Zoo Paper Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Zoo Paper Analysis - Essay Example I think that you should have expounded it more instead of jumping right away to your thesis. As suggested in the Argument Lecture, the thesis sentence should not be placed in the beginning of the essay; instead a good argument should come at the end of the sentence. In your paper, you immediately stated your thesis statement at the second paragraph stating, â€Å"It is morally wrong to keep wild animals in captivity†. In fact, you already hinted at it already at the first paragraph when you said, â€Å"No amount of replication, no matter how convincing, is enough to make up for denying these creatures their freedom.† You also expressed, â€Å"The argument is simple: The fact that we are stronger or smarter than animals does not give us the right to ambush and exploit them solely for the purposes of our own entertainment.† Since your audience is adversarial, it is not right for you to impose your belief to them at the start of your essay. You should have establish ed your points of argument first before stating your thesis statement. You failed to take note of the point in the Argument Lecture which said that in a great argument, the thesis is never explicitly stated. A positive point of your paper is that you were able to use cause and affect language in your essay. An example of this is when you said that â€Å"most animals in captivity cannot go back in the wild†. The cause here is the captivity which resulted to an effect of not being able to go back in the wild. Another cause and effect statement which you presented is that because of inbreeding in zoos, the offspring is often weakened. Your essay also stated a very good Point of Agreement in the third paragraph when you stated, â€Å"We humans take our own freedom quite seriously.† I would commend this statement because indeed your audience will agree to it because it is a given fact. It does not even mention anything about your desire to abolish zoos. In the same paragrap h you also stated a Point of Disagreement, â€Å"But too many of us apparently feel no obligation to grant that same right to animals†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The third paragraph is a good example of AGREEMENT  --> DISAGREEMENT. Reading the whole paper though, I think that you lack statements of Agreements. You concentrated more on Points of Disagreement. Maybe you should add more Points of Agreement so as not to intimidate your audience especially at the start of the paper. Another point which I want to mention and remind you is that â€Å"an argument is not a debate†. You did not have to present both sides of the argument like what you did in discussing about the case Jackie, the dolphin. As I was reading through your paper, I got confused as to what argument you were really presenting. Especially in the last four paragraphs of your essay, I was beginning to think that what you were fighting for was about the preservation of endangered species. You deviated from your previous argum ent about zoos being abolished. You jumped to a new topic about the destruction of the natural habitats of animals. There are now so many issues being presented so much so that you are already confusing your audience on what you really want them to do. Is it to abolish zoos, protect the ecosystem or is it the preservation of endangered species? Maybe you should have written another argumentative essay on these topics and just concentrate on the abolition of zoos in your essay. It is hard to persuade your audience if you confuse them with too many issues. Based on the above comments, the grade that I will give you is F because you failed to follow some of the basic guidelines which was presented in the Argument Lecture. Because of that, I cannot give you a high grade since from the start of your essay you have been out

North Miami Council Meeting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

North Miami Council Meeting - Essay Example In this report, the meeting I attended was held in Miami city. The city council government organized the meeting among another stakeholder of the regional government. The meeting majorly put more emphasis and addressed some of the major problems affecting its citizens. The meeting was conducted on Tuesday 9th June 2015 in the evening exactly 7.00. as it is the order of every meeting, a role call was briefly performed to ascertain the members who were present and those who are not. The list of those who were absent with apology was noted and at the same time those without apology (Burrill, 1962). Pledge of allegiance by detective Rocio, who works with North Miami police, was conducted, and after that Pastor Gregory Toussaint, who led the tabernacle of glory, put members through invocation. Oath of office administration was the section that carried more attention of the meeting. Dr. Dorothy Bndross Mindingall assisted by the school board manager in District 2 conducted it. Other events preceded this main event. The order of the business has a breakdown of subsections. These subsections were additions and deletions, amendments and deferrals (Burrill, 1962). The meeting had more issues that were to be discussed. Among the questions comprised in the order of the business, individual presentations, city events, hurricane preparedness and consent agenda. The questions that the officials put more emphasis and discussed are the certification and of the results that were returned during the runoff election process. Pursue of this was retrieved from the previous meeting that was held at the same venue. As a council, they proposed the purchase of the order one of new transit to issue in by the police department at the agreed cost. Equipment that was brought up was scheduled to be purchased separately by the council for enforcing the law (Burrill, 1962). Another proposal that was passed

Examples of Good and Bad Essays Essay Example for Free

Examples of Good and Bad Essays Essay To give you a sense of what is acceptable writing and what is unacceptable writing, here we present six essays. These essays are possible student answers to three assignments which are similar to assignments you might receive in class. Essays 1 and 2 deal with the following question: Professions have a tendency to develop a separate terminology that only members can follow. One reason for doing so might be described as society-serving and another might be described as self-serving. In a short essay discusses which of these two reasons do you think is more important in the case of economic jargon. Essays 3 and 4 deal with the following question: The Heisenberg principle states that there is a limit to our knowledge of reality because as we study certain physical phenomena we change them. Might a Heisenberg-type principle be relevant to economics? Write a short essay explaining why or why not. Essays 5 and 6 are responses to the following: In a Wall Street Journal article, a woman named Ms. Luhrs is quoted as saying, â€Å"If you’re continually consuming, you have to keep working, you can’t get off the treadmill.