DropBox it just works

I was searching for a new opportunity that was more Drop client software to a Windows, Mac, or Linux PC or to an phone, pad, Blackberry, or Android mobile device, the software created a local Drop folder for accessing files of any size or type via an encrypted Internet connection from other Drop-enabled devices or from any web browser. The client software tracked changes in real-time to any file in the user's local Drop folder, then instantly synchronized a copy of the file on Dropsy's servers, updating only the portions of he file that had changed, in order to save bandwidth and time.Likewise, within milliseconds, copies of the file were synchronized in local Drop folders on all other devices connected through the user's account. â€Å"We engineered Drop so it just worked, all of the time,† Drew explained, â€Å"We supported all the major operating systems and handled all kinds of obstacles, from flaky wireless connections to corporate firewalls, which was not an easy task. † The company adopted a fermium business model, that is, it offered both free and premium accounts.Users got 2 gigabytes of storage for free and had the option to ay $10 per month for 50 gigabytes or $20 per month for 100 gigabytes. Industry observers estimated that 2% to 3% of Dropsy's users were paying customers, which implied a $10 million to $15 million annual revenue run rate in mid 2010. 1 At that time, the company had 25 employees, most of whom worked in engineering or support functions. Drop had raised $7. 2 million in two rounds of venture capital funding from Sequoia Capital and Cell Partners.Market Overview Drop was a late entrant to the fiercely competitive online backup and storage services space. The first firms in the space, which had small companies as customers, ere launched in the late asses by startups offering outsourced storage at remote decanters. As costs declined, services also became available for consumers seeking to backup their data online. Most ear ly users were technically adept, for example, college students downloading music from peer-to-peer file sharing services.Few firms in this first wave of services survived the dot. Com crash, but by late 2006 the market was crowded again with new competitors. In July 2007, the tech blob Amassable published a list of more than 80 online backup and storage services. 2 Market research vendors like DC fueled the hype by predicting that the worldwide market for online backup services would grow to $71 5 million by 2011. 3 Investor interest in online storage surged when Muzzy was acquired by EMCEE for $76 million in late 2007.Houston was confident that Drop could succeed in the face of intense competition. He reasoned that Drop would be able to collect revenue from some users, because consumers generally understood that storage cost money, whether it came in the form of a physical drive or an online service. When challenged by endure capitalists to explain why the world needed another clou d backup company, Houston asked them, â€Å"How many of those services do you personally use? † The answer from Vs. was almost invariably, â€Å"None of them. 4 Houston asserted that direct experience with rival services, which often failed to transfer data across firewalls and sometimes balked with big files or large numbers of files, was helpful in innovations that contributed to these advantages: 2 The first generation of cloud storage services was based on a simplistic model, where file accesses were redirected over the Internet instead of to your computer's hard rive. Your operating system and all your applications assume that accessing your hard drive is cheap and fast, but when these requests are instead routed to a server thousands of miles away, they can take an order of magnitude longer.This subtle but critical distinction explains why when working remotely, even simple actions like browsing a directory can freeze your computer for seconds at a time. We needed to t ake a completely different approach by storing files locally and updating the cloud copy in the background using a number of time- and vindications optimizations. Launching Drop It's hard to imagine Tom Cruise in Minority Report sending himself files via Gamma or lugging around a USB thumbprint. Ђ? Drew Houston After his frustrating experience on the bus, Houston started working on Drop full time in late 2006. He said: I needed it badly. I worked on multiple desktops and a laptop and could never remember to keep my USB drive with me. I was drowning in email attachments trying to share files for my previous startup. My home desktops power supply literally exploded one day, killing one of my hard drives, and I had no backups. I tried everything I could find but each product inevitably suffered problems with Internet latency, large files, bugs, or Just made me think too much. To help with the project, Houston recruited Rash Overdose, who dropped out of MIT and later became Dropsy's co-founder and chief technology officer. The pair spent the next four months coding a prototype in a tiny Cambridge apartment. With a working prototype in hand, Houston came up with an innovative approach for testing demand for a minimum viable product. He had produced various recruiting videos for his college fraternity; with this know-how he created a three-minute crassest of a product demo and uploaded it to Hacker News, a popular forum for developers. â€Å"l did this out of necessity.There was no way I could ask for people's files before we were 100% sure our code was reliable. But I had a prototype that showed off the product's best features. â€Å"7 Houston used the screens to recruit beta testers and to solicit feedback on features that Drop might include. He added, â€Å"Not launching is painful, but not learning can be fatal. We got a lot of feedback through that video, so we were learning while we were building. † Houston had another reason for posting the video on Hacker News: he hoped to ND selective Y Combinatory seed fund and incubator program.He recalled, â€Å"l had Just submitted my application to Y Combinatory and as a gambit to get their attention, I submitted the video to Hacker News. I hoped it would work. â€Å"8 It did: in April 2007, Drop received $15,000 in funding from Y Combinatory (see Exhibit 1 for excerpts from Dropsy's Y Combinatory application). In exchange for a small percentage of a startup's common equity-?usually 2% to 10%-?Y Combinatory provided up to $20,000 of seed capital as well as mentoring, workspace, and introductions to other advisors ND investors over a three-month period.Many startups applied to Y Combination's program, which had a track record for matching strong technical teams with elite venture capital firms. 3 Upon conclusion of the Y Combinatory program in September 2007, Drop raised $1. 2 million of convertible debt from Sequoia Capital. â€Å"We fit into Sequoia's sweet spot: we were two youn g technical founders, working out of an apartment, targeting a big market. It helped that we were ranked at the top of our Y Combinatory cohort,† Houston recalled.He and Overdose moved to San Francisco to continue building the many, but despite the capital infusion, they continued to run lean. Drop delivered its service through Amazon's SO cloud storage platform, avoiding the need for infrastructure investments and positioning the company to scale rapidly. The co- founders created a private beta program for a limited group of users who registered through a simple landing page. The page contained a short description of Drop and requested an email address from visitors interested in participating in the beta test (Exhibit 2).Houston commented: There's a spectrum of well-informed opinions about when to launch your product. At one end, Paul Graham tells entrepreneurs, â€Å"Launch early and often† to accelerate learning. At the other end, [respected software guru] Joel Spoo ky says, â€Å"Launch when your product doesn't completely suck. † We were managing people's files, and it's a big deal if you lose or ruin them. That meant moving toward Spooky end of the spectrum and keeping our beta test small. Next, Houston devised ways to generate demand for the beta service.In a guerilla marketing move, he produced another short demo video and posted it in March 2008 on Dig, a site that showcased web content deemed popular by Digs users. Houston felt it was essential to communicate in an authentic manner with the tech enthusiasts who frequented Dig. He sprinkled â€Å"Easter eggs† into the video, for example, references to Chocolate Rain (a Youth phenomenon), TIPS reports used in the movie Office Space, Mitt's Gillian Hall, and the 09 IF key for decrypting Blurry disks (dissemination of which, in the face of movie studio legal threats, was a hacker crusade).With this tongue-in- cheek nod to its tech-sway audience, the Drop video soared to the top of Dig, few days. Overnight, the list for Dropsy's private beta Jumped from 5,000 to 75,000 Ames, far exceeding the team's expectations. Building the Company Make something people want. -? Y Combinatory motto Based on consumer response to the second video, it appeared that the promise behind Drop-? â€Å"It Just works†-?resonated with potential early adopters, especially those who were familiar with the performance limitations of existing online backup/ storage services. Houston shifted his focus to product development.The Drop team was comprised almost entirely of engineers during the first two years of the firm's existence. Early on, board members tasked Houston with hiring a reduce manager to help coordinate engineering efforts and prioritize features. Houston reflected: If you ask ten people what a product manager is, you'll get ten different answers. They tend to fall on a continuum with the end points being â€Å"poet† and â€Å"librarian. † A librarian i s focused on blocking and tackling, coordination, and facilitating communication. This type of PM is inherently organized and follows up relentlessly.A poet PM listens to the voice of the customer during usability tests and focus groups and based on that insight formulates an aesthetic vision, a grand strategy, and a product roadman. Our first product manager was 4 more of a librarian than a poet, because we needed a librarian's discipline: even today we don't have enough of that DNA in the company. But he Just drove people nuts. It was painful, but we had to let him go after six months. For the next year, until Drop hired another product manager, the company relied on Houston and Overdose to drive the product roadman.Development proceeded more slowly than Houston had originally expected. In his April 2007 Y Combinatory application, Houston had projected availability of a version that he could charge for thin 8 weeks, but launching Drop to the public actually took 18 months. Houston said, â€Å"As a result of doing a few things well, we left a lot of other things behind. We had no business people, we were terrible at getting mainstream PR, and running fast and loose didn't make for the most predictable engineering organization. 