Intrinsic Value of Nature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

A Homegrown Writing Retreat

A Homegrown Writing Retreat Ok, the journalists retreat! A four-star lodging with room administration, or perhaps only an ideal lodge in the forested areas, with suppers conveyed on tippy-toe so as not to upset the Muse. What you couldnt complete in such a situation †if you can bear the cost of the charges and travel expenses, and make it past the holding up list. On the off chance that you cant, dont despair. Throughout the previous six years my scholars bunch has held three or four withdraws a year: spring, summer, fall and some of the time likewise winter. Its basic, modest, and incredibly, powerful. The majority of us who go to the retreats compose every day, and expertly. The retreats permit us to launch another venture or gain significant ground on a current one. Heres what you requirement for your own retreat: ==At least three authors focused on appearing each of the three days. Four, five or six diminishes the work for every individual. More than that would most likely be clumsy. ==A space large enough for everybody to write in, with offices for dinners. Our own is the lounge room in the home of two of our scholars. You may likewise have the option to utilize a congregation corridor or some other network space that has a kitchen. ==A dinner plan. Our own is done per week ahead so everybody realizes what dinners theyll be answerable for. Dinners are planned: breakfast 8 a.m., lunch 1 p.m., dinner 6 p.m. Theyre additionally basic, and however much as could reasonably be expected, made ahead. The individual liable for the following supper tidies up from the last one, which implies you know where you put the cheddar grater or the large spoon. We attempt to keep breakfast and lunch self-serve, and assemble for discussion and readings at supper. ==A venture, and whatever exploration materials, notes or so on you require, in addition to your composing apparatuses of decision. We list food sensitivities and aversions on the feast plan. We likewise boycott TV, motion pictures, radio, calls and music aside from with earphones. Guests are debilitated, and any discussion must be away from the composing region. Liquor comes out just with some restraint with supper, where we read so anyone might hear from the days work and cheer each other on. Three of us are no-nonsense and go to each day of each retreat. Three or four others normally appear for a day or two (with a supper and cleanup). The work is insignificant †even under the least favorable conditions, one supper and one cleanup for each day. Its not irregular to have a day on which youre not liable for any kitchen work. With respect to cost, I live fifteen miles from the retreat area and as a rule complete two dinners and give a few bites (organic product, nuts or biscotti, in addition to dull chocolate). My absolute expenses for the end of the week are $60-$80 in gas and food. In the event that my companions visitor room is accessible, its not as much as that. Results? They can be astonishing. I consistently get fourteen days worth of composing done in three days. Ive cleaned a composition for distribution, composed 80 percent of a verifiable book and pushed through a greater number of pages than I can recall. My partners have had comparative outcomes. While its my day by day composing practice that keeps me gainful and sharp, the retreats assist me with recollecting that there are others out there sharing this innovative life. I come out of a retreat invigorated and committed once again. The kinship facilitates the standard forlornness of the scholars work, the input warms the heart. Also, the creation doesnt hurt, either.