† Write a short essay explaining whether this a rational statement. After presenting all six essays we grade them and provide a brief overall assessment of the essays. We also provide some specific comments about what we liked and what we didn’t like. When you read our comments, think about the process of grading. That process has, by its nature, both an objective and a subjective element to it. The objective element of grading is the easiest. The objective part of the grade is based on considerations such as: Does the essay answer the question posed? Are the grammar, formatting, spelling, and standard elements of style up to speed? There is no debate about these relatively objective issues. For example, if you don’t answer the question you’re supposed to, you probably won’t do well on the essay. And if your paper has many grammatical mistakes, you’re in trouble. The subjective element of grading works like a wild card in the grading process. Usually, there are many ways a question can be answered. Some ways will strike a chord with your reader; some won’t. The same is true with discretionary elements of style. Some professors may like your style; some won’t. For example, Colander, the guy who wrote your textbook, has a very informal, matter of fact, style. His style turns off a number of economics professors. Some of these consider his work abominable because of that style; they assign his book nonetheless, because, on objective grounds, it is a great book. (That’s a Colander ironic stylism, in case you were wondering.) And still others, we’re happy to say, like his style. (If they didn’t the book wouldn’t sell, and the Colander text would be eliminated from the market.) The point of this example is that wild cards average out, so you shouldn’t concern yourself too much with the discretionary elements of style. If you get the objective elements right, you’ll most likely do well. So concentrate on objective elements first. Essay 1 Economist’s Jargon: Unite and Divide The economics profession’s jargon serves a variety of purposes. For example, their common terminology serves to make for more precise communication. It allows ideas to be communicated clearly and exactly. This exactness and clarity of terminology serves society by allowing economists to discuss economics with each other and with society with clarity so that other economists have a better understanding of what an economist is saying. A common terminology also serves to divide insiders from outsiders. For outsiders, for example economic students, who do not have a clue what these terms mean, economists’ terminology is exclusionary. It makes economists the gatekeepers of economic ideas. Economists’ terminology serves as a barrier to entry, restricting the supply of economists, and increasing the value of the services provided by existing economists. Which of these two reasons is the strongest? To answer that question let us consider two examples given by Amanda Benn ett, the author of The Wall Street Journal article, â€Å"Economists + Meeting = A Zillion Causes and Effects† [The Wall Street Journal, January 10, 1995]. The two examples are the concepts of externality and utility, Why do economists use these terms? Based on her article, and on my classroom experience, I would judge that, of the two reasons, the self-serving reason is the stronger. Essentially, economists create their terminology primarily to make life difficult for students. Consider the first example: externality. Why no simple call externalities â€Å"unintended side effects†? It would be much easier for students to comprehend. Or alternatively, consider the second, utilities. How much clarity can the concept, utility, provide when the text tells us that, essentially, it means happiness? If it means happiness, why not use the term, happiness? The very fact that Ms. Bennett can provide a simple translation of economists’ jargon suggests that the jargon was unneeded for precise communication. And even, if there is some value added in terms of clarity of the jargon, do its costs in additional memorization for students, outweighs the gain. For me, the answer is clearly, no. Actually, to answer anything other than economists are self-serving would show that I have not done my homework. Economists’ basic premise is that people are self-serving. Why should economists be any different. With a difficult to learn economic terminology, economists can create a monopoly position for themselves; they can restrict supply and increase price for their services. To quote the textbook, â€Å"people do what they do because it’s in their self interest.† Thus, the preponderance of the evidence suggests that economists have developed their economic jargon with their self-interest, not society’s interest, in mind. I think the self serving reason why professions develop a separate terminology that only members can follow is more important because people are greedy and always want what is good for them, not what is good for society because of the problems of the barriers to entry and the free rider and thus, the self serving reason is more important. On the other hand, it is good for society if professions develop a separate terminology that only members can follow because then everyone can understand them, and they can understand each other. A common terminology permits effective interpersonal communication, thereby resulting in clear, complete, open dialogue. So in a way, the society-serving causes of professionals’ terminology outweigh the self-serving causes because if we didn’t have it, then we wouldn’t be able to understand the weighty and eloquent locutions spoken by the eminent economists of yesteryear and today. For these reasons, I think that sometimes the society-serving reason is the most important. This the intellectual importance of the self-serving reason which is also the most important sometimes. The whole theory of the principle of rational choice theory which says that one should do that which yields the maximum marginal utility according to your self interest which is to say that selfishness is the thing that drives most people. Economists do not find it in their best selfish interest to use normal English to discuss economic theory because then everyone would be speaking it in the society, and the marginal utility is low. Instead of that, economists developed a terminology which only they could use, so people would have to attend institutions of higher learning to make it possible for them to profess economic tenets. This is called barriers to entry because people are barred from entering the world of economics by the insurmountable difficulties in attaining a sufficiently acceptable level of proficiency in the economics terminology. Barriers to entry create monopolies, market structures in which one firm makes up the entire market. Three important barriers to entry are natural ability, increasing returns to scale, and government restrictions, economics terminology can’t really be considered any of these because it’s more similar to learning by doing. Also the free rider problem undermines people’s willingness to perform service to their society further strengthening the argument that self-serving reasons have prompted economists to adopt their own terminology. Keeping people from becoming economists or talking about economics through the language barrier. This causes another dramatic consequence. The supply for economists is restricted, so that each economist who exists in the present market for economists may value their work at a higher price. So as you can see, the most important reason is the self-serving