Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

â€Å"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. † * Albert Einstein The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a book describing and reflecting upon the problems in the southern United States in the 1930’s. The problems that the author, Carson McCullers, analyzes include alcoholism, labor unions, racial bias, as well as the many problems that economic instability can create. McCullers depicts each problem in a very realistic manner connecting one character with one specific issue. The reader identifies with each character because the social problems the characters face have not gone away.Americans still fight for economic justice and racial equality. Labor unions are still demonized by big corporations. These issues have not gone away. The most overbearing problem- in the 1930's and currently- is the economy. Poverty prevents a main character in this novel, Mick Kelly, from being able to follow her dream. Mick loves music more than an ything in the world: â€Å"The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen†¦ Now that it was over there was only her heart beating like a rabbit and this terrible hurt. (145) Micks feels so passionately about music that she wants to absorb as much as possible. She wants to pursue her dream of music, however, her father does not have a stable income and her mother works very hard for very little. This situation restrains Mick from being able to pursue her dreams by not allowing her to get the adequate instructions and opportunities she needs. The fact the Mick grows up working instead of in an environment where she cannot take music lessons or have the opportunity to follow her dreams, holds her from achieving greatness.The working class not only had to deal with the poverty but also labor unions. Jake Blount is a confused and mentally unstable man who spends his first few weeks in town drunk. Blount has many ideas that he is constantly speaking abo ut: â€Å"words came out of his throat like a cataract† (13). Blount is upset with company’s treatment of the middle class and finds it necessary to tell most everyone in his presence. He believes that America should enact socialist reforms. He is constantly encouraging the revolts of middle class workers to revolt as a reaction to the treatment in the workplace.Another prominent problem that McCullers identifies is institutionalized racism. Dr. Copeland's solution is education and fighting against the inequity: â€Å"In the face of brutality I was prudent. Before injustice I held my peace. I sacrificed the things in hand for the good of the hypothetical whole. I believed in the tongue instead of the fist. As armor against oppression I taught patience and faith in the human soul. I know now how wrong I was. I have been a traitor to myself and my people. All that is rot. Now is the time to act and to act quickly.Fight cunning with cunning and might with might. † (301-302) Dr. Copeland when first dealing with racism would attempt to find peace and submit to the criticism. As time went on in his life he realizes the best option is to fight the injustice. Not only has the problem held true to today's society, but his solution to the problem has become a reality. The problems the characters experienced then are still prevalent today. Poverty is an issue that is one of the focus of society. According to San Jose University the unemployment rate in the Great Depression peaked at 23%.The current unemployment rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is at 9. 2%. While these numbers are different, they are still both very high. McCullers approaches this subject in very realistic and connecting method. The perspective in the 1930's, Mick Kelly is one that many kids are facing today. Kids today and 1930's face the problem of wanting to pursue their dreams but instead must work to support their family. This leads to unequal social statuses of children from varying backgrounds. Not only has the poverty remained present, labor unions have as well.Labor unions continue to be demonized by large companies. Since the 1930's labor union membership had been steadily decreasing until the beginning of the current economic recession. The fact that McCullers took the time to analyze such a problem that still exists today show how perceptive she was socially of the world around her. Institutionalized racism is a subject that is no longer prevalent today. The reason that the issue has decreased is because solution of fighting the injustice has taken effect.The current American president, Barack Obama, has dealt with the problems that McCullers describes. He has also taken the solution that McCullers implements through Dr. Copeland and has become the American president. McCullers identifies the possibility of the success and offers the solution. The problems of society are not taken lightly by anyone. McCullers broaches the problems i n a careful yet aggressive manner. She paints a powerful picture of each issue allowing the reader to connect with each problem even sixty years after writing the book.It does not take a genius to realize that the problems that McCullers examines and even offers solutions for come problems that are still prominent in today’s society. The specifics of the economy, labor unions, and racial bias have evolved with the rest of the country, but the fact that the problems are still here is a testament to the social awareness of McCullers while she was writing The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. While McCullers did not actually change these issues, she brought to light struggles that many Americans are facing today.