Interview with CloudOn founder - Milind Gadekar

Interview with CloudOn founder - Milind Gadekar INTRODUCTIONMartin: This time we are in  Mountain View  in Cloudon office with Milind. Milind, who are you and what do you do?Milind: Im the founder and CEO of Cloudon.Milind: Just a little bit about my background, I have been in the Valley for 25 years, Ive been here for a long time. Fortunately for me, I got my first years about my entrepreneurship about 20 years back in a company called Atom Network. Atom was the first broadband service provider in the  US. I joined the product team very early on, the company did extremely well. We were at one point looking to acquire either Yahoo or Excite. We acquired Excite. It was the right company at the right place and it gave me good taste of what does it take to be in an early stage startup and that has the potential of huge impact.Soon after that, I ended up joining a company called Epinions. Epinions was literary the first user-generated content site. This was at the peak of the bubble. And I ran product there. Once again, incredible rus h in being able to have that impact and give people a voice to be able to share their opinions. A little early for the market for that time. The company eventually did go public and did well, but I had left well before then.Then finally, my third startup was a company called P-Cube, which was an Israeli startup, in the networking space. That company ended up staying the longest, it was selling into the service providers, with the whole vision that the future of the internet was meant to be richer from the user and content stand point and how do you leverage the network to make that possible.The company was acquired by Cisco, I stayed at Cisco for 4 5 years and at some point have the itch that it was time to leave the big company and go do something myself.In all the previous 3 companies, I was always part of the management team, having a fair amount of influence, but never where I was the head of the table.At some point I realized that I still have the energy and the craziness to g o start something, I decided to start. This was in 2009. End of 2009 I left Cisco and I partnered with a couple of my co-founders who are based in Israel. We said, lets go tackle the next frontier. We wanted clearly to get away from that working.As we look at the space then, we definitely felt that the intersection of Cloud and mobile was going to generate a fair amount of disruption. We were coming at it without a lot of experience in this space, but with the believe that we know what it takes to identify the problem.The first year was very difficult, I have to say. It was to some extent, the technology looking for a problem and which is always, in one of the lessons, not the best way to start a company, but you know. But we have some good technology and we went down to a certain path. Fortunately for us, the iPad launched during that first year. So when we started the company, we had no anticipation of the tablet market. We definitely knew that the smart phones will going to becom e a default computing device in everybodys hand. But the tablet clearly change the landscape.So we jump on the tablet bandwagon fairly quickly and I have to say the rest is history because weve had phenomenal last 3 years.The goal of the company, maybe first started in kind of went down this path. We are claimed to think, initially, was very much about providing access to Microsoft Office on the iPad. So this was  January 5, 2012 when we launched. We had no anticipation, we had developed an app that provided access to Dropbox and then if you wanted to edit your office document, we gave you access to Microsoft Office.And in the first 12 hours, it became the number 1 app on App Store. Which took us by surprise because our goals were a couple of thousand people in the first month, maybe hundred thousand in one year. We did 100 thousand in the first 36 hours. So we were addressing a major pain point that users had. They wanted to use their tablets as a productivity device.Until then, th e iPad was a phenomenal consumption device. Every app was much more on gaming, or entertainment, or consumption. There really wasnt anything around productivity. I think, the closest productivity app one could consider would be email. But email was consuming email, not necessarily a productivity.We had been in a discussion with a lot of large  US  enterprises. Maybe iPad came out, they all gave us the same use case, which was we wanted this to be a great productivity device, this is a game changer device in the enterprise and we want to make it productivity. And when you asked, what do you mean by productivity, the answer was we would love to able to work with Office documents, Word files, Excel files, Power Point files.  So our first step was really about providing access to Office with Dropbox as the storage back-end.When we saw the success we had in the  US, initially, it made sense what were going after. There was a massive pain point, but we didnt know whether we just got lucky . We launched, we initiate to just launch in the  US,  and so we launched in the Canadian market and the same thing happen, which was first day, number 1 app on the App Store, no marketing, no promotion, just completely word of mouth.After that, we launched this is the  UK  and exactly the same thing happened. It was perfectly the same in the  US, Canada, the UK and in every market that we launched, within the first 12 to 48 hours, it would become the number 1 app on the App Store. And not in productivity or business, but overall App Store. So this would be us, and there would be 9 games.At that point we realized that the market or the users had spoken, they were looking to truly be productive on their iPads. And there were a lot of requests for iPhone, a lot of request for Android.So this was early 2012, we made a conscious decision as a company, saying that theres an opportunity to redefine mobile productivity. When we thought about what does mobile productivity mean, its really a bout redefining how do people create content, share content, work with content, in ways that theyve never done before.So we  were ambitious, some people think Im crazy, to literally take on the incumbents and the establishment in redefining the future of productivity. So, thats the short story of who I am and where we are in this journey.Martin: Great! Milind you said that when you entered the market, you didnt have any clue about how the market was working. How did you set your journey for learning and understanding how the market really worked?Milind: We had some clue. Ill give credit to my Head of Product, Jay was my co-founder who was adamant about serving the needs of the users. We have heard from various enterprises of what they wanted. They wanted the ability for their employees to be able to work with Office documents on the iPad. That was the problem taken that was provided.One can say that there are multiple ways to tackle this problem. The way we did it is, we decided to virtualized Microsoft Office and make it available to these users. But the insight or the point my co-founder Jay made was, nobodys buying an iPad to get a Windows experience. If theyre buying an iPad, the want an iOS experience. So the big challenge for us was, how do you take a Windows app and make it as iOS like as possible.Martin: Like Apple Beautiful.Milind: Exactly. So it was like taking that square peg and try to put it into a round hole, because its an app that was developed for a PC, for a mouse based and  a keyboard. It wasnt developed for a gesture-based experience.That was, I would say the insights that we have, which was its all about the user experience. If we get the right user experience, people will use it. I think that is what we got right. Like when we first did it, we nailed the user experience. When we try to hide as much as Windows or that traditional Microsoft Office experience from users to give them the ability to just work with their documents. Looking bac k, we did that just perfectly.Martin: Great!BUSINESS MODELMartin: Milind, lets talk about the business model. Is  it still the case that CloudOn only helps people creating, sharing Microsoft Office products on several devices or is there some other point in terms of productivity included?Milind: So for us, the focus is very much around the documents that the users have. Like there are, when we look at the productivity ecosystem in the PC generation, over a billion users are using Microsoft Office. Trillions of artifacts getting created on an annual basis around the world. These are Word files, Excel files, Power Point files. And so for us, it wasnt about lets go create a new different type of experience. It was very much about lets embrace the Office format. Fortunately for us, the European Union in 2007, forced Microsoft to open the Office format and so its an open published format.Martin: But only for the EU or?Milind: On worldwide basis. So this enabled us to recognize that Offic e is the gold standard for productivity on the PC. From that standpoint, how do we leverage that format and work with. We dont want to change peoples behavior. This is where I think many companies get it wrong.Users behavior is very difficult to change. So one really needs to embrace that and then extend from there. Were not trying to get users to say, lets go abandon all your Office documents and come learn a new tool that is mobile first.Weve always said, it is important to embrace the legacy world, but to provide a path into the future. So from the business model perspective, we are huge believers that its an end user market. Eventually, the problem that were trying to solve in productivity, its an enterprise use case. But when we think about the enterprise, we say that the enterprise is changing today. End users are deciding  which application to use, how to use it, how to pay for it.For us, we made a conscious decision very early on to follow  a freemium model. The freemium mod el is based on providing kind of a free service to bulk of our users, if we can get less than 10% to convert into paying users, that would be a really good model.But with the expectation that overtime, and this is a multiyear journey, we would want to cater to teams of users and eventually to the enterprise IT administrative. Because eventually this is an enterprise use case. But as an enterprise use case that is driven by the end user. And weve got lots of inbound request from a lot of large  US  enterprises wanting to have an enterprise version of CloudOn. So far, weve been very end user focus to say, lets build CloudOn, CloudOn Pro, which is much more end user focus, with a clear road map to eventually get to a teams product and eventually an enterprise product.Martin: Great!CORPORATE STRATEGYMartin: Milind, in terms of corporate strategy, as I perceived your business model is highly depended on Microsoft products, because youre building an additional layer on that. How do you re spond to question like what happens if Microsoft would be doing something similar?Milind: This has been the question that has been posed consistently during the initial years when we were successful is, eventually Microsoft is going to release Office on iOS or Android and what happens to CloudOn?Weve always assumed that this is going to be the case. We had never assumed that, from our perspective, if you look at the productivity market today, youve got 3 very large, well established companies, Microsoft, Google and Apple who have their own productivity suits. When we look at them, each one of them started off with their roots catering to a PC model. Looking at it very much from a PC mouse-based paradigm, theyve tried to make it mobile, theyve tried to make it gesture friendly, but its still is a PC experience. Its very much a menu driven experience.If you look at Microsoft Office on the iPad, its done extremely well, extremely well. But its still a familiar experience. And we think about the future, we say that it has to be for everybody to truly create or re-imagine or redefine the future of the document.It has to be a mobile first or even precisely a gesture first experience. The days of menus are over, it should all be based on the fingertip. You shouldnt say, if I want to insert a chart or insert an object, you pick a menu and you go down to a different menu item and pick that. You should be able to draw it with the finger.From our standpoint, weve always felt that the gesture first or mobile experience is the key.Whats the other key aspect which is important is, the ability to be compatible with Office. Office is, as I said earlier, the gold standard in enterprise for productivity. If I look at Google Docs, if I look at iWork from Apple, theyve created their own silos, which is their application, their format, their storage. We approached our strategy by saying, lets embrace the Office format. We will also embrace other formats like the ODF format from th e Document Foundation.We will embrace other formats instead of finding our own proprietary format. But really focus on the user experience and then focus on innovating in areas that non of the incumbents have innovated. Which is about how do you truly make it a social document, how do you make it a living document, how do you make it truly workable on an iPhone, or an Android phone with the 4 phone factor. We want to make people as productive on those devices as they are on their PCs. Its a non trivial problem to solve. But we are well on our way to solving it.Martin: What are your thoughts on adding other platforms, as you describe you have 3 major players currently working in this online document market. What keeps you from sticking only with Microsoft Office program, what are the thoughts on entering new markets like Google and iWork?Milind: So for us, what we are doing is, we are embracing the Office format just because theres 1 billion people in the enterprise who are currently using Office. But we are building our own native, all 3 capabilities.From our standpoint, we will integrate the  Google Drive, we will integrate with Microsofts OneDrive, we will integrate with iCloud. We are approaching this more like a  Switzerland  approach, which is we are truly storage agnostic, willing to integrate to Dropbox and Dropbox is a really strong partner of ours, with Box, which is another strong partner. So well integrate with multiple storage providers. We will try to integrate with other silos, and truly create value for the end user.Because today when we talk to our end users, they value us for our open approach, they value us for the fact that they can continue to use  Google Drive  and OneDrive  and Dropbox and Box and not have to be forced. Because if youre on Google Docs, you have to use  Google Drive,  if you are on iWork you have to use iCloud, if youre on Microsoft Office you have to use OneDrive.So we approached it saying, we want to be a truly platform agnostic or a technology agnostic from that standpoint. Similar to what Dropbox did when they built their initial cloud storage. They said, we will embrace Windows, Mac OS, Android and hence theyve been incredibly successful.MARKET DEVELOPMENTMartin: From my point of view, one of the major market trends has been from the PC device based Operating System to a now going to the Cloud. What other trends did you identify in the market?Milind: So clearly mobile is a huge tsunami thats kind of happening which were riding. The consumerization of IT, which is the true, I would say before, and Ive been around the block for all these years, where IT would tell you exactly what to use, what you cant use, they control the device. So if I had a PC from the company, they would tell me which application could run on it, how it would work. Those days are over to some extent.We call it as the  consumer enterprise, because the enterprise still exist but the end users who are consumers are making their own choice. They are deciding which applications they want. And also the enterprise is no longer confined to the borders of the enterprise. Its  truly a borderless enterprise because I could be collaborating, lets say, I’m a finance person and Im working on a spreadsheet, I could be collaborating with my auditor who is in a different company, Im working with some other services. So its becoming a much more of an open environment and anybody coming new into this, has to be able to embrace that.This is where I believe the incumbents are at the disadvantage.  Old large incumbents are catering to a world that worked 20 years ago, that world has completely changed now. The question is, are they going to be able to adapt or will new comers like Dropbox, CloudOn, Box, others, coming and grab market share.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS In Mountain View (CA), we talked with entrepreneur Milind about the business model of CloudOn. Furthermore, Milind shares his learnings and advice for young entrepreneurs. The transcript of the interview is provided below.INTRODUCTIONMartin: This time we are in  Mountain View  in Cloudon office with Milind. Milind, who are you and what do you do?Milind: Im the founder and CEO of Cloudon.Milind: Just a little bit about my background, I have been in the Valley for 25 years, Ive been here for a long time. Fortunately for me, I got my first years about my entrepreneurship about 20 years back in a company called Atom Network. Atom was the first broadband service provider in the  US. I joined the product team very early on, the company did extremely well. We were at one point looking to acquire either Yahoo or Excite. We acquired Excite. It was the right company at the right place and it gave me good taste of what does it take to be in an early stage startup and that has the potential of h uge impact.Soon after that, I ended up joining a company called Epinions. Epinions was literary the first user-generated content site. This was at the peak of the bubble. And I ran product there. Once again, incredible rush in being able to have that impact and give people a voice to be able to share their opinions. A little early for the market for that time. The company eventually did go public and did well, but I had left well before then.Then finally, my third startup was a company called P-Cube, which was an Israeli startup, in the networking space. That company ended up staying the longest, it was selling into the service providers, with the whole vision that the future of the internet was meant to be richer from the user and content stand point and how do you leverage the network to make that possible.The company was acquired by Cisco, I stayed at Cisco for 4 5 years and at some point have the itch that it was time to leave the big company and go do something myself.In all t he previous 3 companies, I was always part of the management team, having a fair amount of influence, but never where I was the head of the table.At some point I realized that I still have the energy and the craziness to go start something, I decided to start. This was in 2009. End of 2009 I left Cisco and I partnered with a couple of my co-founders who are based in Israel. We said, lets go tackle the next frontier. We wanted clearly to get away from that working.As we look at the space then, we definitely felt that the intersection of Cloud and mobile was going to generate a fair amount of disruption. We were coming at it without a lot of experience in this space, but with the believe that we know what it takes to identify the problem.The first year was very difficult, I have to say. It was to some extent, the technology looking for a problem and which is always, in one of the lessons, not the best way to start a company, but you know. But we have some good technology and we went d own to a certain path. Fortunately for us, the iPad launched during that first year. So when we started the company, we had no anticipation of the tablet market. We definitely knew that the smart phones will going to become a default computing device in everybodys hand. But the tablet clearly change the landscape.So we jump on the tablet bandwagon fairly quickly and I have to say the rest is history because weve had phenomenal last 3 years.The goal of the company, maybe first started in kind of went down this path. We are claimed to think, initially, was very much about providing access to Microsoft Office on the iPad. So this was  January 5, 2012 when we launched. We had no anticipation, we had developed an app that provided access to Dropbox and then if you wanted to edit your office document, we gave you access to Microsoft Office.And in the first 12 hours, it became the number 1 app on App Store. Which took us by surprise because our goals were a couple of thousand people in the first month, maybe hundred thousand in one year. We did 100 thousand in the first 36 hours. So we were addressing a major pain point that users had. They wanted to use their tablets as a productivity device.Until then, the iPad was a phenomenal consumption device. Every app was much more on gaming, or entertainment, or consumption. There really wasnt anything around productivity. I think, the closest productivity app one could consider would be email. But email was consuming email, not necessarily a productivity.We had been in a discussion with a lot of large  US  enterprises. Maybe iPad came out, they all gave us the same use case, which was we wanted this to be a great productivity device, this is a game changer device in the enterprise and we want to make it productivity. And when you asked, what do you mean by productivity, the answer was we would love to able to work with Office documents, Word files, Excel files, Power Point files.  