one, and subsequently, economists’ use of an economic terminology results in increased benefit to the economists at the expense of society. The society-serving reason pales in comparison. A quick skim of The Wall Street Journal on a daily basis for just a week should prove to you that the Heisenberg principle does indeed apply to economics. The Wall Street Journal provides daily analyses of economic events and economists’ perspectives on what has happened as well as what is likely to happen. The Wall Street Journal ‘s curculation is evidence that these analyses are taken seriously by both businesspeople and consumers. To see how economists’ predictions change the course of economic events, look at economists’ assessment of leading and coincidental indicators and the subsequent movement up or down in the markets for stocks and bonds. Leading indicators are used to predict what is likely to happen in the future, while coincidental indicators are used to describe the economy’s current condition. When the economists say that the indicators demonstrate that the economy is in a recession or entering a recession, consumers and businesses react immediately to prepare for the anticipated recession by reducing consumption and investing more cautiously. This often serves to hasten the onset of a recession, fullfilling the economists’ original prediction. In turn, if consumers and businesses expect good times ahead, they invest and spend their money more confidently. High levels of investment and consumption translate to strong economic growth. An examination of â€Å"Orders for Durable Goods Plunge by 6%,† [The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 1995] yields an example of how this cycle works. Note Marilyn Schaja’s prediction that the Fed will move toward â€Å"an easier policy stance† and the reaction of investors in the bond markets to this statement and others similar to it; the bond market soared due to speculation that interest rates might be cut soon. This is only one example of how economists’ predictions directly affect the bond market, but the bond market rises and falls dramatically each day in response to speculation about what the Fed will do or whether the economy is predicted to speed up or slow down. Other examples abound on the second page of The Wall Street Journal. But economists are not gods. They cannot know for sure what is going to happen to the economy, and they often disagree with one another. When there is a majority consensus, the Heisenberg principle operates in full force. Businesses and consumers are often susceptible to the majority opinion, and economists’ predictions will likely be fulfilled just because the predictions have been made. When all economists seem to disagree, the individual is left to make his own decisions. In this case, the outcome is less predictable, and it might seem that the observed is less likely to be affected by the process of observation. I don’t think the Hiesenberg principle can be relevent to economics because its a phisics principal. Phisics and economics are two different subjects, phisics being a natural science, and economics being a social science. I don’t think that economic predictions have anything to do with the events that they predict. The article compares economists to meteoroligists. Meterologists’ predictions don’t change the whether, so economists predictions don’t change the economy. This means that the Hieisenburg isn’t appliable. Underlying economic reasoning is economists’ analysis of individual choice. That analysis is based upon the observation that, generally, people act according to their rational self-interest, trying to get as much pleasure as possible out of life. From this proposition and subsequent measurement of pleasure, comes economists’ basic principle of rational choice: spend your money on those goods that give you the most marginal utility per dollar. An economist would use this principle to assess whether or not Ms. Luhrs’s statement is rational. If Ms. Luhrs calculated the marginal utility per dollar of leisure to be greater than that of consumption of material goods, and thus, work, her statement would be assumed to be rational by economists. The article, â€Å"When Shopping Sprees Pall, Some Seek the Simple Life,† [The Wall Street Journal, May 24, 19995] discusses that the decision is hers and that it has been made after careful thought. For example, Ms. Luhrs’s statement â€Å"It’s a freedom thing, the way I see it,† demonstrates the high value she gives to freedom, and the low value she gives to material goods. The fact that many people do not share her valuation of leisure versus material wealth is irrelevant to the issue. There is nothing in economics that says that people must want more and more material things. A second part of the principle of rational choice is the principle of diminishing marginal utility: as our consumption of an item increases, the marginal utility obtained from each unit decreases. It could be argued that Ms. Luhrs is demonstrating this principle: that after a certain point, work and consumption of material goods becomes less and less satisfying; the marginal utili ty of consumption of material goods falls. No, it is not rational because according to the economic theory, you should spend your money on those goods which yield the maximum utility per dollar. MUx/Px must equal MUy/Py. If MUx/Px is less than MUy/Py, than it is the consumer’s duty to buy more of good Y. If MUy/Py is less than MUx/Px, than the consumer must use more of good X. When you work more, you can consume more, each additional unit yielding additional, marginal utility, so you continually increase the sum of your total utility. Following the tradition of economic reasoning, more is better. She may be right about that treadmill because there is a cycle in which consumption results from work which necessitates further consumption, but theory would indicate that this is a positive, self-perpetuating cycle because increased consumption yields increased utility, therefore maximizing utility. The book says that the rule to follow is to vary consumption until the marginal utility for every dollar for one thing that you are consuming is the same as the marginal utility for every dollar for another thing that you are consuming. Ms. Luhr’s dissatisfaction from her current status in our society must come from her failure to vary her consumption of a variety of material goods. For goods, the marginal utility may start to be less than it was before after a while, and then we are advised to switch our buying to other goods. Ms. Luhr needs to find the goods which work for her. Then she wouldn’t be talking about the negative aspects of work because it is work which allows her to consume and maximize her utility. Her utils are at their highest the more she consumes. In my view Ms. Luhr is succumbing to her emotions rather than her logic because everyone knows that increased work yields increased wealth and increased utility, and this is the ultimate goal of a rational person who is acting selfishly which is how economists think people act. If Ms. Luhr were truly being selfish and self-interested, she would obtain greater satisfaction from greater consumption, but her statement is defying this tenet of rationality which is so important to economic reasoning. She doesn’t want more. She must be irrational.

