines for practice, filled with operational advice rather than high aspirations. And third is the question of measurement. We need better tools for assessing an organization’s rate and level of learning to ensure that gains have in fact been made. Once these â€Å"three Ms† are addressed, managers will have a firmer foundation for launching learning organizations. Without this groundwork, progress is unlikely, and for the simplest of reasons. For learning to become a meaningful corporate goal, it must first be understood. What Is a Learning Organization? Surprisingly, a clear definition of learning has proved to be elusive over the years. Organizational theorists have studied learning for a long time; the accompanying quotations suggest that there is still considerable disagreement (see â€Å"Definitions of Organizational Learning† on page 77). Most scholars view organizational learning as a process that unfolds over time and link it with knowledge acquisition and improved performance. But they differ on other important matters. Some, for example, believe that behavioral change is required. for learning; others insist that new ways of thinking are enough. Some cite information processing as the mechanism through which learning takes place; others propose-shared insights, organizational routines, even memo. And some think that organizational learning is common, while others believe that flawed, self-serving interpretations are the norm. How can we discern among this cacophony of voices yet build on earlier insights? As a first step, consider the following definition: A learning organization is an organization skilled at creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights. This definition begins with a simple truth: new ideas are essential if learning is to take place. Sometimes they are created de novo, through flashes of insight or creativity; at other times they arrive from outside the organization or are communicated by knowledgeable insiders. Whatever their source, these ideas are the trigger for organizational improvement. But they cannot by themselves create a learning organization. Without accompanying changes in the way that work gets done, only the potential for improvement exists. This is a surprisingly stringent test for it rules out a number of obvious candidates for learning organizations. Many universities fail to qualify, as do many consulting firms. Even General Motors, despite its recent efforts to improve performance, is found wanting. All of these organizations have been effective at creating or acquiring new knowledge but notably less successful in applying that knowledge to their own activities. Total quality management, for example, is now taught at many business schools, yet the number using it to guide their own decision making is very small. Organizational consultants advise clients on social dynamics and small-group behavior but are notorious for their own infighting and factionalism. And GM, with a few exceptions (like Saturn and NUMMI), has had little success in revamping its manufacturing practices, even though its managers are experts on lean manufacturing, JIT production, and the requirements for improved quality of work life. Organizations that do pass the definitional test – Honda, Corning, and General Electric come quickly to mind – have, by contrast, become adept at translating new knowledge into new ways of behaving. These companies actively manage the learning process to ensure that it occurs by design rather than by chance. Distinctive policies and practices are responsible for their success; they form the building blocks of learning organizations. Building Blocks Learning organizations are skilled at five main activities: systematic problem solving, experimentation with new approaches, learning from their own experience and past history, learning from the experiences and best practices of others, and transferring knowledge quickly and efficiently throughout the organization. Each is accompanied by a distinctive mind-set, tool kit, and pattern of behavior. Many companies practice these activities to some degree. But few are consistently successful because they rely largely on happenstance and isolated examples. By creating systems and processes that support these activities and integrate them into the fabric of daily operations, companies can manage their learning more effectively. 1. Systematic problem solving. This first activity rests heavily on the philosophy and methods of the quality movement. Its underlying ideas, now widely accepted, include: †¢ Relying on the scientific method, rather than guesswork, for diagnosing problems (what Deming calls the â€Å"Plan, Do, Check, Act† cycle, and others refer to as â€Å"hypothesis-generating, hypothesistesting† techniques). †¢ Insisting on data, rather than assumptions, as background for decision making (what quality practitioners call â€Å"fact-based management†). †¢ Using simple statistical tools (histograms, Pareto charts, correlations, cause-and-effect diagrams) to organize data and draw inferences. Most training programs focus primarily on problem solving techniques, using exercises and practical examples. These tools are relatively straightforward and easily communicated; the necessary mind-set, however, is more difficult to establish. Accuracy and precision are essential for learning. Employees must therefore become more disciplined in their thinking and more attentive to details. They must continually ask, â€Å"How do we know that’s true? â€Å", recognizing that close enough is not good enough if real learning is to take place. They must push beyond obvious symptoms to assess underlying causes, often collecting evidence when conventional wisdom says it is unnecessary. Otherwise, the organization will remain a prisoner of â€Å"gut facts† and sloppy reasoning, and learning will be stifled. Xerox has mastered this approach on a companywide scale. In 1983, senior managers launched the company’s Leadership Through Quality initiative; since then, all employees have been trained in small-group activities and problem-solving techniques. Today a six-step process is used for virtually all decisions (see â€Å"Xerox’s Problem-Solving Process†). Employees are provided with tools in four areas: generating ideas and collecting information (brainstorming, interviewing, surveying); reaching consensus (list reduction, rating forms, weighted voting); analyzing and displaying data (cause-andeffect diagrams, force-field analysis); and planning actions (flow charts, Gantt charts). They then practice these-tools during training sessions that last several days. Training is presented in â€Å"family groups,† members of the same department or business-unit team, and the tools are applied to real problems facing the group. The result of this process has been a common vocabulary and a consistent, companywide approach to problem solving. Once employees have been trained, they are expected to use the techniques at all meetings, and no topic is off limits. When a high-level group was formed to review Xerox’s organizational structure and suggest alternatives, it employed the very same process and tools. 2. Experimentation. This activity involves the systematic searching for and testing of new knowledge. Using the scientific method is essential, and there are obvious parallels to systematic problem solving. But unlike problem solving, experimentation is usually motivated by opportunity and expanding horizons, not by current difficulties. It takes two main forms: ongoing programs and one-ofa-kind demonstration projects. Ongoing programs normally involve a continuing series of small experiments, designed to produce incremental gains in knowledge. They are the mainstay of most continuous improvement programs and are especially common on the shop floor. Corning, for example, experiments continually with diverse raw materials and new formulations to increase yields and provide better grades of glass. Allegheny Ludlum, a specialty steelmaker, regularly examines new rolling methods and improved technologies to raise productivity and reduce costs. Successful ongoing programs share several characteristics. First, they work hard to ensure a steady flow of new ideas, even if they must be imported from outside the organization. Chaparral Steel sends its first-line supervisors on sabbaticals around the globe, where they visit academic and industry leaders, develop an understanding of new Xerox’s Problem-Solving Process Step Questions to be Answered What do we want to change? Expansion/ Divergence Lots of problems for consideration Contraction/ Convergence One problem statement, one â€Å"desired state† agreed upon What’s Next to Go to the Next Step Identification of the gap â€Å"Desired state† described in observable terms Key causes documented and ranked 1. Identify and select problem 2. Analyse Problem What’s preventing us from reaching the â€Å"desired state†? How could we make the change? What’s the best way to do it? Lots of potential causes identified. Key causes identified and verified 3. Generate potential solutions 