So our first step was really about providin g access to Office with Dropbox as the storage back-end.When we saw the success we had in the  US, initially, it made sense what were going after. There was a massive pain point, but we didnt know whether we just got lucky. We launched, we initiate to just launch in the  US,  and so we launched in the Canadian market and the same thing happen, which was first day, number 1 app on the App Store, no marketing, no promotion, just completely word of mouth.After that, we launched this is the  UK  and exactly the same thing happened. It was perfectly the same in the  US, Canada, the UK and in every market that we launched, within the first 12 to 48 hours, it would become the number 1 app on the App Store. And not in productivity or business, but overall App Store. So this would be us, and there would be 9 games.At that point we realized that the market or the users had spoken, they were looking to truly be productive on their iPads. And there were a lot of requests for iPhone, a lot of re quest for Android.So this was early 2012, we made a conscious decision as a company, saying that theres an opportunity to redefine mobile productivity. When we thought about what does mobile productivity mean, its really about redefining how do people create content, share content, work with content, in ways that theyve never done before.So we  were ambitious, some people think Im crazy, to literally take on the incumbents and the establishment in redefining the future of productivity. So, thats the short story of who I am and where we are in this journey.Martin: Great! Milind you said that when you entered the market, you didnt have any clue about how the market was working. How did you set your journey for learning and understanding how the market really worked?Milind: We had some clue. Ill give credit to my Head of Product, Jay was my co-founder who was adamant about serving the needs of the users. We have heard from various enterprises of what they wanted. They wanted the abilit y for their employees to be able to work with Office documents on the iPad. That was the problem taken that was provided.One can say that there are multiple ways to tackle this problem. The way we did it is, we decided to virtualized Microsoft Office and make it available to these users. But the insight or the point my co-founder Jay made was, nobodys buying an iPad to get a Windows experience. If theyre buying an iPad, the want an iOS experience. So the big challenge for us was, how do you take a Windows app and make it as iOS like as possible.Martin: Like Apple Beautiful.Milind: Exactly. So it was like taking that square peg and try to put it into a round hole, because its an app that was developed for a PC, for a mouse based and  a keyboard. It wasnt developed for a gesture-based experience.That was, I would say the insights that we have, which was its all about the user experience. If we get the right user experience, people will use it. I think that is what we got right. Like when we first did it, we nailed the user experience. When we try to hide as much as Windows or that traditional Microsoft Office experience from users to give them the ability to just work with their documents. Looking back, we did that just perfectly.Martin: Great!BUSINESS MODELMartin: Milind, lets talk about the business model. Is  it still the case that CloudOn only helps people creating, sharing Microsoft Office products on several devices or is there some other point in terms of productivity included?Milind: So for us, the focus is very much around the documents that the users have. Like there are, when we look at the productivity ecosystem in the PC generation, over a billion users are using Microsoft Office. Trillions of artifacts getting created on an annual basis around the world. These are Word files, Excel files, Power Point files. And so for us, it wasnt about lets go create a new different type of experience. It was very much about lets embrace the Office format. Fortun ately for us, the European Union in 2007, forced Microsoft to open the Office format and so its an open published format.Martin: But only for the EU or?Milind: On worldwide basis. So this enabled us to recognize that Office is the gold standard for productivity on the PC. From that standpoint, how do we leverage that format and work with. We dont want to change peoples behavior. This is where I think many companies get it wrong.Users behavior is very difficult to change. So one really needs to embrace that and then extend from there. Were not trying to get users to say, lets go abandon all your Office documents and come learn a new tool that is mobile first.Weve always said, it is important to embrace the legacy world, but to provide a path into the future. So from the business model perspective, we are huge believers that its an end user market. Eventually, the problem that were trying to solve in productivity, its an enterprise use case. But when we think about the enterprise, we say that the enterprise is changing today. End users are deciding  which application to use, how to use it, how to pay for it.For us, we made a conscious decision very early on to follow  a freemium model. The freemium model is based on providing kind of a free service to bulk of our users, if we can get less than 10% to convert into paying users, that would be a really good model.But with the expectation that overtime, and this is a multiyear journey, we would want to cater to teams of users and eventually to the enterprise IT administrative. Because eventually this is an enterprise use case. But as an enterprise use case that is driven by the end user. And weve got lots of inbound request from a lot of large  US  enterprises wanting to have an enterprise version of CloudOn. So far, weve been very end user focus to say, lets build CloudOn, CloudOn Pro, which is much more end user focus, with a clear road map to eventually get to a teams product and eventually an enterprise product. Martin: Great!CORPORATE STRATEGYMartin: Milind, in terms of corporate strategy, as I perceived your business model is highly depended on Microsoft products, because youre building an additional layer on that. How do you respond to question like what happens if Microsoft would be doing something similar?Milind: This has been the question that has been posed consistently during the initial years when we were successful is, eventually Microsoft is going to release Office on iOS or Android and what happens to CloudOn?Weve always assumed that this is going to be the case. We had never assumed that, from our perspective, if you look at the productivity market today, youve got 3 very large, well established companies, Microsoft, Google and Apple who have their own productivity suits. When we look at them, each one of them started off with their roots catering to a PC model. Looking at it very much from a PC mouse-based paradigm, theyve tried to make it mobile, theyve tried to make it gestu re friendly, but its still is a PC experience. Its very much a menu driven experience.If you look at Microsoft Office on the iPad, its done extremely well, extremely well. But its still a familiar experience. And we think about the future, we say that it has to be for everybody to truly create or re-imagine or redefine the future of the document.It has to be a mobile first or even precisely a gesture first experience. The days of menus are over, it should all be based on the fingertip. You shouldnt say, if I want to insert a chart or insert an object, you pick a menu and you go down to a different menu item and pick that. You should be able to draw it with the finger.From our standpoint, weve always felt that the gesture first or mobile experience is the key.Whats the other key aspect which is important is, the ability to be compatible with Office. Office is, as I said earlier, the gold standard in enterprise for productivity. If I look at Google Docs, if I look at iWork from Apple, theyve created their own silos, which is their application, their format, their storage. We approached our strategy by saying, lets embrace the Office format. We will also embrace other formats like the ODF format from the Document Foundation.We will embrace other formats instead of finding our own proprietary format. But really focus on the user experience and then focus on innovating in areas that non of the incumbents have innovated. Which is about how do you truly make it a social document, how do you make it a living document, how do you make it truly workable on an iPhone, or an Android phone with the 4 phone factor. We want to make people as productive on those devices as they are on their PCs. Its a non trivial problem to solve. But we are well on our way to solving it.Martin: What are your thoughts on adding other platforms, as you describe you have 3 major players currently working in this online document market. What keeps you from sticking only with Microsoft Office pro gram, what are the thoughts on entering new markets like Google and iWork?Milind: So for us, what we are doing is, we are embracing the Office format just because theres 1 billion people in the enterprise who are currently using Office. But we are building our own native, all 3 capabilities.From our standpoint, we will integrate the  Google Drive, we will integrate with Microsofts OneDrive, we will integrate with iCloud. We are approaching this more like a  Switzerland  approach, which is we are truly storage agnostic, willing to integrate to Dropbox and Dropbox is a really strong partner of ours, with Box, which is another strong partner. So well integrate with multiple storage providers. We will try to integrate with other silos, and truly create value for the end user.Because today when we talk to our end users, they value us for our open approach, they value us for the fact that they can continue to use  Google Drive  and OneDrive  and Dropbox and Box and not have to be forced. Because if youre on Google Docs, you have to use  Google Drive,  if you are on iWork you have to use iCloud, if youre on Microsoft Office you have to use OneDrive.So we approached it saying, we want to be a truly platform agnostic or a technology agnostic from that standpoint. Similar to what Dropbox did when they built their initial cloud storage. They said, we will embrace Windows, Mac OS, Android and hence theyve been incredibly successful.MARKET DEVELOPMENTMartin: From my point of view, one of the major market trends has been from the PC device based Operating System to a now going to the Cloud. What other trends did you identify in the market?Milind: So clearly mobile is a huge tsunami thats kind of happening which were riding. The consumerization of IT, which is the true, I would say before, and Ive been around the block for all these years, where IT would tell you exactly what to use, what you cant use, they control the device. So if I had a PC from the company, they would te ll me which application could run on it, how it would work. Those days are over to some extent.We call it as the  consumer enterprise, because the enterprise still exist but the end users who are consumers are making their own choice. They are deciding which applications they want. And also the enterprise is no longer confined to the borders of the enterprise. Its  truly a borderless enterprise because I could be collaborating, lets say, I’m a finance person and Im working on a spreadsheet, I could be collaborating with my auditor who is in a different company, Im working with some other services. So its becoming a much more of an open environment and anybody coming new into this, has to be able to embrace that.This is where I believe the incumbents are at the disadvantage.  Old large incumbents are catering to a world that worked 20 years ago, that world has completely changed now. The question is, are they going to be able to adapt or will new comers like Dropbox, CloudOn, Box, others, coming and grab market share.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURSMartin: Milind, you have seen so many things in your formal startups and this startup. What are your major learnings over the years that you can share with other first time entrepreneurs, so they make less errors?Milind: You know, I look back on my career, and I have learned a lot. They have the hard way, I wish I had some guidance earlier on. When we started CloudOn, it was very important to me to really define what was the goal that we were setting out as co-founders. Are we looking to go solve a problem and sell it to the first buyer, are we looking to go change the world? And there’s no right  answer, it very much depends on the entrepreneurs themselves. Theres some people, and Ive seen this, who are looking to make a quick dollar. Theyll start a company with the ability that we want to flip it. They know exactly whos the buyer. Thats great. They know exactly what is their pain point.In our situation, we were much mo re dreamers/thinkers of saying we wanted to go change the world, we want to redefine the future of productivity. So understanding the goal is critical. Because one thing that I have learned is, with how much of a planning, how much of a thinking that one does, the path is not a straight path. It is a path with gazillion of obstacles and will keep on changing on a daily basis. So if you know what the goal is, you can walk towards that goal. Thats important.I would say for any kind of first time entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship is a team sport. Its not an individual sport. People might look at individuals and say, typically theres always the face of the company but behind that face, there is a team. The team, whether its a team of co-founders, or the initial team of people that you built, is the most important. Because again, given its not a straight path, you need the versatility, you need the ability to zig-zag depending on the obstacles you come across. Having the right team that ha s the right risk profile, that’s not going to get afraid if the first obstacle comes up, that has the right dedication. Its the most difficult sport, or the most difficult work you are ever going to do, but its also the most fun.So its not for everybody. Like I sit here in the Valley and I see that because for every one successful company  sprung   hundred would be entrepreneurs and then they all realize its really difficult  to get a distribution.I always say that, if entrepreneurship is easy, you find a lot more success. Its extremely challenging and so I would say that having the right team, because this is not a sprint. Im sure youve heard this before. Its a marathon, so having the right team that can help base, that can help create the right energy, is by far the most important.Its not about the idea, and I hate saying this to people. We have zigged and zagged as a company before. You hear about these companies like Facebook, and other companies, theyve started off with one i dea and then they morphed into another idea.Whats important beyond the team I would say is, playing in the big market. For example, we are playing in the market of productivity. Productivity is a hundred billion dollar opportunity. We may not get it right the first time. But its a big enough market that if we keep on digging, we will find gold or we find kind of, we solve that problem that we are trying to solve.So, if you end up picking a very niche area, it becomes difficult to change direction because youre tied down. All depends on what the goal is. So our goal was, we wanted to change the world, we wanted to have huge impacts, so we picked a bigger market to play.And then finally, and this maybe goes to the earlier team aspect, theres a certain aspect of perseverance. All the grey hairs out here are tied to perseverance, because there are more people who will say its not possible, there are more people who will be  doubters, who will be naysayers of why something cannot be done .  You look at any example of all the successful companies that are out there today, they all face their obstacles, they all face their people who doubted that they would ever be successful, but they persevere and they eventually became successful.So thats why I say, I would come back to summarize this to say, the key is having the right team, playing in the right space thats big enough where one can change, and then just having the stamina and the perseverance.  Do not give up, its the best job that if you got the stomach for it, its absolutely the best job in the planet, but it not the easiest, its not for everybody. I would encourage you live once, you might as well may have the biggest impact you can have with your life.Martin: I think this is a very good summary and closing. Thank you very much Milind, for your time.