The implementation of strategic change at Microsoft Canada

The implementation of strategic change at Microsoft Canada The Organization Development literature has directed appreciable attention at in being able to lead and manage change. The major portion of the material is highly normative, advising managers about how they should be planning and implements organizational changes. For example, one study suggested that successful managers in ceaselessly changing organizations should first; provide clear responsibility and priorities with extensive communication and freedom to improvise. Second, explore the future by experimenting with a wide variety of low cost probes; and thirdly, link current projects to the future with predictable intervals and choreographed transition procedures. Traditionally the main focus of change management is on identifying sources that resist change and offers ways to overcome them. Most of the recent contributions have been challenging the focus on resistance and have shifted the aimed at creating vision along with gaining political support for them, and managing the trans ition of the organization toward them. The various ways in which managing change can be classified are in figure below. MOTIVATING CHANGE Creating Readiness for Change Overcoming Resistance to Change CREATING A VISION Describing the Core Ideology Constructing the Envisioned Future EFFECTIVE CHANGE MANAGEMENT DEVELOPING POLITICAL SUPPORT Assessing Change Agent Power Identifying Key Stakeholders Influencing Stakeholders MANAGING THE TRANSITION Activity Planning Commitment Planning Management Structures SUSTAINING MOMENTUM Providing resources for Change Building a Support System for Change Agents Developing New Competencies and Skills Reinforcing New Behaviors Staying the Course The above mentioned activities contribute a lot to effective change management and have been listed in the order in which they usually are performed. The first amongst the activities involves motivating change and also includes creating a readiness for change amongst the members of the organization and which indeed helps them to address resistance to change. Initially motivation is a critical issue for change process because a lot of evidence indicates that people as well as the organizations want to preserve the status quo and are willing to change only when there are strong powerful reasons to do so. The next activity is considered with creating a vision and is closely alignment with leadership activities. The vision has the sole purpose of providing a purpose and lay out for change and it describes the desired future state of the organization. The next activity involves the task of developing political support for the change. Organizations of all kinds are composed of powerful ind ividuals as well as groups that can either block or promote change, and it is the task of the leaders and the change agents to gain the support and permission of the higher authorities in order to implement changes. The fourth activity is concerned with managing movement from the current state to the desired level in the organization. It involves designing a plan for managing the change activities as well as planning particular management structures for working of the organization during this transition. The next and the final activity involve sustaining the flow or momentum for change so that it is being able to be carried to completion. The final activity includes task such as providing resources for implementing the changes, building a support system for change agents, developing new competencies and skills needed to implement the changes. Unless man-to-man are motivated and bound up to change, unfreezing the status quo will be very difficult. Without vision, chances are there th at change will be disorganized and diffused. Along with the fast moving pace of global, economic, and technological development change becomes an inevitable feature of the life of the organizational. But change that happens to an organization externally by the environment is quite different from the change that is planned and incorporated by the members of the organization. The main motive of Organizational development is to bring in changes in the organization in a planned manner so as to be able to increase its effectiveness and this organizational change is usually initiated and implemented by managers, with the help of professional OD practitioners. Conceptions of planned change have tended to focus on how change can be implemented in organizations. In order to implement change in any organization, certain frameworks are used as models that describe the activities that must take place to initiate and carry out successful organizational change. Let us now discuss change that Microsoft Canada tried to implement in its organization by implementing Strategic Change. MANAGING STRATEGIC CHANGE AT MICROSOFT CANADA Microsoft Canada is a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation responsible for the service, marketing and the sales of the full range of software products, including the Windows operating system, the office productivity suite, a variety of Net products, and the Xbox game console. The organization marketed to a variety of segments, such as software application developers, small and medium business and large enterprises, through a broad range of partners that worked directly with the client organizations to install and optimize the software used. A small service organization provided consulting support to clients with the partner. Before 2001, Microsoft Canada had been part of North American subsidiary. Under this structure, large US market was clearly the focus of attention from Microsoft server, desktop, other software products. However, Frank Clegg, President of Microsoft Canada, argued that the Canadian market was different and under developed. It had a different mix of customers that did a United States, different competitors and different growth opportunities. Moreover, software sales and personnel computers shipments as a percentage of markets size and growth were below worldwide averages. These differences, Clegg argued warranted a specialized strategy. As the fiscal year ended Clegg and his newly appointed Director of Strategic Planning, Sandra Palmero, wanted to cease the opportunity to define a uniquely Canadian strategy. Before becoming Director of Strategic Planning, Palmero had been Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications in Microsoft Canada. There with Richard Reynolds, her Senior Marketing Manager, they had planned and implemented a participative process of strategic planning. Sandra conducted the OD practitioner who had worked with them and contracted to design and implement a Strategic planning process for the Canadian organization. Over a 2 month period, Sandra conceived of a series of workshops involving the Canadian leadership team. This team represented a broad cross section of the organization including representatives from legal staffs, human resources, service business and Microsoft consultant, marketing managers, customer support and managers responsible for different segments of Microsoft business inclu ding enterprise customer, small and medium business, the Microsoft Network and the Xbox. The strategic analysis phase consisted of preliminary work by several members of the Canadian leadership team as well as initial exercises during the first workshop. Member of Canadian Leadership team each prepared an analysis of their respected areas of responsibilities. For example, the enterprise sales manager provided historical growth rates in the revenue, developed forecast for market growths and Microsofts share, described current levels of Customer satisfaction and technology road map of products being developed by the Redmond headquarters organization. In addition to this specific analysis, Sandra contracted with a market research firm to provide overall description of Canadian information technology market. Finally a competitor analysis was performed to develop and understanding of likely strategies, goals, and initiatives from key competitors such as IBM, Sun Micro System, and Oracle as well as competitive threat posed by the Linux Operating System Software. During first workshop the Canadian Leadership team used the pre work data to perform an environmental scan. They discussed, debated, and ultimately came to some agreements about the trends affecting the organization. Based on that scan, the group engaged in a vision and value formation exercise and set out an initial list of short and long term goals. These activities let to several important decisions for new marketing organizations. For example, the vision and values exercised produced important insight about what the