Succubus on Top CHAPTER 6

One thing about working in a bookstore is you have immediate access to print media: Nocturnal Admission is a treat for the senses, one of those rare jewels that emerges from the dark obscurity of small clubs and restaurants. Of course, after last night's performance at the Verona, it's unlikely they'll be playing shoddy venues again. Nocturnal Admission is well on its way to becoming a household name – not only at the local level, but the national one as well. The opening staff and I oohed and aahed over the concert review in the Seattle Times, all of us clustering around the information desk, rereading our favorite quotes over and over. The writer had even provided a few words of Doug's bio – after several other lines praising his voice and onstage persona – adding that he worked at a â€Å"local bookstore.† We loved that; the nondescript reference almost made us feel like celebrities too. I let them chat on a bit longer, reveling in my own pride and pleasure for Doug, before finally breaking things up. â€Å"All right, kids, I hate to crack the whip, but I see customers at the door. â€Å" They dispersed reluctantly, but I saw Andy smirking when he thought I didn't notice him whispering something to Casey. The only word I caught was â€Å"whip.† Charming. One would think having a dominatrix reputation would at least make me a more formidable authority figure, rather than a source of ridicule. And today, I was the only authority figure. Paige was out sick again, so I had to unofficially work both her job and my own. At least the staff was in good form despite the late night, which made things easier. Casey seemed unaffected by last night, which I found remarkable. Maybe it was the resilience of youth. After drinking and smoking that much, I doubted I'd have been in as good a shape as she was – and I had the advantage of supernatural healing and recovery. My misgivings about Alec must have been premature, I decided, considering what a good mood she appeared to be in. She smiled every time I saw her during the day and was always ready with a friendly comment to customers and coworkers alike. When I stopped by to take something from a neighboring register, I heard a customer ask her if she knew offhand whether his books would total under twenty-five dollars or not. She flipped through the stack expertly and had an answer within ten seconds. â€Å"With tax, $26.57. Put this one back, and you'll be at $22.88. Closest you can get without going over.† â€Å"Did you do that all in your head?† I asked her later. Dimples showed in her pretty cheeks. â€Å"I'm an accounting major.† â€Å"Yeah, but my accountant sure as hell doesn't do my taxes in his head.† â€Å"Of course not. But this stuff's easy.† Doug came in at noon, much to the delight of the others. Practically strutting, he couldn't stop crowing about the review and kept asking me if I'd read such-and-such in the article. I had to assure him repeatedly that I'd read it all. Like Casey, he too acted untouched by last night's partying. He worked and bounced around with what was becoming his trademark energy. Compared to the two of them, I felt downright curmudgeonly, not to mention inadequate. Sheesh. What were immortality and shape-shifting next to superhuman computations and dazzling stage performances? When I returned from my lunch break, he practically sprinted up to me. â€Å"Kincaid, Kincaid – you gotta help me out.† â€Å"What's wrong?† He inclined his head toward one of the registers. Alec stood leaning against it, flirting with Casey. She smiled and nodded enthusiastically at something he said. â€Å"Alec came by to tell me he got us a major audition over at the Blue Gallery. We have got to go practice. Stat.† â€Å"Good grief. Slow down on the italics.† â€Å"Kincaid, I mean it! You have to cover for me. No one,ll know I left. These guys don't care, and Paige and Warren won't be in.† â€Å"How long do you need?† â€Å"The rest of the day.† â€Å"The rest of the – that's going to be over twelve hours for me! Besides, I can't close. I'm going to a play downtown.† Seth had just secured us some last minute tickets. â€Å"Then†¦stay as late as you can. Janice,ll handle closing.† I hesitated. Warren preferred that the manager or one of the assistant managers close, but Doug was right. Janice could handle it. â€Å"Kin -caid,† he begged. â€Å"Please. I need this. You know I do.† Doug had always been charming and irresistible. Something about him today particularly appealed to me. A master working another master, apparently. When I gave in to his pleas, he picked me up and spun me around in a most undignified way. Two minutes later, he and Alec left, and I settled in for a long day. When it finally neared its end, I felt certain the store would burn to the ground in my absence. Dragging myself away at last, I drove downtown, found parking, and sprinted into the theatre just as the lights were going down. Breathless, I slid into a seat between Seth and his thirteen-year-old niece Brandy. On the other side of him, Seth's brother and sister-in-law waved to me. Brandy grinned. She'd been shy the first time we met but now seemed to regard me as the older sister she didn't have. I adored her too. If Seth and I ever split up, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to handle keeping away from his family. â€Å"I didn't think you'd make it,† she told me, her features faintly discernible in the dim lighting. In days long past, people would have said she and her mother had â€Å"flaxen† hair, but no one really used that term anymore. Still, I always thought it appropriate when I saw that pale shade of gold. â€Å"Just making a fashionably late entrance,† I whispered back. â€Å"Remember that when you're older. It keeps men guessing. Once they start presuming anything, there's no living with them.† Brandy giggled. Seth only smiled, but his eyes radiated approval, as he assessed me. I wore wine-colored silk and had my hair in a French twist. His eyes, I'd long since discovered, could be as eloquent and expressive as his pen. The messages they sent me now hardly seemed decent for a public setting. He moved his hand over to cover mine, so that both rested on my thigh, and as the night progressed, I found myself thinking more about that hand placement than the excellent play. Afterward, he and I stood with his family in the lobby for a while, catching up. Terry and Andrea Mortensen were great people who always treated me with genuine kindness. From what I'd learned of Seth's antisocial habits, I think they regarded me as some sort of last hope for him. Brandy affirmed as much when she and I dashed to the restroom together. â€Å"Dad told Uncle Seth not to screw things up,† she informed me as we washed our hands. â€Å"He said even if Uncle Seth is famous, him getting a woman like you defies belief.† I laughed and smoothed down the skirt of my dress. â€Å"I don't know about that. I don't think your dad gives your uncle enough credit. â€Å" Brandy gave me a sage look, worthy of someone much older. â€Å"Uncle Seth spent last Valentine's Day at a library.† We returned to the lobby and spoke a bit more before Terry declared they needed to rescue the babysitter who'd been left with their other four daughters. Andrea touched my arm as they prepared to leave. â€Å"You're coming to Seth's birthday party, aren't you?† I looked at all of them in surprise. â€Å"When is it?† â€Å"Thanksgiving. They fall on the same day every once in a while.† â€Å"It's a good ploy to get turkey and presents,† remarked Terry. He was shorter and more clean-shaven than Seth but otherwise bore a fair resemblance to his older brother. â€Å"I didn't even know it was coming up.† I shot Seth an accusing look. â€Å"I forgot.† For anyone else, that would probably have been a lie, but I believed him. â€Å"So you'll be there?† Andrea again gave me the impression they were desperate to foster Seth's love life. I could have probably negotiated a stipend for showing up. â€Å"With bells on.† Seth and I went back to his place this time. I shape-shifted into my favorite pajamas – flannel pants and a cami – and crawled into bed with him. His bed was bigger than mine and had a feather duvet, as well as a teddy bear named Damocles who wore a University of Chicago T-shirt. Still a little wound up, we talked in the dark about Emerald City for a while, then moved on to books in general. We had a vast array of familiar literature in our repertoire, and we jumped around authors and genres. We both admired Toni Morrison and Tennessee Williams. Neither of us could get through Anna Karenina. Seth hated Jane Austen, whom I adored. As we debated back and forth, I was relieved to be reminded we truly did have a lot in common. Sex was not the only thing between us, even if it was the only thing that stood between us. At some point in the literary discussion, I began to drift off. The long day had worn me out, and sleep felt luxurious. Seth seemed tired too. He and I drew close, lying on our sides, legs touching. Random thoughts whispered in my head as unconsciousness tugged at me. How Aubrey was doing. Whether Paige's baby would be a boy or a girl. If Bastien was any closer to bedding Dana. How in the world Doug's band had become so amazing so quickly. I opened my eyes a couple hours later, uncertain what had woken me. One of those weird, unseen things that suddenly break you out of sleep, I guessed. Quiet darkness still enveloped us with no sign of morning in sight. A little moonlight filtered inside, casting funny shadows around the desk and other bedroom furniture. Unlike my place in Queen Anne, car traffic here dropped off at night, so I heard only the sound of breathing and electrical humming. Then I noticed that Seth and I had moved our bodies even nearer than before. Our legs wrapped around each other pretzel-style, our arms kept us close together. His scent flooded my nose. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed his were open as well. Intense pools of darkness. He was watching me. Still a little sleepy, I moved my hand up to his neck, twining my fingers in his hair, drawing my face closer to his. His hand rested on the small of my back where the tank top rose away from my flannel pajama bottoms. He touched the skin there just as he had at the concert, his hand sliding toward my side, tracing the curve of my hip before running toward my thigh. The fingers that beat such a steady tattoo on computer keys were as delicate as feathers on me. My eyes never left his as we touched each other, and I swore I could hear my heart thundering in my ears. Then, despite some screaming voice in the back of my foggy brain, I pushed my mouth toward his and kissed him. Our lips were tentative at first, as though surprised they had gotten this far. We tasted each other, slowly and gently. His hand on the back of my thigh slid upward, and something about shy Seth Mortensen stroking my ass sent a thrill through me. A soft exhalation lodged in my throat, and as my tongue explored past his lips, seeking more, he suddenly pushed me onto my back with an urgency that I think astonished both of us. His other hand slid up under my shirt and cupped the bottom of a breast, and through his boxers, I could tell that more than just his hands and lips wanted this to progress. Then, ever so slightly, I felt something else. A slight tingling. Angel-fine tendrils of prickly bliss slowly snaking through me, wrapping around me. Exhilarating. Better than any intoxicant I'd ever experienced. Pure life, pure energy. It was delicious and tantalizing, another dimension of the physical pleasure we stood on the brink of. The fact that it was Seth's was even more alluring. It had his unique essence written all over it. I wanted to dive into it, close my eyes and forget all about being responsible while that sweetness filled me. But I couldn't. My resolve was weakening by the second, true, but I was still holding on. Barely. I broke the kiss reluctantly, trying to muster my strength and move away from him. At the first sign of my struggle, he immediately let me go. â€Å"I – I'm sorry,† I said, sitting up and putting my face in my hands. I rubbed my eyes as though waking from a dream, which in a manner of speaking, I was. â€Å"We can't. It†¦it started†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Just from kissing.† It was a statement, his voice coming out husky with desire and sleepiness†¦and regret. He knew better than most how lethal a passionate kiss could be; I'd almost killed him the last time. Of course, that had been an exceptional situation, and my near-death state had sucked away much more than a deep kiss normally would. â€Å"Just from kissing,† I repeated bleakly. It didn't take intercourse for one person to give themselves up to another. There were no loopholes in this game. Tense silence crept in around us until Seth sat up as well and shifted his body away from mine. I could hear genuine pain and guilt when he spoke again. â€Å"I'm sorry about that. I don't know†¦meant to have better control. But I just sort of woke up†¦and I was half-asleep†¦and then†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I know,† I whispered into the darkness. â€Å"I know. And I'm sorry too.† More silence. â€Å"I guess,† he finally said, â€Å"I should go sleep on the couch†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I closed my eyes, feeling terrible but knowing he was right. We'd been playing with fire by fooling around with this chaste-sleeping thing. It was a wonder something bad hadn't happened sooner. The more it sunk in, the more I realized how much damage I could have caused. Hell, how much damage had I caused already by taking those few drops of life from him? A week off his lifespan? A few days? Even one minute would have been too much. Bitterness – at the world, not him – dripped from my voice when I spoke. â€Å"No. I'll take the couch. We're at your place.† â€Å"Whatever. Leave me some remnant of chivalry.† I didn't say anything, and we sat once more in awkward silence. A hundred questions hung in the air between us, but neither of us could broach them. Both our faults. When an emotional situation turned uncomfortable, I had a tendency to run from it or pretend it wasn't happening. And while Seth wouldn't exactly run away, he wouldn't initiate the dialogue needed to explore something like this. So we continued sitting there. At last, he stood up. â€Å"I'm sorry. Sorry for what I did.† He blamed himself, which was typical of him but not fair, especially since I had technically touched him first. I should have said something then, told him it wasn't all his fault. But the words stuck on my tongue, held up by my own confused feelings. After a few more moments, he left for the living room. I lay back down, Damocles in my arms, but slept badly the rest of the night. When morning came, Seth and I ate breakfast in more tense silence – he'd finally made my pancakes – broken only occasionally by stiff small talk. We then went to the bookstore together, parting ways quickly. I hardly saw him the rest of the day. Bastien was in the city for some reason or another that night, so he picked me up later and drove me over to his place for the ridiculous heist at Dana's. When I saw the post-sex energy wreathing him, I knew what had brought him downtown. â€Å"Don't you get tired of getting laid every day?† I asked him, wishing I could have gotten laid last night. â€Å"I'm going to pretend you didn't actually just ask that, Fleur .†He then proceeded to ramble on about his various Dana sightings in the last few days, how chummy they were getting, how it could only be a matter of time before the inevitable. When I didn't really respond, he cut me a sidelong glance. â€Å"What's the matter with you? You look miserable.† I sighed. â€Å"I kissed Seth last night.† â€Å"And?† â€Å"And what?† â€Å"What else happened?† â€Å"Well†¦nothing. I mean, a little groping here and there, but that's it.† â€Å"So?† â€Å"So, I shouldn't have done it.† A dismissive look crossed his face. â€Å"A kiss is nothing. It's not like you gave him a blow job or anything.† â€Å"Good lord, you're crass.† â€Å"Don't act like I offended your delicate sensibilities. And you know what I'm talking about.† â€Å"Doesn't matter. I was weak. I got some of his energy from that.† † Fleur , I love you as much as I've ever managed to love anybody, but this whole thing is absurd. You're never going to be happy until you've fucked this guy, so just get it over with. It'll take away the whole forbidden attraction and allow both of you to get on with your lives. â€Å" â€Å"‘Get on with our lives?' What's that supposed to mean?† I asked sharply. â€Å"I mean half the reason you guys are so infatuated with each other is because you can't have each other. It's not love, but it is a normal human reaction, a catalyst for physical attraction.† He paused and considered. â€Å"Your maniacal obsession with his books might also be a factor.† â€Å"That's not true. None of that's true at all. Well, I mean, those books are good enough to be the basis of a religion, but that's not the same thing. That's not why I†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Love him? Hell. I still didn't know if I did or not. I wasn't even sure what love was after all this time. Bastien shook his head, not believing me but not wanting to argue either. â€Å"Fine. Keep going with this. I still think you should fuck him, though. Even if it doesn't make you both realize you're better off apart, it'll at least remove one source of tension between you and maybe let you attempt some sort of normal dysfunctional relationship.† I stared bleakly into space. â€Å"I can't. Not even one night. It'd take years off his life. I couldn't live with myself.† â€Å"Bah. Only a handful of years at most. What's that? Besides, men have done stupider things for sex – with women they don't even really like. If he really does love you, he might think it's a fair trade.† I shuddered. I didn't think it was fair at all, but he was right about the silly things men would do for sex. I'd seen and initiated plenty of them. We finally gave up both sides of the argument when we pulled into his driveway. The clock was ticking, and we had to start this operation. Bastien had watched Dana and Bill drive off earlier, and their teenage son had gone down the street to stay at a friend's house. Shifting to be invisible to mortal eyes, Bastien and I crept out the back of his house and scaled the fence into Dana's yard. It sort of made me feel like I was in a spy movie; I half wished we could crawl under some motion-detecting lasers. â€Å"They have a security system,† I whispered to Bastien as I watched him pick the back door's lock. More useful skills gleaned from long centuries. â€Å"Being invisible isn't going to deactivate it. â€Å" â€Å"No problem. I've done some invisible reconnaissance. I know the code.† Sure enough, he punched it into the console once we were in the house, and the readout's red light turned green. We started in the Dailey office, as that seemed like the most logical place to stash paperwork. Dana had a meticulous sense of organization that creeped me out, and we had to make sure we left everything the way we found it. Unfortunately, most of the stuff was completely useless. Memos. Efficient – and honest – budget reports. Invoices. Press releases. She had a lot of pictures too, which were at least more fun to look at than the papers. Most of them showed family or CPFV events. A number of the shots had Jody in them, which saddened me. I recalled the other woman's sly wit and passion for art. Why would someone with any sort of intelligence want to get involved in all this? â€Å"I didn't realize how active Jody was in this group,† I remarked to Bastien. â€Å"She wasn't so bad. Dana's corrupted her.† â€Å"Dana's a persuasive woman. Hey, did you know Jody's last name is Daniels? And her husband's name is Jack?† We giggled over that and continued searching a while longer before finally abandoning the office. We then ransacked – neatly, of course – any other cupboards or drawers we could find on the main floor. Nothing. â€Å"Maybe there are secret panels behind paintings,† suggested Bastien. â€Å"Or maybe the pool-boy thing was a fraud, Dana's honest with her business dealings, and there's really nothing else to get on her except that she's a prejudiced bitch.† He rolled his eyes. â€Å"One place left. The true sanctuary. The bedroom.† I grimaced. Going into someone's bedroom freaked me out. The ultimate violation of privacy. But Bastien charged on, still confident this wild goose chase would yield results. Fortunately, the bedroom had the neat, sterile look of a hotel, not the warm and sensual air of one's most intimate space. It made searching easier, like I was breaking into a vacant room. We sifted through drawers and closets, again finding little to go on. â€Å"Eek!† I suddenly cried, staring into an open drawer. Bastien flew to me. â€Å"What? What is it?† I held up what had to be the most wholesome pair of granny panties I'd ever seen. They were like great-granny panties. They were even white. You would have thought she could at least go out on a limb and get them in blue or green or something. Bastien elbowed me for my overreaction. â€Å"How can you even act surprised after hearing her rants about modest clothing?† â€Å"Modest is one thing, but Jesus†¦how high do these things go? Up to her neck?† â€Å"Put them back. We've got to – â€Å" Click. We'd both heard. I shot Bastien a panicked look and shoved the underwear back in the drawer. â€Å"I thought you said – † His tone was grim. â€Å"I know, I know.† Someone had just entered the house.