4. Select and plan the solution Lots of ideas on how to solve the problem Lots of criteria for evaluating potential solutions. Lots of ideas on how to implement and evaluate the selected solution Potential solutions clarified Criteria to use for evaluating solution agreed upon Implementation and evaluation plans agreed upon Implementation of agreed-on contingency plans (if necessary) Effectiveness of solution agreed upon Continuing problems (if any) identified Solution List. Plan for making and monitoring the change Measurement criteria to evaluate solution effectiveness 5. Implement the solution Are we following the plan? Solution in place 6. Evaluate the solution How well did it work? Verification that the problem is solved, or Agreement to address continuing problems work practices and technologies, then bring what they’ve learned back to the company and apply it to daily operations. Inlarge part as a result of these initiatives, Chaparral is one of the five lowest cost steel plants in the world. GE’s Impact Program originally sent manufacturing managers to Japan to study factory innovations, such as quality circles and kanban cards, and then apply them in their own organizations; today Europe is the destination, and productivity improvement practices the target. The program is one reason GE has recorded productivity gains averaging nearly 5% over the last four years. Successful ongoing programs also require an incentive system that favors risk taking. Employees must feel that the benefits of experimentation exceed the costs; otherwise, they will not participate. This creates a difficult challenge for managers, who are trapped between two perilous extremes. They must maintain accountability and control over experiments without stifling creativity by unduly penalizing employees for failures. Allegheny Ludlum has perfected this juggling act: it keeps expensive, high-impact experiments off the scorecard used to evaluate managers but requires prior approvals from four senior vice presidents. The result has been=a history of productivity improvements annually avenging 7% to 8%. Finally, ongoing programs need managers and employees who are trained in the skills required to perform and evaluate experiments. These skills are seldom intuitive and must usually be learned. They cover a broad sweep: statistical methods, like design of experiments, that efficiently compare a large number of alternatives; graphical techniques, like process analysis, that are essential for redesigning work flows; and creativity techniques, like storyboarding and role playing, that keep novel ideas flowing. The most effective training programs are tightly focused and feature a small set of techniques tailored to employees’ needs. Training in design of experiments, for example, is useful for manufacturing engineers, while creativity techniques are well suited to development groups. Demonstration projects are usually larger and more complex than ongoing experiments. They involve holistic, system wide changes, introduced at a single site, and are often undertaken with the goal of developing new organizational capabilities. Because these projects represent a sharp break from the past, they are usually designed from scratch, using a â€Å"clean slate† approach. General Foods’s Topeka plant, one of the first high commitment work systems in this country, was a pioneering demonstration project initiated to introduce the idea of self-managing teams and high levels of worker autonomy; a more recent example, designed to rethink small-car development, manufacturing, and sales, is GM’s Saturn Division. Demonstration projects share a number of distinctive characteristics: †¢ They are usually the first projects to embody principles and approaches that the organization hopes to adopt later on a larger scale. For this reason, they are more transitional efforts than endpoints and involve considerable â€Å"learning by doing. † Mid-course corrections are common. †¢ They implicitly establish policy guidelines and decision rules for later projects. Managers must therefore be sensitive to the precedents they are setting and must send strong signals if they expect to establish new norms. †¢ They often encounter severe tests of commitment from employees who wish to see whether the rules have, in fact, changed. †¢ They are normally developed by strong multifunctional teams reporting directly to senior management. (For projects targeting employee involvement or quality of work life, teams should be multilevel as well. ) †¢ They tend to have only limited impact on the rest of the organization if they are not accompanied by explicit strategies for transferring learning. All of these characteristics appeared in a demonstration project launched by Copeland Corporation, a highly successful compressor manufacturer, in the mid-1970s. Matt Diggs, then the new CEO, wanted to transform the company’s approach to manufacturing. Previously, Copeland had machined and assembled all products in a single facility: Costs were high, and quality was marginal. The problem, Diggs felt, was too much complexity. At’ the outset, Diggs assigned a small, multifunctional team the task of designing a â€Å"focused factory† dedicated to a narrow, newly developed product line. The team reported directly to Diggs and took three years to complete its work. Initially, the project budget was $10 million to $12 million; that figure was repeatedly revised as the team found, through experience and with Diggs’s prodding, that it could achieve dramatic improvements. The final investment, a total of $30 million, yielded unanticipated breakthroughs in reliability testing, automatic tool adjustment, and programmable control. All were achieved through learning by doing. The team set additional precedents during the plant’s start-up and early operations. To dramatize the importance of quality, for example, the quality manager was appointed second-in-command, a significant move upward. The same reporting relationship was used at all subsequent plants. In addition, Diggs urged the plant manager to ramp up slowly to full production and resist all efforts to proliferate products. These instructions were unusual at Copeland, where the marketing department normally ruled. Both directives were quickly tested; management held firm, and the implications were felt throughout the organization. Manufacturing’s stature improved, and the company as a whole recognized its competitive contribution. One observer commented, â€Å"Marketing had always run the company, so they couldn’t believe it. The change was visible at the highest levels, and it went down hard. † Once the first focused factory was running smoothly -it seized 25% of the market in two years and held its edge in reliability for over a decade-Copeland built four more factories in quick succession. Diggs assigned members of the initial project to each factory’s design team to ensure that early learnings were not lost; these people later rotated into operating assignments. Today focused factories remain the cornerstone of Copeland’s manufacturing strategy and a continuing source of its cost and quality advantages. Whether they are demonstration projects like Copeland’s or ongoing programs like Allegheny Ludlum’s, all forms of experimentation seek the same end: moving from superficial knowledge to deep understanding. At its simplest, the distinction is between knowing how things are done and knowing why they occur. Knowing how is partial knowledge; it is rooted in norms of behavior, standards of practice, and settings of equipment. Knowing why is more fundamental: it captures underlying causeand-effect relationships and accommodates exceptions, adaptations, and unforeseen events. The ability to control temperatures and pressures to align grains of silicon and form silicon steel is an example of knowing how; understanding the chemical and physical process that produces the alignment is knowing why. Further distinctions are possible, as the insert â€Å"Stages of Knowledge† suggests. Operating knowledge can be arrayed in a hierarchy, moving from limited understanding and the ability to make few distinctions to more complete understanding in which all contingencies are anticipated and controlled. In this context, experimentation and problem solving foster learning by pushing organizations up the hierarchy, from lower to higher stages of knowledge. 