The Pearl Harbor Attack Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Pearl Harbor Attack - Research Paper Example There were two in-flight assault waves, toting up 353 airplane, impelled from six transporters of Japanese airplane under the initiative of Commander Mitsuo Fuchida. The target of the strike was ensuring Imperial Japan advance to the Dutch East Indies, just as and Malaya, because of their regular assets like elastic and oil, through the balance of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. In spite of the fact that the Japanese prevailing with regards to satisfying the assault, accordingly possibly devastating the control of America over the Pacific, this achievement was just brief. The next day, America articulated war on Japan in this way prompting the official American section into World War II (Shelley and David 10). Under the administration of US, the Western Countries had forced derisory endorses on Japan because of its intrusion of China in this way obstructing the Japanese military tasks. Accordingly, Japan got into discretionary dealings alongside US so as to break the stalemate while utilizin g this time in propelling an assault on Pearl Harbor. The greater part of the Japanese armada expected to cruise at the very least 4000 miles in order to get from its middle to where the plane carrying warships planned to set off their planes for Hawaii. These planes arrived only in front of 8AM on 7 December. After a short time, five of eight war vessels at Pearl Harbor either got sunk or sinking while the rest got harmed. In spite of the fact that the most significant setback ended up being USS Arizona, there were various different boats, just as most Hawaii-based war planes likewise got took out with 2388 Americans winding up dead (Sakata 23). There are different reasons concerning why Japanese assaulted the Pearl Harbor including (Lord): I.) The forbidding of all fares of scrap iron, steel, just as oil to Japan by President Roosevelt, which was because of the given Japanese attack of China. This prompted Japan losing at the very least 90% of its oil gracefully. This financial wi thdrawal injured their economy, along with their military; II.) America had taken an interest in the Second World War yet since they were all the while bumbling from misery brought about by the First World War. In any case, America despite everything had the most grounded nautical armadas. In light of this perspective, the Japanese were close to as solid as the American naval force. With the progression of time, America supported increasingly more in line of joining the war. The Japanese had the expectation of an all out maritime war along with America accordingly choosing to act first by methods for bombarding Pearl Harbor; III.) Assumptions likewise included the way that the Japanese had the aim of turning into a maritime superpower, while, simultaneously, needing to destruct any opposition, involving American, alongside British maritime guard; IV.) The United States proposed Japan to relinquish northern Indo-China; V.) Opposition from the US about Japanese development, along with Japan requests thinking about that they were not got by strategy; VI.) The Japanese were enthusiastic on growing their realm in this manner settling on a choice between yielding or doing battle alongside the United States; VII.) The Japanese needed the US to agree to their spreading out into Asia; VIII.) Pearl Harbor happened to be the living arrangement of the U.S. Pacific Fleet; in this manner Japan didn't expect the U.S. inside the war since around then; the best Naval power had a place with the United States of America.

If stem cell research must rely only on derivation of tissue from a Term Paper - 1

In the event that immature microorganism examine must depend just on induction of tissue from an energetic embryo, is collecting those cells in any capacity indecent, illicit or dishonest - Term Paper Example It is difficult to accommodate these situations because of unmistakably contradicting sees inborn in clinical science as opposed to changing perspectives and translations of morals and profound quality. A run of the mill day-5 human incipient organism comprises of 200-250 cells, the greater part of which involve the trophoblast, which is the furthest layer of the blastocyst. HESCs are reaped from the internal cell mass of the blastocyst, which comprises of 30-34 cells. The determination of HESC societies requires the expulsion of the trophoblast. This procedure of disaggregating the blastocysts cells disposes of its potential for additional turn of events. Rivals of HESC inquire about contend that the examination is ethically impermissible on the grounds that it includes the unfair slaughtering of guiltless individuals. (Siegel standard. 2). Good and moral discussions have seethed since immature microorganism look into first crossed scientists’ minds. One shortsighted contention against resistance to the examination communities upon premature birth babies from which a large number of the cells are assembled. The ethical sane is that in case of a fetus removal probably some useful for the entire of mankind can happen to it. Adding something extra to this position, one can put forth a defense that the theological rationalist oneself is conceding premature birth is exploitative, featuring the unpredictability of the contention. In addition, they may state, inquire about is impossible on grown-up undifferentiated organisms since they don’t share indistinguishable perspectives from those from an incipient organism. The benefit of the exploration exceeds the terrible of the strategies. The end legitimizes the methods, since undeveloped undifferentiated cell research can help discover solutions for, or forestall m aladies including Cancer and Parkinson’s yet additionally Alzheimer’s, Heart infection, Stroke, Diabetes, birth surrenders, spinal rope wounds, organ harm and transplant dismissal. Clinical analysts demand early stage undeveloped cells are required on the grounds that only they can imitate some other

CP5 MindMapping and Task Management with MeisterLabs - Podcast with Michael Hollauf

CP5 MindMapping and Task Management with MeisterLabs - Podcast with Michael Hollauf BUSINESS MODEL OF MINDMEISTERMartin: Great. Michael, let’s talk about the business model. So, when you first launched the model, it was something like as you said a free model but later on you added a freemium model. Can you elaborate a little bit on that? So how did this evolve and how did it work?Michael: Actually, we did have â€" right from the launch; we had a freemium model. The only things we didn’t have were premium features. Yes, we had the pricing plan as well as the whole billing system so you could use a credit card and everything, but we didn’t really have features that were available to the freemium version. The funny thing was though that from Day 1 â€" and I think actually on Day 2, the first person paid, you know, a huge amount, I don’t know the cost back then, I think 30-40€, but they paid because they liked the product without having any need to pay. So that was pretty interesting. I mean, obviously the real payments in higher numbers only came when they a ctually had premium features and when we started to put up some restrictions on the free usage, they have to do otherwise, you won’t be able to sustain your business.Martin: And how did you try to balance growing the customer base which is, from I understand, you’re mainly driven by signing up free users and secondly, balancing this with developing, let’s say, premium features so you can monetize them because you are only having limited resources? How did you try to balance those two things?Michael: Another very good question. It’s at a point where we always have this question about it and still do it actually. But for a long time, actually still up to now, we went more for the giving away free as much as you can to increase virality to get in front of as many people as possible who if they don’t pay, might at least invite other people, you know, that might help you grow virally and try to make the features so that people who that are actually using it, not only profession als but definitely the ones who use it professionally and for business purposes but also who use it really more deeply, that they will pay. You let special users in it for free because in the end of the day, they are unlikely to pay for it anyway if I’m honest, and the ones who use it really deeply; you try to convert by adding features, that they would need, into the premium plan.Martin: How did I come to it, think about MindMeister before I was doing some memory training and I was thinking about: “Okay, what type of cool business application could I start? And then I came to MindMeister and it looked very, very simple and easy to me. So now, the question is: What are the reasons you keep out competitors out of