Raising The Cost Of Tuition On Students - 3305 Words

In today’s society getting a degree from a university is the best thing a person can do for their future. The problem with getting a degree is where you go and how much that will cost you. Universities have been guiltily of raising the cost of tuition on students. In this processor the school is gaining more money, but only a few are benefiting from this and the students aren’t one of them. The other problem with the money is that corporations are allowed to donate money to universities. While that may not seems like a major problem, it is. Corporations are in control of what their money goes to in the sense of what research will be done and what programs will be taught with the money. On the thought of a company donating to a specific part of education would seem like a good idea, but the problem comes from the other areas not receiving money that would help a program grow or have the proper equipment. When a program isn’t getting funding it can collapse and no longer be available at the university. If a program isn’t being offered at a university students are missing an opportunity that they should of had. Of course this is a problem of what ifs and maybe it collapsed because no one was interested in that particular part, but that doesn’t take away the fact it wasn’t because of the students not being interested it just simply wasn’t there. Another problem with the universities turning into corporations is just like a corporation schools want to be on a global scale.Show MoreRelatedCollege Tuition Cost On A Rise Essay1254 Words   |  6 PagesCollege Tuition Cost on a Rise The rising cost of education in Texas colleges started in 2003 when the deregulation was lifted. Then, soon after, the Texas State legislature cut the education budget because of a drop in the economy in 2008. 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The Russian Revolution Of Russia - 3311 Words