Canadian organization stood for, its uniqueness compared to the marketing subsidiaries within the Microsoft Organization, and its strengths in competing as a Canadian organization. The values also informed discussion about future goals and strategy to achieve them. Importantly, the Canadian leadership realized that customer loyalty would and should become a driving force for the organization. This realization led to passionate discussions about the relative emphasis i n the organization on revenues versus customer satisfaction and loyalty. It also led to development of Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) that the members of the Canadian Leadership Team believed would be challenging but achievable. The first workshop ended with a number of assignments, unresolved issues, and excitement about the future. In between the first and second workshops, members of the Canadian Leadership Team worked with their own organizations. Issues, decisions and questions that were addressed within the Canadian Leadership Team were discussed throughout the organization. The most important discussion concerned the Big Hairy Audacious Goal and the relative emphasis of revenues and customer loyalty over the short and long term. A consensus began to emerge that the right and proper strategy for Microsoft was to argue for a slower growth rate in revenues the short term, invest in customer satisfaction and then leverage that loyalty for a more secure stream of revenues in the future. Frank Clegg took this idea to the executives in Redmond and discussed the implications of this strategy, including revenue projections, risk involved, the budget implications, and how the strategy aligned with corporate and other marketing organizations initiatives. The result of these conversations became the subject of opening discussions at second workshop. The cautions but positive support from the corporate organization allowed the Canadian leadership team to move forward on its strategic intent. In second workshop, the organizations mission and values were finalized; year by year revenue goals were agreed upon to achieve the Big Hairy Audacious Goal, and these goals were broken down and assigned to specific groups and managers. Finally, key customer and partner loyalty programs were established and outlined. Ownership for different initiatives was assigned and a strategic change plan originated. Frank Clegg pressed the group on its decision to emphasize customer loyalty and challenged the group with several scenarios that tempted them to trade off satisfaction for revenue. These scenarios helped fix the Canadian leadership teams commitment to their strategy. The important part of the strategic change plan that came out was a discussion and decision to tie the individual performance appraisals of Canadian leadership team as a whole also staked their end of fiscal year bonuses to the achievement of customer satisfaction, instead of revenue goals. The strategic change efforts at Microsoft Canada are important for few reasons. First, the Canadian organizations realization of the benefits of customer satisfaction and loyalty was influential in moving the larger Microsoft Corporation to examine its values in this area. Business Week reported on the changes Steve Ballmer was making in the organization; they reflected the increased importance of customer loyalty in Microsofts strategy and structure changes. Second, the organization learned how to organize a strategic planning effort. In the second year since this effort began, Sandra Palmero did built a stronger strategic planning organization and taken more and more responsibility for driving the strategic planning process. Even as the corporate Microsoft organization was making important changes in its reporting structure, business process, financial systems, the Canadian organization was able to adapt using its own resources and knowledge. Finally, the Big Hairy Audacious Goal h as become an institutionalized part of the organization that drives thinking and decision making in the organization. In context with the case in hand we are suppose to work on a few task related to the case in hand. Firstly, let us discuss the history of the organization in hand, which is Microsoft Canada. Microsoft Canada Inc. was established in 1985. It is the Canadian subsidiary of Microsoft Corp. the worldwide leader in services, software and solutions that help inhabit and small business realize their full potential. Microsoft Canada provides nationwide sales, marketing, consulting and local support services in both French and English. It has its headquarters in Mississauga and has nine regional offices across the country dedicated to empowering people through great software- anytime, anywhere and on any devise. Secondly, let us now discuss the circumstances that led the organization to undergo strategic change. Frank Clegg, President of Microsoft Canada, argued that the Canadian market was different and under developed and it had a different mix of customers. Thus it demanded for different co mpetitors and different growth opportunities. Another circumstance was that the percentage of markets size and growth of software sales and personnel computers shipments were below worldwide averages. These circumstances demanded a specialized strategy. Thirdly, the type of change that was implemented in the Microsoft Canada was basically strategically. The change has been incorporated in such a way that every aspect of the organization starting from legal staffs, human resources, service business and Microsoft consultant, marketing managers, customer support and managers responsible for different segments of Microsoft business including enterprise customer, small and medium business, the Microsoft Network and the Xbox were taken into consideration. The senior members of the organization have tried its best to formulate and design the strategically change in such a manner that it helps Microsoft Canada to increase its percentage market share and gain better growth. Fourthly, in orde r to incorporate the strategically change into the organization the involvement of every member of the organization is very necessary. The strategically change was initiated by Frank Clegg, President of Microsoft Canada and Sandra Palmero, Director of Strategic Planning. Sandra Palmero along with Richard Reynolds, her Senior Marketing Manager, had crafted and implemented a participative process of strategic planning. Sandra conducted the OD practitioner who had worked with them and contracted to design and implement a Strategic planning process for the Canadian organization. Fifthly, the methods used in implementing the strategically change were basically workshops, assignments and discussions of issues related to work. Canadian Leadership Team was formed by members of various departments of the organization that were focused on developing and implementing strategically change in the Microsoft Canada Organization. During the first workshop the Canadian Leadership team used the pre w ork data to perform an environmental scan. They discussed, debated, and ultimately came to some agreements about the trends affecting the organization. Based on that scan, the group engaged in a vision and value formation exercise and set out an initial list of short and long term goals. These activities let to several important decisions for new marketing organizations. The Canadian leadership realized that customer loyalty would and should become a driving force for the organization. A consensus began to emerge that the right and proper strategy for Microsoft was to argue for a slower growth rate in revenues the short term, invest in customer satisfaction and then leverage that loyalty for a more secure stream of revenues in the future. In second workshop, the organizations mission and values were finalized; year by year revenue goals were agreed upon and these goals were broken down and assigned to specific groups and managers. The important part of the strategic change plan that emerged was a discussion and decision to tie the individual performance appraisals of Canadian leadership team as a whole also staked their end of fiscal year bonuses to the achievement of customer satisfaction, rather than revenue goals. Steve Ballmer increased the importance of customer loyalty in Microsofts strategy and structural changes and also the organization learned how to organize a strategic planning effort. Microsoft organization has made important changes in its reporting structure, business process, financial systems; the Canadian organization was able to adapt using its own resources and knowledge. Big Hairy Audacious Goal has become an institutionalized part of the organization that drives thinking and decision making in the