Automated Testing of Distributed and Heterogeneous - Free Samples

Various healthcare organizations are now working with a huge chunk of data. The database is consisted of this chunks of data organized in a proper manner. The information is derived from the data that are collected by the system. The Information System is the piece of technology that assist an organization to manage the data and process the data to generate information. The information system also responsible for generating reports based on information that assist the management and doctors to take decision precisely. The report is consisted of discussion on two subsystems of the James Healthcare Organization. The sequence diagrams have been developed based on the patient registration sub system and appointment scheduling sub system. The report also provide the ways of modifying the designs to make it more effective.   James Healthcare Center is a renowned organization that operates its business based on twelve thousand patients and four hundred and fifty staff. The owner of the organization is currently thinking of opening a new center that will consists of all the modern medical facilities. The organization provide insurance coverage to its employees. The need of the modern technology and information system is required to support the business growth. The new system will be replacing the old paper based processes of the organization. The office manager supervises all the employees of the organization. The HR handles the staff benefit and human resources. Lee Sue is responsible for managing the appointments of the healthcare. He has to maintain the appointment related data single handedly. This is a critical and effortful process. The possibility of errors is very high. The patient registration is s crucial process as it is consisting of the data that will identify the patient. The project will be developed using the agile methodology where the organization will be able to develop the system based on the prototype development. The designs of the project is created on the OO design. The system will be responsible for making the reports for management so that they can facilitate the decision making. The clinical decision making system will be integrated into the system so that clinical treatment decisions can be taken properly. Electronic Medical Record is the data storing technology that will hold the patient treatment related data. The EMR will hold the patient details, diagnosis details and its results, the test reports, the doctors who are providing treatment, the medicines that are prescribed to the patient and the effect of the medicines and much more. The project is consisted of various parts and development of various subsystems. These subsystems will be developed individually and then bined to create the plete system. The system will be running on a single server. The project will be developed using various programing languages. Database that can store business and patient health related data for a very long time. The ERM will be integrated into the system to hold the patient health and treatment related data. A CDSS or clinical decision support system that can facilitate the decision making process of the system.   The deliverable of the project are as following. The main constraint of the project is designing of the system. The system design is based on the ou e of the requirement analysis process. If any issues occurs in the requirement analysis process then the system project will fail. Managing the change in the organization is a considerable issue. The main requirements of the system are human resource, support of the stakeholders, programing language, database, network and many more. The programming language is used for making the GUI and the backend coding of the system. The functionalities of the system will be developed using the programming language. The data base will allow the system to hold the data in a secure location. The database has to be accessed through a predefined queries based on the database type. The deigning software is a crucial requirement of the project. The software will be used for designing the system functions and interactions with the end users. The software form third parties and the hardware to setup the system are also significant requirements of the system. The system network will be developed using the wireless method. All the client devices of the network will be connected using the Wi-Fi.   The advantages of the project are as following. Figure 1: Patient Registration Subsystem Sequence Diagram   Verification and Analysis: The sub-system design has been done using the system sequence diagram. The diagrams has been done properly to establishing a fine understanding of the sub-system processes. At the beginning, the patient will open the application or website (which is no concern of the report) and enter the details. The details will be consisting of the data like patient personal data such as name, address, spouse, age, email address, phone number and many more. It is to be assumed that a patient may want to open various accounts on the system to cheat the organization or may forgot he has one existing. In such cases, the system will verify all the details provided by the patient to ensure that the patient does not have any previous account. The patient will input the id and password of his wish to the system so that using the id and password the patient can later login to the system. The system will then read the inputted registration details and convert it into the machine readable values. The system will be developed using the object oriented language like java, python or any other. The system development will be based upon the OO designs. The designs have to be as per the proposed scope of the system. The designs will be created using the user data that are provided during the requirement analysis process. In this diagram the patient has been the actor who will trigger the system functionalities. The patient object will trigger the registration function mentioned as the `register()` in the diagram. The register function will be acting upon the defined variables which will be initialized based upon the user input. The variables will then be used by the system to verify user and register patient after success verification. The system design has been done with pleteness as it is consist of all the processes that are required to register the patient. It is mon in the healthcare industry that a patient ing from a doctor who has been providing treatment to the patient. The system will hold the data of the doctor so that it can be used for future decision making purpose. The system will be storing the daises of the patient that is already known so that assistance can be provided during treatment. The EMR will hold the data like to which medicines the patient has allergy and more. As this data will be recorded during diagnosis, these data will not be considered at this sub-system development.   Figure 1: Patient Registration Subsystem Sequence Diagram Verification and Analysis: The payment registration will also be done by only the interaction of the patent. No receptionist or other staff of member will be handling the appointment process anymore. The system will hold the appointment related data into the system and based on these data and patient desired appointment details, the new appointment will be scheduled. The system will be collecting the data form the patient through the GUI provided to him/her. The patient will access the system and login to the system using id and password. A session will initiate and the patient id will be used for storing the activities. The patient will request for appointment through the schedule appointment section in the GUI. The user will input the date desired for appointment and the type of the specialist. Selecting the physician is based upon the system it is not up to the patient. After getting all the data from the user, the system will retrieve data from the database. These data will be about the appointment scheduled the preferred day against the selected physician type. If the system fids that the appointment data is vacant in that day then the appointment will be scheduled and if not then the system finds for an alternative day. The patient will select an alternative date. After the patient select the alternative day, a notification will appear in the screen saying the ‘Appointment will be confirm. Are you sure of the date?’ If the patient select ok then the system will confirm the appointment against the patient. The system sequence diagram did not include any information regarding the verification process. Each of the data must be verified so that only authenticated data can be inserted into the system. The sequence diagram can be developed by dividing all the processes into the sub-processes so that all the system functions can be understood properly. Form the above report it can be concluded that the system development process can be difficult task but if done properly then can invite many opportunities for JHC. The system sequence diagram has been a great tool to show the functions of the patient registration and appointment scheduling sub-system. Baresi, L., Pourhashem Kallehbasti, M. M., & Rossi, M. (2014). Flexible modular formalization of UML sequence diagrams. In Proceedings of the 2nd FME Workshop on Formal Methods in Software Engineering (pp. 10-16). ACM. Cerqueira, T. G., Ramalho, F., & Marinho, L. B. (2016). A Content-Based Approach for R mending UML Sequence Diagrams. In SEKE (pp. 644-649). Chitra, M. T., & SHERLY, E. (2016). Verification of behavior preservation in uml sequence diagrams using graph models. Indian journal of puter science and engineering, 7(4), 1-6. Dao, V. T., Hung, P. N., & Nguyen, V. H. (2016). A Method for Automated Test Cases Generation from Sequence Diagrams and Object Constraint Language for Concurrent Programs. VNU Journal of Science: puter Science and munication Engineering, 32(3). Dou, L., Lu, L., Zuo, Y., & Yang, Z. (2014). Verification of UML Sequence Diagrams in Coq. In puter Engineering and Networking (pp. 1233-1244). Springer, Cham. El Ahmar, Y., Le Pallec, X., & Gà ©rard, S. (2016). Empirical Activity: Assessing the Perceptual Properties of the Size Visual Variation in UML Sequence Diagram. In HuFaMo@ MoDELS (pp. 33-43). Faria, J. P., & Paiva, A. C. (2016). A toolset for conformance testing against UML sequence diagrams based on event-driven colored Petri nets. International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer, 18(3), 285-304. Jena, A. K., Swain, S. K., & Mohapatra, D. P. (2015). Test case creation from UML sequence diagram: a soft puting approach. In Intelligent puting, munication and Devices (pp. 117-126). Springer, New Delhi. Kaur, B., & Kaur, E. H. (2015). Clone Detection in UML Sequence Diagrams Using Token Based Approach. International Journal, 5(5). Lima, B., & Faria, J. P. (2015, July). Automated Testing of Distributed and Heterogeneous Systems Based on UML Sequence Diagrams. In International Conference on Software Technologies (pp. 380-396). Springer International Publishing. Minhas, N. M., Qazi, A. M., Shahzadi, S., & Ghafoor, S. (2015). An Integration of UML Sequence Diagram with Formal Specification Methods—A Formal Solution Based on Z. Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, 8(08), 372. Mohapatra, D. P., Godbley, S., & Dutta, A. (2017). Measuring Hit ratio of Software Systems using UML Sequence Diagram. Muram, F. U., Tran, H., & Zdun, U. (2016, December). A model checking based approach for containment checking of uml sequence diagrams. In Software Engineering Conference (APSEC), 2016 23rd Asia-Pacific (pp. 73-80). IEEE. Rhmann, W., & Saxena, V. (2016). Test Case Generation from UML Sequence Diagram for Aadhaar Card Number based ATM System. system, 11(4). Silva, C. V., & Villarroel, R. (2014, November). JPI UML: UML class and sequence diagrams proposal for aspect-oriented JPI applications. In Chilean puter Science Society (SCCC), 2014 33rd International Conference of the (pp. 120-123). IEEE. Song, J., Zhou, Z., & Guan, Y. (2015). Agent UML sequence diagram and meta-model. American Journal of Engineering and Technology Research, 15(1).

Economics & Public Policies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Economics & Public Policies - Essay Example The paper tells that the production possibilities curve represents the total output of the combination of two products in an economy provided the inputs and technology are available. There are 3 basic assumptions underlying the production possibilities curve: quantity and quality of all resources as inputs fixed; unchanged technology and fully employed resources. If the federal state and local governments in the U.S. engage in increased health-related expenditure, they would require increasing taxes to meet the increased costs. Assuming the fixed quantity of resources, i.e. public taxes and technology over a given time period, the U.S. is capable of providing limited amount of public health care services. This also depends upon how much the taxpayers are willing to sacrifice other goods and services for increased public health service. The production possibilities curve shows that increase in health care services will lead to less of other government public services due to its limite d resources. Therefore, the production of other goods and services will be less. As the quantity of health care services is reduced, the government will be able to provide more of other goods and services. The probable production possibilities curve is provided in the study. When each member of the community makes a voluntary contribution towards per unit of a pure public good, that contribution equals to his/her marginal benefit derived from the public good at efficient level of output. This equilibrium contribution per unit is known as Lindahl price. The Lindahl prices are assigned in such a manner that no budget deficit or surplus arise at the efficient output of the good. Lindahl equilibrium requires that the total contribution by the community towards the public good is equal to the Marginal Social Benefit and total cost of producing that public good (Hyman, 2010, p.165). This means that ?Ti*Q = MC*Q = AC*Q Where Ti is the voluntary contribution by each individual; Q is the eff icient output; MC is the Marginal Cost of pure public good; AC is the Average Cost of pure public good; Therefore, the total contribution or revenue collected will be (?Ti*Q) and it should be equal to the total cost of the production, i.e. AC*Q. MC*Q equal to AC*Q implies there is no budget surplus or deficit. However, assuming that marginal cost of pure public good increases if more is purchased by the community, i.e. MC>AC then ?MBi>AC because MC = ?MBi. Therefore, the sum of per unit voluntary contribution becomes more than the average costs of production and so this will result in budget surplus at the efficient annual output. Answer 3: Pollution Abatement There are very few human activities that do not pollute the environment, and it has become imperative to address the global concerns over the environmental degradation. The objective of a hundred percent pollution abatement cannot be achieved because the regulators do not have the information of the pollution’s marginal external costs and marginal costs of abatement (Grafton, 2004, p.63). Therefore, most of the pollution abatement policies aim to ensure that the pollution control methods are cost-effective. The costs of pollution abatement not only consider the marginal social costs, but also the opportunity costs associated with cleaner environment.

The Great Depression Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Great Depression - Essay Example September 20th saw the crash of the London Stock Exchange after the arrest of a number of key players in that market. At this time the market’s foundation was shaky, prices were increasing and reducing frequently many people were unable to stay in the market. The market lost about 12% of its value at its opening on October 24th this was called Black Thursday. On October 28, more investors left the stock market and the market slide deepened even further. On 29th called â€Å"Black Tuesday†, the stock market traded around 15 million; the Dow had lost a sum of 68 points in the two days. Later that day a large number of stocks traded the same day made that market to lose more than $20 billion in the stock exchange. When the stock market fell, people panicked selling their stocks at lower than normal prices to anyone willing to buy. The market fall was the same for almost all countries except Japan. The U.S economy was greatly affected since most of the investors had placed their earnings in the stock market. Businesses were unable to acquire capital for new enterprises. Banks and industries became bankrupt. This led to the closure of businesses and banks, reduced money circulation, firing of employees and less production. With less income, the level of consumption of the average consumer declined. As a result of all these effects, there was massive unemployment. People had neglected agriculture and moved to the cities, this is what contributed to the effects of the market crash. There were not enough agricultural products to be sold.