Russia entered the twentieth century with deplorable living conditions. The citizens of Russia were poor, famished and overburdened. Eventually, the Russian Revolution of 1917 occurred which sparked a significant change and it was a defining moment for Russia. Many instances preceded the Revolution which ultimately led to revolt such as World War I, the poverty of the Russian population and the inefficient government. Primarily, Russians faced the burden of financial hardship resulting from the aftermath of war. Economic issues continued to escalate due to the loss of sections of Russia’s land. In addition, there was much disapproval towards the government. Tsar Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia, was an autocrat of poor leadership†¦show more content†¦The question remains: Was the Russian Revolution of 1917 inevitable or something enforced upon the state during a period of desperation and frailty? To begin, historian Moshe Lewin s position regarding the debate on the inevitability of the Russian Revolution offers an emphasis on the major advancements for Russia in the twentieth century. Moreover, Lewin presents a detailed examination about the transformation of Russia and its people. Lewin, born in Poland and formerly served in the Russian military during the Second World War, is currently a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Lewin s Russia – USSR – Russia: The Drive and Drift of a Superstate consists of elaborate chapters with a chronological analysis of major events in Russian history, specifically the Revolution of 1917. Lewin provides further analysis into the aspects of politics, economics, society, and civilization prior to and during the Revolution which forms a conclusion about whether or not the Revolution was destined. In Russia – USSR – Russia: The Drive and Drift of a Superstate, Lewin states that the conflict in Russia near the beginning of the twentieth century came into being by the collapse of tsarism as well as the downfall of constitutional democracy. At this point, the

Sainsbury Operations Free Essays

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report provides a view on operations of SAINSBURY’S , the third largest supermarket chain across United Kingdom. SAINSBURY’S , in spite of being the longest standing retail chain has been facing stiff competition from rivals like TESCO , MORRISONS. The competitors seemed to have developed at a faster pace since SAINSBURY’S has been through a difficult time in recent years and TESCO is now twice the size in terms of turnover. We will write a custom essay sample on Sainsbury Operations or any similar topic only for you Order Now Matter of analysis in terms of SAINSBURY’s supermarket is the operational strategies that have been implemented to cope up given the current downturn. The operations management concepts incorporated in SAINSBURY’s operational routine can play a vital role to achieve its main performance objectives like customer satisfaction, fast operations , achieving flexibility for the customers needs and retaining loyal customers. There is also a scope for SAINSBURY’S to meet its target growth and regain its position if it is ready to make a few changes in its operations in terms of a better inventory management , Robust technological advancements and creating a better customer base. The report discusses the various successful implementations and certain flaws that can be wiped in order to attain smoother operations at SAINSBURY’ OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT INTRODUCTION: An operation is a process transforming a set of resources into services and goods. The input resources may be raw materials, information, or even the customer. These resources are transformed into final goods or services by facilities and staff of the operation( Fig 1). Operations Management is very important in business operations since it forms the heart of the organisation by controlling the system of operation. Operations management plays a vital role because any operation requires a combination of merchandising, logistics, coordination and cost control skills to move products from production facilities to the consumer(2). [pic] Fig1 Input output transformation model for operations. [pic] Sainsbury’s Supermarkets is the UK’s longest standing and third largest major food retailing chain, having opened its first store in 1869. The Sainsbury’s brand is built upon a heritage of providing customers with healthy, safe, fresh and tasty food. The stores serve over 18 million customers a week and offer around 30,000 products, having a market share of around 16 per cent(3). An internet-based home delivery shopping service is also available to 88 per cent of UK households. PROCESS LAYOUT: Fig. 2 Layout design of Sainsbury’s The supermarket is positioned as a process layout. Wherein the physical components are arranged or grouped according to the general function they perform (Fig. 2). It operates in a manner that is designed to move the customer through the store until they end up at the cash register. First thing that a customer encounters is the customer services in case of any initial enquiries by the customers. Along the first aisle are aligned the fresh food items for everyday requirements. The dry goods and breads are placed in the middle aisles. The frozen food section is placed near the checkouts to keep them from defrosting while the shopper is moving around the aisles. What makes the layout of the store so coherent is the fact that essentials are lined along the walls and corners and items that are appealing right in the eyesight. PROCESS FLOW OF THE OPERATION: [pic] Fig. 3 Process flow of Sainsbury’s operations. Sainsbury’s process flow illuminates various stages between stocking and delivering the product that a customer chooses to buy from the supermarket (Fig. 3). Initially the inventory stores the goods and materials that are held available in stock for the business. To manage the stock there is an effective solution in place named â€Å"Wesupply† which has been implemented at Sainsbury by IBM (5) . It allows monitoring the status of orders all across the Sainsbury’s network. It regulates the item supply at the shelves, and helps delivery system coordinate with the inventory replenishment. The manager regulates and changes the item price according to the demand . The customer has access to the price rates and various schemes and offers, this is the display stage, once the products are chosen the billing takes place at the cashier, leading to the packaging stage where the customer is handed over the product which was formerly stocked at the inventory. IMPORTANCE OF PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE TO THE OPERATION: THE QUALITY OBJECTIVE: Sainsbury’s customers give most credit to the company’s passion for healthy, safe, fresh and tasty food . Despite the present economic conditions the company stands by its quality related objectives. Good food at fair prices, providing a satisfying shopping experience, spreading and reaching out to customers by opening new stores at various locations. Hygiene anh heath and safety issues given utmost importance . THE SPEED OBJECTIVE: Sainsbury’s tries best to synchronize supply with demands. Goods are made immediately available to the customers. According to the industry speed checks a customer spends an average of eight minutes, from joining a queue to receiving the receipt. Sainsbury’s is recruiting an extra and of 10,000 all across the chains to cut down the checkout queues. The extra staff will mainly be the part-time positions (6). THE DEPENDABILITY OBJECTIVE: Specifying the supermarket timings , providing product related information and schemes in form of shelf toppers , discounts , posters ,makes the supermarket a reliable place to visit every time . There is a constant availability of parking ,and special slots are reserved for the disabled and ‘parent and child’ parking at all times . Making shopping at the supermarket a hassle free experience. THE FLEXIBILITY OBJECTIVE: Sainsbury’s creates brand ranges for various needs, inclusion of healthier and value dishes in addition to the irresistible and authentic dishes, incorporating organic ranges of food if one suffers from allergies and health related issues, defines the level of flexibility Sainsbury caters to for its customers. Extra tills are opened at peak hours and more staff is recruited to adjust to the number of customers that are served at Sainsbury’s. THE COST OBJECTIVE: The cost at the supermarket is incurred at maintaining the inventory, implementing various technologies and facility cost, staff cost. The facility cost can be reduced by getting rid of the aging equipment, and using renewable forms of energy. Sainsbury’s initiative to switch to Enercon E40 KW ( wind turbine) has lead to enormous cost saving. VOLUME VARIETY VARIATION AND VISIBILITY CHARACTERISTICS OF SAINSBURY’S: Volume and variety: A relationship between volume and variety are as shown: the general position of operations is along the diagonal, when the volume is high, variety is high and vice versa. [pic] Supermarkets offer a high variety of products and yet sell in high volume.. But in this case, the process is standardized for all the customers . All the customers receive similar kind of services, the process is not customised or tailored keeping each individuals needs in mind. Therefore, considering a supermarket process, the variety would still be considered low and the rule still stands. Hence in a supermarket scenario there are high levels of capital investments, systemizations, routinized workflow which leads to low unit costs. Variations: Sainsbury is in the high levels of demand variation and has changing capacity . The company has to stay in touch with the variations in customer demand constantly which would lead to high unit cost. With various sections at the supermarket ranging from electronics to household items the stacks have to be replenished on the regular bases. Visibility: A new solution named â€Å"Wesupply† has been implemented at Sainsbury by IBM which allows monitoring the status of orders all across the Sainsbury’s network, this leads to visibility within operations which amplifies stock availability for the customers. The supermarket uses various communication tools like discount vouchers, shelf toppers, posters at the entrance and various displays in the aisles to equip the customer with information on product availability and offers. A supermarket website displaying the product promo sections is also available. (11). INFERRED OPERATIONS STRATEGY OF THE ORGANISATION: The supermarket aims to meet the â€Å"Making Sainsbury great again â€Å"target, which would involve generating sales growth of ? 2. 5 billion putting it in a strong position during the latter months of the year(7). The supermarket wants to concentrate on sales-led recovery that makes availability of items its top priority. Introduction of 250 new ranges of products and retaining emphasis on healthier food in the new range â€Å"Taste the Difference† advertised by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has been paying off for the supermarkets growth. With the re-launch of non-food items Sainsbury’s offers to drive sales momentum (3). Sainsbury’s another operational strategy pertaining to its employees is to move the HR function to a more centralised, paperless system. It would be a gradual process to turn off the current labour intensive system. The new software system will free up personnel managers from their admin duties to focus more time on training and coaching staff and managers(10). SUGGESTIONS: SAINSBURY’S uses â€Å"Wesupply† solutions to monitor the status of orders across its entire network and manage the availability of products. This improves the visibility of supply chain performance of the supermarket(5) , but in recent times a new solution named Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is used for the further improvement of inventory accuracy (8). It allows a far more scope of cost cutting and flexibility via wireless mobility. Retail chains like ASDA, TESCO, MARKS n SPENCERS have already incorporated this system into their operations. CONCLUSION: Behind the largest companies to the minor stores, there needs to be a system that makes it run. Sainsbury’s being the third largest retail chain organisation too dwells on the operations management concepts to be able to manage all the goods and services that they distribute at a global level. The various performance objectives that are important to an organisation like maintaining speed in operations, bringing flexibility to the customers, maintaining the dependability from customers perspective, saving operational cost and enhancing profitability become realizable when operations management focuses on subtle routines and activities of the various processes. Seeing 1. 3 billion additional sales and a wide focus on quality values (Introduction of â€Å"Try something new today â€Å") which was branded incredibly successful and encouraged people to adapt better eating habits proves that Sainsbury is well on the path of achieving the target â€Å"Making Sainsbury’s great again† (9). REFERENCES [pic]1) Danny Samson and Mile Terziovski (1999), The relationship between total quality Management Practices and operational performance, Journal of Operations Management, Volume 17 Issue 4: 393-409. Department of [pic]Management,[pic] University of Melbourne, Australia b Department of Business [pic]Management,[pic] Monash University, Australia Received 11 September 1997; accepted 8 July 1998. Available online 10 May 1999. Abstract Total quality [pic]management[pic] (TQM) has been a widely applied process for improving competitiveness around the world, but with mixed success. A review of the literature revealed gaps in research in this area of quality/operations [pic]management,[pic] particularly in the area of empirical testing of the effectiveness of TQM implementation. The aim of this study was to examine the total quality [pic]management[pic] practices and [pic]operational[pic] performance of a large number of manufacturing companies in order to determine the relationships between these practices, individually and collectively, and firm performance. We used a large data base of 1200 Australian and New Zealand manufacturing organisations. The reliability and validity (construct, content, criterion) of the practice and performance measures were evaluated. Our study showed that the relationship between TQM practice and organisational performance is significant in a cross-sectional sense, in that TQM practice intensity explains a significant proportion of variance in performance. Some but not all of the categories of TQM practice were particularly strong predictors of performance. The categories of leadership, [pic]management[pic] of people and customer focus were the strongest significant predictors of [pic]operational[pic] performance. This is consistent with literature findings that behavioural factors such as executive commitment, employee empowerment and an open culture can produce competitive advantage more strongly than TQM tools and techniques such as process improvement, benchmarking, and information and analysis. Author Keywords: Quality; Operations [pic]management[pic]; Performance; Human resource/OM interface; Empirical research Article Outline A. Introduction 2. Literature review and research problem background 2. 1. Purpose of the literature review 2. 2. The development of TQM 3. Theoretical framework and research hypotheses 3. 1. TQM elements 3. 1. 1. Leadership 3. 1. 2. People management 3. 1. 3. Customer focus 3. 1. 4. Strategic planning 3. 1. 5. Information and analysis 3. 1. 6. Process management 3. 1. 7. Performance 3. 2. Research hypotheses 3. 2. 1. Hypothesis H1 3. 2. 2. Hypothesis H2 4. Methodology 4. 1. Background 4. 2. Sample 4. 3. Survey instrument 4. 4. Data preparation 4. 4. 1. Selection of questions 4. 4. 2. Screening of outliers 4. 4. 3. Treatment of incomplete responses 4. . Analysis procedures 5. Results 6. Discussion of results and findings 6. 1. Tests of hypothesis H1 6. 1. 1. Validity 6. 1. 1. 1. Content validity 6. 1. 1. 2. Construct validity 6. 1. 1. 3. Criterion validity 6. 1. 2. Reliability 6. 2. Test for hypothesis H2 6. 3. Findings 7. Conclusions, limitations and further research Appendix A. 1. Survey questions A. 1. 1. Leadership A. 1. 2. People management A. 1. 3. Customer focus A. 1. 4. Planning A. 1. 5. Process management A. 1. 6. Information and analysis A. 1. 7. Organisational performance References 2) Rodolfo Vazquez , Ignacio A. Rodriguez-Del Bosque, Ana Ma Diaz and Agustin V. Ruiz (2001), Service quality in supermarket retailing: identifying critical service experiences, Journal of retailing and customer services, Volume 8 Issue 1: 1-14. 3) http://www. sainsburys. co. uk 4) http://www. j- sainsbury. co. uk/index. asp? PageID=424==2000=130 5) http://www. wesupply. com/news/articles/news_090409 6) http://www. thisislondon. co. uk/news/article-4216114-sainsburys-10000-queue-cutters. do 7) http://www. kessays. com/essays/accounting/sainsburys-plc. php 8) http://fplreflib. findlay. co. uk/articles/4563/RFID%20barcodes. pdf 9. http://www. independent. co. uk/news/business/news/123-profit-rise-makes-sainsburys- great-again-424381. html 10). http://www. personneltoday. com/articles/2007/08/07/41820/jobs-in-firing-line-as-sainsburys-plans-to-centralise-its-hr. html 11) Chambers, S. , Slack, N. , Johnston, R. , Betts, A. (2009). Operations And Process Management: Principles and Practices for Strategic Impact. Prentice Hall. [pic] How to cite Sainsbury Operations, Papers