the way? What is the secret sauce? Is it the scale, is it the simplicity, is it just because you’re somehow market leader in this kind of segment already?Michael: I think all of it placed together a little bit. We were the first to launch but not by a lot. Actually, I think about two months after we launched, the first competitor came along with you know, quite a similar solution, he was technically different, it was actually flash-phase back then, the competitor. It was the same browser-based mind-mapping.Yes, the thing is that definitely something we always prowess one of our USPs is simplicity â€" the focus on usability, on simplicity, on a beautiful design that we try and update regularly and keep fresh and keep modern, also again try and focus on a simple user interface that doesn’t overload the user, that keeps the learning curve quick and steep and that’s what we still do with that product with all the other products as well. At least I believe it’s one of the keys to success for all kinds of apps.Martin: And when this competitor arose like two months after you’ve launched, what had been your thought or reactions to that?Michael: Desperation, initially. In the first few years, whenever a new competitor came along, we would be quite depressed and think: “Oh god, what if they do it so much better than we do?”, “What if, they take our market away?” It hasn’t happened fortunately. If you stay on the ball, if you keep pleasing the users, keep making your app better, keep providing it with service, it’s unlikely to happen, unless Facebook or whoever decided to enter your niche. It hasn’t happened and we learned to live with it much better. So these days when we see a new app, we’re like: “Right, okay, so yup, looks good but we’ve come a long way and I think they will have to come a long way as well.Martin: Can you elaborate a little bit on the current team set-up and what is actually your focus? Are you seeing yourself more like a, let’s say, marketing customer acquisition company or are you perceiving yourself more as a tech company or maybe something totally different?Michael: I think we would like to perceive ourselves as a marketing growth customer acquisition company but if we’re being honest, we’re a tech company. That’s not a bad thing in itself either. My co-founder, Till and I were both techies from our background, we’re still techies at heart, I think. Although in the last years we focused much, much more on things like marketing, growth and even finance â€" all these things, you have to obviously do if you run a company. So we do that much, much more with built teams there to do that, but in the end of the day, after everything, I think it’s the product that counts. You have to have a great product, you have to provide a great service, you can increase your success obviously with marketing but I think no amount of amazing marketing could turn a dot into a gold nugget.Martin: And how many free users that you need to acquire so you c ould become cash flow-neutral at least after many months?Michael: I think as we had about a hundred thousand users or something in free users in total that, I think, that that wasn’t breakeven yet. But I think it was bet ween a hundred thousand and three hundred thousand, somewhere there we had a monthly recurring revenue that helped us pay the costs, running costs of the company. Well, we were only free people back then, still it wasn’t a huge running cost. But like I said, we focused a lot on getting many users so the conversion rate wasn’t amazing to paid users so we needed quite a lot of free users to actually pay the costs, but it grew quite quickly.Martin: Good. And at what point of time did you think about adding another product and creating, let’s say, an overall brand like MeisterLabs?Michael: Early on, about three years ago I would say. So we launched it nine months ago, we took our time building the second product; we wanted to make it really good. It took about two years actually. But we saw a few things:First of all we saw: mind-mapping is a stage in a process and it’s usually the first stage in a project. Three years heavily in the start phase of a project, when you exchange id eas, when you brainstorm, when you map out your project, and then comes a point when you go into implementing the project and working on everything. Then you need a different tool, and we saw a lot of users dropping off, of MindMeister maybe coming back a couple of months later for the next project but actually dropping off. We said, “Okay, let’s, you know, it’s a shame that they have to move to another tool because we don’t provide anything for them.”So we thought: “Okay, that would be a nice point to offer them a product that’s integrated with MindMeister and supports them in that second phase of the project.” We thought there’s lots of task mission tools around, of course it’s a huge market, it’s a very important market and we thought we have a lot of ideas that could make it nice, make it very usable, very simple, combine some of the things we like in other tools and create something we hope users will like.Martin: Why did it take you two years to develop t his prototype? And second question would be, lots of start-ups have the belief that: “Let’s ship it early, get the customer feedback and then iterate on the live product” which apparently you did not do.Michael: Exactly, yes. I have to say, looking back I’m very happy with the result, it is one thing. We took our time, we took a long time, we went through many iterations of design and so on and when we shipped, it was a really, really good product. But, looking back, I think we should have probably come the other way, we should have done it quicker, come up with something quicker, got feedback faster. That’s what we’ll probably try to do working in the next product. That is a lesson learned, I would say. Although again, I couldn’t say if the result would be the same. You know, looking back now you don’t know what would’ve happened if you went the other way. Taking too long with a product has a lot of drawbacks apart from the fact that you know, we came up later, we did. You know, you have to keep your team motivated and developers as well, if you take too long to bring out something, obviously the market moves. So my take away from that experience was next time spend more time on a smaller initial prototype and try to ship it faster.Martin: When you started with the company, you had a very limited scope of what you wanted to achieve, like for example with MindMeister, and then adding further products. For me, the question is what is the bigger vision which combines those different product ideas?Michael: Well, the bigger vision is to cover the entire creative process inside a high-tech company, so to speak, because that’s our target market, our main target market. The creative process, I mean creative project that starts out with a brainstorming bit, product development bit, and some sort of marketing campaign bit, anything else. Right now we cover the first two phases, the brainstorming phase and the actual project carrying out. There is a missing piece at the end, there we have some ideas for that as it is one missing piece in there and we might come out with it with a product that covers something there and closes the circle to the next project.Martin: How are those products integrated? So, for example I look at MindMeister, how is it then integrated to MeisterTask?Michael: When you’re in MindMeister, you can switch on MeisterTask toolbar and you can connect each mind-map with a project, so to speak. And if it’s not connected you can just right from there, create a project for this mind-map, although I’ve made a mind-map that’s connected with the same project and all that. So, let’s say kind of a one-to-many relationship there. And then in the toolbar you’ll see all the people that are in your project. You see little avatars from photos of them, and you can very easily just drag any mind-map node, any topic onto one of those avatars and what it’ll do, it’ll create a task for that person in the projec t.We, for example, we a lot our weekly meetings, and in weekly meetings we mind-map all the things we go through and then, with that okay, so that’s actually that’s something that, you know, Andrei has to do. So, we make the task and we drag it onto his face and he has the task assigned and the project management system and he can start working on it after the meeting.Martin: What’s the idea of MeisterTask based on several customer requests or was it more of a vision of you both that you said: “Oh, it would be very interesting if we are working on this creative process and therefore the next logical step would be this although customers didn’t request it.”