Critical Book Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Critical Book Review - Essay Example This essay presents a critical review of Many Lives, Many Masters in order to investigate the area of reincarnation as explored by Dr. Weiss through his session with his patient Catharine. The covers some of the proofs presented by doctor Weiss in order to confirm his changed beliefs on reincarnation followed by an analysis of both the strengths and weaknesses of the authors argument before making suggestions on future investigations into the area and ending with a brief conclusion. This book by Weiss (1988) shades more light in the area that has garnered widespread discussion thorough his sessions with a 27 year old Catherine during the 1980 as he seeks assist her overcome her deep-seated anxiety, panic attacks and phobias. As a graduate from the Yale University School of Medicine where he also went through his residency in psychiatry in addition to serving as Chairman of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami, Dr. Weiss is a psychiatrist trained in the scientific met hods of dealing with psychological problems that his patients present during his sessions. Therefore, based on his original training as a psychiatrist doctor Weiss had always followed the conservative paths of his profession and was a skeptic when it came to exploring other methods of psychological healing but that was prior to meeting Catharine who changed his views on reincarnation of the human soul. The sessions between Dr Weiss and Catharine lasts for over 18 months where the doctor applies conventional techniques to cure her problems without success. However, doctor Weiss attempts a series of hypnotic trance states on Catherine; she begins recalling past life memories that could be attributed to be the factors causing her symptoms which effectively lead to her cure within a few months. At the initial stages of the hypnosis, Catharine doubted the ability of the technique to dig out the answers she was searching for given that she did not believe in reincarnation but after a numb er of such sessions, Catharine realized she acted as a medium for secrets of life and death from spirits that had evolved over many lives and could not only talk about Catharine’s past lives but also about her doctor’s life. Dr. Weiss uses his sessions with Catharine to reveal how much he learned about life and the nature of human soul which is able to live after death of the body. Through Catherine's disclosures under hypnosis, the doctor reveals incidents that occurred in some of the 86 lives Catharine had lived on earth as a unique soul that was born across different times and places where she confers with masters that helped her to see the lesson learned from the life just lived. Catharine’s revelations are guided by the masters who according to what Weiss (1988) presents are the sages at the highest plane spiritual evolution and are capable of offering lasting wisdom teachings that extend back into all the history of humanity and traditional cultures. The m asters state the purpose of living, according to Catharine’s revelation as being to learn and grow through seeing the spark of God in others and ourselves as the guiding principle for the survival of the soul and continued cycle

A Report on Five Internet Sites related to Language Development Essay

A Report on Five Internet Sites related to Language Development - Essay Example the â€Å"new† internet and text messaging form of writing, Crystal adds that Educationalists have their responsibility as well in teaching children which style is appropriate to use for certain â€Å"occasions.† This is a website about researches done regarding the use of online chat to foster written language development of students who are deaf. It is about the efficacy of a strategy used to foster written language development for deaf students. Now, websites such as this one which posts research studies on language development for those who are also disabled is something that is of great value in the educational system. This also sends a message to the educational institutions that students with disablements are also of great importance and that we must also look for ways, research and studies that would further enhance their capacity in terms of education especially the learning and using of their language skills; because even if they are deaf, they still can write and has the potential to be great writers or even researchers. Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) Web, hosted by Michigan State University, is all about foreign language development. Although English is the Universal language, the study of language per se is not solely focused on the English language. This website boasts of several topics on the business language in various languages like Korean, German and French to name a few. Intercultural Communication and Business language written in numerous languages is something that is of great help for students and those who are into the business industry. It gives the students and individuals tips and guides as to how to communicated and develop a cross-cultural awareness with the use of the web-based technology. This is a website all about language development. It is filled with bibliographies and topics with a little description below it to make referencing easier and user friendly. Participated by a lot of

Discuss the advantages and and challenges of RFID in logistic industry Essay

Discuss the advantages and and challenges of RFID in logistic industry - Essay Example Therefore, the tracking of goods by the use of an exceptional serial number makes it easy for employees to calculate and find stocks (Jones, & Chung, 2008). RFID also enables companies to reduce stock outs from their warehouses, and this helps to maintain customers especially those who run out of patience easily (Ustundag, 2013). This is because companies are able to determine their reorder levels, and at this point, they order new stock. By the time the new stock arrives at the company’s stores, the buffer stock is used to satisfy the available demand. The technology also helps logistics managers in saving the time that they would use to move from one location to another to check the conditions of their stocks (Ustundag, 2013). This is because RFID does the work of recording and transmitting the condition of goods. If the technology was not there, organizations would have employed people to do this work, and this would consume more time and cost. The major limitation of RFID in logistics is that it is expensive to acquire and use (Jones, & Chung, 2008). The chips used by this technology and the tags that are attached to goods to enable companies in tracking them are expensive. Therefore, most logistics departments do not afford to use the technology in their companies. RFID is also complicated and requires to be used only by skilled workers who have the knowledge of the technology (Ustundag, 2013). However, most of the companies employ lowly skilled workers who require less pay than the highly skilled ones. This causes these workers to mishandle RFID leading to low or no achievement of the main objective of the technology. The high expenses associated with the technology also make it possible only for few companies to acquire and use it. Some companies such as Procter and Gamble argue that the technology is unreliable because it still experiences some errors that would still take

The ideas of the early Twentieth Century differed from those of Essay

The ideas of the early Twentieth Century differed from those of Nineteenth Century World - Essay Example Another key influence in the early twentieth century was the horrific experience of a mechanized warfare which caused very large numbers of casualties. Picasso’s Guernica which commemorates some ethnic cleansing in the Spanish Civil War, uses some elements of cubism, and a great deal of symbolism, which in turn owes much to the development of new ideas about psychoanalysis and the subconscious. These new insights about human psychology provided interesting new avenues for artists like Matisse to followed up, for example in his painting The Sorrows of the King which mixes bright color and simple shapes into a layered pattern, indicative of human figures, flowers, and music, but not fully rendered into realistic images. American ideas about industry and technology, including mechanisation and factory efficiency also caused innovations in production techniques, resulting in the incorporation of print media and advertising into the concept of art as for example in the works of War hol and others in the middle of the century. In summary, then, the twentieth century brought a sense of discovery and exploration into the world of art. Old conventions were thrown aside, and adventurous new styles were developed, challenging what came before and setting out a radical new way of defining art and all the different meanings it can have. Later Picasso was to take this one step further and develop cubist paintings, which show human figures from the several angles at once, in a disjointed way.

Business Report for Consideration by The Directors of Fuller, Smith & Assignment

Business Report for Consideration by The Directors of Fuller, Smith & Turner Plc Based on a Two Year Comparison - Assignment Example The other income exceptional item in 2010 arose from the disposal of property assets. The exceptional distribution costs and administration cost in 2009 arose mainly from the impairment of property asset values... Let us now move towards a ratio analysis of the company for the years 2009 and 2010. The current ratio for year 2009 is 0.49: 1 and for year 2010 it dropped to 0.19:1. This is quite alarming as it means that for every ?1 of its current or short term liabilities, it has only 19 pennies to meet this exigency. No wonder, it had to resort to a sale of land to get some more of the needed cash. The working capital deficiency dropped from ? 23.7 m in year 2009 to ? 101 m in year 2010. On the other hand, the total debt to total assets ratio remained fairly constant in both years, being 0.48: 1 in 2009 and 0.49: 1 in 2010 respectively. However, this means that in the case of liquidation of the company, the creditors can expect only about 50 pence to the pound at most for the clearan ce of their claims. This is indeed a sorry state of affairs. So both the short term and the long term solvency of the business are in question at this point (Meigs & Meigs, 1993, 943). Looking at the gross margin percentages for year 2009 and year 2010, we see that this figure remained constant at around 67 percent for the company. However, the net margin percentage has nearly doubled, from 4 percent in 2009 to 8 percent in 2010. This is a good improvement. Now we move on to an analysis of Recievables Turnover, which was 13 times in 2009 but improved slightly to 14.5 times in 2010. The asset turnover for both years 2009 and 2010 remained around 0.55 times. On the other hand, Inventory Turnover recorded a slight drop from 11 times in 2009 to 9 times in 2010. The Return on Assets, which was 2 percent in 2009, improved to 4 percent in 2010. Finally, the Return on Equity which was 4.5 percent in 2009 doubled to 9 percent in 2010. So, all in all, we can say that there remains little impr ovement in the company’s financial state of affairs and it would be better not to invest in this company at the present time. Sincerely, Investment Advisor Q.2. Appraisal of Different Products: Pacioli Accounting Software Systems Ltd. The finance director of any firm is most often concerned about two things: how to get surplus cash for investment and how to invest the surplus cash so as to get the best possible return. The Finance Director of Pacioli Accounting Systems is similarly trying to decide about investing in one of the three different tax accounting software packages which

Being a teenager Essay Example for Free

Being a teenager Essay When you leave primary school you become a young adult, and all things that you believed in are either reinforced or broken. You can be lucky and be accepted as a popular person or for simply being yourself; you could remain an outcast until you leave that school. There is a hierarchy that is followed in each school, and both the boys and girls follow it. There is in both cases a leader for the boys and for the girls, then there are those who follow the leaders. Then there are those who dont fit in at all and become loners. Its difficult to listen to your parents when they continually say to you, these are the best days of your life because sometimes, you struggle to see how this can be so. You feel pressure, a strong need to fit in even for just a moment, and even though you are told by your parents, no matter what grade you get we will always love you. There is still a deep feeling inside that if you dont do well, you will let your parents down and you will destroy your life. There is also a fear suppressed and hidden beneath the surface, that if you do too well, you will be called a stew by all of your peers. So you are caught in a catch twenty-two; and there is no way of avoiding the stress or worry. The best thing to deal whit the stress and worries is to pass over your fears and dont care what your peers are saying. When you are a young person everything revolves around your school live. For those that you meet in school are those you will stick with for the five to seven years that you stay there, and some of the friends you meet there may be your friends for life. You constantly are trying to better yourself in school in order to get the attention of others. You go to sleepovers, shopping and clubbing all with the people you meet in school. This puts pressure on you because you feel the need to be perfect and to fit in with all the rest of your peers. Bullying is in full flow when you are a young person, its not physical in my opinion its mainly verbal, or the people just basically exclude you completely. There are those who stand in a group of people and seem like they in a crowd or click but what others dont realize it that they arent included in the conversation what so ever. Music, television, celebrities and school control all of my actions as well as all other young people. The music that you like and listen to can determine the kind of people you will end up being friends with. Television influences how we talk, what we wear, and even affect our opinions about things. Celebrities make us want to make ourselves better and by better I mean thinner and more fashionable, and school effects what group we are in as well as the possibility that we may not fit in at all. So being a young person is anything but easy at times, there are so many different pressures that surround your life. From restless nights for exams to being able to fit in with all the popular people. Though we do have goodnights out and live for the night, when morning comes sometimes it wasnt just quite worth it. Starting jobs and keeping hormones under control is more difficult now than ever, because of influences on television. Those who surround us are constantly judging us, and we feel that we are also being judged by the outside world. Though we know there is always the one thing we can always rely on; our mobiles and in my case my family. So do you think now that its easy being a teen?