The History and Development of Calculus free essay sample

A study of the origins of mathematics and the growth of calculus. This paper presents a detailed examination of the history of calculus. The writer takes the reader on an exploratory path through the origins of mathematics and then on to the history of calculus. The people who are credited with its invention as well as the forms that it took are all included in the discussion. The history of mathematics is one in which the topic follows the actual subject. Mathematics are taught by building on foundational blocks. Each block is taught and mastered and when that is completed the next block is introduced. The origin and history of mathematics follows the same path. The history of calculus is perhaps the most interesting of the mathematical techniques. The history and origin of calculus is founded in philosophy as well as science and it is one of the most fascinating of the mathematical theories and practices. We will write a custom essay sample on The History and Development of Calculus or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page

Apollo 4 - NASAs First All Up Test

Apollo 4 - NASA's First All Up Test On January 27, 1967, tragedy struck on the launch pad during a preflight test for Apollo 1 (also called AS-204), which was scheduled to be the first Apollo manned mission, and would have been launched on February 21, 1967. Astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee lost their lives when a fire swept through the Command Module (CM). The accident was the first major mishap in NASAs short history, and it shocked the nation.   Moving Beyond Tragedy NASA made an exhaustive investigation of the fire (as it does with all space mishaps), which resulted in extensive reworking of the CMs. The agency postponed manned launches until officials cleared the new capsule design for use by human crews. In addition, Saturn 1B schedules were suspended for nearly a year, and the launch vehicle that finally bore the designation AS-204 carried a Lunar Module (LM) as the payload, not the Apollo CM. The missions of AS-201 and AS-202 with Apollo spacecraft aboard had been unofficially known as Apollo 1 and Apollo 2 missions (AS-203 carried only the aerodynamic nose cone). In the spring of 1967, NASAs Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, Dr. George E. Mueller, announced that the mission originally scheduled for Grissom, White and Chaffee would be known as Apollo 1, as a way to honor the three astronauts. The first Saturn V launch, scheduled for November 1967, would be known as Apollo 4. No missions or flights were ever designated as Apoll o 2 and Apollo 3.    The delays caused by the fire were bad enough, but NASA also faced budgetary cutbacks as it raced to reach the Moon before the end of the decade. Since the U.S. was in a race to get to the Moon before the Soviets could get there, NASA had no choice to but move ahead with the assets it had. The agency did further tests on the rockets, and eventually scheduled the Apollo 4 mission for an unmanned flight.  It was referred to as  all-up testing. Resuming Space Flight After the complete retooling of the capsule, the mission planners for Apollo 4 had four major goals: Demonstrate structural and thermal integrity and compatibility of launch vehicle and spacecraft; confirm launch loads and dynamic characteristics.Verify operation of command module heatshield (adequacy of Block II design for reentry at lunar return conditions), service propulsion system (SPS; including no ullage start), and selective subsystems.Evaluate performance of emergency detection system in open-loop configuration.Demonstrate mission support facilities and operations needed for launch, mission conduct, and CM recovery. After extensive testing, re-resting, and training,  Apollo 4 launched successfully on November 9, 1967 at 07:00:01 a.m. EST from Launch Complex 39-A at  Cape Canaveral FL. There were no delays in the preflight preparations and with the weather cooperating, there were no delays during countdown. During the third orbit and after SPS engine burn, the spacecraft coasted to a simulated translunar trajectory, reaching an altitude of 18,079 kilometers. The launch marked the initial flight testing of the S-IC and S-II stages. The first stage, S-IC, performed accurately with the center F-1 engine cutting off at 135.5 seconds and the outboard engines cutting off at LOX (liquid oxygen) depletion at 150.8 seconds when the vehicle was traveling at 9660 km/h at an altitude of 61.6 km. Stage separation occurred only 1.2 seconds off the predicted time. Cutoff of the S-II occurred at 519.8 seconds. It was a triumphant, if subdued return to space flight, and moved NASAs goals to reach the Moon farther forward. The spacecraft performance went well, and on the ground, people heaved a huge sigh of relief.   A Pacific Ocean landing occurred on November 9, 1967, 03:37 p.m. EST, just eight hours and thirty-seven minutes and fifty-nine seconds after takeoff. The Apollo 4 Spacecraft 017 splashed down, missing its planned impact point by only 16 kilometers. The Apollo 4 mission was a success, all  objectives were achieved. With the success of this first all up test, the Apollo program resumed manned missions and moving toward the eventual 1969 target for the first human landing on the Moon during the  Apollo 11 mission.  After the loss of the Apollo 1 crew, the Apollo 4 mission benefitted from many tough (and tragic) lessons learned. Edited and updated by Carolyn Collins Petersen.