?Michael: We had many customer requests to enhance the task management functionality in MindMeister. In fact, there’s a little bit of a task management functionality there like all mind-mapping tools, they allow you to sign a priority onto a node and the person and due date. But it’s very, very lightweight, so it ha s no follow-through, no process behind it. It is also very little, in terms of task functionality.Customers wanted more there. So it was visible customers used it for task management as well but we didn’t want to blow up a, sort of, partial functionality of a mind-mapping tool and then make it into a mind-mapping tool more complex, more low fit. We thought: Okay, since this is something different what people do, then this should be done in a dedicated tool.Martin: One option would have been if Im having this kind of modular market where I’m having mind-maps and I perceive you as a clear market leader in that. And now you’re entering into another market which is more task related etc. So, did you receive some kind of reaction from the other task-related companies that were just adding mind-mapping functionality, and then the competitions in those two markets are even increasing?Michael: We haven’t seen that yet as such. I think it terms of market size the mind-mapping market is a very focused but still very niche market. Usually when companies are in a market of a certain size, they expand into bigger, adjacent markets. They usually don’t expand so much into smaller adjacent markets. So we haven’t seen many task management tools expanding into mind-mapping. We see quite a few of our mind-mapping competitors adding task management but they usually do it differently, they add some more functionality into their product.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM MICHAEL HOLLAUFMartin: So Michael, over the last let’s say ten to thirteen years, what have been the major learnings that you can share with other people starting a company? Like some the stupid mistakes an entrepreneur can do, or maybe some very cool things he should do?Michael: Well, that could potentially be quite long. People interested in the story, there’s this article on TechCrunch that kind of tells our story, in quite details.Whenever I talk about the learnings from 7, 8, 9 years ago, I always me ntion the fact that this was 7, 8, 9 years ago and that also the market, the internet market, SaaS market has moved a lot since then. So, when I talk about the way we launched with a private beta, had invited people, gave them invitations, that’s something that worked back then. Quite uncertain whether it would work as well now because many people have done it and the market has changed and you need to shout much louder these days to get their attention than you used to so many years ago.But I think some of the other learnings are still quite valid for example: the other one I mentioned is focus on making your product usable, focus on the user, try to give him a nice feeling when he uses it. That is one key to success that we’d had, modest as it may be compared to some other companies out there of course. But I still believe that that’s one of the big things and we are not ready to compromise on usability doing anything. So we will discuss any small user interface change in th e name UI for a very long time to make sure that it doesn’t make things more complex or scare users off. So that is something we are good at.Some of the things that we’ve learnt over the years that we weren’t so good at, we also learned that they were important, have to do with obviously with marketing, with analytics especially. So analytics is one of the things that everyone knows is hugely important. In terms of measure, how your tool is used, measure what your users do, measure the conversions, all your key metrics, beware of key metrics. But I think at the same time, everyone who knows how important it is, very few actually know the numbers very well or do enough on that side. And that’s something that becomes more difficult to do the more you grow. So, if you start up with a small tool, and you build all the analytics and your measurements right in the beginning that’s much easier than if you do it years later when you have quite a large tool.Martin: You said that an alytics is very important. In the beginning, you didn’t know how your valid proposition and business model will look like because you’re iterating, etc. Do you think it’s a very good idea to have analytics from day one although you do not know what it is because it costs money to set up analytics, analyze etc, etc? Or do you think even though you should be very agile and iterative, still analytics should be done on day one?Michael: Yes, I think it should be. Like I said, it’s very easy to build it into a small product and I don’t think there’s any real cost associated with it if you don’t have a lot of traffic yet. Most of the tools that are out there will let you use it for free up to I don’t know how many thousands of impressions per day or logs per day. Once you grow, it’ll cost money but then you could hopefully afford it. It just helps you know your business, it helps you to keep things simple because if you measure everything you will also not run the risk of building too complex work flows into your tool, billing flows, conversion flows, and sign-up flows because it’s hard to measure them.The other thing we’ve learned, we’ve had quite a difficult set-up of ­ ­in terms of 30-day-free-trial with or without the credit card. And we actually went back and made everything much, much simpler. First of all, it is better for the user, easier to understand for the user, and second, because it’s much easier to measure.Martin: What tools can you recommend for analytics?Michael: So, we are using a mixture at the moment. One of the tools is everyone talks about is quite good, really, it’s Amplitude as it lets you log real, granular user events inside your app and see what users do, look at funnels about what they’re doing in the app. We still use Google Analytics for main SEO things.There is a couple of other SEO tools, on-page optimization tools and so on that are out there but there’s really too many to make any clear recommendation . We use on-page, we use search metrics, we use a few of those but take your pick. Something is better in each of the tools but overall, as long as you use something, that’s good enough.Martin: And when you wake up in the morning, what are the 3 to 5 key metrics you are totally interested about in order to assess whether your business is running well or not?Michael: When I wake up in the morning I usually unfortunately think of the tech things. I should think about those key metrics more. But some of the things we’re deeply looking at are, with intention, something we’re looking into very much in MindMeister. So, we look at different things in different products. In MindMeister retention is our focus and that’s because, like I mentioned before, it’s a bit of a seasonal product â€" you use it when you start a project, and you map it out, you create a couple of mind maps, share them with friends. Then when you fund that, you go away maybe for a long time and maybe come back. So our goal with that tool is build it into the usual work lifes of people more like we use it on an on-going basis and there we focus on retention. We have a lot of new users and we have four to five thousand new users per day, still growing, it’s pretty amazing. It’s important to show the people what they can do with the tool and keep them as users.With MeisterTask, it’s different. MeisterTask is a much more techy product once you use it because once you had a project there, once you had a task in there, unless you manage to finish them all, you will continue to use it, you know, you can continue to make more tasks, continue to share it with people. There, for us it’s more important to show people this is here as well, so this is an alternative if you’re using, let’s say, Asana, Wunderlist, or Trello, have a look at this because we think it’s better for these and these reasons. Most of the people who’ve seen it have agreed and the challenge there is how to get in front of those people.Martin: Great. Michael, what other learnings did you perceive over the years?Michael: So one other thing we’ve seen is it’s also been the way we’ve developed the second product, MeisterTask. If you had a problem and you don’t find a solution out there or you don’t find that you like and you then build a product to solve that problem for you then it’s quite likely, very likely so to speak, that there will be others out there, probably many others who had have that same problem and for whom you will help solve the problem with your product, so to speak. We did this with MeisterTask, we had this problem ourselves, how do we do our tasks after we’ve the mind-mapping. We built something that we wanted to use that helps us in our product development in our company, helps not only the tech team but also helps the marketing team and the sales team to manage their projects. So, we looked at companies