Why Abortion Is Wrong Essay Example for Free

Why Abortion Is Wrong Essay The concept of abortion up to this day is constantly being argued in politics. Is abortion wrong? Does the mother really have a say in whether or not she keeps the baby? Some politicians would argue yes; the mother has absolute control on what she wants to do with her body. Others would argue no; this violates many things in our American government, but which statement is correct? Abortion is wrong politically in many ways because it goes against our right to life, the Hippocratic Oath, and our right from cruel and unusual punishment. It should be outlawed in all of the United States Of America. The right to life is enshrined in article three of the universal declaration of human rights. It states, â€Å"every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his/ her life.† But when exactly does life start? When is a fetus actually considered to be alive? According to the Mayo clinics in Florida, Minnesota, and Arizona a fetus’s heart, brain, and other of its very vital organs start to form at week five of pregnancy. At week six its heart is already developed enough to pump blood throughout the body, and at week 7 the brain develops even faster than before. The baby at this point is also capable of â€Å"breathing,† Its lungs are developed and are working within its body, very similar to a baby already being held by its mother. Abortion is a huge rule breaker for doctors as well who take the Hippocratic Oath upon being licensed to become a physician. It states, â€Å"I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asks for it, nor will I make suggestions of this effect, similarly I will not give a woman an abortive remedy.† The first and most obvious way in which this oath was broken is by giving a woman an abortive remedy. The doctors swear upon this oath that they will follow these guidelines of conserving life, and try their best to protect it, but by giving an abortion to a woman it is causing the murder of a living being. The second way, â€Å"I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asks for it.† This statement is being broken because by giving a woman a deadly injection for the fetus, they are doing just that; giving her a deadly drug. The bill of rights, gives us the right from cruel and unusual punishment. Punishments to include torture, barbarous punishments, degrading punishments not known to the common law, and punishments so disproportionate to the offense as to shock the general moral sense. There are many ways to give an abortion, and every single one of these forms are considered cruel and unusual. Dilation and evacuation is one example of cruel and unusual punishment. This method of abortion is generally preformed in the second trimester of pregnancy. Forceps are used to rip away pieces of the developing baby body and remove them from the womb. Because the skull has often hardened by thing time, it may have to be crushed for removal. Another form of cruel and unusual punishment is Saline Amniocentesis, also known as â€Å"salt poisoning.† This method, first used in Nazi concentration camps and now common in America, is preformed during the second or early third trimester. A needle is injected into the abdomen and the amniotic liquid is removed. This is then replaced by a concentrated salt that burns away and deteriorates the baby’s skin. Within three days the mother goes into labor and delivers a dead, burned baby, and in some cases the baby may still even be alive. One last method is partial birth abortion. Using ultrasound the abortionist grasps the baby’s leg with forceps, and partially delivers all but the head. Scissors are then jammed into the back of the babies skull and the wound is pried opened. A powerful vacuum is then inserted and sucks out the baby’s brain. Partial birth abortion is normally done during the late second or early third trimester of pregnancy. Abortion is in no way acceptable, and should be banned from the U.S. There are so many evident rules being broken, that is hard to understand why some places in America still allow it to happen. Abortion is politically wrong because it takes away the right of life, it gives no importance to the sworn oath, and allows all these forms of cruel and unusual punishment.

Going Digital With Email Marketing Marketing Essay

Going Digital With Email Marketing Marketing Essay Nothing has affected our society over the past two decades more than the continued development of computing technology and the internet. Internet-based tools such as websites, social media, e-commerce, and email touch our everyday lives in some way, both personally and professionally. As a result, the business community has recognized the reach of the internet throughout the world and is aggressively seeking ways to harness the power for greater financial gain more than ever. Despite the rapid enhancements of internet-based business, email remains a consistent element of marketing campaigns and is considered the most mature of the web-based marketing platforms. The possibilities and effectiveness of email are limitless when reviewing these 2009 email statistics posted by Pingdom.com (http://royal.pingdom.com). With over 1.4 billion email users worldwide, firms have the ability to expand and target potential customers globally. The significant factor about this medium is that it continues to grow. Joe Soltis (2007), with Fathom SEO, stated that email has shown a 14.6% growth rate from 2002 to 2007. Pingdom.com (http://royal.pingdom.com) expounds on the growth statistics by saying that the number of email users grew by 100 million from 2008 to 2009. Although email has been around since the earliest days of the internet, it continues to hold value and relevance in the marketplace. The prospect of growth and market reach is only one advantage of an email marketing program. Transitioning your collateral from the traditional printed piece to an electronic format distributed via email can produce cost savings of 50% or more. One of the most important aspects of an email campaign is your ability to measure the deliverability and response of each individual as well as their actions, also known as conversions, within your media. By analyzing your readers actions, you have the ability to refine your email approach and provide your reader with more relevant and diverse forms of content in a fast and timely fashion that print cannot replicate. The ease in which email can engage a readers response only solidifies this creation of a mutually beneficial relationship between the firm and client. What firm would not be thrilled to have a mutually engaging relationship with their client? Providing timely and relevant content to your readership comes with quite a few challenges. Managing a recipient database with accurate information while attempting to expound on the various demographic traits recorded for each recipient requires technical and marketing expertise. Evaluating responsiveness and website traffic is a continuous process that will challenge the discipline of any firm. Creating a mindset of a willingness to change at a moments notice can be difficult and affect the morale of your employees. Developing a content tagging, labeling the content type or subject, storage, and retrieval system is crucial to providing personalized, unique content to a reader. Once entering the digital world, a firm must stay apprised of the latest technology and trends, which change frequently. These changes could negatively affect your marketing campaign if you fail to identify and alter your plan accordingly. Once a decision has been made to implement email marketing into your campaign, the search begins for an Email Service Provider (ESP). A key element in the success of an email marketing campaign is finding an ESP with proper electronic storage file for customer information. A database is used to store customer information ranging from name and address to method of contact preference and special interests. Many ESPs on the market offer similar capabilities. Ranked by Pivotal Velocity as an industry leader in deliverability, iContact offers 250 templates, 500kb image hosting, unlimited email lists, autoresponder and blogging for a minimum $9.95 per month, while Bronto offers 148 templates, 10mb image hosting, limited email lists and responders and blogging for $100.00 per month (http://www.icontact.com). There are also free database management downloads for those that prefer to maintain the database themselves. Databases and servers are nearly synonymous in that you will need to confirm that the database program you have chosen is compatible with your server. While Microsofts SQL Server is the most recognizable, other types of servers such as Oracle, IBM, and Pervasive will perform most of the same functions and to nearly the same capacities (Rzero, 1999-2008). Depending on the type of data you are trying to secure and what operating system you are currently running, you will want to determine which server is the right fit for your business. In addition to a powerful database, you want flexibility of design from your ESP. Depending upon your internal resources, ESPs offer design modules that provide standardized templates for firms with limited creative resources. Companies with design expertise on staff should have the flexibility to customize their design, within the system, to fit their goal of providing unique and dynamic (changing) content. The system should be able to handle all types of media like audio, video, and animation giving the opportunity to offer value beyond a printed piece. Despite limited resources in the beginning, it is advisable to partner with an ESP poised to handle growth as your firm evolves and adds resources to provide one to one marketing. Providing unique and relevant content would not be possible without the proper analytic and metric reporting needed to identify specific demographic content. The process of identifying demographics and providing content relevant to that demographic is called segmentation. This concept is the basis of all internet-based marketing due to the extensive trackability available on all users. The latest mobile devices are centered around this ability to segment an audience and provide specific content relative to each segment. Starting an email campaign begins with acquiring an accurate list of recipients. Most companies already have a database of their current customers, which can serve as a foundation for the event. Understanding that marketing campaigns usually attempt to gain audience share, it is important to add potential subscribers from your prospect lists created from your companies diverse marketing efforts. Begin by verifying the information in your current list is accurate. Companies like Freshaddress will analyze your data and compare it with their and their partners databases to check for raw matches. They obtain secure permission statements from your customers then re-analyze the data and return the list to you with the most current and reliable information available (http://biz.freshaddress.com). Should a customer list or prospect database not exist, the options of purchasing a list from a list management company or building your own are available. When purchasing a list, be sure to read the fine print. Many list providers cross- reference or sell their lists to others. If your business involves sensitive customer information and nondisclosure agreements are in place, you may want to consider compiling your own data. Building your own will require creativity and resourcefulness. One option would be to set up a quality opt in website that will capture data from every customer or potential customer that enters the site, offer possible prizes for referring a friend or host a focus group and capture relevant information from the attendees. Once an accurate database of customers and leads are in place, the segmentation tools provided by the ESP can be utilized. Analyze the demographic information for common denominators leading into a particular category of product or service provided by the firm. Focus your efforts on identifying the groups who would view your content as relevant. This will allow you to build rapport with your customers and prospects, which might inspire them to confirm membership and return to your site. If a customer is a single mother, offer advice, information or coupons that will peak their interest. If the customer is a senior citizen, offer information about retreats, retirement, and vacation homes. Strive to provide information about your business, products, and services that is relevant and interesting to your readership. Your ultimate goal is to engage with your reader in hopes of drawing them back to your site for purchase or use of your service and goods. As you continue to build and grow your database, website maintenance and regular updates are critical. Customers want to be informed and previously read or outdated information will deter them from returning. Keep your customers engaged by items that can only be accessed through your site such as animation, video, web-only reports or articles, and links. Offering access to these value-added elements in exchange for traits or trends provided by the reader is an excellent way to acquire additional information about the reader. With information acquired over time, the degree of segmentation capability grows making your relationship stronger. With 247 billion emails sent in 2009 and 81% of those identified as spam, which is unsolicited email, the design and content of your email is crucial as you want to be identified as a requested, relevant message (Publishers Playbook, 2010). Two specific items that will separate you from the spammers would be to offer a double opt-out option and maintain a proper balance of sending emails and not sending emails. If you overwhelm the recipients with numerous messages, you run risk of being an annoyance and alienating them. The double opt-out option gives the reader the opportunity to acknowledge and confirm their request for your information. This insures that the initial opt-in was intended while also protecting your sender ratings, which trend downward with extensive amounts of opt-outs. In addition, you are legally obligated to offer readers the opportunity to opt-out. If that option is not provided within your email, you could be penalized up to $16,000.00 for non-compliance to the CAN-SPAM Act which regulates commercial email activity in the U.S. Giving two options to unsubscribe protects the firm legally helps insure the efforts are not going to waste (http://www.ftc.gov, 2010). The renderability of emails is a crucial aspect in the design process. With numerous browsers, operating systems, and equipment capabilities, emails produced in HyperText Markup Language, also known as HTML, have the greatest success of being functional across all internet related platforms. HTML also provides extensive flexibility of design by supporting all internet related mediums such as video, animation, or audio. Having the ability to apply HTML code provides you endless opportunities to customize every email effort you produce. Not unlike any other marketing product, the design and content of the email must grab the readers attention and encourage their interaction. Make sure you store the content on your company website and let an alluring email provide the link for the recipient. Once the reader is on your website, they have full access to all of your information, which gives you a better opportunity to spark a continued, interactive relationship. Make sure the email provides links to information that can only be obtained via a link to your website. This is your opportunity to offer content in ways that a magazine, newspaper, and even television cannot offer. There are numerous ways to draw engagement as long as the method offers some form of value to the recipient. However, the value of your email does not have to be centered on the reader relationship. You have the ability to market your communications to others who would benefit from being in touch with the same people. A specific product vendor may be willing to pay you to promote their product video through your email campaign. Maybe that famous industry expert would like to promote their new book by posting a book trailer in your message. Numerous revenue opportunities exist if you review and compare your demographic attributes to your vendor or service providers. Analyzing the results of the email campaign, enhances your ability to add value to your customer relationship as well as provide further revenue gaining opportunities. Business has always been about identifying the needs of the public and offering a product or service to fill that need. Email marketing provides firms with the ability to look deeper into the lives and needs of their clients by monitoring their engagement levels. Through your ESP and web site analytics, you can verify, by recipient, if they opened the email, clicked beyond the email, identify where they clicked, determine the content of where they visited which implies their interest in that topic. For example, if you are an auto parts supplier and you just emailed a newsletter link to Joe Smith. Joe opened the email and clicked through to the newsletter hosted on your company website. You can see that Joe was interested in your newsletter article regarding the restoration 1960s model muscle cars. After reading the new sletter article on your website, Joe searched your parts database for a door handle on a 1967 Chevrolet Camaro. Take this opportunity to provide Joe with information relative to restoring cars and more specifically, restoring late 1960s model Chevrolet Camaros that exists in a special muscle car restoration piece on your website. Now that you have identified with Joe Smith, Joe will be more likely to purchase products from you and support your advertisers by returning to the site giving advertisers greater exposure. Email marketing not only drives revenue through the message itself, but also has the ability to increase traffic on your website. The great thing about email versus a printed product is that emails can prove, statistically, the extent and habits of their readership. Advertisers base their ad dollar spending decisions on where they will receive the most exposure. Knowing that you cannot only identify the quantity of readers, but the habits of those readers as well, your ability to draw in ad revenue is strong. Through the analytic module on your ESP, an advertiser can receive feedback, by campaign, on the response to their advertisement based on open and click through rates to their website link within their ad. The statistical information available because of internet trackability is rapidly changing the advertising price model that has been in place for decades. The days of purchasing ad space in a piece for a predetermined amount of money is losing ground. Using the statistical information, software developers have already formed advertising networks. These networks provide ad placement services throughout various relevant web entities on behalf of the advertisers. Their goal is to advertise with sites that will offer the best opportunity to sell their goods or services. The networks use demographic and traffic information of the websites they use. The benefit to the advertiser is that they pay a fee per unique visitor, which allows them to pay for what serves to benefit their business. The model is comparable to what exists today with other media related sites which are based on a per view, hit, or click basis. This same model is also in the process of being replicated for all forms of c ontent beyond advertising. The internet continues to perpetuate significant change in the business community and our personal lives. Advancements in the mobile service and device arena are just a sign of what to expect in the near future. The combination of technology coupled with the advertising and content networks, our mobile devices are going to become our personal concierge. The pending change in internet-based marketing is going to be the advent of consumer generated marketing. This is where the consumer will have the opportunity to select the things that interest them and have those served directly to them. As tracking and segmentation capabilities expand, this content will become more personalized and unique than ever before. The growth of email use over the past decade indicates that email will remain a powerful means to deliver information. The ease of integration into various systems, networks, and media types helps us realize and understand the sustainability it has shown throughout the last two decades. With the rapid pace of change and advancement technologically, the best way to keep up with the internet world is to come aboard and grow with it. Otherwise, your firm will run the risk of falling far behind with no hope of catching up. The opportunity to market your business to the specific people and businesses in need of your services has never been better and will only improve with time. The advancement of internet trackability is a marketing specialists dream as they can maximize marketing dollars with optimum results. The tools are available, so why not harness the power and embrace going digital!