Free Online TOEFL Study Guides

Free Online TOEFL Study Guides Taking the TOEFL is a necessary step for any student not educated in the United States who wishes to study at a North American university. It is also increasingly required from other educational institutions throughout the world as well as a desired or mandatory job qualification. While it is true that the TOEFL is an extremely difficult test there are a number of resources to help students prepare for the test. Luckily the Internet has an ever-expanding treasure trove of study materials. Most of these areas require registration and payment however a number of the sites do offer some free services. If you are interested in taking the TOEFL it will probably be necessary to purchase some of these services. This guide shows you a number of the free services available on the Internet. By using this feature you can get an excellent head-start on your studies without paying a dime. What Is the TOEFL? Before beginning to study for the TOEFL it is a good idea to understand the philosophy and purpose behind this standardized test. Here is an excellent detailed description of the Internet-based test. What Can I Expect From TOEFL? There are a number of resources available to help you discover exactly what grammar listening and reading skills will be expected on the TOEFL. One of the most thorough of these resources is Testwise.Com  which explains each type of question in terms of the grammar or skill required to answer that type of question successfully. Now that you have a good idea of what the test is, what is to be expected, AND what strategies are needed you can begin to practice taking various sections of the test. To help you do just that (for FREE) follow the following links to these  practice tests  and exercises: TOEFL Grammar / StructurePractice TOEFL tests grammar through whats known as the structure sentence. This section includes multiple choice questions which test your understanding of how to put together a sentence.   TOEFL Grammar Practice 1 TOEFL Grammar Practice 2 Exam English Structure Tests Structure Practice Tests  from TestMagic Five Sets of Practice Questions for Section II  at Free ESL.com by Chris Yukna  Practice Section II TOEFL Vocabulary Practice The vocabulary section focuses on understanding synonyms and antonyms, as well as the ability to use a word in the right context.   TOEFL Vocabulary Practice 400 Must Have Words for TOEFL   TOEFL Reading Practice The reading section asks you to read fairly long sections of text that might be found in a textbook or scholarly article. Comprehension of the relationships between ideas and sequencing events is key in this section.   Reading practice tests  from TestMagic by  Chris Yukna  Practice Section II: Boston   Practice: Fuels TOEFL  based on an article in Wired Magazine by Chris Yukna. TOEFL Listening Practice TOEFL listening selections are often based on lectures in a university setting. As in reading, its important to practice listening long selections (3 - 5) minutes of university lectures or similar listening setting.   Exam English Listening Practice Tests How Do I Approach the TOEFL? One of the most important skills to acquire before taking the test is not a language skill. It is TOEFL test taking strategy. To get up to speed on test taking, this  guide to taking tests  can help you understand  general test taking preparation. The TOEFL, like all standardized American tests, has a very particular structure and typical traps for you to fall into. By understanding these traps and structures you can go a long way to improving your score. The writing section of the TOEFL requires that you write an essay based on a set topic. Testmagic.com has a wonderful  selection of sample essays  discussing common mistakes and giving examples of essays with various scores to show you the range expected on the essay. Practicing the TOEFL Obviously, you will need to do a lot more studying (and probably invest a good bit of money) to do well on the TOEFL. But hopefully, this guide to free TOEFL resources will help you begin to understand what to expect when taking the TOEFL.

Marketing Planning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Marketing Planning - Essay Example ............................................ 3.0 How are we going to get there?.................................................................................. 4.0 Implementation........................................................................................................... 5.0 Ethical issues............................................................................................................... 6.0 Possible problems........................................................................................................ References Appendix Marketing Plan: Sainsbury’s 1.0 Introduction J Sainsbury Plc is a supermarket chain in the United Kingdom currently maintaining a 15 percent market share (Thompson 2010). Sainsbury competes with major supermarkets such as Tesco, Morrison’s and Asda. Tesco, the company’s main competitor holding 28 percent of market share in the UK for this industry, has maintained its leadership position through innovation in p roduct and service delivery as well as global brand loyalty. Sainsbury offers traditional products in the food category and has recently diversified to include clothing styles that are exclusive to the supermarket. Sainsbury is recognised not only for its high quality products, but for its emphasis on corporate social responsibility which provides the company with a positive brand reputation. However, Sainsbury’s is unable to outperform its main competition, which is attributable to lack of effective promotion. This marketing plan focuses on building revenues through marketing of the company’s new clothing line, branded under the name Tu. The Tu line targets young adult female consumers, providing lightweight and contemporary clothing with a fashion-forward design and motif. The company had, until recently, believed that the Tu line was a â€Å"stand alone brand† (Sainsbury 2011, p.3). However, the Tu clothing line cannot support revenue growth for the supermark et chain without creating a brand personality and developing a more effective promotional campaign. 2.0 The marketing plan This section highlights the rebranding strategy necessary to achieve brand recognition and brand preference in the young female target market and relevant audits of the current situation faced by the Tu clothing line. 2.1 Current situation Currently, the Tu clothing line provides Sainsbury with ?680 million in sales revenues (Reid 2013). This is insignificant considering the costs of distribution, manufacture and importation of materials utilised for production. Sainsbury is attempting to compete with such companies as Marks & Spencer and Zara which produce similar fashion merchandise under a fast fashion model. These competing organisations have well-established brands and consumer loyalty for providing relevant and modern fashion styles, making it difficult for the company to lure consumers to the Tu brand. Additionally, the Tu brand boasts 60 percent of its c urrent sales volumes stemming from impulse shoppers, meaning that consumers are not actively seeking to shop for clothing at Sainsbury’s market, instead purchasing whilst shopping in the supermarket for food products. Sainsbury’s corporate leadership recognises this shortcoming and points out that consumers have â€Å"tight budgets† and the business must â€Å"create outfits that catch attention† (The Guardian 2012, p.2). Sainsbury is also redeveloping the in-store experience to enhance the clothing shopping experience, adding fitting rooms and floor models that emulate the fashion floors of