our type, our size with different departments that would like to use an all-in-one tool together and built it for that. And we looked at the second characteristic as well there, we looked at companies â€" small companies like ours that work with freelancers, we have an external designer, we have an external iOS, Android developers and so on. And so we built the tools so that it also works for those people. You can write there, they have access to it, they don’t have to use only that and you can look at this use case and when we launched it had seemed that we weren’t the only ones who had that problem. So I think, build something for yourself that you really happy with and others will follow, so to speak.Martin: Great. Michael, thank you so much for sharing your insights and if you’re looking for a great task manager, check out MeisterTask. Thanks!Michael: Pleasure.THANKS FOR LISTENING! Welcome to the fifth episode of our podcast!You can download the podcast to your computer or listen to it here on the blog. Click here to subscribe in iTunes. Martin: Hi. This time we have a one â€" or long-time favourite of mine, who is Michael from MindMeister. I can remember when I was still at university, I thought to myself: “Hmm, maybe I should start mind-mapping a company myself.” When I saw Michael, I said: “Hmm, maybe I would look for another business modeller.” Hi Michael! Who are you and what do you do?Michael: Hi Martin! Thanks for having me. First off, I didn’t know you â€" almost became a competitor â€" but you know I’m glad you didn’t. So my name is Michael Hollauf. I’m an Austrian and I now run, together with my co-founder, Till Vollmer, I run a company called MeisterLabs and we have two products. One of it you mentioned, it’s MindMeister for online-based mind-mapping tools and the second one is MeisterTask, it’s a collaborative Canban-style task manager that is fully integrated with MindMeister and a few other tools as well. We just launched last year.Martin: Great. How did you start this company?Michae l: Actually, we’re coming up to the 10th anniversary of the company founding this February, so next month.Martin: Congrats.Michael: Thank you. The product MindMeister itself has been around for good eight â€" eight and a half years. We launched it about a year after we founded the company. We’ve got a story behind us out there.Martin: And what did you do in those, like, twelve or eighteen months before you launched MindMeister? Did you work on other ideas first and then iterate it? Or was the vision, “Yes, we like to do something like mind-mapping but maybe we’ll just work on the prototype maybe during our spare time and if we see some traction then we will switch to it full-time.”?Michael: Yes, it was a bit like that. All I can grew out of another company that we founded three years before. Till and I were at an outsourcing company. We had a team of Java and Rubin developers in Romania and we did projects for other companies. And when you have, sort of, a service company, you have a lot of work to do in the one side but you also have downtimes when you have fewer projects, you have, sort of, free time with the people. And we tried out a few ideas â€" different things like 3-4 ideas like I would say, small tools. One of them was an online browser-based mind-mapping visualization. That kind of really felt right so we developed it further and then I think we started to found the company that would be a product company, would be MeisterLabs. In the 12th month before the launch, we just developed a product for that.Martin: And what made you think: “Oh, maybe we are on the right track with Mind Meister back then”? So did you receive some great traction in terms of user acquisition? Because I still can remember the first time I saw you, you had something like 1,000 or 10,000 subscribers which wasn’t that much back then. But was it something like this type of market validation or was it some kind of radar customer feedback which made you think: “Yes . We’re on the right track.”?Michael: So, the first feeling we got that we were on the right track was just from us personally and showing it to our friends, trying it out with people inside the company. We all thought: “This works better than we thought; there could be a market for this”. And then after that, it was a private beta launch like you mentioned, in that private beta launch we got a lot of feedback really quickly. So we started with an invitation of about 200 people and I think within a couple of days, we had a thousand people there. So those 200 people invited had invited other people and it quickly became a thousand and then, actually, within two or three weeks, to ten thousand people. The fact that people invited others and sent the link around showed us, alright, this sure is something that some people at least have been waiting for.BUSINESS MODEL OF MINDMEISTERMartin: Great. Michael, let’s talk about the business model. So, when you first launched the mode l, it was something like as you said a free model but later on you added a freemium model. Can you elaborate a little bit on that? So how did this evolve and how did it work?Michael: Actually, we did have â€" right from the launch; we had a freemium model. The only things we didn’t have were premium features. Yes, we had the pricing plan as well as the whole billing system so you could use a credit card and everything, but we didn’t really have features that were available to the freemium version. The funny thing was though that from Day 1 â€" and I think actually on Day 2, the first person paid, you know, a huge amount, I don’t know the cost back then, I think 30-40€, but they paid because they liked the product without having any need to pay. So that was pretty interesting. I mean, obviously the real payments in higher numbers only came when they actually had premium features and when we started to put up some restrictions on the free usage, they have to do otherwise, you won’t be able to sustain your business.Martin: And how did you try to balance growing the customer base which is, from I understand, you’re mainly driven by signing up free users and secondly, balancing this with developing, let’s say, premium features so you can monetize them because you are only having limited resources? How did you try to balance those two things?Michael: Another very good question. It’s at a point where we always have this question about it and still do it actually. But for a long time, actually still up to now, we went more for the giving away free as much as you can to increase virality to get in front of as many people as possible who if they don’t pay, might at least invite other people, you know, that might help you grow virally and try to make the features so that people who that are actually using it, not only professionals but definitely the ones who use it professionally and for business purposes but also who use it really more deeply, that th ey will pay. You let special users in it for free because in the end of the day, they are unlikely to pay for it anyway if I’m honest, and the ones who use it really deeply; you try to convert by adding features, that they would need, into the premium plan.Martin: How did I come to it, think about MindMeister before I was doing some memory training and I was thinking about: “Okay, what type of cool business application could I start? And then I came to MindMeister and it looked very, very simple and easy to me. So now, the question is: What are the reasons you keep out competitors out of the way? What is the secret sauce? Is it the scale, is it the simplicity, is it just because you’re somehow market leader in this kind of segment already?Michael: I think all of it placed together a little bit. We were the first to launch but not by a lot. Actually, I think about two months after we launched, the first competitor came along with you know, quite a similar solution, he was techn ically different, it was actually flash-phase back then, the competitor. It was the same browser-based mind-mapping.Yes, the thing is that definitely something we always prowess one of our USPs is simplicity â€" the focus on usability, on simplicity, on a beautiful design that we try and update regularly and keep fresh and keep modern, also again try and focus on a simple user interface that doesn’t overload the user, that keeps the learning curve quick and steep and that’s what we still do with that product with all the other products as well. At least I believe it’s one of the keys to success for all kinds of apps.Martin: And when this competitor arose like two months after you’ve launched, what had been your thought or reactions to that?Michael: Desperation, initially. In the first few years, whenever a new competitor came along, we would be quite depressed and think: “Oh god, what if they do it so much better than we do?”, “What if, they take our market away?” It hasn’t happened fortunately. If