3. Learning from past experience. Companies must review their successes and failures, assess them systematically, and record the lessons in a form that employers find open and accessible. One expert has called t9is process the â€Å"Santayana Review,† citing the famous philosopher George Santayana, who coined the phrase â€Å"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. † Unfortunately, too many managers today are indifferent, even hostile, to the past, and by failing to reflect on it, they let valuable knowledge escape. A study of more than 150 new products concluded that â€Å"the knowledge gained from failures [is] often instrumental in achieving subsequent successes†¦. In the simplest terms, failure is the ultimate teacher. â€Å"‘ IBM’s 360 computer series, for example, one of the most popular and profitable ever built, was based on the technology of the failed Stretch computer that preceded it. In this case, as in many others, learning occurred by chance rather than by careful planning. A few companies, however, have established processes that require their managers to periodically think about the past and learn from their mistakes. Boeing did so immediately after its difficulties with the 737 and 747 plane programs. Both planes were introduced with much fanfare and also with serious problems. To ensure that the problems were not repeated, senior managers commissioned a high-level employee group, called Project Homework, to compare the development processes of the 737 and 747 with those of the 707 and 727, two of the company’s most profitable planes. The group was asked to develop a set of â€Å"lessons learned† that could be used on future projects. After working for three years, they produced hundreds of recommendations and an inch-thick booklet. Several members of the team were then transferred to the 757 and 767 start-ups, and guided by experience, they produced the most successful, error-free launches in Boeing’s history. Other companies have used a similar retrospective approach. Like Boeing, Xerox studied its product development process, examining three troubled products in an effort to understand why the company’s new business initiatives failed so often. Arthur D. Little, the consulting company, focused on its past successes. Senior management invited ADL consultants from around the world to a two-day â€Å"jamboree,† featuring booths and presentations documenting a wide range of the company’s most successful practices, publications, and techniques. British Petroleum went even further and established the post-project appraisal unit to review major investment projects, write up case studies, and derive lessons for planners that were then incorporated into revisions of the company’s planning guidelines. A five-person unit reported to the board of directors and reviewed six projects annually. The bulk of the time was spent in the field interviewing managers. ‘ This type of review is now conducted regularly at the project level. At the heart of this approach, one expert has observed, â€Å"is a mind-set that †¦ enables companies to recognize the value of productive failure as contrasted with unproductive success. A productive failure is one that leads to insight, understanding, and thus an addition to the commonly held wisdom of the organization. An unproductive success occurs when something goes well, but nobody knows how or why. â€Å"‘ IBM’s legendary founder, Thomas Watson, Sr. , apparently understood the distinction well. Company lore has it that a young manager; after losing $10 million in a risky venture was called into Watson’s office. The young man, thoroughly intimidated, began by saying, â€Å"I guess you want my resignation. † Watson replied, â€Å"You can’t be serious. We just spent $10 million educating you. † Fortunately, the learning process need not be so expensive. Case studies and post-project reviews like those of Xerox and British Petroleum can be performed with little cost other than managers’ time. Companies can also enlist the help of faculty and students at local colleges or universities; they bring fresh perspectives and view internships and case studies as opportunities to gain experience and increase their own learning. A few companies have established computerized data banks to speed up the learning process. At Paul Revere Life Insurance, management requires all problem-solving teams to complete short registration forms describing their proposed projects if they hope to qualify for the company’s award program. The company then enters the forms into its computer system and can immediately retrieve a listing of other groups of people who have worked or are working on the topic, along with a contact person. Relevant experience is then just a telephone call away. 4. Learning from others. Of course, not all learning comes from reflection and self-analysis. Sometimes the most powerful insights come from looking outside one’s immediate environment to gain a new perspective. Enlightened managers know that even companies in completely different businesses can be fertile sources of ideas and catalysts for creative thinking. At these organizations, enthusiastic borrowing is replacing the â€Å"not invented here† syndrome. Milliken calls the process SIS, for â€Å"Steal Ideas Shamelessly†; the broader term for it is benchmarking. According to one expert, â€Å"benchmarking is an ongoing investigation and learning experience that ensures that best industry practices are uncovered, analyzed, adopted, and implemented. † The greatest benefits come from studying practices, the way that work gets done, rather than results, and from involving line managers in the process. Almost anything can be benchmarked. Xerox, the concept’s creator, has applied it to billing, warehousing, and automated manufacturing. Milliken has been even more creative: in an inspired moment, it benchmarked Xerox’s approach to benchmarking. Unfortunately, there is still considerable confusion about the requirements for successful benchmarking. Benchmarking is not â€Å"industrial tourism,† a series of ad hoc visits to companies that have received favorable publicity or won quality awards. Rather, it is a disciplined process that begins with a thorough search to identify best-practice organizations, continues with careful study of one’s own practices and performance, progresses through systematic site visits and interview and concludes with an analysis of results, development of recommendations, and implementation. While timeconsuming, the process need not be terribly expensive AT&T’s Benchmarking Group estimates that a moderate-sized project takes four to six months and incurs out-of-pocket costs of $20,000 (when personnel costs ax included, the figure is three to four times higher). Bench marking is one way of gaining an outside perspective; another, equally fertile source of ideas is customers. Conversations with customers invariably stimulate learning; they are, after all, experts in what they do. Customers can provide up-to-date product information, competitive comparisons, insights into changing preferences, and immediate feedback about service and patt ern of use. And companies need these insights at all levels, from the executive suite to the shop floor. At Motorola, members of the Operating and Policy Committee, including the CEO, meet personally and on a regular basis with customers. At Worthington Steel, all machine operators make periodic, unescorted trips to customers’ factories to discuss their needs. Sometimes customers can’t articulate their needs or remember even the most recent problems they have had with a product or service. If that’s the case, managers must observe them in action. Xerox employs a number of anthropologists at its Palo Alto Research Center to observe users of new document products in their offices. Digital Equipment has developed an interactive process called â€Å"contextual inquiry† that is used by software engineers to observe users of new technologies as they go about their work. Milliken has created â€Å"first-delivery teams† that accompany the first shipment of all products; team members follow the product through the customer’s production process to see how it is used and then develop ideas for further improvement. Whatever the source of outside ideas, learning will only occur in a receptive environment. Managers can’t be defensive and must be open to criticism or bad news. This is a difficult challenge, but it is essential for success. Companies that approach customers assuming that â€Å"we must be right, they have to be wrong† or visit other organizations certain that â€Å"they can’t  teach us anything† seldom learn very much. Learning organizations, by contrast, cultivate the art of open, attentive listening. 5. Transferring knowledge. For learning to be more than a local affair, knowledge must spread quickly and efficiently throughout the organization. Ideas carry maximum impact when they are shared broadly rather than held in a few hands. A variety of mechanisms spur this process, including written, oral, and visual reports, site visits and tours, personnel rotation programs, education and training programs, and standardization programs. Each has distinctive strengths and weaknesses. Reports and tours are by far the most popular mediums. Reports serve many purposes: they summarize findings, provide checklists of dos and don’ts, and describe important processes and events. They cover a multitude of topics, from benchmarking studies to accounting conventions to newly discovered marketing techniques. Today written reports are often supplemented by videotapes, which offer greater immediacy and fidelity. Tours are an equally popular means of transferring knowledge, especially for large, multidivisional organizations with multiple sites.