9 Public Launch Drop opened its beta to the public in September 2008 at Outstretched, an annual competition showcasing high-potential startups. Drop was one of 50 startups selected to present at the event from a pool of over 1,000 applicants. ND also provide a product development deadline for the team. Houston mused that since Drop was following a tried-and-true blueprint for launching a consumer Internet service, his next step would have to be devising a marketing plan. Drop retained an online marketing consultant to help with this task.Houston said, â€Å"What do most web companies do? Apply to Outstretched, check. Buy Towards, check. Get real marketing people, check. â€Å"10 Early on, Drop attempted to acquire new customers throu gh paid search advertising. However, incumbents had bid up the cost per click for obvious search keywords. As a result, it cost Drop more than $300 to acquire a paying customer (Exhibit 3). This was not sustainable, since an annual subscription for 50 KGB service was priced at $99. Drop had tweaked its sign-up process to increase the conversation rate from free user to paying customer.The company also experimented with hiding the free service option for visitors who arrived via search ads. Houston recalled, â€Å"Our average acquisition cost per paying customer went from thousands of dollars to hundreds, but we still had a problem with our economics. And we didn't feel good about doing sneaky things to our users to get them to pay. 11 Sequoia Capital and Cell Partners subsequently led a $6 million Series A round of financing in October 2008, but even with additional capital in the bank, relying on paid search would not be a viable long- term option.In addition, the team had experim ented with display ads and affiliate programs, but these efforts also yielded unacceptably high acquisition costs per paying customer. Houston realized that with a fermium strategy, optimization of marketing messages and pricing would be critical to Dropsy's success; consistent with this priority, the company hired an analytics engineer as its eighth employee. Inspired by the Backbone â€Å"growth† team dedicated to user acquisition and engagement, Houston later assigned 30% of engineering resources to optimizing customer acquisition efforts.This team closely tracked metrics across Dropsy's conversion funnel by cohort,a for example: the percent of landing page visitors who registered as free users; the percent of registrants who still were active free users after X months; and the percent of free users who upgraded to paid subscribers after Y months. Houston said, â€Å"We run our business based on the ‘Startup Metrics for Pirates' framework developed by investor Dave McClure. He says firms should a A cohort was a set of prospects or users acquired at the same time and/or via the same marketing method. Closely track metrics around the acquisition of landing page visitors; activation of those visitors into users; retention of users; referral of new visitors by satisfied users; and revenue earned from users. † The team used A/B testing to fine tune page layouts free storage given to users. Analytics showed that gigabytes were not necessarily the best measure of value for Drop users. â€Å"We had all kinds of people paying us for Drop but not even bumping against their quota,† Houston said. Analytics likewise revealed that few users were accessing past versions of their files, all of which-?including deleted files-?were being permanently stored by Drop at a significant and rapidly growing cost. The company modified its policy, offering 30 days of undo history free of charge and making unlimited undo history a premium option. Houston sai d, â€Å"Just a tenth of a percent improvement in conversion rates, or a small decrease in the cost of serving a customer can have a huge impact on profitability. Premium is a spreadsheet game-?one you win with lots and lots of little moves . â€Å"13 Fourteen Months to the EpiphanyDespite improvements through analytics, Houston and his colleagues struggled to make the company marketing programs profitable. Nevertheless, the service grew rapidly, reaching 200,000 users ten days after launch and 1 million users seven months later. The vast majority of these users were acquired through word-of-mouth referrals and viral marketing efforts, rather than paid advertising. A relentless focus on ease of use and reliability had paid dividends in the form of loyal users who encouraged friends, family, and co-workers to try Drop. Houston commented, â€Å"The power of focus can't be understated.If you look at a feature matrix of Drop versus everyone else, we would never come in first. We woul d rather do a few things well rather than present Drop in a confusing way. â€Å"14 To identify ways to improve ease of use, the Drop team tracked support forums closely. Houston said, â€Å"We get feature requests for things we already have. These are particularly bad because it means that even though we've implemented something, our users can't find it. We pay close attention when that happens. â€Å"1 5 The company also maintained a â€Å"Vote† on its site, allowing users to vote and comment on treasures they would like to see added.Since the team gained insight on users' preferences through support forums and the Vote, the company did not conduct regular consumer surveys, but it did conduct occasional usability tests. In one instance, the entire team watched as not one of five typical consumers recruited from Scraggliest could successfully install and interact with the application. Houston recalled: Watching them fail was excruciating. Imagine if your coffee maker Just spit coffee all over the counter every third time you used it or your car stopped in the middle of the road. That's the computer experience for a normal person.The PC is always conspiring against you to lose your stuff or break in some weird way. You have no idea what happened or what you did wrong. Watching those five consumers struggle to try to figure out how to use our product was probably the most painful day we ever had as a team, but afterward, we created a list of 70 things to fix. B A/B tests divided a set of similar individuals into a control group that experienced a status quo product and a test group that experienced a product with one modified element, to determine if the modification yielded a statistically significant DropBox it just works I was searching for a new opportunity that was more Drop client software to a Windows, Mac, or Linux PC or to an phone, pad, Blackberry, or Android mobile device, the software created a local Drop folder for accessing files of any size or type via an encrypted Internet connection from other Drop-enabled devices or from any web browser. The client software tracked changes in real-time to any file in the user's local Drop folder, then instantly synchronized a copy of the file on Dropsy's servers, updating only the portions of he file that had changed, in order to save bandwidth and time.Likewise, within milliseconds, copies of the file were synchronized in local Drop folders on all other devices connected through the user's account. â€Å"We engineered Drop so it just worked, all of the time,† Drew explained, â€Å"We supported all the major operating systems and handled all kinds of obstacles, from flaky wireless connections to corporate firewalls, which was not an easy task. † The company adopted a fermium business model, that is, it offered both free and premium accounts.Users got 2 gigabytes of storage for free and had the option to ay $10 per month for 50 gigabytes or $20 per month for 100 gigabytes. Industry observers estimated that 2% to 3% of Dropsy's users were paying customers, which implied a $10 million to $15 million annual revenue run rate in mid 2010. 1 At that time, the company had 25 employees, most of whom worked in engineering or support functions. Drop had raised $7. 2 million in two rounds of venture capital funding from Sequoia Capital and Cell Partners.Market Overview Drop was a late entrant to the fiercely competitive online backup and storage services space. The first firms in the space, which had small companies as customers, ere launched in the late asses by startups offering outsourced storage at remote decanters. As costs declined, services also became available for consumers seeking to backup their data online. Most ear ly users were technically adept, for example, college students downloading music from peer-to-peer file sharing services.Few firms in this first wave of services survived the dot. Com crash, but by late 2006 the market was crowded again with new competitors. In July 2007, the tech blob Amassable published a list of more than 80 online backup and storage services. 2 Market research vendors like DC fueled the hype by predicting that the worldwide market for online backup services would grow to $71 5 million by 2011. 3 Investor interest in online storage surged when Muzzy was acquired by EMCEE for $76 million in late 2007.Houston was confident that Drop could succeed in the face of intense competition. He reasoned that Drop would be able to collect revenue from some users, because consumers generally understood that storage cost money, whether it came in the form of a physical drive or an online service. When challenged by endure capitalists to explain why the world needed another clou d backup company, Houston asked them, â€Å"How many of those services do you personally use? † The answer from Vs. was almost invariably, â€Å"None of them. 4 Houston asserted that direct experience with rival services, which often failed to transfer data across firewalls and sometimes balked with big files or large numbers of files, was helpful in innovations that contributed to these advantages: 2 The first generation of cloud storage services was based on a simplistic model, where file accesses were redirected over the Internet instead of to your computer's hard rive. Your operating system and all your applications assume that accessing your hard drive is cheap and fast, but when these requests are instead routed to a server thousands of miles away, they can take an order of magnitude longer.This subtle but critical distinction explains why when working remotely, even simple actions like browsing a directory can freeze your computer for seconds at a time. We needed to t ake a completely different approach by storing files locally and updating the cloud copy in the background using a number of time- and vindications optimizations. Launching Drop It's hard to imagine Tom Cruise in Minority Report sending himself files via Gamma or lugging around a USB thumbprint. Ђ? Drew Houston After his frustrating experience on the bus, Houston started working on Drop full time in late 2006. He said: I needed it badly. I worked on multiple desktops and a laptop and could never remember to keep my USB drive with me. I was drowning in email attachments trying to share files for my previous startup. My home desktops power supply literally exploded one day, killing one of my hard drives, and I had no backups. I tried everything I could find but each product inevitably suffered problems with Internet latency, large files, bugs, or Just made me think too much. To help with the project, Houston recruited Rash Overdose, who dropped out of MIT and later became Dropsy's co-founder and chief technology officer. The pair spent the next four months coding a prototype in a tiny Cambridge apartment. With a working prototype in hand, Houston came up with an innovative approach for testing demand for a minimum viable product. He had produced various recruiting videos for his college fraternity; with this know-how he created a three-minute crassest of a product demo and uploaded it to Hacker News, a popular forum for developers. â€Å"l did this out of necessity.There was no way I could ask for people's files before we were 100% sure our code was reliable. But I had a prototype that showed off the product's best features. â€Å"7 Houston used the screens to recruit beta testers and to solicit feedback on features that Drop might include. He added, â€Å"Not launching is painful, but not learning can be fatal. We got a lot of feedback through that video, so we were learning while we were building. † Houston had another reason for posting the video on Hacker News: he hoped to ND selective Y Combinatory seed fund and incubator program.He recalled, â€Å"l had Just submitted my application to Y Combinatory and as a gambit to get their attention, I submitted the video to Hacker News. I hoped it would work. â€Å"8 It did: in April 2007, Drop received $15,000 in funding from Y Combinatory (see Exhibit 1 for excerpts from Dropsy's Y Combinatory application). In exchange for a small percentage of a startup's common equity-?usually 2% to 10%-?Y Combinatory provided up to $20,000 of seed capital as well as mentoring, workspace, and introductions to other advisors ND investors over a three-month period.Many startups applied to Y Combination's program, which had a track record for matching strong technical teams with elite venture capital firms. 