you stay on the ball, if you keep pleasing the users, keep making your app better, keep providing it with service, it’s unlikely to happen, unless Facebook or whoever decided to enter your niche. It hasn’t happened and we learned to live with it much better. So these days when we see a new app, we’re like: “Right, okay, so yup, looks good but we’ve come a long way and I think they will have to come a long way as well.Martin: Can you elaborate a little bit on the current team set-up and what is actually your focus? Are you seeing yourself more like a, let’s say, marketing customer acquisition company or are you perceiving yourself more as a tech company or maybe something totally different?Michael: I think we would like to perceive ourselves as a marketing growth customer acquisition company but if we’re being honest, we’re a tech company. That’s not a bad thing in itself either. My co-founder, Till and I were both techies from our background, we’re still techies at heart, I think. Although in the last years we focused much, much more on things like marketing, growth and even finance â€" all these things, you have to obviously do if you run a company. So we do that much, much more with built teams there to do that, but in the end of the day, after everything, I think it’s the product that counts. You have to have a great product, you have to provide a great service, you can increase your success obviously with marketing but I think no amount of amazing marketing could turn a dot into a gold nugget.Martin: And how many free users that you need to acquire so you c ould become cash flow-neutral at least after many months?Michael: I think as we had about a hundred thousand users or something in free users in total that, I think, that that wasn’t breakeven yet. But I think it was between a hundred thousand and three hundred thousand, somewhere there we had a monthly recurring revenue that helped us pay the c osts, running costs of the company. Well, we were only free people back then, still it wasn’t a huge running cost. But like I said, we focused a lot on getting many users so the conversion rate wasn’t amazing to paid users so we needed quite a lot of free users to actually pay the costs, but it grew quite quickly.Martin: Good. And at what point of time did you think about adding another product and creating, let’s say, an overall brand like MeisterLabs?Michael: Early on, about three years ago I would say. So we launched it nine months ago, we took our time building the second product; we wanted to make it really good. It took about two years actually. But we saw a few things:First of all we saw: mind-mapping is a stage in a process and it’s usually the first stage in a project. Three years heavily in the start phase of a project, when you exchange ideas, when you brainstorm, when you map out your project, and then comes a point when you go into implementing the project and w orking on everything. Then you need a different tool, and we saw a lot of users dropping off, of MindMeister maybe coming back a couple of months later for the next project but actually dropping off. We said, “Okay, let’s, you know, it’s a shame that they have to move to another tool because we don’t provide anything for them.”So we thought: “Okay, that would be a nice point to offer them a product that’s integrated with MindMeister and supports them in that second phase of the project.” We thought there’s lots of task mission tools around, of course it’s a huge market, it’s a very important market and we thought we have a lot of ideas that could make it nice, make it very usable, very simple, combine some of the things we like in other tools and create something we hope users will like.Martin: Why did it take you two years to develop this prototype? And second question would be, lots of start-ups have the belief that: “Let’s ship it early, get the customer feedback and then iterate on the live product” which apparently you did not do.Michael: Exactly, yes. I have to say, looking back I’m very happy with the result, it is one thing. We took our time, we took a long time, we went through many iterations of design and so on and when we shipped, it was a really, really good product. But, looking back, I think we should have probably come the other way, we should have done it quicker, come up with something quicker, got feedback faster. That’s what we’ll probably try to do working in the next product. That is a lesson learned, I would say. Although again, I couldn’t say if the result would be the same. You know, looking back now you don’t know what would’ve happened if you went the other way. Taking too long with a product has a lot of drawbacks apart from the fact that you know, we came up later, we did. You know, you have to keep your team motivated and developers as well, if you take too long to bring out something, obvio usly the market moves. So my take away from that experience was next time spend more time on a smaller initial prototype and try to ship it faster.Martin: When you started with the company, you had a very limited scope of what you wanted to achieve, like for example with MindMeister, and then adding further products. For me, the question is what is the bigger vision which combines those different product ideas?Michael: Well, the bigger vision is to cover the entire creative process inside a high-tech company, so to speak, because that’s our target market, our main target market. The creative process, I mean creative project that starts out with a brainstorming bit, product development bit, and some sort of marketing campaign bit, anything else. Right now we cover the first two phases, the brainstorming phase and the actual project carrying out. There is a missing piece at the end, there we have some ideas for that as it is one missing piece in there and we might come out with it w ith a product that covers something there and closes the circle to the next project.Martin: How are those products integrated? So, for example I look at MindMeister, how is it then integrated to MeisterTask?Michael: When you’re in MindMeister, you can switch on MeisterTask toolbar and you can connect each mind-map with a project, so to speak. And if it’s not connected you can just right from there, create a project for this mind-map, although I’ve made a mind-map that’s connected with the same project and all that. So, let’s say kind of a one-to-many relationship there. And then in the toolbar you’ll see all the people that are in your project. You see little avatars from photos of them, and you can very easily just drag any mind-map node, any topic onto one of those avatars and what it’ll do, it’ll create a task for that person in the project.We, for example, we a lot our weekly meetings, and in weekly meetings we mind-map all the things we go through and then, with that okay, so that’s actually that’s something that, you know, Andrei has to do. So, we make the task and we drag it onto his face and he has the task assigned and the project management system and he can start working on it after the meeting.Martin: What’s the idea of MeisterTask based on several customer requests or was it more of a vision of you both that you said: “Oh, it would be very interesting if we are working on this creative process and therefore the next logical step would be this although customers didn’t request it.”?Michael: We had many customer requests to enhance the task management functionality in MindMeister. In fact, there’s a little bit of a task management functionality there like all mind-mapping tools, they allow you to sign a priority onto a node and the person and due date. But it’s very, very lightweight, so it has no follow-through, no process behind it. It is also very little, in terms of task functionality.Customers wanted more there. So it was visible customers used it for task management as well but we didn’t want to blow up a, sort of, partial functionality of a mind-mapping tool and then make it into a mind-mapping tool more complex, more low fit. We thought: Okay, since this is something different what people do, then this should be done in a dedicated tool.Martin: One option would have been if Im having this kind of modular market where I’m having mind-maps and I perceive you as a clear market leader in that. And now you’re entering into another market which is more task related etc. So, did you receive some kind of reaction from the other task-related companies that were just adding mind-mapping functionality, and then the competitions in those two markets are even increasing?Michael: We haven’t seen that yet as such. I think it terms of market size the mind-mapping market is a very focused but still very niche market. Usually when companies are in a market of a certain size, they expand into bigge r, adjacent markets. They usually don’t expand so much into smaller adjacent markets. So we haven’t seen many task management tools expanding into mind-mapping. We see quite a few of our mind-mapping competitors adding task management but they usually do it differently, they add some more functionality into their product.