Badass College Dorm Checklist

Badass College Dorm Checklist Disclaimer: if you’re looking for a more conventional dorm room checklist this isn’t it. We’re going to give you the checklist you would get from a senior (or super-duper senior) instead of a college administrator or your parents. There’s all kinds of those online and the college will send you an orthodox checklist along with your initial paperwork anyways. Nearly all of the stuff we left out you’ll end up getting from the college store/bookstore so it’s not like you need to get them beforehand so you show up with all this crap. Let’s get to it. World-Class Slippers Bath Robe Honestly, these have to be at the top of the list. Dorm life can be a bit dirty, more-so for the guys than the girls but that’s life. Don’t go with a cheap pair of slippers! Invest in a quality pair that will keep your feet safe, comfy, be perfect for lounging around and last for a while. That goes for the robe as well. Robes are awesome. Bathroom robes are stupendous for dorm life, especially when you get a high-brow debonair robe that looks cool when you’re just bumming around going from room to room. The Art Sure, you could be another person with posters on their wall, or nothing at all. Or, you could think ahead to the type of ambience you want your side of the room or your own solo room to project. Is it going to be a room people want to hang out in, or stay out of? What type of personality do you want to project to people? Don’t take dorm room art lightly. The Headphones If you’re going to be sharing the room with one, two or three people then make sure you’ve got a quality pair of headphones that will completely block out background noise. This is an imperative. Headphones are like a sanctuary that can save the day many times over when it counts: cram sessions on weekend nights or when people are doing things in the room you would rather not be aware of. The Bedding Go for high class bedding! It’s likely going to be the only bedding you sleep in for at least the next four to six years. The chances you’ll go out and buy more pillow cases, a comforter, sheets, etc. is pretty small. Make’em extra comfy so that you get quality sleep. Yes sleep, it’s so incredibly important in college it’s not even funny. The Wardrobe Don’t show up in the same clothes you’ve been wearing since middle school. You’ll reek of freshmen from head to toe. Plus, clothing stores in college towns are either really expensive or horrible style-wise. Think ahead. Plan to gain a little weight. Start mind-mapping your wardrobe now so it doesn’t become an issue mid-stream so to speak. The Keep-Sakes Yes, by all means have some nic-naks and keepsakes from home but remember that 90% of the time nothing in a shared dorm room is safe. Stuff can go missing at any time unless it’s literally locked up. If you’re in a single room, then that’s different but there will be times when you forget to lock your door or whatever. Things happen. The Alternative Lighting Lighting. Oh boy. It becomes a dynamic problem with dorm rooms where the default lighting is institutional and you may have boot camp-style bedding arrangements. Again, think ahead. You’re going to need a quality desk lamp that you can move around or point away from roomies. And, you’re going to need a reading light you can hook to your books unless you plan to read everything online. A Godly PC Well, not every major requires a hardcore PC but these days it’s a good idea to come packing a versatile and powerful PC. You can go for either a more mobile product like a notebook or tablet, or you can go old school and have a desktop. Whatever works best for you just make sure it’s a quality piece of equipment that’s going to last, be dependable and be something you can keep safe and secure. The Hygiene Products Listen, you don’t want to rely on the college store or bookstore for your hygiene products. You just don’t. Not typically. Maybe some private universities have a steady supply of the good stuff but most public four year universities sport the cheap stuff. It’s freshmen fodder. Do yourself a favor and bring a good supply of quality product that will last a bit. That way you can order as you need to online. That about sums it up folks. I mean you can add all kinds of stuff. The items on this page are the foundational all-important items. What do you think, did we miss anything?

Inspirational, Famous Quotes About Change

Inspirational, Famous Quotes About Change We have always validated change as the only constant in the world. We approve of change, as change leads to improvement. But what if change leads to a lowering of standards? What if change means more pollution, more poverty, and more destruction? Should change always be welcomed? Read these quotes carefully to understand why change is inevitable. Jawaharlal Nehru The wheel of change moves on, and those who were down go up and those who were up go down. Barack Obama Change doesnt come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Winston Churchill There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction. John A. Simone Sr. If youre in a bad situation, dont worry itll change. If youre in a good situation, dont worry itll change. Faith Baldwin Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations. Publilius Syrus A rolling stone can gather no moss. Washington Irving There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift ones position, and be bruised in a new place. Heraclitus Nothing is permanent, but change. Nelson Mandela One of the things I learnt when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself I could not change others. Henry Brooks Adams Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit. H. G. Wells Adapt or perish, now as ever, is Natures inexorable imperative. Isaac Asimov It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. Herbert Otto Change and growth take place when a person has risked himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life. Arnold Bennett Any change, even for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts. Helen Keller Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable. Spanish Proverb A wise man changes his mind, a fool never will.