organization. Finally, the main changes that have been seen in the performance level of the employees getting better along with rise in the percentage of market share which led to its growth both internal as well as external. Also, the Canadian Leadership Team and the Big Hairy Audacious Goal was permanently incorporated in the structure of the organization. (b) Strengths of Bureaucratic organizations are as follows: Higher level of consistency is maintained in decisions and implementation of projects. The control exerted by the head quarters or top level management ensures that the systems and delivery of services to the beneficiaries are in line with the laid down procedures. The major and important final decisions made by top management, considering various perspectives of organization. In this aspect the powers and interests of various stakeholders also taken care in delivering the final outcome. Another benefit is better cost control and management. Weaknesses of Bureaucratic organizations are as follows, The higher level of bureaucracy leads to lack of innovation and development in the organization, which leads to loss of competitive advantage in certain circumstances. Another disadvantage is that higher the structure and communication ladder impedes the speed of communication and decision making, and speed of response in emergency situations. The motivation of employees drops because of the lower level of delegation of duties and responsibilities and lower empowerment.. What must be realized is only that the strait jacket of bureaucratic organization paralyzes the individuals initiative, while within the capitalist market society an innovator still has a chance to succeed. (c) Managing change is an inevitable part of Organizational Development. Organization Development is about how people and organizations function and how to get them to function better. The field is based on knowledge from behavioral science disciplines such as psychology, social psychology, sociology, organizational behavior, organization theory and management. OD programs are long-term, planned, sustained efforts. Various definitions of OD are: Organization development refers to a long-range effort to improve an organizations problem solving capabilities and its ability to cope with changes in its external environment with the help of external or internal behavioral-scientist consultants, or change agents, as they are sometimes called. (Wendell French) Organization development is a system-wide process of data collection, diagnosis, action planning, intervention, and evaluation aimed at (1) enhancing congruence among organizational structure, process, strategy, people, and culture; (2) developing new and creative organizational solutions; and (3) develop the organizations self renewing capacity. It occurs through the collaboration of organizational members working with a change agent using behavioral science theory, research, and technology.(Michael Beer) Thus, Organization development is a system based and wide application that transfers behavioral science knowledge to the planned improvement, and reinforcement of the process that lead to effectiveness and efficiency of the organization. All OD programs have three basic components: diagnosis, action and program management. The symptomatic component represents a uninterrupted collection of data about the total system, its subunits, its processes, and its culture. The action component consists of all the activities and interventions designed to improve the organizations functioning. The program management component encompasses all activities designed to ensure success of the program. The process of Organizational Development is quite complicated and the completion of the change process consumes a lot of time with a minimum of one year and sometimes keeps indefinitely. There are different approaches to the process but the usual process consists of seven steps, which are initial diagnosis, data collection, data feedback and confrontation, action planning and problem solving, team building, inter group development and evaluation and follow up. organizational development process The following steps are vital steps taken into consideration while implementing any alternative forms of organizational development: Communications patterns, styles and flows. Goal setting. Decision making, problem solving, and action planning. Conflict resolution and management. Managing interface relations. Superior- subordinate relations. Technological and engineering systems. Strategic management and long-range planning. Vision/ Mission formulation. Organizational learning. Task 2 (a) The key stakeholders in Microsoft Canada can be people from any of the departments and levels of the organizations. But in general, the following people are the stakeholders of Microsoft Canada: Financial analysts Business analysts Forecasting or sales individual contributors Controller IT specialists and administrators. Legal staffs Human resources Service business and Microsoft consultant Marketing managers Customer support Managers responsible for different segments of Microsoft business including enterprise customer. Etc. (b) As discussed already it has been seen that the above cited stakeholders are the main members of the Canadian Leadership Team and plays a very significant role in the successful formation and implementation of Strategically Change in Microsoft Canada. The stakeholders, most of whom are also the members of the Canadian Leadership Team have played important role in the workshops, assignments, and discussions that was basically done to decide upon implementing new strategically changes required by Microsoft Canada to achieve its long term and short term goals. Also in the beginning of this report we have discussed three different models that are usually used in any organization as models for implementing and managing change, which are, Lewins Planned Change Model, Action Research Model and Positive model. After going through the entire case in hand it is seen that the Action Research Model best suits the procedure in which implementation of strategical change was carried out in Microsoft Canada. As the Action Research Model of change suggests, Microsoft Canada firstly, identified the problem that the organization was facing and having done that it was discussed upon by the experts of the organization and data was gathered from various sources to analyze the problem in order to be able to provide with the best possible solution. Finally, The Canadian Leadership Team acted as the Action team that helped to implement the solutions and bring in the Change in Microsoft Canada. Thus, the above report is a good example of implementing and managin g change in an organization. Task 3 (a) UnfreezingLewins Planned Change Model Refreezing Movement Action Research Model Data Gathering after Action Action Joint Action Planning Joint Diagnosis of Problem Feedback to Key Client or Group Data Gathering and Preliminary Diagnosis Consultation with Behavioral Science Expert Problem Identification Positive Model Design and Deliver ways to create the Future Envision a Preferred Future Discover Themes Inquire into Best Practices Initiate the Inquiry There are various types of change that an organization may implement. (b) It is often remarked that the only constant thing in the world is Change and having said that in todays so fast moving world and economy, every organization needs to implement change in its working structure and structure to be able to cope up with the changing environment. Today, organizations basically go for a change in order to be up to date with the current world and also are able to cope up with the increasing competition. Change suiting to the organization helps the organization to attain better brand name and a increased market share. Also change in the structure and working environment usually helps the organization to provide its employees to be happy and satisfied working in the organization and give maximum effective result to the output of the organization. Thus there may be a number of reasons that might have led to any organizations decision to implement change in the organization. In case of Microsoft Canada, Frank Clegg, President of Microsoft Canada, argued that the Canadian market was different and under-developed and it had a different mix of customers. Thus it demanded for different competitors and different growth opportunities. Another circumstance was that the percentage of markets size and growth of software sales and personnel computers shipments were below worldwide averages. These circumstances demanded a specialized strategy. Thus this was the major reason that led Microsoft Canada to decide to implement Strategic Change in the organization.