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM MICHAEL HOLLAUFMartin: So Michael, over the last let’s say ten to thirteen years, what have been the major learnings that you can share with other people starting a company? Like some the stupid mistakes an entrepreneur can do, or maybe some very cool things he should do?Michael: Well, that could potentially be quite long. People interested in the story, there’s this article on TechCrunch that kind of tells our story, in quite details.Whenever I talk about the learnings from 7, 8, 9 years ago, I always mention the fact that this was 7, 8, 9 years ago and that also the market, the internet market, SaaS market has moved a lot since then. So, when I talk about the way we launched with a private beta, had invited people, gave them invitations, that’s something that worked back then. Quite uncertain whether it would work as well now because many people have done it and the market has changed and you need to shout much louder these days to get their attention than you used to so many years ago.But I think some of the other learnings are still quite valid for example: the other one I mentioned is focus on making your product usable, focus on the user, try to give him a nice feeling when he uses it. That is one key to success that we’d had, modest as it may be compared to some other companies out there of course. But I still believe that that’s one of the big things and we are not ready to compromise on usability doing anything. So we will discuss any small user interface change in the name UI for a very long time to make sure that it doesn’t make things more complex or scare users off. So that is something we are good at.Some of the things that we’ve learnt over the years that we weren’t so good at, we also learned that they were important, have to do with obviously with marketing, with analytics especially. So analytics is one of the things that everyone knows is hugely important. In terms of measure, how your tool is used, measure what your users do, measure the conversions, all your key metrics, beware of key metrics. But I think at the same time, everyone who knows how important it is, very few actually know the numbers very well or do enough on that side. And that’s something that becomes more difficult to do the more you grow. So, if you start up with a small tool, and you build all the analytics and your measurements right in the beginning that’s much easier than if you do it years later when you have quite a large tool.Martin: You said that analytics is very important. In the beginning, you didn’t know how your valid proposition and business model will look like bec ause you’re iterating, etc. Do you think it’s a very good idea to have analytics from day one although you do not know what it is because it costs money to set up analytics, analyze etc, etc? Or do you think even though you should be very agile and iterative, still analytics should be done on day one?Michael: Yes, I think it should be. Like I said, it’s very easy to build it into a small product and I don’t think there’s any real cost associated with it if you don’t have a lot of traffic yet. Most of the tools that are out there will let you use it for free up to I don’t know how many thousands of impressions per day or logs per day. Once you grow, it’ll cost money but then you could hopefully afford it. It just helps you know your business, it helps you to keep things simple because if you measure everything you will also not run the risk of building too complex work flows into your tool, billing flows, conversion flows, and sign-up flows because it’s hard to meas ure them.The other thing we’ve learned, we’ve had quite a difficult set-up of ­ ­in terms of 30-day-free-trial with or without the credit card. And we actually went back and made everything much, much simpler. First of all, it is better for the user, easier to understand for the user, and second, because it’s much easier to measure.Martin: What tools can you recommend for analytics?Michael: So, we are using a mixture at the moment. One of the tools is everyone talks about is quite good, really, it’s Amplitude as it lets you log real, granular user events inside your app and see what users do, look at funnels about what they’re doing in the app. We still use Google Analytics for main SEO things.There is a couple of other SEO tools, on-page optimization tools and so on that are out there but there’s really too many to make any clear recommendation. We use on-page, we use search metrics, we use a few of those but take your pick. Something is better in each of the tools but overall, as long as you use something, that’s good enough.Martin: And when you wake up in the morning, what are the 3 to 5 key metrics you are totally interested about in order to assess whether your business is running well or not?Michael: When I wake up in the morning I usually unfortunately think of the tech things. I should think about those key metrics more. But some of the things we’re deeply looking at are, with intention, something we’re looking into very much in MindMeister. So, we look at different things in different products. In MindMeister retention is our focus and that’s because, like I mentioned before, it’s a bit of a seasonal product â€" you use it when you start a project, and you map it out, you create a couple of mind maps, share them with friends. Then when you fund that, you go away maybe for a long time and maybe come back. So our goal with that tool is build it into the usual work lifes of people more like we use it on an on-going basis and there we focus on retention. We have a lot of new users and we have four to five thousand new users per day, still growing, it’s pretty amazing. It’s important to show the people what they can do with the tool and keep them as users.With MeisterTask, it’s different. MeisterTask is a much more techy product once you use it because once you had a project there, once you had a task in there, unless you manage to finish them all, you will continue to use it, you know, you can continue to make more tasks, continue to share it with people. There, for us it’s more important to show people this is here as well, so this is an alternative if you’re using, let’s say, Asana, Wunderlist, or Trello, have a look at this because we think it’s better for these and these reasons. Most of the people who’ve seen it have agreed and the challenge there is how to get in front of those people.Martin: Great. Michael, what other learnings did you perceive over the years?Michael: So one other thing we’ve seen is it’s also been the way we’ve developed the second product, MeisterTask. If you had a problem and you don’t find a solution out there or you don’t find that you like and you then build a product to solve that problem for you then it’s quite likely, very likely so to speak, that there will be others out there, probably many others who had have that same problem and for whom you will help solve the problem with your product, so to speak. We did this with MeisterTask, we had this problem ourselves, how do we do our tasks after we’ve the mind-mapping. We built something that we wanted to use that helps us in our product development in our company, helps not only the tech team but also helps the marketing team and the sales team to manage their projects. So, we looked at companies our type, our size with different departments that would like to use an all-in-one tool together and built it for that. And we looked at the second characteristic as well there, we lo oked at companies â€" small companies like ours that work with freelancers, we have an external designer, we have an external iOS, Android developers and so on. And so we built the tools so that it also works for those people. You can write there, they have access to it, they don’t have to use only that and you can look at this use case and when we launched it had seemed that we weren’t the only ones who had that problem. So I think, build something for yourself that you really happy with and others will follow, so to speak.Martin: Great. Michael, thank you so much for sharing your insights and if you’re looking for a great task manager, check out MeisterTask. Thanks!Michael: Pleasure.THANKS FOR LISTENING!Thanks so much for joining our fifth podcast episode!Have some feedback you’d like to share?  Leave  a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed this episode, please  share  it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.Also,  please leave an h onest review for The Cleverism Podcast on iTunes or on SoundCloud. Ratings and reviews  are  extremely  helpful  and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.Special thanks  to Michael for joining me this week. Until  next time!