3 Upon conclusion of the Y Combinatory program in September 2007, Drop raised $1. 2 million of convertible debt from Sequoia Capital. â€Å"We fit into Sequoia's sweet spot: we were two youn g technical founders, working out of an apartment, targeting a big market. It helped that we were ranked at the top of our Y Combinatory cohort,† Houston recalled.He and Overdose moved to San Francisco to continue building the many, but despite the capital infusion, they continued to run lean. Drop delivered its service through Amazon's SO cloud storage platform, avoiding the need for infrastructure investments and positioning the company to scale rapidly. The co- founders created a private beta program for a limited group of users who registered through a simple landing page. The page contained a short description of Drop and requested an email address from visitors interested in participating in the beta test (Exhibit 2).Houston commented: There's a spectrum of well-informed opinions about when to launch your product. At one end, Paul Graham tells entrepreneurs, â€Å"Launch early and often† to accelerate learning. At the other end, [respected software guru] Joel Spoo ky says, â€Å"Launch when your product doesn't completely suck. † We were managing people's files, and it's a big deal if you lose or ruin them. That meant moving toward Spooky end of the spectrum and keeping our beta test small. Next, Houston devised ways to generate demand for the beta service.In a guerilla marketing move, he produced another short demo video and posted it in March 2008 on Dig, a site that showcased web content deemed popular by Digs users. Houston felt it was essential to communicate in an authentic manner with the tech enthusiasts who frequented Dig. He sprinkled â€Å"Easter eggs† into the video, for example, references to Chocolate Rain (a Youth phenomenon), TIPS reports used in the movie Office Space, Mitt's Gillian Hall, and the 09 IF key for decrypting Blurry disks (dissemination of which, in the face of movie studio legal threats, was a hacker crusade).With this tongue-in- cheek nod to its tech-sway audience, the Drop video soared to the top of Dig, few days. Overnight, the list for Dropsy's private beta Jumped from 5,000 to 75,000 Ames, far exceeding the team's expectations. Building the Company Make something people want. -? Y Combinatory motto Based on consumer response to the second video, it appeared that the promise behind Drop-? â€Å"It Just works†-?resonated with potential early adopters, especially those who were familiar with the performance limitations of existing online backup/ storage services. Houston shifted his focus to product development.The Drop team was comprised almost entirely of engineers during the first two years of the firm's existence. Early on, board members tasked Houston with hiring a reduce manager to help coordinate engineering efforts and prioritize features. Houston reflected: If you ask ten people what a product manager is, you'll get ten different answers. They tend to fall on a continuum with the end points being â€Å"poet† and â€Å"librarian. † A librarian i s focused on blocking and tackling, coordination, and facilitating communication. This type of PM is inherently organized and follows up relentlessly.A poet PM listens to the voice of the customer during usability tests and focus groups and based on that insight formulates an aesthetic vision, a grand strategy, and a product roadman. Our first product manager was 4 more of a librarian than a poet, because we needed a librarian's discipline: even today we don't have enough of that DNA in the company. But he Just drove people nuts. It was painful, but we had to let him go after six months. For the next year, until Drop hired another product manager, the company relied on Houston and Overdose to drive the product roadman.Development proceeded more slowly than Houston had originally expected. In his April 2007 Y Combinatory application, Houston had projected availability of a version that he could charge for thin 8 weeks, but launching Drop to the public actually took 18 months. Houston said, â€Å"As a result of doing a few things well, we left a lot of other things behind. We had no business people, we were terrible at getting mainstream PR, and running fast and loose didn't make for the most predictable engineering organization. 9 Public Launch Drop opened its beta to the public in September 2008 at Outstretched, an annual competition showcasing high-potential startups. Drop was one of 50 startups selected to present at the event from a pool of over 1,000 applicants. ND also provide a product development deadline for the team. Houston mused that since Drop was following a tried-and-true blueprint for launching a consumer Internet service, his next step would have to be devising a marketing plan. Drop retained an online marketing consultant to help with this task.Houston said, â€Å"What do most web companies do? Apply to Outstretched, check. Buy Towards, check. Get real marketing people, check. â€Å"10 Early on, Drop attempted to acquire new customers throu gh paid search advertising. However, incumbents had bid up the cost per click for obvious search keywords. As a result, it cost Drop more than $300 to acquire a paying customer (Exhibit 3). This was not sustainable, since an annual subscription for 50 KGB service was priced at $99. Drop had tweaked its sign-up process to increase the conversation rate from free user to paying customer.The company also experimented with hiding the free service option for visitors who arrived via search ads. Houston recalled, â€Å"Our average acquisition cost per paying customer went from thousands of dollars to hundreds, but we still had a problem with our economics. And we didn't feel good about doing sneaky things to our users to get them to pay. 11 Sequoia Capital and Cell Partners subsequently led a $6 million Series A round of financing in October 2008, but even with additional capital in the bank, relying on paid search would not be a viable long- term option.In addition, the team had experim ented with display ads and affiliate programs, but these efforts also yielded unacceptably high acquisition costs per paying customer. Houston realized that with a fermium strategy, optimization of marketing messages and pricing would be critical to Dropsy's success; consistent with this priority, the company hired an analytics engineer as its eighth employee. Inspired by the Backbone â€Å"growth† team dedicated to user acquisition and engagement, Houston later assigned 30% of engineering resources to optimizing customer acquisition efforts.This team closely tracked metrics across Dropsy's conversion funnel by cohort,a for example: the percent of landing page visitors who registered as free users; the percent of registrants who still were active free users after X months; and the percent of free users who upgraded to paid subscribers after Y months. Houston said, â€Å"We run our business based on the ‘Startup Metrics for Pirates' framework developed by investor Dave McClure. He says firms should a A cohort was a set of prospects or users acquired at the same time and/or via the same marketing method. Closely track metrics around the acquisition of landing page visitors; activation of those visitors into users; retention of users; referral of new visitors by satisfied users; and revenue earned from users. † The team used A/B testing to fine tune page layouts free storage given to users. Analytics showed that gigabytes were not necessarily the best measure of value for Drop users. â€Å"We had all kinds of people paying us for Drop but not even bumping against their quota,† Houston said. Analytics likewise revealed that few users were accessing past versions of their files, all of which-?including deleted files-?were being permanently stored by Drop at a significant and rapidly growing cost. The company modified its policy, offering 30 days of undo history free of charge and making unlimited undo history a premium option. Houston sai d, â€Å"Just a tenth of a percent improvement in conversion rates, or a small decrease in the cost of serving a customer can have a huge impact on profitability. Premium is a spreadsheet game-?one you win with lots and lots of little moves . â€Å"13 Fourteen Months to the EpiphanyDespite improvements through analytics, Houston and his colleagues struggled to make the company marketing programs profitable. Nevertheless, the service grew rapidly, reaching 200,000 users ten days after launch and 1 million users seven months later. The vast majority of these users were acquired through word-of-mouth referrals and viral marketing efforts, rather than paid advertising. A relentless focus on ease of use and reliability had paid dividends in the form of loyal users who encouraged friends, family, and co-workers to try Drop. Houston commented, â€Å"The power of focus can't be understated.If you look at a feature matrix of Drop versus everyone else, we would never come in first. We woul d rather do a few things well rather than present Drop in a confusing way. â€Å"14 To identify ways to improve ease of use, the Drop team tracked support forums closely. Houston said, â€Å"We get feature requests for things we already have. These are particularly bad because it means that even though we've implemented something, our users can't find it. We pay close attention when that happens. â€Å"1 5 The company also maintained a â€Å"Vote† on its site, allowing users to vote and comment on treasures they would like to see added.Since the team gained insight on users' preferences through support forums and the Vote, the company did not conduct regular consumer surveys, but it did conduct occasional usability tests. In one instance, the entire team watched as not one of five typical consumers recruited from Scraggliest could successfully install and interact with the application. Houston recalled: Watching them fail was excruciating. Imagine if your coffee maker Just spit coffee all over the counter every third time you used it or your car stopped in the middle of the road. That's the computer experience for a normal person.The PC is always conspiring against you to lose your stuff or break in some weird way. You have no idea what happened or what you did wrong. Watching those five consumers struggle to try to figure out how to use our product was probably the most painful day we ever had as a team, but afterward, we created a list of 70 things to fix. B A/B tests divided a set of similar individuals into a control group that experienced a status quo product and a test group that experienced a product with one modified element, to determine if the modification yielded a statistically significant