Essay --

The scene begins with the diegetic sound of a slow shunting hammer slowly raising in tempo, this creates tension as you know action is about to take place. This use of a sound bridge is incorporated with the low angle shot of Neo (the protagonists) tough leather boots. There is apparent use of low key lighting and backlighting which could reflect the mood in the tense setting. The scene continues with the camera tilting up to the protagonist through a medium shot, the camera then cuts to zooms in on a black bag which the protagonist put on the conveyor belt in the entrance of the lobby. The bag is an enigma code as the audience are not revealed about the bag’s contents and are left in suspense. There then is close up shot of the protagonist’s face, he is wearing black tinted glasses and is wearing a large black trench coat, the use of top lighting conveys the heros serious facial expression making him look sinister and superior. The camera then cuts to a medium long shot of the protagonist and the security guard, who is equipped with a metal detector and is wearing a typical security guard outfit. The protagonist then looks around, this could imply to the audience that the protagonist is being analytical, as he could be about to do something unexpected, therefore creating enigma. The dialogue spoken by the security guard is typically expected of what a guard would say â€Å"Could you please remove any metallic items you are carrying...keys...some loose change†. The camera then moves to a medium close up shot of the inside of the protagonists coat which displays a collection of weapons. The use of low key lighting and filler light is used in the medium close up shot of the protagonist revealing his weapons is an action code as his i... ...abilities as he does a one handed cartwheel whilst shooting still whilst in slow motion. Neo then jump kicks the last remaining soldier and is shown standing in the middle of the room in a medium long shot. The shot is shown to be lighter as well due to the large windows in the background which again signify that he can continue with his mission as he has overcome his previous problem. Finally, Trinity picks up the black bag from the center of the room, and drops the gun on the floor, as she picks up the bag, there is a crane shot as well as a low angle shot which shows how the protagonists have completed their objective and are superior and head off to the elevator through a long shot. as the door closes the shot includes the whole lobby setting and all the damage that has been done yet also showing that they both have a much more important mission ahead of them.

Characterization of Women in The Yellow Wallpaper and Desirees Baby

Characterization of Women in The Yellow Wallpaper and Desiree's Baby  Ã‚   There was a time (not so long ago) when a man's superiority and authority wasn't a question, but an accepted truth. In the two short stories, "Desiree's Baby", and "The Yellow Wallpaper", women are portrayed as weak creatures of vanity with shallow or absent personalities, who are dependent on men for their livelihood, and even their sanity. Without men, these women were absolutely helpless and useless. Their very existence hinged on absolute and unquestioning submission†¦alone, a woman is nothing. The setting of both stories reinforces the notion of women's dependence on men. The late 1800's were a turbulent time for women's roles. The turn of the century brought about revolution, fueled by the energy and freedom of a new horizon†¦but it was still just around the bend. In this era, during which both short stories were published, members of the weaker sex were blatantly disregarded as individuals, who had minds that could think, and reason, and form valid opinions. Also, in both tales, the characters are removed from society. In "Desiree's Baby", the plantation is bordered by a field and a bayou, isolating its inhabitants from the world. The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" tells us, "Out of one window I can see a garden†¦out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf" (161). They are out in the country, where the modern city can't touch them, or begin to mold their sexist ways and old fashioned ideals into contemporary mindsets. This seclusion also ensures that no outside forces threaten the men's absolute and total control of their weak, defenseless charges. In addition to their surroundings, the homes themselves... ...no worth. It's very sad to think that a woman and a man could have ever thought this way. However, it's even sadder to think that some still do. Women everywhere suffer abuse, mental or otherwise, at the hands or their (pri)mates every day. They must find the strength in themselves and the confidence to know that THEY are the ones who determine their own fate†¦and to realize that no one has the right to put them down. Our foremothers worked hard to make sure that we had choices-- not obligations. And when we let someone else take those choices from us, they are really taking our freedom, and our life. Works Cited: Chopin, Kate. â€Å"Dà ©sirà ©e’s Baby.† 1893. 8 Apr. 2003 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." 1892. The New England Magazine. Reprinted in "Lives & Moments - An Introduction to Short Fiction" by Hans Ostrom. Hold, Orlando, FL 1991.

Sports Narrative - Track Competition :: Personal Narrative Essays

Personal Narrative- Track Competition The moment of truth was upon me. The official times, this includes whom qualified for finals, for the 400m relay had been posted. My eyes scanned the page for the bold letters that spell ANDERSON. As I ran my finger across the page to where the times were posted, my ears began to shut out all outside noises, leaving me alone with the thump of my heart and the inhale and exhale of my lungs. Both began to increase in speed as my eyes narrowed in on the time. My sophomore year had begun and I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to do track this year. Last year I played football in the fall and soccer in the spring. Not really enjoying it, the decision was made to play " real futbol" (soccer) in the fall, leaving the spring sports season open. My friend kept telling me how fun track was, so I decided to give it a try. As the first meet neared, things were going well. I made it onto the 4x100 team making me the third fastest kid on the team. The other members of the relay were Jason Schmidt, Jeremy Willard and Rodney Schmidt. Jason and Jeremy were both the top dogs and Rodney and I were second from the bottom of the barrel. The 400 relay was my best event. We placed in every meet and even took home some medals as the season progressed. As the track year rounded for the home stretch, we had only three more meets to compete in: the Tiger Invitational, regionals, and state. As the Tiger rolled around, there arose a question of whether or not to keep the team together or break it up and give the two seniors a chance to compete in other individual events at regionals. I actually didn't know about this possibility until about five minutes before the race began on Saturday. We were all huddled together preparing for the start. Jeremy came up to Rodney and me and told us that if we didn't do well the team might be dropped. Kicking our motivational drive into high, the four of us focused on only one thing: running the time we all knew we could. Getting into the blocks I felt more ready than ever. At the sound of the gun, I shot out of the blocks. I sprinted around the track, concentrating on making a great hand-off.