McBride Financial Services

McBride Financial Services Mr. Hugh McBride started McBride Financial Services with the thought in mind of specializing in one stop shopping for first-time buyers and problem credit clients. McBride Financial Services decided to open its home office in Boise Idaho which is a first for that region; the offices will also have kiosk where the client will be able to serves themselves. This approach is a first of its kind in this region, which gives Mr. McBride a great head start on anyone else thinking of branching into this area.McBride Financial Services is a start-up regional mortgage lender headquartered in Boise, Idaho. The requester is Hugh McBride who is also the founder/owner of the company. The firm will specialize in conventional, FHA, and VA loans for purchasing and refinancing.There is no Sponsor yet Hugh McBride is the only stakeholders because McBride is a privately owned company. The Main office will be placed in Boise Idaho, due to where the other six offices will be placed.Official seal of City of BoiseThe other to be opened after the first two are opened in Idaho are as follows; one in Montana, two in Wyoming, two in North Dakota, and one in South Dakota (Rapid City) which happens to be the capitol of South Dakota(South Dakota.org).Each office will have two to three brokers, brokers will work on commission and provide own laptop computers. Company will provide networks, internet access, printers, fax and telephones for each office. Each location will have experienced receptionist working eight to five Monday thru Friday to assisted clients that may have questions or problems with one of the kiosk that are placed in the office. The other office's once they are up and running will have three brokers and two administration assistance to handle office duties. The loan decisions will be...

Workplace Discrimination Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Workplace Discrimination - Assignment Example According to Aronsom, racial discrimination comes from the word â€Å"race† that implies one takes advantage owing to their own prejudice or stereotype of their supremacy. In taking advantage; they may harm the person from a different race in various ways. Many conclude this discrimination in the words â€Å"The fight between blacks and whites† – excluding the brown race. This may be a result of some negative past experiences or some stereotypes formed from the beginning. Many strongly belief it is due to lack of education that adds to this problem of Racial Discrimination. This Racial Discrimination can be seen all around the society; streets, schools, colleges, public places and professional organizations. Fryer states that racial Discrimination at workplace is a problem that is growing over the time span; it not only creates problems within the organization but poses hazard to governments and other stakeholders of that organization. Racial discrimination is seen as a reason for the collapse of many organizations and it stands out today as a major problem owing to which many theories and strategies have been adopted by many organizations to prevent them from the turmoil of racism. As a result, the committee on the elimination of racial discrimination has laid great emphasis on the topic.... In order for such motivation to take place, it is crucial to avoid conflicts, especially racial conflicts as these once ignited, are difficult to stop. Such was the case in the recent riots of United Kingdom (2011). If we are to follow the process of efficiency for corporate entities, motivation is the key element that will lead to success as stated by the above figures who have each given out a different theory for motivation of workers (example: F.W Taylor’s Piece rate policy) (Stimpson, 2010) Racial Discrimination acts as a hindrance for many employees to be motivated and work efficiently; this racial discrimination has its roots either through past experiences or certain stereotypes inbuilt since a long time. Hindrance in work can jeopardize the whole operation of a corporation. It can start off with very minuet exposure and result in violence and chaos for the world to see (example 2011 UK riots) (Regrosa, 2011). There are various ways in which racial discrimination can t ake place at organizations; it can start off from the phase when an employee has not even secured a job with the company. Discrimination on basis of ethnicity or race during interviews is a common problem in many workplaces, therefore, with racial discriminatory Human Resource personnels; inefficiency in the â€Å"hiring process† should be no surprise. In fact some journals go to the extent of verifying that fact that African-Americans (blacks) at times have to work harder for the same job when competing with whites in the United States of America (Mottley, 1993). Asking a black person tougher questions, trying to embarrass a black, putting behind tougher situations or degrading a black while a professional

Google case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Google - Case Study Example This acquisition with android has given a very positive impact on the financial conditions of the Google. This program of Google is executing with the thought of the customers having an Android phone will be able to connect all the contacts of Google like: Google+, Google chrome, Gmail and many other Google applications that are being used by the customers on daily basis. From 2008 with adaptation of android technology the net income of strikes high profits and increases with more then 30% each year till 2012. The impact of acquisition with android has proved it self by its remarkable performance in gaining the rapidly increasing profits with high percentage. In 2012 there were approximately 700,000 applications available for android and 25 billion applications were downloaded by the users from Google play. This sounds a great achievement for Google. Answer#2 In the opening quarter of 2012, the financial report speaks that Google brought around $2.9 billion in net income on $10.9 bil lion of revenue. On the other side, Motorola mobility lost around $89 million on $3.1 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2012. In the initial phase after buying Motorola Corporation Google encounters with some losses but Google strategy was to earn with the long term strategic plan. Two big transactions made by Google in December 2012 that greatly impact over the financial position of the company. The manufacturing operations of Motorola mobility were sold by Google to Flextronics for $75 million and sold Motorola Home business division to Arris group for $2.35 billion in a cash and stock transaction. By these two transactions Google acquired 15.7% stake in Arris group valued at $300 million. This immediate effect develops the understanding that Google acquisition with Motorola will give some great and huge innovation in their pipeline products or services as we saw that before 5 years when Google acquisition with android undertaken. There are three big returns for Googl e in merging with Motorola. Right of entry to the portfolio of Motorola patent which it may possibly then permit to links like HTC and Samsung to secure next to the extended arm of Apple’s  lawyers. An integrated hardware/software takes part in to battle with Apple Corporation. The difficulty  with this reason is that  the agreement does not address the  breakdown on the Android platform which is the more difficult problem. The set-top big business to make better its covering Google TV offering. Answer#3 The android operating system with its open source model approach confronting with the criticism of the model causes code (software) base to fragment. Another criticism encountered that is online services and the android operating system does not connect with each other. Along with the criticism this technology provides a wide range of benefits to the users. The advantages of open source approach are as follows: 1- Superior in quality with the continuous development pr ocess. 2- Customizability in its development. 3- It gives the liberty of using with own intend. 4- Flexibility in advancement of both software and hardware. 5- Interoperability. 6- Audibility with the derived standards for removing the unwanted deviations. 7- Make available support options for making easier for the user. 8- Inexpensive in cost as compared to others. 9- It