Acute Hepatitis B

Acute Hepatitis B GNUR543 St. John Fisher College Mr. Wilson is a 47 year old man being evaluated for complaints of fatigue, anorexia and abdominal distention. On examination, it is noted that the skin is jaundiced and the liver enlarged. D. W. denies significant alcohol or drug use. He denies any known exposure to hepatitis and has never been vaccinated for hepatitis. He is taking no medication. Laboratory tests reveal the following and a diagnosis of acute hepatitis B is made: 1. Review and analyze the laboratory data. What diagnosis is supported by these values? Give your rationale. Mr.Wilson’s lab work is reviewed below: * AST142 IU/L * AST (Aspartate aminotransferase) is an enzyme and blood sample results can detect if there is liver damage. AST is found in the heart and liver with much lower levels in muscles and kidneys. In a healthy person the AST is between 10-40 IU/L. If the liver is damaged, AST is released into the blood stream (Hepatitis B, 2011). * ALT120 IU/L * ALT (Alanine aminotransferase), if elevated can also be an indication of liver damage. ALT is an enzyme that is normally in the liver and kidneys. If the individual is healthy, the ALT is low, between 7-56 IU/L.Elevated ALT is an early indicator of liver damage usually elevating prior to a patient becoming jaundice (Hepatitis B, 2011). * GGT 42 IU/L * GGT (Gamma-glutamyl transferase) is an enzyme that is found in the liver but may also be in the spleen, kidneys and pancreas. As with AST/ALT, GGT is elevated when there is liver damage. The normal test range is 0 – 51 IU/L. GGT will be elevated when there is acute damage to the liver (or bile ducts) (Hepatitis B, 2011). * Alk Phos 84 IU/L * Alk Phos (Alkaline Phosphatase or ALP) is an enzyme found in the liver, bone, kidney and GI tract. Normal range for this blood test is 44 – 147 IU/L.Alk Phos, if elevated generally indicates that there is a blockage in the bile ducts. Also, if it is found to be high this means the pat ient can either have kidney disease or bone disease. To differentiate, a GGT test is also taken. If that result is high as well, a liver disease is present; if the GGT is within normal limits then the patient has bone disease (Hepatitis B, 2011). * Total Bilirubin1. 0 mg/dl * Total bilirubin is the product of damaged or broken down red blood cells in the body. The bilirubin is processed through the liver and the normal levels in the body are; 0. 3 – 1. 9 mg/dL.If this level is increased, it means that the liver is not processing the bilirubin due to liver disease (Hepatitis, 2011). * Albumin4. 3 g/dl * Albumin (ALB) measures the level of albumin in the patient’s plasma. Albumin is a protein that is made in the liver and is sensitive to any changes in liver function. Albumin mainly ensures that the cells in the body don’t leak, keep the tissues nourished and transports vitamins, calcium, hormones through the body. The normal range for Albumin is 3. 4 – 5. 4 g/dL. Albumin will be lower than normal in the case of malnutrition or liver disease (Hepatitis, 2011). HBsAgpositive * Anti-HBSnegative * Anti-HCVnegative * HIVnegative Test Name| Mr. Wilson’s Result| Normal Ranges| | AST| 142 IU/L| 10-40 IU/L| Elevated| ALT| 120 IU/L| 7-56 IU/L| Elevated| GGT | 42 IU/L| 0 – 51 IU/L| Normal| Alk Phos | 84 IU/L| 44 – 147 IU/L| Normal| Total Bilirubin| 1. 0 mg/dl| 0. 3 – 1. 9 mg/dL| Normal| Albumin| 4. 3 g/dl| 3. 4 – 5. 4 g/dL| Normal| Mr. Wilson’s labs indicate that he has chronic Hepatitis B. This is chronic because the indicators for acute liver damage are within normal limits. For example, if the patient were having an acute onset of Hepatitis B his Albumin would be low.Albumin is made in the liver and is very sensitive to any changes in the liver. If there was acute damage to the liver the Albumin value would not be in normal range. Also, Mr. Wilson’s bilirubin would be higher if he was having a cute hepatitis B. For the skin to be noticeably jaundiced the bilirubin level would usually be >2. 0 mg/dL (Hepatitis, 2011). The patients GGT would be elevated also if he was experiencing an acute episode of hepatitis B. Additional tests that might be helpful to making an accurate diagnosis would be; IgG-anti-HBc and IgM-anti-HBc.These tests show if the hepatitis is acute or chronic. The IgG-anti-HBc is positive if the patient is chronically infected. The IgM-anti-HBc would show positive if the patient is acutely infected with hepatitis B. The HBs-Ag will be positive in both acute and chronic cases. See the table below for an overview of the assessment and tests that are generally given when a new Hepatitis B diagnosis is reached. (Lok A. S. , 2011) 2. Explain the hepatocellular changes that occur with the above diagnosis. The liver has many roles in the body that associate it with many systems.For example, it acts as a digestive organ by secreting bile for the breakdown of fat (Co pstead, 2010). The liver also removes bilirubin from the blood, temporarily stores blood and synthesizes the blood clotting factors (Copstead, 2010). Other functions of the liver are; removing toxins from the blood, metabolizing both sex hormones and steroid hormones. Any damage to the liver can in turn disrupt any of these processes and functions that it performs. Some of the processes and functions can be changed in the following ways: * Liver inflammation: Inflammation in chronic hepatitis is associated with scarring.Severe inflammation can bridge together portal tracts within the liver, this is called â€Å"bridging necrosis† (Mani & Kleiner, 2009). It can also bridge to central veins, confluent necrosis (Mani & Kleiner, 2009). This leads to scarring, the creation of fibrous strands and in many cases will lead to fibrosis. Throughout the liver cells are becoming damaged therefore blocking and limiting the livers functionality. Hormone secretion, chemicals and toxins in th e blood, clotting factors and other defense fighting macrophages are interrupted (Copstead, 2010).Along with the inflammation, the patient will feel fatigued and will have a lowered immunity. * Ascites and peripheral edema: Abdominal distention, ascites, is a result of the damaged cells within the liver and more specifically the membrane of the cell has been damaged. There is an intra-abdominal buildup of sodium, water and protein. The cells in the liver are unable to maintain the appropriate osmotic gradient across the pleura (Copstead, 2010). This extra fluid is likely to accumulate in the dependant areas of a person’s body, such as ankles, legs, and arms (Kukka, 2010). Jaundice: Red blood cells have a short life span and as they die and/or are damaged the body will break them down and dispose of them. This is referred to as bilirubin metabolism and this happens in three phases; pre, intra and posthepatic. (Copstead, 2010). The red blood cells should be broken down, deliver ed to the liver and then transported through the biliary system and thus be wasted via the kidney’s or the colon. With damaged liver cells, the bilirubin is not excreted from the liver and there is a buildup of the conjugated bilirubin and the result is jaundice (Copstead, 2010).Other changes due to the liver damage are portal hypertension, gastric and esophageal varacies, vitamin mal-absorption, poor blood clotting and altered mental status (Copstead, 2010). The liver has such far reaching effect on so many organs and systems in the body that any damage to the liver will result in decreased functioning of other systems. Immediate tests to determine the cause and extend of the damage would be imperative to managing the disease going forward. 3. How should the disease be managed and monitored? Explain your rationale.If pharmacotherapeutics are used, explain your rationale and their mechanism of action. First steps would be to order additional labs including, IgM-anti-HBc, IgG- anti-HBc, HBeAg, HBV DNA, CBC with PT and electrolytes. In cases of acute hepatitis B, symptoms sometimes go unnoticed. The virus will normally go away on its own and if treatment is given, it is for the symptoms and most adults recover fully (Hepatitis B, 2011). But in the case of chronic HBV, the patient will need to be monitored to see if the virus is replicating (Lok A. S. , 2011). In patients with chronic HBV, the treatment oals are to reduce the long term effects of liver damage, prevent the transmission of the virus to others and manage any complications along the way (Lok A. S. , 2011). A clear diagnosis of chronic hepatitis B is needed. Results of blood work will determine the course of treatment. In Mr. Wilson’s case, with only the first lab results, it appears that he is in the active chronic infection stage. At this point the liver damage is still minimal. Because there does not seem to be significant liver damage a liver biopsy would not be indicated at this poin t (Lok A. S. , 2011).As the practitioner, I would recommend more blood tests, as noted above, and ongoing monitoring of the virus every few months. This will help in determining the activity of the virus. The medications used to treat chronic hepatitis B tend to have serious side effects. The patient must be willing to make a commitment to continue the therapy and adhere to close monitoring during any drug treatments (Hepatitis B, 2011). Supportive medicines are important to assist in treating side effects of the virus. For example, diuretics are prescribed if edema is not resolving on its own.Vitamins and minerals are indicated if labs show deficiency due to decreased liver function. If it is determined that Mr. Wilson’s virus is active (meaning he is able to infect others) there are new drugs available to choose from. Antiviral treatments include (Hepatitis, 2011): 1. Entecavir – a. A pill taken once a day for up to a year b. Used when DNA viral cells are actively re plicating 2. Interferon Alpha c. Injection a few times per week for up to a year d. Used when patient has compensated liver disease 3. Pegylated Interferon e. Injection once per week for up to a year f.Used when patient had compensated liver disease and evidence of viral replication and liver inflammation 4. Lamivudine g. A pill taken once a day for a year or more h. Used when patient has active liver inflammation and active viral replicating 5. Adefovir Dipivoxil i. A pill taken once a day for a year or more j. Used in patients with chronic HBV 6. Telbivudine k. A pill taken once a day for a year or more l. Used in patients with active viral replication, persistent elevations in ALT or AST or histologically active disease 7. Tenofovir m. A pill taken once a day for a year or more n. Used in patients with chronic HBVThe medicines listed above are used alone or more likely in conjunction with others. These are currently the only hepatitis B drugs that are approved by the FDA (Lok & M cMahon, 2009). According to the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) Practice Guidelines, the ultimate goal of therapy is to suppress the replication of the virus and put the liver disease into remission (Lok & McMahon, 2009). This is monitored by watching the patients ALT, AST and other liver, viral and blood tests. The viral tests are imperative to determine the proper adjustments in medications.For example, interferon has been shown to reduce the viral replication and inducing liver disease remission (Lok & McMahon, 2009). Also, a newer drug, tenovir has shown significant promise in reducing viral levels in patients as compared to adefovir (Lok & McMahon, 2009). Practitioners need to watch for resistance as well when using the anti-viral drugs. As noted, the drugs are used in combination as well and these have shown to be more effective than when they are used alone. The effects of combined usage are better antiviral effects and delayed resistance (Lok & M cMahon, 2009).Mr. Wilson’s ALT, HBeAg lab values and his HBV DNA will be a main determinate to the type of therapy he will receive. A liver biopsy will be indicated later on if his  HBsAg is positive for more than six months, his serum HBV DNA is greater than >20,000 IU/mL and he has persistent or intermittent elevations in his ALT/AST levels (Kukka, 2010). Summary Hepatitis B can be chronic or acute. When a person has acute hepatitis B they generally don’t even notice and never need treatment. If treatment is needed it is supportive treatment for the symptoms of the acute virus infection.Chronic hepatitis B patients are at risk for cirrhosis and HCC (hepatic cellular carcinoma) (Kukka, 2010). Patients that have chronic HBV need to be educated on the risk of infecting others and will, in some cases, need to alter their lifestyle to protect others from getting the virus. Treatment is dependent on the blood work up that is obtained. It is very important that a patient that goes on antiviral treatment remain on it to reduce drug resistant strains. Also, patients must be evaluated and treated for the side effects of the anti-virals as well as the symptoms of other affected organs and systems in the body.References Copstead, L. -E. C. (2010). Pathophysiology. St. Louis: Saunders. Hepatitis. (2011, July 6). Retrieved March 26, 2012, from Lab Tests Online: http://labtestsonline. org Hepatitis B. (2011, July 6). Retrieved March 25, 2012, from Lab Tests Online: http://labtestsonline. org Hepatitis B. (2011, September 1). Retrieved March 24, 2012, from Mayo Clinic: http://www. mayoclinic. com/health Kukka, C. M. (2010). Hepatitis B Fact Sheet. HCSP Publications. Lexicomp. (2012). Retrieved February 5, 2012, from Lexicomp: https://online-lexi. com Liver Blood Tests. (2012, March 28).Retrieved March 30, 2012, from e Medicine Health: http://www. emedicinehealth. com/ Lok, A. S. (2011, February 16). Overview of the management of hepatitis B. Retrieved March 24, 2012, from UpToDate: http://www. uptodate. com Lok, A. S. , & McMahon, B. J. (2009). Chronic Hepatitis B: Update 2009. Alexandria: American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. Mani, H. , & Kleiner, D. E. (2009, May 1). Liver Biopsy Findings in Chronic Hepatitis B. Retrieved April 1, 2012, from University of Pennsylvania, Department of Medicine: http://webdev. med. upenn. edu