Oriet Gadish – Ceo of Bain & Co

I ended up working for the number two person in he military after the chief of staff. It was a pretty exciting place to be because all of the Information-?everything actually-?was coordinated through there. I learned to deal with an awful lot of Information, to be very responsible, and to work long hours. But also, when there were events going on, I was in the war room, which is a pretty confined space, and I learned to have respect for other people but also not to be intimidated by them, because they're people. I think that really helped me later on throughout my career.I also saw people making really important decisions, life and death decisions, and I realized that you can always afford to have perfect Information, 100 percent of what you need, In order to make a decision. Later on, when I think about the way we do business at Pain, where we emphasize providing clients with solutions that are practical rather than perfect and where we often have to make decisions based on imperfec t information, I think back to those days. And it just reinforces the idea that you can always have perfect information in order to make a decision.I think I was tongue to understand that fully at the time but it has certainly Influenced me. The army also exposed me to all different kinds of people. The Israeli army brings together people from many different cultures because Israel Is very much an Immigrant country; it still Is. The Israeli is a little bit European, a little bit Middle Eastern, a little bit American, and within those broad groups there are so many different cultures as well. From Europe, for example, the Israeli is a little bit German, a little bit Polish, a little bit French, a little bit-?you name it.And so I learned to be aware of different cultures and to tolerate deferent opinions. And somehow I hind all of that influenced me as well, although again I was probably too young to register It at the time. After the army, I got my undergraduate degree In psychology at the Hebrew University. I then started my doctorate, decided that's not what I wanted to do and, long story, I ended up in the United States at Harvard Business School. The HUBS Experience My MBA has played an incredibly important role in my career.I wouldn't be where I am today without it. Saddles -1- Initially, I set out to earn a Doctorate in Business Administration (DAB) and planned to get an MBA along the way. I had imagined I was going to teach. So I started with the combined program that four or five of us got into, which meant you could do the MBA and the DAB in four years. Just to be on the safe side, I decided to finish the MBA first. After that, when I started my DAB, I decided that business was not something I wanted to teach. It was something I wanted to practice. O walkout an MBA, I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing at all and I might not even be in this country. HUBS was, in effect, the only school I applied to, mostly because it didn't require a background in economics or other subjects as most business schools did. I also had a friend who had studied at HUBS, and when he talked about the experience it seemed very interesting. So I decided to submit an application. I actually wrote it in Hebrew and had somebody translate it for me. Then, Just to be on the safe side, I also took that application to Wharton and they accepted me, literally, on the spot.They were also going to give me a scholarship, but I would have had to study statistics during the summer and I decided I didn't want to do that. So I came to Harvard, which didn't give scholarships for the MBA program. Also, inflation was really high at the time so it was expensive to take out a loan. But because I was also in the DAB program, I got a scholarship for my doctoral work, which, when I didn't finish the DAB, became a standing loan. That was the only way I could afford HUBS and get through the program. HUBS was my introduction to the United States.I would read cases with my di ctionary. I still remember the first case. It was eleven pages including the exhibits and it took me six hours to read. I was pretty desperate because literally every second word I had to look up in the dictionary. And the dictionary didn't give any business meaning to most of the words. For example, the dictionary described he word â€Å"contribution† as being something about giving to nonprofit organizations. So reading the cases was extremely time consuming and hard. And then I would take my dictionary to the classes or to exams. Exams were the worst.It would take me three times as long to read an exam. I'd always sit in the first row and if it was a really long exam, I'd write at the end, â€Å"This took me three hours and twenty-five minutes to write, but here's what I would have done had I had time to actually run the calculator. † In class, I forced myself to speak even though that was difficult too because of the language. If I couldn't find a word, I'd use six words to express the idea. I Just had to force myself to do things like that and that's how I learned English. I also had never seen television, but I'd heard about advertisements.We didn't have TV advertisements in Israel; there were none. So I went to a classmate's dorm room and I would turn on the TV to see what the ads looked like. I also had never been to a large supermarket. So I went to a supermarket to see what it looked like and how products were set up and so on and so forth. One time, we had a final exam on cereal, something that I had never tasted. I still don't like it, but at the time, I didn't know what it was and I couldn't imagine there were sixteen varieties and why would you want more? I also had no idea who Johnny Carson was.So I was learning quickly about the United States and its culture, and I was learning the language. I had no problem when there was a case in Turkey or almost anywhere international. But I had a problem when Johnny Carson or cereal was part of the case. Gaudies -2- In school, I paid almost no attention to the fact that I was a woman. I had enough challenges: learning English, figuring out business issues, figuring out how to study even though I couldn't read English as quickly as my peers. In fact, I had one course where the cases were forty or fifty pages long.I went to the professor and I said, â€Å"Are there any particular cases that I should read? Because I can read each one of those every day Witt my Angels n. † Ana en salad , â€Å"Well, winy don't you Just all T ten class I thought to myself, â€Å"Well, I don't intend to. † And I did, actually, get an excellent grade in that class. I studied all different areas of business as well. I think it was important for me to not get too focused on any one area at that early stage. Had I completed my doctoral program, I would have focused on marketing because I was interested in that.But instead I took a broad mix of courses in my second year. I benefited from that and, actually, that absolutely has helped me throughout my career. I learned that you should be able to focus on one or two things and be extremely good at them but if you lose your curiosity about other things you're not going to be good even in the few things you focus on. You'll be much too narrow minded or much too narrowly focused. The other interesting thing about HUBS was the case method. The first class I as in, I thought, â€Å"This is nuts. † Then I realized that it was a great teaching method because it forces you to be involved.It forces you to be a part of the discussion. It forces you to listen to the way other people think about a problem. You're active as opposed to Just passively listening to a lecture. And it allows you to draw on things that are not in the case but that maybe you learned that morning in marketing. I am on the HUBS Visiting Committee and every now and then they teach a case. I Just love it. I really enjoy it. And again, almost alw ays in real life you make decisions based on imperfect information† to some degree, and the case method is a good exercise to prepare you for that.Early Career It's very hard when you are Just coming out of an MBA program to figure out what life is really going to be like and bid for a Job. But I was drawn to consulting because of the problem-solving part of it, which has always been my interest. And what I loved about Pain and Company was how practical it was. It was not about reports; it was about results. It's still not about reports. It's still about results. I have still never looked at a report. I don't think there is any other consultant who can say that.And it was very clear, when Bill Pain talked about the company, that he and the other people at Pain were passionate about results. Focusing on results calls for a different way of doing consulting. Now, mind you, I could barely write good English so the idea of not writing reports was a big plus for me. But I liked the idea that you really were thinking about results and implementation and not Just a report. That causes you to think about how you're going to communicate with clients, what you're going to communicate, and how perfect the information has to be to find a workable solution.That's different from happily consulting, where the focus is to convince clients that the solution is theirs and that it's the right solution for them so they Gaudies -3- will implement it. At Pain, it was all about solutions and implementation, and that appealed to me. Bill Pain had been the number two guy at Boston Consulting Group (BCC) and, by all accounts, was going to be running BCC eventually. But his idea of focusing on results was at the time a fundamentally different way of approaching consulting.BCC focuses on ideas and on developing tools that we all still use today and I give them credit because they're fantastic tools. But Bill wanted to take it a step further and not Just leave clients with ideas. He wanted to focus on results, not reports. That was revolutionary at the time. Changing course for a boat that was working very well-?and BCC was doing extremely well and was very highly regarded -?would not nave Eden easy. So 3111 tarter Nils own consulting Tall. I Nat was ten Pain I Joined and that's how we differentiate ourselves from our competitors.Being anchored in this idea of results not reports keeps us focused. So we're constantly asking ourselves, when I call Monday morning at 8:00, what is the client actually owing to have to do in order to make our recommendations happen? The case is not finished unless we know what steps he's going to take to implement the solution. And there's something I call the 80-100 rule, which means you don't want a 100 percent perfect solution if an organization at this time in its history cannot implement it. It's better to have an 80 percent solution if the organization can implement it.Eighty times one is eighty; 100 times zero is zero. This practical approach, focusing on strategy and results, is what we call our â€Å"True North. † And with that you have meeting you can evolve around and build on. Everybody in the organization knows that that is the core of what we do. You can build new practices, you can experiment with new ideas, you can also move very quickly and change, as long as you know that this is the focus that you're all working toward. And I think it has served us very well. First Client My first major client was a company in the steel industry, which was, at the time, an uncommon place for a woman.I worked in the steel industry for about five years. We worked on all different aspects of the industry, but at the end of the ay one of the things we figured out was how they could save an awful lot of money by continuously casting almost 100 percent of the steel. At that time, there was some continuous casting going on, mainly in Japan, but it was more common to reset the production processes for every different type of steel needed. We discovered, however, that if the company could move to continuous casting, they would be able to save between $80 and $100 per ton.The issue was that in order to continuously cast steel, you could use only one mix. But there are many different varieties of steel, requiring different mixes, that different customers need. There are different alloys you add to steel to make it higher quality, lower quality, stronger, softer-?whatever. But we thought if we could reduce the number of steel varieties and the number of mixes used, we could introduce continuous casting and save a lot in the production process. That was unheard of in the United States. Gaudies -4- Everybody said, â€Å"No, customers won't want it. So I went and talked to customers and found that they actually would be happy to do that. We found that there were a lot of customers who were perfectly happy to take a higher-quality steel as long as they didn't have to pay much more for it. The n I was stuck with a metallurgist who said that it could not be done. He explained to me why there are 300 different kinds of steel. I didn't know anything about metallurgy but I went through all of the varieties of steel and had him explain to me what each one of those steels was meant for and then I asked questions and triggered him to think. If we added aluminum to this, would this still satisfy this kind of customer? † He said, â€Å"Oh, yes, that would be much higher quality than they need. † We were able to bring the number of varieties down room 300-and-some to thirty. By the end of the discussion, the guy absolutely believed I knew metallurgy, which I did not. It was Just this practical way of working. The company did indeed build a continuous caster, and they did indeed save a lot of money, and they did indeed turn around from being number I don't know what to Deluge under one In proactively In ten country.I gnat's an example AT ten work we 00 at Pain. It's inv igorating to have real impact like that. Being a Woman in Business The first time we met with both the CEO and the SCOFF of the steel company, I had two presentations to give. I was with one of the founders of Pain. My manager was there too. In fact, I was the most Junior person there. At one point, the SCOFF was talking about how he was going to arrange a tour for us of the other steel companies. In the steel industry, companies shared a lot of information with each other. They still do in order to prevent accidents and so on, for safety reasons.Anyway;ay, the SCOFF was talking quite enthusiastically about arranging a tour for us and then he stopped and froze. He was looking at me and then he said, â€Å"Well, I don't know about Root. † Nobody had any clue what he was talking about. Then he said, â€Å"Well, you see, women are considered bad luck in our industry,† and everybody froze, the CEO and all the people in our group from Pain and Company. I Just turned around and said, â€Å"Well, in that case, I think that you should make sure that I go to every single one of your competitors. † That broke the ice and that was it.I went on to work in the steel industry for five years. I loved it. They even made a special hat for me. It said, Root Gaudies and then it said, â€Å"The Little Light Will Lead Us,† because my name Root comes from the Hebrew word for light. I was definitely one of the guys and I enjoyed it. Actually, there was one other funny story. In the steel industry, people used to use a lot of four-letter words. At the beginning, people would realize I was there and it would make them uncomfortable. They say, â€Å"Oops! I'm sorry. There's a lady in the room. † I remember once sitting in a room with the guy who later became the CEO.And he said something that had a four-letter word in it, and suddenly he said, â€Å"Oh, there's a lady in Gaudies -5- the room. † And he turned to me and he said, miss, and as I wa s saying to you yesterday, Root,† and he repeated it again so he actually made a point, which is kind f fun. Another time, there was a big meeting and this was clearly holding everybody up. So I looked for the right time and I used one of those four-letter words in a sentence the way they did, and that was it. They were comfortable talking again. And then we were Just working and moving forward together.I thought, if that's the language here, then that's fine. The lesson I learned was never to take it personally when somebody thought that a woman couldn't do something, whether it was a client or even a colleague at Pain. For example, once at Pain, very early on, one of the menders, one of the managers, and I were visiting a client. At one point, the founder said, â€Å"Dan, why don't you go and talk to X? Root, why don't you go and talk to-?oh! Actually, I'm not sure how he'd react to a woman. † I didn't say anything then but the next day, I knocked on his door and said , â€Å"Did you realize what you did yesterday? And he said, â€Å"No. What did I do? † I told him and then I said, â€Å"l completely understand. But if I don't get a chance, then none of us, not Pain, not you, and not l, will ever know if I can actually talk to people like that and if we can have a productive conversation. He was very thoughtful. And the next time we went together to a meeting, he gave me a chance to have an important conversation. The conversation went well and that was that. I had taken some responsibility for managing