What is the relationship between globalisation, poverty and inequality Essay

What is the relationship between globalisation, poverty and inequality - Essay Example The essay "What is the relationship between globalisation, poverty and inequality?" aims in showing that globalization operates in specific contexts and is still influenced by policy interventions on national and transnational levels. Furthermore, poverty and inequality has been an offshoot of human development starting from the rapid human industrial activity. If one looks at the current problems produced, the solutions lie not in the replacement of the economic model but in correcting the flaws. For example, international rights and standards must be established or the enforcement of code of conduct that would govern international corporations and institutions. The essay describes that it is important to underscore that globalization is an evolving phenomenon. The problem that produces inequality, (i.e. the tariff reduction and subsidies on certain industries) are still being discussed and negotiated by countries, undermined by the influence of industrialized economies and the inde pendent bilateral and multilateral trade agreements that are consequences of politics and client. Presently, these still remain as agenda languishing on bargaining tables. The flaws of globalization are not fundamentally structural. Instead, most of it comes from the failure of states to commit to the idea that it espouses. Countries, especially the rich economies, are still resistant to eliminate trade barriers, opting to protect domestic industries. Then, there is the lack of a governing mechanism that would regulate the conduct of multinational corporations to prevent their excesses and made them accountable for their acts and force them to follow international standards - not just in the context of business, production, wage, human rights, - but also in the area of ethics.

Diagnostic Reasoning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Diagnostic Reasoning - Essay Example Even though clinicians can use data from patient’s signs and symptoms to improve previous probabilities, they do not compute a running score of probability ratios. Their evaluation of previous probabilities depends on their understanding of patients and their expertise. They also add proof to a previous chance instead of multiplying proof by a previous probability (Stolper, Van de Wiel, Van Royen, Van Bokhoven, Van der Weijden & Dinant, 2011). In as much as the strength of an analytical indicator to substantiate or reject is mostly evaluated in various terms including irrelevant, weak, and strong, clinicians often use their projected decision threshold before taking actions. Since this has not always provided positive outcome, it is necessary for the medical decision-making clinicians to establish a balance between diagnostic reasoning and a kind of intuitive appraisal. Diagnostic reasoning is applied in complicated cases like testing hypothesis and purposeful verification. Th erefore, general practitioners will have to depend on a kind of intuitive assessment by listing patient features, establishing their weights and matching them with the symptoms related to a particular illness. In conclusion, it is necessary to establish a balance between diagnostic reasoning and a kind of intuitive appraisal. The process allows doctors to come up with a conclusive decision concerning a particular infection. Stolper, E., Van de Wiel, M., Van Royen, P., Van Bokhoven, M., Van der Weijden, T., & Dinant, G. J. (2011). Gut feelings as a third track in general practitioners’ diagnostic reasoning. Journal of general internal medicine, 26(2),

Thomson One - Business School Edition - Walt Disney Prospectus Essay - 1

Thomson One - Business School Edition - Walt Disney Prospectus - Essay Example This is a type of debt whereby the investors are paid an interest rate for their money. This debt is different from others in that its interest rate resets after every four months. A company that offers this kind of debt has the right to sell bonds whose benchmark is different from those that are linked to the United States of America. Companies embrace this type of debt since they are able to hedge against risks related to interest rates and at the same time remain in corporates. Its main aim was to attract long term investors into buying the stocks. The company targeted both the existing as well as new investors. The fact that the debentures were offered as floating debt was one major factor that increased their marketability. The interest rates were to be offered in quarterly basis and this served to attract many people to buy the bonds. In addition, the bonds’ interests could be reviewed after every four months, a factor that could also increase its marketability. They wer e to be sold on the basis of shareholding. Those who already have shares at the company would fill an enrolment form to get the bonds at a minimum lower amount. Those who do not hold shares were also given a chance to buy the bonds but their minimum amount was set at a higher than the existing shareholders. 2) List the dollar amount of debt Disney proposed to sell to the public. Indicate whether this amount has increased or decreased from 2008 to 2010. Discuss some potential causes of this increase or decrease. At the time when Disney proposed to sell its debentures to the public, the amount to be sold was stated to be $1 billion (High Beam Business, 2013). The bonds were to be issued in the denominations of $2, 000. For the excess of $2, 000, there was to be issues of integral multiples of $1, 000. It is important to note that the proceeds that the company was to receive equalled $989, 760, 000 with the rest being commission to agents which was stated at the rate of 0.35% (High Bea m Business, 2013). Between the years 2008 and 2010, the amount in dollars increased. There are a number of reasons that could have led to this increase. One of them is the fact that the company needed more money as the expansion plan changed as the business environment changed. In addition, the company’s profitability may have reduced due to the global economic crisis that hit most countries. This reduced the amount of profit that the company could have re-invested and hence it had to borrow more. 3) Determine the percentage of the sales price Disney nets after discounts and commissions. Indicate whether this amount as decreased or increased from 2008 to 2010. Discuss some potential causes of this increase or decrease For every sale of shares or any kind of securities including bonds and debentures, the company usually does not sell them directly. The securities are normally sold through a broker or an agent who has to be paid a commission. In addition, the company may opt to sell its securities at a discount or at a premium. Discounts are expenses to be charged on revenue while premium is recorded as an income. In the case of Walt Disney, the bonds were not sold at a discount. However, there was a commission fee that was pain to the agents who were selling the bonds on behalf of the company. As it has been mentioned earlier, the discounts/ commissions

Strategic Position of McDonalds Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Strategic Position of McDonalds - Assignment Example The researcher states that McDonald's achieved a 27% revenue growth over the three years ending in 2007. The market success of any business largely depends on its product quality and service efficiency. It is clear that high-quality products can be designed, produced, and delivered only if high-quality people are employed. As Rioux and Bernthal point out, for any business like McDonald's offering customized services, efficiency in employee recruitment, selection, and retention is particularly vital to meet customer satisfaction and thereby promote market share growth. While analyzing McDonald’s recruitment and selection policy with reference to related practices such as training and development, staff turnover, and rewards and benefits, the policy seems strategic. To illustrate, the organization uses effective and extensive recruitment and training approaches to attract, identify, develop, and retain potential staff that would best suit McDonald’s long-term business int erests. McDonald's opened its first restaurant in the UK in 1974 and there were 1330 McDonald’s restaurants in the country by 2004. Like corporate giants like Walmart and Coca-Cola, McDonald's is also a world’s leading large-scale employer. As per records, in 2004, the company employed 43,491 people in its restaurants and they embraced 40,699 hourly paid workers, 2,292 managerial personnel, and 500 office staff. McDonald’s US franchisees employed further 25,000 people in 2004. Most of the McDonald’s employees are paid based on an hour-rate system and those employees are referred to as crew members.