The Arab Socialist Regimes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Arab Socialist Regimes - Essay Example The socialist regimes in the Arab countries of the Middle East had a number of characteristics that makes them different from the current systems in the countries. These features were mainly evident in Syria, Egypt and Iraq. Some of the features included central planning in which control and planning of economic activities and other government activities. The government took the initiative of setting up the production goals, wage limit and costs of goods and services. It also ensured total control of all the public assets and resources. This was contrary to the current system in which the countries such as Egypt, Afghanistan and Iraq are approaching planning through the laissez-faire system where they do not directly control the economy. The regimes ensured a welfare state approach in the distribution of public resources. In Iraq, people were guaranteed universal healthcare, education and provision of support funds to the old members of the society. This is still applied in those cou ntries since welfare is not the same thing as socialism. The socialist regimes aimed at achieving self-sufficiency in the production process, initiating public investment so as to raise the capacity level and finally promoting import substituting form of industrialization.This is different from the current Arab regimes that are advocating for capitalism in which people are motivated to produce their own wealth. The locals who include farmers and low-scale workers have lost the socialized form of life in education, medicine and agriculture.

Development of the Troubles in Northern Ireland Essay

Development of the Troubles in Northern Ireland - Essay Example They did this by discriminating in houses and jobs in favor of Protestants and by gerrymandering local boundaries, which gave Protestants a majority in the local government of Londonderry, a predominantly Catholic area. In 1967 Catholic nationalist and republican leaders formed the Northern Irish Civil Rights Association (NICRA), inspired by the Civil Rights Movement in the US, to campaign against discrimination (Purdy, 2000). Goulding's plan caused a decisive split in the IRA and its political wing in 1969-70. Traditionalists rejected Goulding and set up the Provisional IRA, taking its name from the 1916 Provisional Government. And it was the 'Provos' (Purdy, 2000) who rigorously stuck to a strategy of bombings and shootings in the 1970s and 1980s with some hardcore support in working-class Catholic ghettos in Belfast and Londonderry. Attacks on the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary were justified by the claim that the Provos were engaged in a war against an occupying power. The political dimension was neglected until some of the younger IRA leaders, notably Gerry Adams and Martin MacGuiness, moved into Provisional Sinn Fein. Then and only then did a disposition to compromise emerge with successive IRA ceasefires, and the amazing recent spectacle of Sinn Fein members taking up appointments in the new Northern Ireland Assembly. The strategy of abstentionism had at long last been cast aside. In the words of Purdy, (2000) People's Democracy was formed in October 1968 by students at the Queen's University, Belfast, as a radical, socialist offshoot of NICRA. It became the principal initiator of violence in the North, seeking revolution and confrontation as it marched into Protestant areas and helped to destroy the moderate centre in Ulster politics. People's Democracy was at the centre of nearly every violent confrontation between civil rights demonstrators and the unionists, backed up by the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary). On 4 January 1969 there was a civil rights march (based on Martin Luther king's Selma freedom march in 1965) from Belfast to Londonderry, organized by People's Democracy. It was attacked outside Derry by a Protestant mob wielding cudgels: the RUC gave the marchers no protection. Later that day the RUC and 'B' Specials (Protestant special constabulary) went on the rampage in Derry's Catholic Bogside. In retaliation the inhabitants sealed off the Bogside, making it a 'No-Go area' and called it Free Derry (Townson, 2006). These events broke up the alliance which Terence O'Neill, the Northern Ireland Prime Minister, was promoting between the moderates in both communities. James Chichester-Clark replaced O'Neill as Prime Minister in April 1969 and tried to reduce tension by introducing reforms Catholics had long demanded to end discrimination in housing, jobs and local government, but the reforms came too late. There was serious rioting in the summer of 1969, which the RUC was unable to contain, so

In the light of the modern case law on review on the grounds of error Essay

In the light of the modern case law on review on the grounds of error of law and error of fact, is it still possible to say that - Essay Example In light of modern case law on review on the grounds of error of law and error of fact, to say that judicial review is concerned with the legality and not the merits of a decision remains to be seen in how they determine such cases. A critical analysis reveals that error of law and error of facts are indeed only errors inasmuch as the rules of natural justice apply during decision-making. Even so, sometimes a decision maker may not adhere to legal requirement that makes it mandatory for them to comply with the statutory procedure such as wrongfully admitting evidence in the absence of evidence. There have been concerns and various interpretation as to what happens in such a failure, whether it is reviewable as an error of the law2. It is vital to note that failure has the probability of being an error of the law or just a ground for review. For any possible review, the admissibility for a review is only that the ground is an error of the law and an applicant fit into that ground or t here is a failure. On the grounds of consideration of certiorari, a prerogative writ overturns a defective decision. As such, it is usually up to a plaintiff seeking certiorari to show that a legal defect in making the decision in question is indeed an error of the law. Taking into consideration judicial authority, there are a number of cases that hold in their specific circumstances that a failure by a decision maker to comply with judicial requirement is an error of the law. For instance, it is an error of the law if a tribunal remitted a matter being determined to an office, which had been abolished as was in the case Commonwealth v Angel3. Besides, a failure to give reasons in beach of a statutory obligation is an error of the law as demonstrated in Dornan v Riodan4. Likewise, the same applies when a judge fails to give proper reasons for a decision in breach of the common obligation law to do so as was seen in the case Commissioner for Railways v Peter5. Error of facts on the o ther hand may be seen to have a close relationship with error of law. It appears then that there is always a need to engage in fresh analysis whenever there is a need to distinguish between law and facts, and consequently between error of .aw and error of fact. One should observe that the fundamental part to this analysis between error of fact and error of law is anchored on the fundamentals of the law, which are achieved through interpretation of the law, establishing facts, applying the law, and analysis of their compliance with legal procedure. In layman’s language, an error is committed when something is not done in the way it should be done. Therefore, it is determining of an error using law that creates an error of law. The relationship with error of facts errors of fact are always judicially admissible as errors of law. Even though, errors of fact have two claims. The first one is that wrong findings of material facts impede the very purpose of the law by preventing th e law from applying to material facts when it should. The law fails to apply to material facts in the sense that the real facts do not come before the law for consideration. On the other hand, the law may also fail by failing to apply wen it should indeed apply6. To understand better the error of facts, a

DQ Responses Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

DQ Responses - Essay Example I perform critical thinking throughout this buying process. Eventually I found a computer that satisfied my needs and my budget constraint. Thinking outside the box involves generating ideas and finding solutions to problems in unusual places. For example a company that has done business domestically for 50 years, suddenly its manager thinks outside the box and introduces international expansion as a potential solution to achieve the desired sales growth. A person that thinks outside the box is open to possibilities others do not consider. A critical thinking technique that I utilized when making decisions is to put myself in the place of others and analyze what others would think of the decision. This technique helps me envision the different perspective that stakeholders would have and what the opinions of others might be regarding the different alternatives. A way to ensure that we have looked at a situation from every possible angle is to get more people involved in the thinking process. A group of six to eight people can be gathered to learn the opinions of others regarding the situation. A lot of minds will help a manager view different perspectives. A simple way to improve the decision making process is by allowing sufficient time before making a decision. A few years ago I worked in a start-up company that had a very cocky project manager. The PM was would get overly excited about insignificant issues. His overconfident hurt the company in the long run because he would make decisions that did not consider the effects the decision had on the employees and other stakeholders of the

Multi-generational Sustainability Perspectives and Practices Research Paper

Multi-generational Sustainability Perspectives and Practices - Research Paper Example In addition, this study aims at identifying the similarities and differences between the environmental perspectives between the two generations. The respondents were asked to rate the environment in their local community, their nation, and the world. Data was obtained through interviewing grandparents, parents, and fellow students. The data obtained was qualitatively analyzed to determine the similarities and differences in environmental perspectives between the two generations. The results, except for few surprises, were what one would expect. Most of the respondents believed that their local environments were to some extend satisfactory, while the global environment was in immense trouble. In addition, the respondents differed and concurred on some perspectives towards the environment Discussion People hold different perspectives about the environment. The way people perceive the environment determines the way they use natural resources, their consumption practices, recreation, tra vel, and food sources and storage. People’s perspectives on the environment have been divided into four classes: imperialism, utilitarianism, stewardship and romanticism. These groups of perspectives account for majority of the opinions and perspectives that most individuals hold about the environment. The opinion of stewardship holds that people have a certain responsibility and privilege in relation to their surroundings, as stewards of the environment. This is similar to what nearly all the grandparents and parents hold towards the environment. Most of the elderly noted that they believe that it is their duty, as human beings, to take care of the environment, and to treat anything that is on it with respect. One thing that came out of the interview with the elderly is that, the environment consists of both the living and non living things. The elderly consider the environment as sacred and that it is biblical to take care of it. They consider it a religious duty of every i ndividual to take care of the environment. These respondents viewed the environment as uncontrollable, unpredictable and powerful, and the only thing they can do is to be fatalistic, and accept the good and the bad that comes from it. This view implies that people can only be submissive in the face of environment. This submissive nature of the environment dates back to history, according to Nash (1967), and is based on the inability of the people to control nature and on the association of the environment with the supernatural. Just like stewardship, imperialism is connected to the biblical perspective of the environment. Some of the fellow students believe that the environment was created and given over to mankind to explore and rule over it. Among the youth and the parent respondents, they feel that there is no sacred bond that exists between God and the environment. They believe that by ruling over the environment and controlling it would earn them respect from God. This gives th e reason for the extreme actions against the environment while trying to control and rule over it. This can be attributed to the rapid increase in environmental degradation among the youths. Ancient imperialists practiced and offered sacrifices to God. One of the ancient imperialists suggested that conquering nature is the highest aspiration an