Tallest Buildings in the World

Since its completion in January 2010, the tallest building in the world has been the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. However, the building called Kingdom Tower, being built in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is expected to be completed in 2019 and would move Burj Khalifa to the second place spot. Kingdom Tower is expected to be the worlds first building that is taller than a kilometer (1000 meters or 3281 feet).   The Changing Sky-Scape Currently proposed as the worlds second tallest building is Sky City in Changsha, China to be built by 2015. Additionally,  One World Trade Center in New York City is also nearly complete and will be the worlds third tallest building when it opens sometime in 2014. Thus, this list is extremely dynamic and by 2020, the worlds current third  tallest building, Taipei 101, is expected to be around the 20th tallest building in the world due to numerous tall buildings being proposed or constructed in China, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia.   The Top 20 Tallest Buildings 1. Worlds Tallest Building: Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Completed in January 2010 with 160 stories which reach 2,716 feet (828 meters) high! The Burj Khalifa is also the tallest building in the Middle East. 2.  Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia with 120 floors and 1972 feet tall (601 meters), this new hotel building opened in 2012. 3. Asias Tallest Building: Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan. Completed in 2004 with 101 stories and a height of 1667 feet (508 meters). 4. Chinas Tallest Building: Shanghai World Financial Center in Shanghai, China. Completed in 2008 with 101 stories and a height of 1614 feet (492 meters). 5. International Commerce Centre in Hong Kong, China. The International Commerce Centre was completed in 2010 with 108 stories and a height of 1588 feet (484 meters). 6 and 7  (tie). Formerly the worlds tallest buildings and known for their distinctive appearance, the Petronas Tower 1 and Petronas Tower 2 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia have gradually been moved down the list of the worlds tallest buildings. The Pertonas Towers were completed in 1998 with 88 stories and are each 1483 feet (452 meters) tall. 8. Completed in 2010 in Nanjing, China, the Zifeng Tower is 1476 feet (450 meters) with a mere 66 floors of hotel and office space. 9. Tallest Building in North America: Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower) in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Completed in 1974 with 110 stories and 1451 feet (442 meters). 10. The KK 100 or  Kingkey Finance Tower in Shenzhen, China was completed in 2011 and has 100 floors and is 1449 feet (442 meters). 11. The Guangzhou International Finance Center in Guangzhou, China was completed in 2010 with 103 stories at a height of 1439 feet (439 meters). 12. The Trump International Hotel Tower in Chicago, Illinois, United States is the second tallest building in the United States and, like the Willis Tower, is also located in Chicago. This Trump property was completed in 2009 with 98 stories and at a height of 1389 feet (423 meters). 13. Jin Mao Building in Shanghai, China. Completed in 1999 with 88 stories and 1380 feet (421 meters). 14. The Princess Tower in Dubai is the second tallest building in Dubai and in the United Arab Emirates.  It was completed in 2012 and stands 1356 feet (413.4 meters) with 101 stories. 15. Al Hamra Firdous Tower is an office building in Kuwait City, Kuwait was completed in 2011 at a height of 1354 feet (413 meters) and 77 floors. 16. Two International Finance Centre in Hong Kong, China. Completed in 2003 with 88 stories and 1352 feet (412 meters). 17. Dubais third tallest building is 23 Marina, a residential tower of 90 floors at 1289 feet (392.8 meters). It opened in 2012. 18. CITIC Plaza in Guangzhou, China. Completed in 1996 with 80 stories and 1280 feet (390 meters). 19. Shun Hing Square in Shenzhen, China. Completed in 1996 with 69 stories and 1260 feet (384 meters). 20. Empire State Building in New York, New York state, United States. Completed in 1931 with 102 stories and 1250 feet (381 meters). Source Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

Critiquing Three Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Critiquing Three Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles Foreign Language Learners Use and Perception of Online Dictionaries: A Survey Study In the article entitled Foreign Language Learners Use and Perception of Online Dictionaries: A Survey Study, Jin and Deifell (2013) discussed the function, the role, and the importance of online dictionaries to support foreign language learners. Both authors identified the initial problem in the research that foreign language learners found difficulty in understanding language forms due to its in-depth use in sentences. However, the issue was resolved through highlighting the impact of using online dictionaries to facilitate learning. The review of literature offered great ideas how online dictionaries influenced students’ learning a language. The importance of dictionaries in language has always been beneficial as Jin and Deifell (2013) examined the perceptions and uses of the foreign language learners through bilingual online dictionaries. In fact, the literature review was balanced, which presented pieces of reviewed literature to support the claim that online dictionaries were useful to the foreign language learners. The use of resources and references was recent, and the discussion of the topic was based on the theoretical framework. Indeed, the variables were clearly defined where the respondents joined through a web-based survey (Jin Deifell, 2013, p. 519). The method of research, the use of research instrument, the sample, the data analysis, and the result and the conclusion were discussed to inform the readers to deliberate further research. In the end, this article provided pieces of information that online dictionaries helped learners create and decipher digitally mediated written texts. They considered online dictionaries essential in language learning. However, they reported that not all were reliable due to the disparity of quality in online dictionaries across languages. Thus, foreign learners should use copious online glossaries and other digital resources to help them learn the intended language. Optimizing the Learning of a Second Language Vocabulary: An Experimental Research In an article entitled Optimizing the Learning of a Second Language Vocabulary, Atkinson (1972) identified the problem to improve the learning of a large German-English vocabulary. Atkinson (1972) mentioned four enhancement strategies, which he assessed experimentally. He used four strategies to understand the problem. Firstly, he utilized some items in a random order. Secondly, he determined the experiment trial of the involving items. Thirdly and fourthly, he used the strategy based on decision-theoretic analysis of the instructional task or based on a mathematical model of the learning process. As such, this research would need an experimentation to identify its implications and theoretical analysis. In this study, the review of related literature discussed students could optimize their learning through a language. It was necessary to improve the second learning since the vocabularies may be different from the native language learning of the first language learning. In fact, the use of dictionaries in language was beneficial as Atkinson (1972) examined the perceptions and uses of the second language learners. In fact, the literature review was balanced, which presented studies to answer the hypothesis (p. 129). The utilization of the references was not recent; however, the result was compelling. The discussion of results was based on the theoretical and analytical framework, which the variables were evidently defined. The samples participated in an online survey. Above all, this article provided a good result that improving vocabularies of the second language helped learners acquire more vocabularies. At end of the research, the method of research, the use of research instrument, the data analysis, and the result and the conclusion were conferred profoundly to recommend further studies. Communicating Organizational Change: Strategies for Communicating Change A Content Analysis In an article entitled Communicating Organizational Change: Strategies for Communicating Change, Nordin (2014) tried to explore perceptions of workforces concerning change in the organizational communication and to develop change results in an organizational situation. He also mentioned that the organizational leaders would face some growing pressures to implement change of plans and strategies to answer efficiently to the growing business competition. Nordin believed that such change would often entail structural rearrangement and develop new tasks. Although Nordin identified the need for organizational change, he recognized the needs of the organizations, developed strategies to communicate successfully, and initiated steps to change the course of actions when problems occurred. In this article, Nordin integrated the review of literature that offered great ideas how they could improve their communication strategies. Indeed, this article highlighted the need to demonstrate face-to-face communication, provide a constant communication practice for long-term change endeavors and frequent communication, and initiate effective communication strategies for organizational and ethical discussions. In the experimentation, the participants indicated that mood of communication affected the employees’ perceptions regarding organizational change (Nordin, 2014, p. 136). In fact, in this research, the use of resources was recent to offer new information, and the topic was, indeed, based on the theoretical framework. Hence, the method of research, the use of research instrument, the sample study, the data analysis, and the result and the conclusion were discussed profoundly to inform the readers to deliberate further research. In the end, this article delivered that effective communication could promote effective organizational change. Effective communication helped the readers and learners understand better regarding business and organizational problems. In this article, it suggested that effective communication played a vital role in business meetings, conferences, and plans towards success. That is why Nordin recognized the needs of the organizational change through effective communication strategies. References Deifell, E., Jin, L. (2013, December). Foreign language learners use and perception of online dictionaries: A survey study. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 515 – 526. Atkinson, R. C. (1972). Optimizing the learning of a second language vocabulary. Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol. 96, No. 1, pp. 124 – 129. Nordin, E. J. (2014). Communicating Organizational Change: Strategies for Communicating Change. San Antonio, Texas, USA: The Clute Institute International Academic Conference, pp. 134 – 140.