Diagnostic Reasoning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Diagnostic Reasoning - Essay Example Even though clinicians can use data from patient’s signs and symptoms to improve previous probabilities, they do not compute a running score of probability ratios. Their evaluation of previous probabilities depends on their understanding of patients and their expertise. They also add proof to a previous chance instead of multiplying proof by a previous probability (Stolper, Van de Wiel, Van Royen, Van Bokhoven, Van der Weijden & Dinant, 2011). In as much as the strength of an analytical indicator to substantiate or reject is mostly evaluated in various terms including irrelevant, weak, and strong, clinicians often use their projected decision threshold before taking actions. Since this has not always provided positive outcome, it is necessary for the medical decision-making clinicians to establish a balance between diagnostic reasoning and a kind of intuitive appraisal. Diagnostic reasoning is applied in complicated cases like testing hypothesis and purposeful verification. Th erefore, general practitioners will have to depend on a kind of intuitive assessment by listing patient features, establishing their weights and matching them with the symptoms related to a particular illness. In conclusion, it is necessary to establish a balance between diagnostic reasoning and a kind of intuitive appraisal. The process allows doctors to come up with a conclusive decision concerning a particular infection. Stolper, E., Van de Wiel, M., Van Royen, P., Van Bokhoven, M., Van der Weijden, T., & Dinant, G. J. (2011). Gut feelings as a third track in general practitioners’ diagnostic reasoning. Journal of general internal medicine, 26(2),

Strategic Position of McDonalds Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Strategic Position of McDonalds - Assignment Example The researcher states that McDonald's achieved a 27% revenue growth over the three years ending in 2007. The market success of any business largely depends on its product quality and service efficiency. It is clear that high-quality products can be designed, produced, and delivered only if high-quality people are employed. As Rioux and Bernthal point out, for any business like McDonald's offering customized services, efficiency in employee recruitment, selection, and retention is particularly vital to meet customer satisfaction and thereby promote market share growth. While analyzing McDonald’s recruitment and selection policy with reference to related practices such as training and development, staff turnover, and rewards and benefits, the policy seems strategic. To illustrate, the organization uses effective and extensive recruitment and training approaches to attract, identify, develop, and retain potential staff that would best suit McDonald’s long-term business int erests. McDonald's opened its first restaurant in the UK in 1974 and there were 1330 McDonald’s restaurants in the country by 2004. Like corporate giants like Walmart and Coca-Cola, McDonald's is also a world’s leading large-scale employer. As per records, in 2004, the company employed 43,491 people in its restaurants and they embraced 40,699 hourly paid workers, 2,292 managerial personnel, and 500 office staff. McDonald’s US franchisees employed further 25,000 people in 2004. Most of the McDonald’s employees are paid based on an hour-rate system and those employees are referred to as crew members.