Business and Financial Environment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Business and Financial Environment - Essay Example As the company includes more and more debt to its capital structure the rate of Return required by the company increases. WACC which comprises of weighted average of cost of Debt and cost of Equity increases as the firm is exposed to more and more debt. The increase in debt increases the risk of the company and as the debt to equity ratio in a capital structure of the firm increases the Return on Equity required by the firm increases which increases the WACC for the firm. This will also increase the amount of earnings required by the firm to keep its value to its previous position. This risk inherent for an organization due to its operations is called business risk. It is the risk of a firm when it uses no debt. Technically or in terms of formulation it is the uncertainty in the future returns on assets of a firm (ROA). We can write ROA as: This gives us a way to measure the business risk of an un-levered firm i.e. measuring deviations in the ROE of that firm. Such a business risk is called firm's Basic Business Risk. "Business risk is the uncertainty associated with operating cash flows of a business. There are different dimensions of business risk, namely sales risk and operating risk (mtholyoke, 2007)". Variations in business risk not only depend on the type of industry a firm is operating in but also varies within the industry from firm to firm. Business risk's dependence is influenced by six common factors. a) Demand Variability the more the variations in demand of a firm's product, the more will be its business risk b) Sales Price Variability firms which operate in a market where prices are stable faces low business risk as compared to the firms which operate in a highly volatile market. c) Input Cost Variability the firms who are weak on the supply side and have high variability in input costs are exposed to high risk d) Adaptability of output prices with changes in input prices the firms which are in command to change their output prices with changes in input prices are less exposed to business risk. e) Ability to develop new products in a timely, cost effective manner the more the industry requires introduction of new products in market, the more the firm will be exposed to business risk f) Degree of operating leverage the high the degree of operating leverage the firm is operating at, the more will be its business risk Operating Leverage the firms which have high degree of operation leverage i.e. a major portion of their operations depends upon fixed cost leaves their firms more exposed to business risk. That means a decline in sales will not decline the cost since major portion of cost is fixed therefore even a smaller decline in sales

Assess the impact of television and video technology on children's Research Paper

Assess the impact of television and video technology on children's attention spans - Research Paper Example In the modern world there are many temptations for our children. With the development of technology, they received an access to different technological achievements everyone has at home. If in 1980s only radio usually entertained young people, nowadays they have an unlimited access to TVs and computers. Playing computer games is now a favorite occupation for our children. They also like to watch TV very much and many children start their day by switching the TV set on. Computers and television can help develop children’s intellect but the question arises how this habit affects children’s health. Certainly, it is a well-known fact that excessive TV watching is a very bad habit, but it is necessary to define what exactly it affects negatively. Bad eyesight and sedentary life are not all the negative consequences as now scientists have already paid attention to children’s attention span. If a child is developing in normal conditions, its attention span is constantly improving. However, some factors can influence the process of development negatively. These factors are now actively studied by experts. The first factor is anemia that is usually caused by iron deficiency. Anemia is â€Å"a condition in which a lack of iron results in a diminished amount of blood cells that carry oxygen through the blood† (Bruce, 2013). Anemia is frequently met state and if it has a light form, it is not considered as dangerous and can be easily cured. Serious forms of anemia can affect cognitive functions of children and their attention span. The second state that negatively influences the attention span of children is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).... This factor deserves special attention as it was proved that if a little child watch TV or play games very often, it may have problems with attention span in future. The objects move in the screen fast and do not allow a child to concentrate, thus it may lose such ability. The investigation held by Peter Jensen came to the conclusion that: "Extensive exposure to television and video games may promote development of brain systems that scan and shift attention at the expense of those that focus attention" (cited in DeGaetano, 2012) Now when the development of the technology is very fast some parents make a strange decision to send their child to school where the process of study is not connected with the technology. They are afraid that technological achievements can influence their child’s brain negatively (Kessler, 2012). This testifies that many parents do believe that visual media prevents children from normal concentration. According to Dr Jane Healy, "A 'good' brain for le arning develops strong and widespread neural highways that can quickly and efficiently assign different aspects of a task to the most efficient system...Such efficiency is developed only by active practice in thinking and learning which, in turn, builds increasingly stronger connections. A growing suspicion among brain researchers is that excessive television viewing may affect the development of these kinds of connections. It may also induce habits of using the wrong systems for various types of learning" (Healy, 1991). As teachers and parents can trace every day, modern children are really less attentive; they become more hyperactive, impulsive with less ability to concentrate. Such a change in children’s

Project on Commercial Paper Research Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Project on Commercial - Research Paper Example It carries shorter repayment dates than bonds and is usually sold at a discount from face value. Interest increases with the increase in the maturity of the promissory note. However, it is notable that interest rates fluctuate at market conditions given that it is these conditions that dictate the interest rates at any moment. Basically, the interest rates are lower than bank rates making it easier for the corporation to pay at better rates. A major benefit of Commercial Paper  is that it  does not need to be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission  (SEC) as long as it matures before 270 days, making it a  very cost-effective means  of financing. The proceeds from this type of financing can only be used on current assets (inventories) and are not allowed to be used on fixed assets, such as a new plant, without SEC involvement. That is why, if the funding meets the above qualifications, it can be issued without the involvement of the Federal Government regulat ion (Stephen, 127). For the most part, Commercial Paper is a very safe investment since the financial situation of a company can easily be predicted over a few months. Furthermore, only companies with high  credit ratings and credit worthiness have the capacity to issue Commercial Paper. Commercial Paper is usually issued  in denominations of either a hundred thousand dollars or more. Therefore, smaller investors only invest indirectly in Commercial Paper through money market funds. This makes business growth to be predetermined by the type of business that one owns. The more stable the credit status, the higher the chance that the company or premise will acquire a business loan from the bank. Discount rates offered have been found to be very diverse depending on the type of data that and transaction being carried out. There are different ways in which the company can trade in the Commercial Paper. There is the