the situation. I hadn't gotten upset. And I knew that this was not personal. It was the same with clients.I'd walk in Ana teen would always assume Tanat I was ten most Junior person. I learned to use either a sense of humor or other little tricks to force them to forget that I was a woman and to Just focus on what we were doing. One time, for example, I was with he CEO of a company in the Midwest. I'd actually been on the case for a while . I was a manager. I had a brand new consultant with me, a young guy named Paul. We were sitting talking with the CEO. I would ask a question and the CEO would listen to me and then he would direct his response to Paul. It made it difficult for us to really engage in a discussion.So when the CEO went out to say something to his secretary, I told Paul, â€Å"Every time I ask a question, when I'm done, Just look at me, so the guy will get tired of looking at your ear. He'll have to look at me as well. † And, honest to God, Alfa an hour later, the guy was Just looking at me and we had a good discussion, and we continued to have good discussions after that. I never had to say a word. You can have a sense of humor. You can know that it's not personal. And you can Just find creative ways to solve the problem. But at the end of the day, the most important thing is that you deliver. That's not unlike what guys have to do.And frankly, in most cases, once people get over the fact that you're a woman and start focusing on what you're saying and what you're doing and the results that you provide, the fact that o'er a woman is completely forgotten. It's like in the steel business. After a certain point, I don't think they could even remember that at one point in time that they even thought about me being a woman versus a man. The Automotive Industry Later, I worked in the automotive industry with a major car company. We started with two little projects but quickly discovered something not related to either one of those Gaudies -6- projects.We realized there was too much complexity in the number of options for cars being offered. Basically, you could have any combination of options you wanted. So the car manufacturers were producing cars with all kinds of options, and not necessarily based on market studies of the combinations customers preferred. So there were either too many cars that people were not particularly interested in or it would take a year to get your ca r with the options you wanted. We calculated that there were about ten billion combinations of Just about every car line they had and that was, of course, absurd.That didn't make sense for suppliers, for dealers, or for manufacturers. So we came up with a program to reduce the number of combinations of cars made in the plant from ten billion to Just fourteen. If somebody wanted a special car, they could still order it but it would take longer. To reduce the number of combinations so dramatically, we went back and looked at all the cars that were purchased. From all of that data, we figured out which combinations people preferred. Our findings were pretty intuitive actually. The salespeople said the dealers would hate it.In fact, the dealers were ecstatic because too often they had cars sitting on the lot that nobody wanted. The customers liked it because we had figured out the options they tended to prefer so they weren't walking away with options they didn't really want. And of cou rse the manufacturing team loved it because you could save a hell of a lot of money by streamlining production and limiting the number of combinations you had to manufacture. Initially, neither the salespeople nor the marketing people liked it, because they really believed that customers wanted all Kolas AT pitons.From ten time AT Hoar, when you could n â€Å"any color you wanted as long as it was black,† to Sloane, where you could have absolutely anything you wanted, the industry had gone from one extreme to the other. To make a long story short, we were able to convince the marketing and sales people that this would work. And eventually we were able to come up with this program, which reduced the time to delivery from months and months to days. And throughout the entire system, from the suppliers to the manufacturers to the dealers, we ended up saving this company on the order of $9. Billion a year. This was in the late sass. I'd say the company was proud of our work and we were proud of our work. We learned some of this from Toyota and Ionians. But you learn from wherever you can. If you're really good at what you do, you learn in one industry from what somebody doing in another industry. That's one of the benefits of working on a broad set of issues in diverse industries and always bringing them into whatever you're doing. Hard Times at Pain After all of these years, I think dwelling on precisely what happened is kind of irrelevant.The fact is that the founders of Pain started to take some money out. They had some bad advice from an investment banker and they took too much money out of the company. That meant the company was burdened with a lot of debt relative to its size, with a very high interest payment going forward. The model they had used was based on the company growing at a refit of 50 percent a year. Although the company had grown at Gaudies -7- that rate in the past, it was, of course, not practical. To make a long story short, that was a n unsustainable model.The first inkling the rest of us had of the situation was when the founder fired people, which was a complete break in the unwritten social agreement that existed at Pain and Company. Because we're a consulting firm and this was an SOP, the labor department eventually made the whole transaction public. That's how the rest of us learned what, exactly, was happening. After that, we had to turn around the company without the founder. But I'll give Bill Pain credit; he was the first one to realize that he had made a mistake. He asked Mitt Rooney to come and help and then Bill Pain worked hard to try and help turn the situation around.The founders had to give back some money. We had to negotiate with banks, and so on and so forth. But it's a situation that very few service firms have ever survived. In fact, we were told by an investment bank that we were not going to survive. But we asked Mitt Rooney, who was then head of Pain Capital and had been Vice president of Pain and Company, to come back. He really helped us negotiate tit the banks and handled other issues related to the situation so that the rest of us could focus on our clients and on our people, since those were the only assets we had left.Reputation is the third asset a company like ours has, and that was shaky given the fact that the story was in the news. So the rest of us focused on clients and on our people. We worked hard too to make sure that our most important people didn't defect. Headhunters were calling every single person in the company. We also focused on our clients. Our existing clients knew what we were doing to resolve the rises so we were okay there. It was more difficult when we went to beauty contests Tort prospective new clients Ana our competitors would leave ten latest Fortune or Forbes or whatever saying what was going on at Pain.It was getting those new clients that mattered most to us. And that's what we focused on. Internally, we had a few defections. But when I think back, there was only one major defection, in terms of the key people, that I really felt bad about. So we managed to avoid mass defections. I remember one day somebody came into my office and said, â€Å"l want to talk to you about a Job offer. I was vice president, and I was a real open door, so these people felt comfortable talking to me. And I thought, in this particular case, this guy is so much better at consulting than he would be at what he was going to do, and I said that to him.He said, â€Å"Well, but I don't want to be the last one here. Everybody's talking to headhunters. Isn't that right? † I realized he was right. So I called every headhunter I was talking to and said, â€Å"Don't call me,† which was actually taking a risk. I decided to stay with Pain and Company unless things fell apart. So the next time somebody name into my office and said, â€Å"Everybody's talking to headhunters,† I was able to say in all honesty, â€Å"Well, I' m not. I'm absolutely committed to staying here. † Soon after, the first guy came back to me to tell me that he too had decided to stay at Pain after I told him I wasn't going anywhere.And I asked him to do something that was very counterintuitive. I asked him to go out and tell people that he had received a Job offer, that he had seriously considered taking it, that he had in fact said yes to the offer Gaudies -8- and that he had decided instead to stay with Pain. He said, â€Å"I can do that. You don't do those things. You don't want people to know. † I said, â€Å"What? You told me that everybody's talking about leaving, or at least talking to headhunters, but nobody talking about the fact that they have decided to stay.I think it's a pretty powerful story. † So he hesitated, and then he agreed to spread the word about his decision. That was the beginning of a reversal of what could have been a mass defection. I then became chairman, but I perceive the leaders hip of this firm as a partnership. The partnership really is what comes first when we think about our governance. I was chosen through a selection process by all of the partners. The key criteria centered on people who are very good at what we do in our business.Throughout the history of Pain and Company, our selection of leaders centers on the people here who have the most impact with clients. We wanted a chairman who would serve as a role model in that. So in our company, people in senior positions continue to work with clients and not Just to sell but also to do the real consulting work. I still have clients I work with, and it's the only way to (a) keep me interested, (b) keep me up to date on what's really going on with clients, with our company, with our team, etc. And (c) keep the consulting we do strong.If you take senior people away from the consulting, which they are good at, and shift them to doing only administrative work or selling or public speaking-?all of which we do too of course-?then their experience is not available to the clients and it's not available as mentoring to your own team. So I agreed to become chairman on the condition that I would be able to continue to work with clients. I think that sets us apart from other professional service firms. Today, all of our senior people, the ones who are the most highly regarded, continue to work tit clients and, most importantly, they want to continue to work with clients.The clients are always canalling. I en problems are always canalling. So Its Important to keep learning. This is a pretty exciting business because of that. And, in my case, I play an international role as well. I work with international Coos. And I mean I really work with them, I do not Just interact with them. It's very exciting to see how Coos think, how government and business interact in different countries, how culture affects business, etc. It's fascinating. I love the international aspect of my work. I Just sis I didn't have to travel so much for it. I don't like to travel, but I love what I do when I get there.In terms of time management, I used to say that I spend 70 percent of my time with clients. That's probably true but I probably work more than 100 percent of my time. But really you don't break it up that way. When I'm abroad, for example, I might do client work in the morning. Then I might talk to U. S. Clients in the evening or talk with my secretary about administrative issues. I meet with our people in our various offices to talk about their clients or internal issues. I might be giving a beech in Germany, for example, and then work with people from the office on the way over there.If you have a lot of energy, you can put a lot of things together. It's not a precise science. It is not even a precise art, but it is an art. You Just have to have a lot of energy and to really love what you're doing. Gaudies -9- Critical Success Factors I don't tend to think about myself much. I'm very goal oriented when I go forward. But I think a big part of what consulting does has to do with psychology and learning to really listen to what people are saying both verbally and nonverbally. Having a â€Å"True North† has also been key. It has kept us focused on strategy and results as inseparable.Strategy combined with results is very powerful. Strategy without results is meaningless, and results without strategic thinking may not be very productive or useful. So combining almost everything we do with strategic thinking and results is critical. There were times when we actually had to fight to keep that. We had a lot of discussions about it. We ended up calling it our â€Å"True North,† and today it is Just part of the language here and part of how we think about critical decisions. We'll say, â€Å"This is a real true-north question,† when we have a really difficult decision to make.We have even â€Å"resigned† from some pretty lucrative projects when we didn't believe that results were going to happen. We do it with dignity, after a lot of discussion, but those are hard things to do. For example, a large Fortune 50 company got into trouble. We were asked to come in and help them. We helped them turn around financially but we also saw they had to turn around strategically. This was one of our major clients. We were involved in almost every aspect of their business. Anyway;ay, the papers were writing about what a great turnaround they were doing, and so on and so forth.The CEO was on the cover of all kinds of magazines. But strategically, we believed that they could not be involved in the four businesses they were in-?that, eventually, they would not be able to sustain that business model. There was one business they clearly should have gotten out of, but it was part of the legacy of the CEO, and he didn't want to get out of it. We did all of the analysis and all of the people in the organization agreed with us. But we couldn't convi nce the CEO. For six months, I had discussions with him. We had data. We Ana eve n Eng. Ana teen we Salad, â€Å"Well, In Tanat case, we Delve Tanat you can't thrive.You may not even survive long-term. † We suggested that they might want to sell themselves to somebody at that point, and we identified who might be the best buyer for them. Instead of going that route, they continued on with the four businesses. We decided to tell the CEO what we thought, that not moving in a more forceful strategic way could cost him the company. Since he didn't budge, we said we would resign, although I asked him for permission to go to the board, which, to his reedit, he let us do. One of my colleagues and I went and presented our views to the board.The board was split but eventually decided to side with him, and that was that. We resigned. Less than a year later, they came back to us and said, Mimi were right, and could you please help us now. † At that point, they had no option but to sell. They would not have been prepared to sell had we not pushed for that earlier. And we might not have suggested that had we not been following our true north. We really told them what we believed and even though there were lots of other things we old have continued to work with them on-?for tens of millions of dollars-?we really decided that was not the right thing to do.When they came back to us, we helped them sell. The social issues had Gaudies -II- been resolved by then. There was less money than they could have gotten the year before, but the shareholders still did pretty well. As the CEO and SCOFF said later on, â€Å"If it weren't for your guys and your willingness to stick to what you believed, we probably would be bankrupt. † If you have a true north and a set of core values that you stick to, you will end up making decisions that have short-term costs. But I believe, at the end of the day, they will have a long-term value.It's not something you do easily. And i t feels horrendous-?first because you feel like you failed to convince a client to do something, which is what consulting is all about, and second because of the short-term costs. It's a hit to the collective pocketbook and to your own. But when you have a true north like we do, it's really what allows you to deal with internal divisions and external adversity at the end of the day, and I think we're very lucky that we have that. I think it can create a distinctiveness from your peers or your mediators, and I think that's invaluable.Changes in the Industry I think the world has come back to where it was before the e-craze. There used to be consultants who were mostly focused on IT. There are companies that are focused mostly on informational stuff. And there are companies that are focused, as a headline, on strategy. That's where we are except that we have always focused on the operations side as well as the strategy side of a business. We believe you can't do one without the other. And then there was a period during the e-craze when everybody tried to do everything. We didn't and I think it has served us well.