Harry Potter’s Influence on Society Essay Example for Free

Harry Potter’s Influence on Society Essay Its important to remember that we all have magic inside us. (J.K. Rowling, scholastic book fair promotion, October 1999) One of the most influential novels of this generation is the Harry Potter Saga. Since the first book was published in 1997 these novels take you on a breath-taking adventure through witch-craft and wizardry. How has this saga written by J.K. Rowling been an influence on society you ask? Come explore how Hogwarts the school of witch-craft and wizardry made its way from a small fantasy school in England to a worldwide phenomenon. It all starts with the author; J.K Rowling is the master-mind behind these magical books. Born on July 31st, 1965 as Joanne Rowling she decided to go under the name J.K for her books. She chose this because her key target readers were young boys and she thought that they would not want to read a book by a female author although she was mistaken. The idea came to her while she was on a four hour delayed train trip from Manchester, England to London. She saw a young boy sitting across from her and started to create a story for this him. She decided his name would be Harry and he was on his way to attend his first year at a school as a wizard. This is what started the successful journey that would change reading for our generation. The Harry Potter saga is made up of seven novels. (Listed below in order) * Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone ( Sorcerer’s Stone) * Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets * Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban * Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix * Harry Potter and the Half –Blood Prince * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows These books follow the life of Harry Potter a young wizard who has been through something you cannot imagine. Both of his parents were murdered when he was just a baby by Lord Voldemort ( who plays the villain in the story). Harry Potter was present while this happened but he survived the killing curse with only a minor scar on his forehead. He survived because mother’s love for him was so powerful that it somehow protected him from the curse that took his parents lives. Since he was orphaned he was living with his aunt, uncle and cousin just outside of London, England. When he turned eleven years old he received an invitation to attend the Hogwarts school of Witch-craft and Wizardry because he was wizard. While on his way to Hogwarts he comes to learn that he is famous for the events that lead him to have just mere scar on his forehead and being the only wizard to survive a killing curse. On the Hogwarts express he meets two young wizards who eventually become his best friends, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasely. Each book is a new school year which comes with new tasks and new level of maturity. Throughout the novels we come to understand that Harry Potter has the same problems as a everyday teenager but there is extra level of responsibility because along with magic comes consequences. There is two ways that magic can be used. There’s good magic but there is also dark magic and both of these are seen within the Harry Potter novels. Voldemort being the villain is constantly in a fight with Harry. This is where the theme of the story comes in. The theme of the Harry Potter novels is good vs. evil. Harry represents the good character and Voldemort represents the evil. The only way for Harry to be free of the evil spirit is to kill him. Harry uses dark magic to do so but uses it in defense. Along every step of the way Harry’s two best friends where there to help. When he needed advice or someone to lean on the both Ron and Hermione were always there. Without them Harry Potter would never have been able to demolish the evil character and enjoy his life to the fullest. That is the moral of the story, love can overcome evil and if you have support system you can do anything. That is something as human beings we should keep with us for all time. Morals are something we can learn from reading but because sometimes we get distracted by technology and materialistic items we forget that. J.K Rowling was taking on a generation that was attached to technology and attracting them back to reading. This may be the largest impact the Harry Potter Saga has had on society. Reading is somehow lost in this generation and many people do not realize the importa nce of reading. Reading enhances vocabulary, helps speech, and really broadens a person’s understanding and tolerance. Reading always teaches you something, from Harry Potter we learn that evil cannot stand in the way of love, and no matter what has happened you can always get through it if you have people to support you. J.K Rowling also focused on one other important detail, imagination. Reading allows you to use your imagination to come up with scenarios for you self. It allows you to build your artistic ability and creativity by doing so. Creativity stems from imagination; this means without an active imagination there would be no creativity whatsoever. Imagination allows you to transport into a fantasy world and experience things you would not be able to in reality. One important thing about imagination and creativity is that is undefined. Every single person views it differently and there is no right or wrong answer. J.K Rowling took this into consideration while writing her books and many people think because she created such a conversely topic that it opened the public up to the books. But one thing everyone can agree on is that this book changed our generation. Michelle McMorrow Ramsell the director of Tuscarawas Public Library says in a news paper article that: â€Å"The popularity of the Harry Potter series made reading a cool thing and made reading a cool thing to talk about with friends. The time that Harry Potter was released was is when technology started to become a major part in our generation. Harry Potter books got millions of people involved from the middle-school age level and up.† This is one of the reasons Harry Potter is such an influential book. Not only did it bring people back into reading but it also has characters that people can relate to. J.K Rowling started to write because she was an English major and it was a passion of hers but as she got more into depth with the books she started to make all the characters relatable. She started writing the book when her mother fell ill, but quickly after her mother passed away and that is when she decided she would use this idea for the book. She knew what it felt like to lose someone who was so important so that is where she came up with the idea for Harry to lose his pare nts. Many people know what it is like to lose someone important to them and when someone else dealing with the same thing it makes you feel like you are not alone. J.K Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression in 1993, she needed a way to escape real life and she chose this with Harry Potter. She decided to add the dementors, the creatures who are known as the soul-sucking creatures who are constantly after Harry because of the way she felt. She thought that a good way to come out of depression is to be sidetracked in a way, and Harry Potter was her way out of reality and she took that into consideration. She also tried to relate most of her characters to people she knew when she was younger. J.K Rowling says that she sees a lot of herself in Hermione. Hermione comes off as a know it all sometimes and J.K says that’s how many people saw her when she was young. The Wesely’s were a poor family that did not have much, she was able to relate to this because before Harry Pot ter she was in that place for a long time. Ron was also based on J.K Rowling’s best friend Shane Harris. She also saw herself as Harry because there was always something she was trying to fix and she was not a quitter. She was never going to give up in what she believed in and it helped her get through many hardships she faced throughout her life just like him. Reading books can allow you to escape reality and maybe even sometimes solve a problem which is what she was trying to accomplish. The Harry Potter books were such a success that they were turned into a film series starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson. The entire film series made 7.7 billion dollars and is also one of the top highest grossing films of all time. The first movie premiered in 2001 and the last being in two parts finished in 2011. Over the last ten years J.K Rowling worked closely with the script writers because she wanted it as close to the books as possible. The movies success made the young actors Hollywood superstars and it al so had a huge impact to our generation. The movies and books are translated into 67 different languages, so no matter where you live or what language you speak you can get a taste of the magic. It was a family movie that everyone can enjoy together and seeing the magic come alive on screen really touched people all over the world and that also made an impact on society. Many things have evolved from the novels and the movie is not the only one. On June 18th 2010, Universal Studio’s opened up a new Theme park named: The Wizarding world of Harry Potter. Here you can experience the magic of Hogwarts in real life. You can you visit the Hogwarts castle, Three-broom sticks diner, Honeydukes sweet shop, Ollivander’s wand shop, Zonko’s joke store, and dervish and banges quidditch equipment store. These are all places that are in the movies and books and after ten years there finally a reality. â€Å"I used to leave set wishing I was at Hogwarts and that Harry Potter was real life. I got to experience the magi c of it but normal kids didn’t and now because of the theme park they can, and it’s wicked.† Daniel Radcliffe( interview in 2010 about the Theme Park) This is a huge impact on society because there is not anything like this visting the theme park gives you the full experience and your imagination really comes to life. Daniel Radcliffe believes that â€Å"The wizarding world of Harry Potter has the potential to be a fantastic memory that kids will take with them, that will be something that stands out with them for a long time.† ( interview about the theme park 2010) This is a true fact and everyone who visits seems to capture some of the joy and take it with them where ever they may go. Pottermore is also another place to experience the Hogwarts school of witch-craft and wizardry. A website created by J.K Rowling in order to keep the Harry Potter Saga alive after the seventh book and the eighth movie being completed. She did this in response to her fan base being so strong. â€Å"So I’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you because no author could of asked for a more wonderful, diverse readership. I’m thrilled to say that I’m now in a position to give you something unique. An online reading experience unlike any other and its called Pottermore. It’s the same story with a few crucial editions; the most important one is you. Just as the experience of reading requires the imagination of the author and reader work together to create the story, so Pottermore will be built in part by you the reader. The digital generation will be able to enjoy a safe, unique online reading experience built around the Harry Potter books. Pottermore will be the place where fans of any age can share, participate in and re-discover the stories. And I will be sharing additional information that I’ve been holding for years about the world of Harry Potter. I hope to see you soon.† (J.K. Rowling on Pottermore.com) By visiting this website you can go through journeys of the books and through every chapter you visit you learn something new about the wizarding world. Like the books and movies you get sorted into a house: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin, here you get to experience life as if you were a student. Just like the book you earn house points, make friends from many houses, brew positions, casts spells, attend quidditch matches , take journeys through diagon ailey ( located in London where the shops are), visit the wizarding bank and really experience life as a virtual Hogwarts student. As you can see the Harry Potter novels really do influence society. There has been over a million copies of the books sold, eight successful films translated into 67 languages, a enchanting theme – park, amazing websites, and even merchandise which includes, shirts, stickers, hats, sweatshirts, wands, anything you can think of. It is a spectacular story that has transformed reading. Most people before the Harry Potter series thought reading was boring and that TV. and the internet were more entertaining, but after reading it they changed their mind. J.K Rowling created an imaginary story that was still relatable and people will remember this book for years to come. â€Å"There’s always room for a story that can transport people to another place, and I feel I completed this task with Harry Potter.† ( J.K. Rowling on the success of her novels.)