Trends in Music Supervision for film industry Essay Example for Free

Trends in Music Supervision for film industry Essay Music can be defined as a rare combination of sounds that are able to project specific rhythms and melodies, which have the power to convey a message that words cannot express (Fleser, 2000). Music has the unique power to bring out the true emotions of people and touch their souls. Being such a powerful aspect of human nature and life, people involved in the profession of music have always tried to present it in the best possible manner that will be soothing to every soul who listens to it, as the saying goes that â€Å"Music is food for the soul. † Music is now one of the largest industries of the world which embraces with itself millions of individuals who work in this field. The growing success of the music industry has made people think that making a reputation in this industry just a piece of cake, but indeed making music is the toughest job for an individual. Music has always had the power to influence its listeners, that is why music is now widely used in almost every cultural and performing arts activities. The global film industry also happens to be one of these branches of the performing arts which have made great use of music not only for its promotion but also as a medium in which music can always be utilized to convey the story to the audience in a much more effective manner. Film as a medium is a great platform for conveying different stories and messages to its audiences and when it is incorporated with music than the goal to convey the message becomes much easier. Film music is now considered to be a necessity without which the success of any film can be put into doubts. Body Film music was probably introduced as a means to cover the sounds of projectors which presented the films in the late 1800s and early 1900’s (Passman, 2006). But the question that rises over here is that what allowed the film music to survive? The simple answer is that film music made it easier to convey the message in a much realistic form. Therefore the true introduction of music in the films came from the reason of covering clanking sounds of projectors. Before the addition of color into motion picture music was also a definite part of black and white movies. Even you take a look at movies not just from the West but also from the East than you will notice that music had great influence in movies on both sides of the globe. Introduction of music in films was indeed considered as an innovation, one which later had progressed into vast fields of soundtracks and background scores. In the late 1900’s the cinema industry was going through a crisis as he number of theatres had increased tremendously but the producers found themselves to be short of films. At first music was introduced in the films through a live orchestra or piano that played along the projection of the film but later on in the 1900s theatre goers were introduced to a new technique which included a much more classified form of music through which competent musicians performed along with the orchestra. The regular trend of music accompanying the films was introduced much later and before that the owners of different theaters tried to make the sound of the cinema somewhat close to live theaters. At that time all film projections were accompanied by human voice that is to say that dialogues were spoken live and music was also included as a live orchestra. To omit this non-satisfactory and at times irritating mechanism of sound from the films a lot of experimentations were carried out by converting the sound on disc and synchronizing it. A lot of experiments were carried out in this regard so that a better sound can be achieved. After a lot of failures the experiment proved to be a successful one through Camera phone. The camera phone was a device which merged the sound and pictures at an inexpensive cost which made it easy to be distributed amongst the theater owners. It would right to say that the camera phone was the breakthrough in the field of merging music and sound with motion picture. The camera phone paved way for a lot of other devices which resulted because of various experiments based on the camera phone itself. These experimentations included the phonoscope, picture phone, etc. But all these experimentations were mainly focused on producing a synchronized form of the human sound that before was spoken live in the theater so as such these innovations were not a major breakthrough but they definitely provided the room for improvement and further experimentation. Later a campaign was introduced by producers through which the synchronized disc system was considered outdated and producers encouraged the theater owners to actually include the titles within the film only which sort of decreased the work assigned to the narrator. This step can be witnessed as a gradual change for omitting live narrations completely from the film. Music became an important part of the films when the audience had started demanding music in between inter-titles or other parts of the movie. This led the theater owners to play separate discs which contained music at the time of the presentation of the titles. At that time Vita-phone was also introduced which was an advanced form for the synchronized disc systems but it proved a little more successful because it lead to an innovating idea to project sound within the theater. In the late 1926 the vita-phone was used in a meaning full manner by placing one speaker behind the other, one in the narrative podium and another where the orchestra played. The films produced with Vita-phone at that time led many renowned production companies including Warner’s to give a further thought to disc synchronization and the importance that it holds for the progress of the theater sound and music industry. They even found the vita-phone appropriate to serve as speakers for public addresses. The Vita-phone was a source for the main entry of music into films. Its first use included a major portion of incorporating music in films. Vita-phone also proved to be a source for amplifying whatever sound is passed through it. But like every invention its use also had to come to an end with other inventions. Music in films was deeply felt by the audiences for the first time in a movie called the e Jazz Singer which was introduced in October 1927. The reason for this reaction of the audience was simply the fact that a new kind of sound was presented in front of them, one which was completely different especially from the projected sounds and one which provided them with a refreshing change of sound. In many scenes of some movies the producers tried to develop a relationship between the actors who perform and the amplification system. By 1929 a lot of changes had been improvised in the style of filmmaking especially in the sound and music department. These changes were brought forth by revising a lot of configurations of the loudspeaker. The 1926 music in films found the orchestra to be the only and the main source through which the audience were entertained with some kind of music within the film. But after this a gradual diversion of the film music towards the screen was witnessed. This means that the speakers were placed exactly behind the screen so that it appeared to be completely well coordinated with the scenes it was to play along with. This idea was used by Hollywood a lot in its beginning days. If looked at closely than it might seem to be a completely illogical idea but this technique was brought into practice so that the real source of sound can be hidden and brought along with the attributes of whatever is being played on the screen. The technique of placing the speakers behind the image on the screen was also appreciated as a move to create identification between the sound or music and the picture. But this proved to be a difficult task for technicians. The technicians had to more mobile compared to as before placing the speaker carefully so that perfect correspondence between the sound and picture would be visible to the audience. The year 1933 brought with it the major breakthrough in the American Industry in terms of sound system. The Bell Labs had experimented with the sound stereo and in 1940 a major electronic company demonstrated a four-track-stereo system. This stereo system was adopted by cinema owners in the early 1950’s. The stereo was expected to fulfill the tasks of both the technicians as well as what a sound system should fulfill. That is to say it completely leveled the needs of accuracy and of providing well coordinated sound to the audience. But the surround sound also held its disadvantage. The surround sound system could be used to reinforce only specific visual effects. And it was difficult to coordinate the picture with 3 directional speakers. For this sole reason the major production companies of Hollywood including WarnerBros, Columbia Pictures and even M-G-M. \ If we look at the last forty years than we can witness a lot of progress in terms of stereo system in the movie department. This has only enhanced the performance and importance of music in Movies. But today’s position in movie sounds could never had been reached if Dolby had not introduced its optical stereo in the late 1970’s, which had an outstanding and improved nature in terms of noise reduction. The Dolby speakers were pretty popular. Most production companies tried to use these speakers especially after the success of the super hit fiction Star Wars. Conclusion For the past 40 years we have witnessed a lot of innovations in terms of sounds and music in the film m industry. At first different orchestras were brought into sing for the films but over the gradual period of time we have observed that the pop and rock culture of different individual music industries has paved a way for itself into this field. We now see artists from different music genres and industries singing for movies and their soundtracks. The quality of music has improved and is still improving. This is due to the digital age that we have entered in. But in today’s competitive world the movies demand a lot from the soundtracks. What we can expect in future is a global competition between different industries and what would really set everyone apart is not only their creativity but also their ability to market and promote themselves. No doubt music has contributed immensely in this field and will continue to do so if music composers keep on coming up with heart felt and innovative tunes for each generation especially the generation next. References Book Fleser, J. (2000). The Chord Wheel. UK. JSK Passman, D. S. (2006). All You Need To Know About Music Business. USA.

The cultural and memory institutions Essay Example for Free

The cultural and memory institutions Essay There has been a radical change for the cultural and memory institutions across United Kingdom and these changes are moreover due to the changing facet of technology and the growing feature of user demands. The modern trends influence the purpose of the traditional as well as modern culture preservation and its management. The new technology has brought about rapid changes with its ways to preserve culture in its conventional form by scholarly studies and development of supporting strategies. In this regard, the possible ways, UK’s cultural institutions should probably approach is discussed here in this report. The objective of this study is provide recommendations and options so as to make visible the country’s cultural institutions and actors. It is hopeful that the study will help to improve the way UK’s cultural actors organize for the predictable changes that will take place in the next five years. This report aims to converge the three main trends discussed in the report – technology, culture, their interaction in order to increase the social participation and how new emerging web technology and online services can help to increase the public participation in culture. Definitely, internet technology or more profoundly, digitization has changes the scenario to a large extent and has created demands for on-demand, continuously available, personal access to products. Almost every library, archives and museums in UK have become digital by now and have changed their roles from the customary bodies to hybrid organizations that know how to take care of all the various cultural resources. The adaptation of the cultural contents to the digital form of content has presented a new dimension to the society to access their cultural heritage in ways that were unbelievable about a decade ago. According to Paul Fiander, Chief of BBC Information and records, UK, â€Å"The dividend from investment into going digital is substantial. † With the increasing levels of knowledge in the society, there will always be an increasing demand for quality and rich content and the Cultural institutions can cater to this need of learning services that are needed at all levels of the society. The modern internet technologies can play a major role in enhancing and delivering new content about culture heritage of the society. With this addition of innovative internet technologies, users will be able to enjoy easier access to their cultural lives and will be able top actively participate in events and cultural communities world wide. Users will be able to locate their areas of interest, visit virtual museums, and libraries to search for information they would have to toil hard to obtain. According to David Bearman,AMICO, â€Å"Offering highly interactive and rich environments will become a competitive factor within the cultural heritage community. In the future, we will expect that you can manipulate digital images in many ways, turn them around, look at the bottom, etc. Those resources that you cannot manipulate will be perceived as second rate. Moreover, the museums they come from will be perceived as second rate. † Displays, narrations and visuals combined with studies or information are learnt to have more positive effect on any student or end user. Latest advancements can provide a more effective and interactive learning environment for the users to add value to their studies and research works based on cultural heritage. Nevertheless, technology cannot alone boost the growing needs to reinforce a cultural scenario within the British society or anywhere else in the world, for that matter, but it also requires the understanding and the intellectual â€Å"capital† to create and develop new and rich cultural content material. This will help the cultural institutions to unlock the rich cultural heritage to the masses. Meanwhile the private sector has already started its efforts in the direction to re-invent the cultural content online. Amazon, BBC, Wikipedia, Second Life and MySpace have out in considerable efforts in this field and have changes the content landscape on the internet within a short period of time. These companies have done revolutionary digitization changes with the existing online content and have improved it beyond imagination. The truth is that they are inevitably assimilating. However, the next big question is that, what are most suitable policies that can meet the desired aims to merge technology and culture at the same time and what will the opportunities that online cultural opportunities can bring forward in a fast changing world. This paper throws some light in these issues and what can be the roles that the different organizations can play to achieve this aim.