Longs Peak :: essays research papers

LONGS PEAK Deep in the heart of the Rockies lies the small mountain village of Estes Park, Colorado. Estes Park borders Rocky Mountain National Park and it was my summer retreat. Never in my life had I seen someplace taken directly out of a fairy tale. The mountains swallowed the town. One particular mountain immediately caught my eye. I knew that it had to be the tallest, for it was the only mountain that was still covered in May snow. I later learned that the enormous mountain was Longs Peak. Longs Peak happened to be a “fourteener", a Colorado mountain over fourteen thousand feet. The mountain could be seen from every corner of the park as well as from distant cities such as Denver or Boulder, which were well over fifty miles away. The mountain held an intense mystification for me. It reminded me of a Cardinals game, which I saw prior to my visit to Estes Park. Mark McGuire was coming up to bat, and shocks rippled down my spine when I saw him. An atomic power radiated from him. Even though there were several other players on the field I simply could not keep my eyes off him. Longs Peak also stood head and shoulders over the other players. I had to climb Longs Peak before I left Estes Park. I felt a call that told me if I failed to climb the mountain I would be missing out on a life changing opportunity. Perhaps I wanted to climb it because everyday when I went outside, it was the first thing I saw. Maybe I wanted simply to prove to myself that I could do anything that I set my mind and body to. I am not sure what it was; all I know is that it was constantly in the back of my head pushing me. Longs Peak is an extremely difficult and technical climb. It offers challenges to every level of climbers, especially to a slacker like myself. The trail is only a little over eight miles long. It has a very steep elevation gain of over four thousand feet. The climb takes over two days of intensely strenuous hiking. Water is the most important thing in climbing; the body must remain fully hydrated at all times in order to maximize best performance. It is extremely unsafe to climb alone; therefore, my friend Bobby accompanied me on the expedition.

Hairball Essay -- essays papers

Hairball A solitary woman sits in conversation with a benign tumour that had just recently been removed from her ovary. As the woman speaks, the inanimate tumour, which she has named Hairball, looks on from its glass encased perch atop the fireplace. The scene is macabre and certainly unusual, but such is the life of Kat, the main character in Margaret Atwood’s short story, Hairball. Kat’s life is filled with the unusual and the shocking, a lifestyle that has been self-imposed. Throughout the years, Kat, an "avant garde" fashion photographer, has altered her image, even her name, to suit the circumstances and the era. Over time Kat has fashioned a seemingly strong and impenetrable exterior, but as Kat’s life begins to disintegrate we discover that the strong exterior is just a facade devised to protect a weak and fragile interior. Kat’s facade begins to unravel and she undergoes significant personal losses; in fact, the losses go so far as to include her ident ity or lack there of. As Kat begins to lose control, her mental and physical disintegration is hastened by three major conflicts: The conflict with the society in which she lives, the conflict with her romantic interests (specifically Ger), and finally the physical conflict she faces with her own body. In the end, these conflicts will threaten to strip Kat of her lifestyle as well as her name. From the beginning of Kat’s life, she was at odds with her environment. When she was a child, she was Katherine, a doll like representation of what her mother wanted her to be. As a teenager she was Kathy, a representation of what she believed others wanted, â€Å"a bouncy, round-faced [girl] with gleaming freshly washed hair and enviable teeth, eager to please and no more int... ...he vehicle for the ultimate bizarre act reflecting Kat's personality disintegration. She has gone from Katherine, to Kath, to Kat to being â€Å"temporarily without a name.† The journey that Kat takes through the story, from a person defined by others to a person without definition, is somewhat of a birth in reverse. In the story the character of Kat is defined by the conflicts she faces and her inability to adequately deal with them. The more Kat attempts to find herself within the parameters of her society, work and relationships, the more she becomes lost. It is the conflicts that bring Kat to a moment of clarity as she is left broken and abandoned. It is in this state that Kat is able to lose her name and begin to reconstruct herself apart from the influences of others. Without a name Kat is now the blank canvass onto which she hopes to paint her final masterpiece.

Port Chicago Disaster

The Port Chicago Disaster On the 24 of July 1944, a memorandum was written from Captain W. S. Parsons, USN to Rear Admiral W. R. Purnell, IJSN. It was a report on the most destructive explosion on United States soil at that time. It was known as the Port Chicago Explosion. Captain Parsons worked in the Bureau of Ordnance as their Liaison Officer. So he was a prime candidate for the Job. Rear Admiral Purnell was the head of the Military Policy Committee. This memorandum was not intended to incarcerate people, determine its cause, nor report defects in the design of munitions depots.Its sole urpose was to collect data from the damage done and to find the exact time when the explosion happened. Captain Parsons determined the exact time based on seismic activity. He determined the time of detonation occurred at approximately between 2218-2244 on the 17 of July, 1944. It was found that approximately 2000 tons of high explosion were present on the dock at the time of the explosion. He also determined that light damage extended approximately 1500 yards from the explosion. This was minor damage but significant none the less.From ground zero and out to approximately 1000 feet it was determined that there was total destruction. However, at 1000 feet there were 3 civilians that remained alive; these were the closest survivors to the blast. This horrible disaster could have been prevented, only if certain factors were addressed accordingly. Within the confines of the munitions depot at port Chicago, there was racism. Akers states: The general classification test employed at this time placed the black ratings at Port Chicago ‘in the lowest twelfth of the Navy.According to their superiors, these men were unreliable, emotional, lacked capacity to understand or remember orders or instructions, were particularly susceptible to ass psychology and moods, lacked mechanical aptitude, were suspicious of strange officers, disliked receiving orders of any kind, particularly from white officers or petty officers, and were inclined to look for and make an issue of discrimination. For the most part, they were quite young and of limited education. 1 Black men, no matter what they scored on their classification test were put into these laborious work parties.If they scored high enough and there were empty billets, they would be transferred to another duty station. Therefore, there was a lack of good leaders to be had. This is a prime example of discrimination. Another example of racism at this munitions depot is that: Negroes in the Navvy don't mind loading ammunition. They Just want to know why they are the only ones doing the loading! They want to know why they are segregated; why they don't get promoted. 