Subversive Stories and Hegemonic Tales Free Essays

The great source of uncertainty and unpredictability in a rationalizing system are people-either the people who work thin those systems or the people who are served by them look up TV show â€Å"are you served†.. Same vocabulary as McDonald’s Structure Go to any church is any giant Coors like golden arches Whenever you see cross first thing you think is Jesus, like arches and hamburgers Youth video- Mega Churches group project. We will write a custom essay sample on Subversive Stories and Hegemonic Tales or any similar topic only for you Order Now . Wreck 15 â€Å"A typical Manchuria does not include actual bibles by the seats, but in exchange, a book written by the pastor themselves. This book Is a shortened version of the bible with modern day affairs discussed throughout(adaptability, also pastors can be as nouns as 28 years old to appeal to a more youthful crowd) Jesus Camps Funded by macrophages Point is to help child learn more about god and his love for everyone. To destroy the child’s old and revive a new person that loves and accepts god Indoctrination at a young age(draw connection to Nazi regime of efficiency? Control? ) Comfortable seating Shorter services Cool, fun Coffee shops in the church Walter of the church world Article-Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goalposts of Life: Nationalization,Consumer Culture, and Modern Evangelical Churches J. B. Watson, Jar. Stephen F. Austin State university Point of article This dimension of the Nationalization of religion in the U. S. Will be examined in this paper, with special attention to its impact on evangelical churches. In particular, the church growth movement embraced by evangelical churches has accelerated the emphasis on consumer-based products and packaged spiritual programs â€Å"l think of the old slavery, and of the way the economy has now improved upon It. The new slavery has Improved upon the old by giving the new slaves the Illusion that they are its principles, for it is very humane. It buys their freedom, pays for it, and then erasures its money back again with shoddy goods and the promise of freedom† Economic Transitions and the Emergence of Consumer Religion Influence of capitalism on the religious organizations Consumption, according to Twitchier, is now essential to the construction of self- identity; the symbolic value of the product exceeds its practical value in most cases. Twitchier (1999; 2004) airframes the notion of â€Å"you are what you buy’ and suggests that consumerism is now strongly woven into the social fabric – it provides products purchased for their practical value, but also for the crucial security value they can revive in an increasingly secular age. Pig 5 The consumer approach to Evangelical Religious practice Branding(point of association with symbols) Structure Pastor acts as CEO. Position themselves as â€Å"the last great hope† of resisting colonization It is this position that leads them to increased colonization, contrastingly Colonization-is the process by which religion in a society begins to lose influence and the interest in other worldly or idealistic religious ideas is replaced by greater emphasis on material success and other pragmatic concerns. Shift from moral foundations towards raciest more like American consumerism * Resources for modeling Innovators in Manchuria leaders Bill Hobbes and Rick Warre n, have published multiple books and regularly conduct teaching seminars for church leaders â€Å"The purpose of all these products is to provide the information and skills necessary to replicate the Willow Creek or Saddlebags model of church growth in any geographic setting. How to cite Subversive Stories and Hegemonic Tales, Papers

Leadership Includes Proper Understanding †Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Leadership Includes Proper Understanding? Answer: Introducation A good leadership includes proper listening and understanding of the employees and other teammates. A leader includes motivation spirit, team leading spirit, understanding, helping hand. Good leadership quality creates team spirit at the work place. Thereby organization achieves profit if there is good leadership. Without efficiency in the work place, an organization cannot run smoothly, nor can it compete with other companies (Cullen-Lester, Maupin, Carter, 2017). Leadership includes encouragement of teamwork, doing work into teams creates less pressure of the work. In teamwork, there are chances of more work at less point in time (Komives Wagner, 2016).Teamwork creates positive impact to the organization, thus helps in building good reputation of the organization and helps in building good relation among employees. Working in teams also sets deadline targets to complete the task. As an individual employee also, by finishing the work on time creates a good image of the employee at the work place. An employee should be well skilled and qualified for the required job designation, because an unskilled employee will create inefficiency in the work production which can influence in a negative way to the organization (Larsson et al., 2017). A leader must be a positive thinker as it leads to success. Good education qualification and correct job designation creates confidence and interest among the employees. There will be seriousness and dedication enough towards the job (Mertens, Boen, Fransen, 2017).Therefore, these are the certain key behaviors of an efficient employee. A good leadership and stable decision includes proper healthy communication with its subordinates in the organization. A good communication skill creates more production and friendly atmosphere at the work place. Effective communication includes listening, accuracy and clarity, friendly interaction, open minded, discipline and understanding nature. Effective listening to the issues can help to understand the issue with more clearly. One need a clear understanding of the problem then there should be a friendly and comfortable communication. This creates positive effect in the financial performances as well as in the environment. An organization performance is totally depends on leadership and proper managing of desired roles and activities of employees, staffs and other stakeholders. When an employee gets proper facilities and incentives, they tend to do their work with more interest, passion and dedication. A good leader with proper and good decision management will boost the organization performances and standards thereby create new opportunities and trends in terms of global business. Key areas of focus for a leader are decision regarding performance, quality and quantity of goods and services (Norris, 2017). It includes standard quality goods and materials for production and output level. With the use of modern technology for better production of goods and services, it will create growth in the business profit and efficiency in standard. Strength of a leadership includes passion to do the work, charismatic nature, competency level increases, patience, creates innovation and integrity. Weakness includes lack of support, influencing factor, laissez faire, to coach a team. Therefore, when a leader fails to provide adequate functions to the teams and organization it creates a negative impact on the organization. Mintzberg theory- The leadership aspect is inspirational in Mintzberg theory that deals with three main aspects. They are interpersonal, informational processing sector and decision-making process. According to this theory, there is no relation between management and a leadership (Skendall et al., 2017). This theory gives a statement that an organization to run smoothly needs a manager to function, not a leader to fulfill the roles and functions in respect of three domains of work force that are people, information and action. Leadership role functioned by every individual member of the organization. Interpersonal department includes figurehead, leadership traits. Informational department includes functioning and monitoring of the roles, dissemination and spokesperson. Decision making department includes resource allocation, entrepreneur, and problem solving and interaction agent. Mintzberg segregated the work division in to these three heads and when theses three functions well it creates stability in the organization as it includes proper allocation of resource, accuracy in decision making and motivating leadership traits. With good management of the performances and the functions of the organization, it creates efficiency in the production unit and greater output for the company. When company performs, well it creates global competition leading to new opportunities and investments. By providing good work ethics with employee friendly work environment, it creates motivation and more production at work place. This creates efficiency and more opportunities for the business domestically and glo References Cullen-Lester, K. L., Maupin, C. K., Carter, D. R. (2017). Incorporating social networks into leadership development: A conceptual model and evaluation of research and practice.The Leadership Quarterly,28(1), 130-152. Komives, S. R., Wagner, W. E. (2016).Leadership for a better world: Understanding the social change model of leadership development. John Wiley Sons. Larsson, G., Sandahl, C., Sderhjelm, T., Sjvold, E., Zander, A. (2017). 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