The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal - Essay Example The author made references to similar instances which apparently happened and documented through the experiment conducted by Philip G. Zimbardo, a psychology professor at Stanford University. Likewise, the reasons for the change in behavior were likewise supported through another set of experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram, which were discussed extensively in the article entitled â€Å"Perils of Obedience† published in Harper’s in 1973. Using these resources, the current discourse hereby asserts that the behavior of the American guards could be explained from the findings of experiments espoused by Zimbardo and Milgram. Analysis of the Situation To enable one to effectively respond to the question, there is a need to establish an examination of the situation that led these American soldiers to act viciously. As noted by Szegedy-Maszak (2004), â€Å"while many theories have been advanced about the forces that tragically came together at Abu Ghraib--inadequate traini ng, overzealous intelligence gathering, failure of leadership--none can adequately account for the hardening of heart necessary for such sadism† (p. 174). The article written by Jehl and Schmitt (2004) and published in The New York Times provided a more vivid scenario that presented conditions that set the stage for the apparent sadistic behavior. According to the authors, the members of the military police battalion who were sent to Iraq to serve as prison guards were untrained, unprepared, and completely inexperienced in this particular endeavor. Likewise, the Abu Ghraib prison was described as to detain as much as 7,000 prisoners, from an initial capacity of 2,000; which contributed to increasingly chaotic conditions, difficulties in overseeing, and effecively controlling security conditions. It was revealed that â€Å"in Abu Ghraib the soldiers suddenly found themselves under attack virtually every night from insurgents outside the prison† (Jehl & Schmitt: A trouble d unit, 2004, par. 19). The threat was reported to necessitate the infusion of military intelligence officers. These officers were noted to be the ultimate source of abuse. Factors that Explain the Behavior of American Guards In Zimbardo’s experiments, it was explicitly noted that abuses and atrocities actually ensued from the very power that was accorded to the students, enacting the security guards’ roles. As emphasized, from initially starting as ensuring that â€Å"they must maintain ‘law and order’ in this prison, that they were responsible for handling any trouble that might break out, and they were cautioned about the seriousness and potential dangers of the situation they were about to enter† (Zimbardo, 1973, p. 41), the presence of the following factors were actually evident and similar to the Abu Ghraib prison: (1) power to maintain law and order; (2) imminent threats from prisoners or from external sources of chaos that could endanger the ir lives; (3) the apparent need to conform to the norms of society in terms of responding to the social pressures of the prison environment; and, likewise, (4) the natural response for the application of forms of sadism, to purportedly control prisoners or make them submit to the orders given, with or without justifiable rationales. Using the experiment conducted by Milgram (1973), one could evaluate that the power of obedience was expected to have been ingrained in every individual’s being; and thereby, prison guards who are expected to be followed with regards to orders being directed to prisoners, resort to the authority and powers vested in them, to inflict whatever action is deemed necessary to enable their subjects to react and respond, as directed. As

Young Americans Must Vote! Essay -- Politics Political Argumentative

Young Americans Must Vote! Why vote? This is a major question among many young Americans today. America's youth, does not take the time to read articles, observe the news, or pay attention to presidential debates and campaigns due to their busy schedules. This creates two problems. First, young voters have little knowledge of current issues in the election. Also as a result, they are unaware of the importance of voting. Each presidential election stirs up an old controversy of whether to vote or not to vote. There are many young people who think that voting is not important; I believe that it is. By voting you are exercising your right as an American to voice your opinion, and young Americans need to become aware of this. One of the many young adults that is against voting in this year’s presidential election is Robert Klassen. Robert Klassen in a member of the League of Non-Voters, which is an organization that â€Å"is the focal point for the idea that political government doesn’t work and, contrary to conventional wisdom, democracy may be the worst form of it of all" (http://www.non-voters.org/). In his essay titled â€Å"Don’t Vote!,† Klassen makes arguments of why people should not vote in this year’s election. Klassen feels as if our government is criminal, the majority rule is unfair, the president is a tyrant, and we do not have freedom. This however is a tragedy, since democracy and our freedom to vote is part of what defines our country. Although I do not agree with Klassen on many of his claims I do agree with him when he states, â€Å"Americans have always been busy people preoccupied with their own lives and they pay remarkably little attention to what our full-time political government is really doing.† Thi... ... position of senator by one vote. Also in the 1960 presidential election, one additional voter per precinct in Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey and Texas would have elected Richard M. Nixon instead of John F. Kennedy as president (http://www.insuredemocracy.com/vote.htm). When you register to vote, the government collects these statistics on what age groups are registered to vote. If they see that a large majority of potential votes come from young people, then politicians are more inclined to focus on what is important to young people. All you need to do is take a little time to educate yourself about the election. For more information on voting and registering to vote, go to www.rockthevote.com or www.declareyourself.com. As young Americans we need to come together and have a say in what happens to the future of our country. Get educated, get involved, and VOTE !!!

Cedar Fair Entertainment Company Essay

Fun Spot Amusement Park & Zoo was a family amusement park located in Angola, Indiana, USA. Although it was small in comparison to parks in neighboring states, such as Cedar Point and Michigan’s Adventure, it remained one of the most popular parks in the region. It also once boasted the only operating roller coaster (Afterburner) with an inversion in the state of Indiana Fun Spot boasts that it is one of only a few amusement centers in the nation that offers multi-level cement go-cart tracks – four separate tracks. In addition to go-carts, there are bumper cars, bumper boats, a number of other thrill rides and the children’s section known as Kid Spot. The Kid Spot section includes a small carrousel; the Frog Hopper, a ride that drops its riders in small increments and then bounces back up; a kiddie’s swing; a kiddies train and other rides. Fun-Spot Fun Park began as a small amusement park in 1985, with nothing more than a merry-go-round, a slide, pony rides, and an ice cream stand, Fun-Spot grew into a popular family attraction with 20 rides, a restaurant, and an outdoor performing arts theater. â€Å"My wife, Gail, and I didn’t know what we were getting into,† commented Ron Hart, the owner. â€Å"We just knew that weekenders coming to the lakes in our rural area represented an untapped market. † Today, thousands of visitors flock to Fun-Spot—families, children of all ages, even senior citizens who enjoy strolling through the gardens and arbor At Fun Spot, elementary school age children, teenagers and parents, will find plenty of fun and thrills at this mini-amusement park that packs a lot of excitement into a very small area.. â€Å"There’s something here for everyone,† Gail Hart says. â€Å"Dozens of companies hold annual company picnics here. We have welcomed class field trips. And we even had one wedding here at the park! † â€Å"Here’s the funny thing,† Ron chime in. â€Å"We really don’t know why we’ve been so successful! There is nothing else like Fun-Spot Fun Park in the area. We were just lucky. † â€Å"I think it’s the ambience of the park,† Gail added, â€Å"that has brought so many visitors. We provide a ‘total package’ of entertainment. Plus, we try to change our rides and various attractions from time to time. † Ron and Gail Hart admitted that making every visitor happy is a priority. â€Å"That has always been our philosophy,† they said. â€Å"And we’ve always been able to deliver on that because we’ve never allowed ourselves to grow too big too quickly. †

A Child s Development On The Early Childhood Classroom Essay

It is clear that play is an intricate part of a child’s development. Nearly every milestone a child accomplishes between the ages of 6 months to 5 years of age, play is how the interpret what they see and hear, and incorporate everyday adult activities in to imaginative play, to mold and shape the characters of their personalities. Like Vygotsky theory, â€Å"Children are practicing what they have learned in other settings or are constructing new knowledge, it is clear that play has a valuable role in the early childhood classroom.† Olivia turned four years old, on September 29, 2012. She is a very intelligent and precocious child, who does want to be the center of attention, but also knows when she has done something wrong. She is not an only child. She has a brother, Kevin, but it she was unclear in when asked if she had siblings. When asked if she had any brothers or sisters, she said, â€Å"Yes, but they are my cousins.† It was not until Ms. Liz, the teacher, who overheard my asking Oliva if she had siblings, chime in and say, â€Å"You have a brother Olivia, what about Kevin?† â€Å"Oh, yeah I have Kevin as a brother,† Olivia replied. She gave me the impression that because I was not asking about her, she was not interested in talking about her brother. Olivia said that she lives with her Mommy and Daddy, and that she always sees her Aunts and cousins. This led me to believe that her family is close, and involved with one another. Olivia is a very attention-seeking child, and likes to b eShow MoreRelatedAn Early Childhood Educator Can Reconstruct The Life Of A Child1708 Words   |  7 Pagesbecoming an Early Childhood Educator can reconstruct the life of a child (Rawlings 127). Early Childhood Education is a profession that works with children from birth up to eight years of age (Garvis and Pendergast 104). 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Early childhood Education offers the young child learning experiences that benefit them throughout their educational career. They soon embark on a whole new world of learning. These children are not only experiencing standard brain growth, but verbal and physical skills as well. Early childhoodRead MoreThe Importance Of A Safe And Healthy Learning Environment1623 Words   |  7 PagesEarly childhood has been on a high due to new research that has proved its effect on education of a child. The goals of Early Childhood programs are to provide programs to children and their parents that support the children in learning, daily routine practice, health needs including wellness, and to strengthen the gap between home and school. All of these goals are beneficial to the student as an individual learner. 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