2 This stated that the racism was severe and the moral of the black sailors was very low.When morale was low, they started to ask question and the quality of work that and more prone to accidents. In addition, white officers were put in charge of these loadi ng parties and the black sailors did not like them. On top of that, the commanding officer, Captain Kinne, demanded a quota often tons per hatch per hour. These white officers deemed this goal, of the commanding officer, too high. But they had to fulfill it nonetheless or else their Jobs were on the line. Allen stated, â€Å"†¦ officers sometimes raced working divisions against each other to speed up loading. 3 This caused workers to work at an unsafe speed and often times a shell would drop to the deck. Allen also stated: As Carr [the wench maintenance personnel] looked on, one man lost his grip on a shell; it dropped two feet and hit the deck with a thud. This showed that the rate at which they loaded ammunition onto the ships was unsafe. It made the possibility for a disaster very high. Still the Captain Kinne, the white officers had quotas to fill so they ignored these ominous signs and kept on pushing. Only if they could have slowed down the load rate, this disaster could have potentially been avoided.Another factor that could have prevented this disaster would be training. According to Julius J. Allen in his court martial trial he stated, â€Å"There was no training in ammunition handling. â€Å"5 These black Junior sailors were not trained to handle igh explosives, at the same time, the white officers were inadequately trained to supervise the loading process of high explosives. According to Freddie Meeks: When those bombs, slathered in grease, bounced down the plank, theyd bang into other bombs and everyone would pray to Almighty God. They made terrible sound.Sometimes, you thought they would explode. You'd almost have a heart attack to hear those bombs hitting together†¦ I'd ask the lieutenant about it and he'd say don't worry. 6 The black sailors were weary of working with these explosives but were told by fficers that the larger munitions were not active and could not explode and that they would be armed with their fuses upon arrival at the combat theater. Because of the inadequate training of the white officers, they disillusioned the black sailors. The black sailors would believe them because of their lack of training with explosives as well.Therefore, this made for carelessness in the handling of the high explosives because all personnel apart of the loading parties did not know that the shells had the potential to explode because the training was negligent. Another aspect is the equipment used for handling of the high explosives. Handling of these larger explosives such as bombs and shells involved breaking individual munitions out with levers and crowbars from boxcars. The shells were packed in tightly with packing material, and they were heavy cylindrical shapes.The black sailors would roll them along the wooden pier, packing them into nets, lifting them with a winch and boom, lowering the bundle into the hold, and then dropping the individual explosives a short distance by hand into place. This series of ac tions was rough enough that naval shells were sometimes damaged and began leaking identification dye from their ballistic caps. This should have been a major warning that an explosion was explosives. Therefore, the explosives were more prone to damage because of the kind of crude equipment they were using.In addition, the powered winches used on cargo ships were used to speed up the handling of heavy loads. One winch was operated at each of the ship's five cargo holds. During loading operations, the winches were worked hard, requiring steady maintenance in order to remain operable. Winch brakes, a safety feature provided for stopping the load from falling if the winch's main power was lost, were not often used by a skilled winch operator s the load could be more quickly maneuvered using various power settings than by application of the brakes.Disused brakes sometimes seized up and stopped working. Additionally, the winches on the SS E. A. Bryan were steam-powered and showed signs of wear, even though the ship was only five months old. Equipment could have been a factor, but also the lack personal protective equipment was another factor. In many cases there was no personal protective equipment provided by the munitions depot. In an interview with Carl Tuggle, he stated that: If you wanted to wear gloves, you purchased them. That was the only way you had gloves o wear and to use while you were working.At night we were provided clothing to keep us from the elements on the dock at night because it was cold, but otherwise we supplied everything else ourselves. 7 Since the black sailors often were not promoted they remained stagnant with the position of Junior sailor. Therefore, they would not make a lot of money and not have money to buy proper personal protective equipment. This made the work parties more prone to accidents. It was so dangerous that even Commander Paul B. Cronk, head of a Coast Guard explosives-loading detail tasked with supervision of the orking dock, warned the Navvy that conditions were unsafe and ripe for disaster.The Navvy refused to change its procedures and Cronk withdrew the detail. The Navvy still put a blind eye to the munitions depot at Port Chicago therefore the disaster was waiting to happen. This may have been the most destructive explosion, but it was almost expected as Captain Parsons reported, â€Å"†¦ Port Chicago was designed for large explosions. â€Å"8 He stated that the munitions depot designed at Port Chicago was designed for large explosions and because of the design; there was a very minimal loss of life outside of the munitions depot.Nonetheless, it was eventually determined that 320 of the men on duty at the pier died instantly, and 390 civilians and military personnel were injured, many seriously. Surprisingly, this was a major loss for the black sailor community in which, â€Å"†¦ roughly 15 percent of all the black casualties in the US Navvy during the entire war. â€Å"9 Shortly after the disaster, Port Chicago assigned white sailors to work alongside black sailors loading ammunition. This was the first step towards desegregation. To fix the lack of training, the Navvy instituted new training and safety procedures for the handling of high explosives.If and only if the Navvy listened to the Coast Guard Explosives-Loading detail supervising the loading of the explosives, the Port Chicago explosion would have never happened and this memorandum would have never been written. 1. Regina T. Akers, â€Å"The Port Chicago Mutiny, 1944,† in Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth Century: An International Perspective, ed. Christopher M. Bell and Bruce A. Elleman (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 200. 2. Robert L. Allen, â€Å"Final Outcome? Fifty Years after the Port Chicago Mutiny,† American Visions 9 (1994).http:// search. ebscohost. com.http://search. ebscohost. comhttp://montfordpointmarinesandhonor.blogspot.com/2013/09/http://search.epnet.com/Login.aspx?lp=login .asp&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Egoogle%2Ecom%2Eua%2F&authtype=ip,uidhttps://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9D%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88%E3%82%B7%E3%82%AB%E3%82%B4%E3%81%AE%E6%83%A8%E4%BA%8B