Changes in Teacher Ideologies

Changes in Teacher Ideologies Summarise discuss: Sullivan, K. (1997). Theyve opened Pandoras Box: Educational reform, the new right and teachers ideologies. ln M. Olssen K. Morris Matthews. (Eds.), Education policy in New Zealand (pp. 254-261). Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore Press. (extracts) From page 254: Education Reform and Competing Ideologies Within the extract under investigation, Sullivan is building a case to legitimise his theory that Teachers fundamental professional and ideological principals and intentions are just as important as what and how they teach. In order to clarify his point he provides a model for defining what exactly the concept of an ideology in isolation involves and in the context of educational theories. In his argument he persuades the reader to accept that an ideology is a pre-conceived notion of what humans and in this context in particular teachers are programmed to consider appropriate and exceptional; that an ideology is an individual belief system which can alter politically but not necessarily physically. During the time this piece was written a number of educational reforms were taking place in New Zealand and teacher’s roles were having to adapt accordingly, with the school authorities and boards of trustees exacting greater control over them as employees. Consequently losing them a great deal of freedom within their teaching positions. The extract under discussion proposes that the traditional ideology adopted by most teachers is a humanist approach to life and working with children and adults in a l earning capacity. That this humanist ideal is fundamental to their character and instinctive responsibility as a teacher, or as Sullivan conveys ‘their ideology is largely intuitive and implied, based on some important but usually unstated assumptions’. He then goes on to list these assumptions in detail and proposes the notion that they have deep rooted understandings of how their own role functions under the auspices of the government and the traditional understanding of what they have always meant to mean education in its original context. The rationale for presenting this understanding is in relation to the writer’s broader argument relating to the New Right movement in New Zealand politics which has implemented new educational reforms in antithesis to this humanist ideology. Holistically Sullivan’s overall understanding and opinion of how teachers are adapting is by way of building themselves a new ideology which remains humanist but is also applying a resistance and reinforced method of working practice in response to the government’s new line and legislation. However Sullivan’s theories are not merely a personal observation, the outcomes of his conclusions have emerged from empirical data that he collated from interviews undertaken with fifty primary and intermediate school teachers employed in the Greater Wellington area of New Zealand. The new Education system in New Zealand adheres to an ideology which is essentially anti-humanist and the article is written at a time when the country had been dominated by New Right ideologies. These were in stark contrast to the humanist and liberal ideas that dominated Education in the decades before. The article quotes the progressive Educational pioneer John Dewey. He adhered to the opinion that only constant good is change for the good. Dewey did not measure levels of success based on standards, rather against human inspiration and passion (Tiles, 1990). And it is these measures of standards that Sullivan is critical of in his paper. This is emphasized further in Sullivan’s study Teachers Standards and Professionalism where he suggests that teachers have become pawns in the movement to implement right wing ideology across the country, criticising the new management approach to learning which appears to operate more as a business enterprise. How teachers have lost their authority to parents who dictate the way in which they now function. The modern philosophy of the New Right can be attributed to the breakdown of the original ideals of the Welfare State, reflected not only in New Zealand but in many countries around the world who adopted these principles during and following the outcomes of the Second World War. In particular with the English Government during the 1980’s and the new Conservative driven Education Reform Act of 1988. (Lingard et al, 1993) This new devolved system in New Zealand moved from a centralized arrangement to a structure whereby schools now take responsibility for their own governance and management. The country’s Ministry of education which was established under the 1989 Education Act takes forward the following aims and objectives: provides education policy advice to the Minister of Education and the Government; purchases services on behalf of the Crown; allocates funding and resources to schools and early childhood education providers; oversees the implementation of approved education policies; manages special education services; collects and processes education statistics and information; and monitors the effectiveness of the education system as a whole with ‘Separate education agencies hav(ing) national responsibilities for qualifications and quality assurance’. Additionally most education providers operate independently from Government and are rather controlled by boards of trustees or elected councils. Sourced from: http://www.minedu.govt.nz/educationSectors/InternationalEducation/ForInternationalStudentsAndParents/NewZealandEducationSystemAnOverview/Central_Agencies_and_Providers_A_Devolved_System.aspx, Date accessed 16/10/08 Teachers have consequently needed to adapt and find a new position for themselves as basic blue-collar working classroom teachers in a non-democratic environment. As such this has forced them to build new relationships and alliances with Boards of Trustees and amongst civil society. (Gordon, 1992) To discuss the context of this new change in thinking across New Zealand it has not merely acted in response to the UK government but has primarily acted on the issues that occurred during the 1970’s and 80’s when the country was witness to significant problems relating to trade, business, the balance of power and a dwindling economy. It was these concerns that paved the way for changes to the education system as a means of improving the national standards of the workforce and employment opportunities. (Perris, 1998) The New Right philosophy brings with it a complete list of ideals that include the necessity to implement order, reinstate traditional values, social hierarchy and family responsibility. (Dale and Ozga, taken from Lingard et al, 1993) In addition there is a strong emphasis on the relationship between power and knowledge, including a set of educational benchmarks to achieve forward New Right thinking. These predominantly include: That education should be structured in a way that enables parental influence to succeed over quality Education should be provided within a diverse range of institutions, to which admission is based on selection Provision of Education should be accountable to the parents, by way of the appraisal of teachers and through the frequent testing of students and teachers, with the right of publication of these results. (Bell and Gilbert,1996) Prior to this New Right trend vision which sought to improve schools on the basis of poor economies, gaps in the workforce and ill preparation of young people for the workplace, all curriculum development was governed by the Curriculum Division of the Department of Education and was reviewed regularly with ‘input from subject committees, the Department of Education, teacher groups, training colleges and independent schools. Later included university teachers†¦.’ This philosophy carried on into the 1950’s with a curriculum which was developed and delivered by educators who were considered the most authoritative to do so. (Davis, 2007) This was in line with the traditional concepts established during the 1877 Act which adhered to the National Public School system, with native New Zealand schools falling under the control of the Department of Education and Public Schools ministered by Education Boards. Therefore from 1879 there were two systems of state schools running alongside each other. It was the intention then to eventually integrate the teaching of native and ‘new’ residents to the country, although this was never successfully achieved. The state took control of Education in New Zealand in 1877, adopting a policy which epitomized neutrality. Even the teaching of religion was prohibited. (Bell and Gilbert, 1996). A new Education Act was taken forward in 1914 which sought primarily to consolidate all those strategies of the 1877 legislation and to make further developments to benefit Secondary Education and administration. This was followed up with 43 further amendments until A Commission on Educat ion was conducted in 1962 recommending improvements to teaching salaries, curriculum development, teacher training and the need to reduce class sizes. The proceeding 1964 Education Act failed however to implement any of these recommended changes and merely reinforced the previous statutes. (McClaren, 1974) The Curriculum Division which had been so progressive following the Second World War and into the 1950’s closed in 1989, with the politics of the New Right now dominating the future for educational reform across the country. Much of what had been established during the 1877 Act ‘An Act to make provision for the further Education of the people of New Zealand’ (McClaren,1974) was torn apart in 1989 and reinforced with an Education Amendment Act in 1990 and four further amendments the following year. Interestingly in McClaren’s Education in a small Democracy he emphasizes the negative aspects of Government control throughout this long period of history and the excessive amount of education administration structures that existed, which served to create an often bureaucratic and ineffectual Education system. For example he quotes ‘In 1972 25,000 laymen were working sometimes at cross purposes in the interests of separate, largely isolated sectors of the education system, their energies more often devoted to the improvement of lavatories than to the advancement of learning.’ It is an interesting contrasting theory to that of Sullivan who blames the new market ethos for undermining the ability and capacity of teachers to carry out their role effectively as essentially humanist, bureaucratic actors working for the fundamental ‘social good’ of the child and society as a whole. Considering the business culture of the New Right to be affecting the ideologies inherent in teachers and their philosophy to react against anti-humanist thinking. Sullivan insinuates in his paper ‘Educational reform, the New Right and teachers ideologies’ that teachers are essentially being forced to work against the best interests of the child and instead are having to accommodate the economics and politics being addressed by the parents, Boards of Trustees and civic bodies that they are now accountable to. The Guide to Print Culture in Aotearoa tells us that The Education Act 1877 existed to provide free, compulsory and secular education and standardized r eading systems. The emphasis of the curriculum stressed reading and writing and children were graded according against their ability measured by six standards. The reading texts were predominantly moral tales that were written for the benefit of British council schools and upheld strong values and morals and were ‘directed towards civic and moral duty’ all those considerations that are taken into account by the New Right ideology and yet quite clearly existed in the annals of the original 1877 agenda. Over a century of government control is obviously going to affect the way in which a country adapts to new measures of educational implementation and as Sullivan addresses; it is not necessarily a complete change for teaching staff that is necessary in order to work to a new ideology, but rather a need to maintain their own individual ideologies, whilst adjusting to the New Right agenda. However it is apparent that many of the original ideals of the 1877 Act and those that were adhered to and reinforced decades after are themselves questionable. Schools were segregated and their still remained everyday problems amongst the teaching profession. Department of Education Inspectors reports citing the methods and most significant problems and complaints made by teachers was the lack of reading books and materials for the children to work with. Sourced from http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-GriBook-_div3-N12E47.html, Date accessed 16/10/08 This is not a problem in today’s public Education system. It could also be argued that for such a great number of years for a country to experience no other alternative to state intervention and control it seems obvious that problems will occur with the ‘deep-seated assumptions’ that Sullivan refers to in the teaching profession in terms of their ideologies. Teachers should be acknowledged for their knowledge and skills for understanding how to deliver learning programmes and prepare children for the wider world but in addition to taking on board the legislation they are operating within as well as remembering that the child is the most important factor. Davis philosophically refers to this aptly in his paper Whose Education Is It Anyway? ‘†¦As it says in a quote on a school staff room wall: ‘No one ever got taller through being measured’. Bibliography Sullivan, K ‘Teachers Standards and Professionalism: Contested Perspectives in a Decade of Reform’: Victoria University of Wellington Lingard, B, Knight, J, Porter, P.H (1993) Schooling Reform in Hard Times: Routledge, Dale, R, Ozga, J ‘Two Hemispheres – Both New Right? 1980’s Education Reform in New Zealand and England and Wales’ taken from Lingard, B, Knight, J, Porter, P.H (1993) Schooling Reform in Hard Times: Routledge, Bell, B and Gilbert, J (1996) Teacher Development: A Model from Science Education: Routledge Gordon,L (1992) ‘Educational Reform in New Zealand: contesting the role of the teacher’, International Studies in Sociology of Education, Volume 2, Issue 1 Perris, L (1998) ‘Implementince; Ducationr Eforms In New Zealand: 1987-97 A Case Study’, The Education Reform And Management Series, vol 1, no2 Peters, M, Marhall, J.D (1996) Individualism and Community: Education and Social Policy in the Postmodern Condition: Routledge Davis, R.A (2007) ‘Whose Education Is It Anyway?’ Why It Is Important That Teachers Understand and Question the Broader Contexts Shaping the Curriculum’, New Zealand Journal of Teachers’ Work, Volume 4, Issue 1, 32-38, 2007 Leicester, M, Modgil, C, Modgil, S Education, culture and values: Routledge Tiles, J.E (1990) Dewey: Routledge McClaren, I.A (1974) Education in a Small Democracy New Zealand: New Zealand: Routledge Book Print in New Zealand: A Guide to Print Culture in Aotearoa Education Act 1877 New Zealand Electronic Text Centre Sourced from http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-GriBook-_div3-N12E47.html, Date accessed 16/10/08 Sourced from: http://www.minedu.govt.nz/educationSectors/InternationalEducation/ForInternationalStudentsAndParents/NewZealandEducationSystemAnOverview/Central_Agencies_and_Providers_A_Devolved_System.aspx, Date accessed 16/10/08