Harry Potter is a Classic Essay -- J.K. Rowling

HARRY POTTER—MORE THAN A CONTEMPORARY PHENOMENON What makes a book a classic? What is it about a book that will have generation after generation reading it? English Literature majors could spend hours theorizing the answers to this question. One series of texts that has received publicity and wide-spread acclaim over the past seven years is the Harry Potter collection. J.K. Rowling could never have possibly imagined how her little book about a boy with broken glasses and a scar on his forehead would impact world culture. Yet today, we all discuss the â€Å"Harry Potter phenomenon† and how adults and children alike can enjoy the books. But my question is this: Will Harry Potter become a beloved classic like The Chronicles of Narnia or Great Expectations? Does Harry Potter have what it takes to be worthwhile to teach in schools, or is it just a temporary fad that individuals will look back on and remark: â€Å"Oh yeah, I remember when those books were popular?† The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines â€Å"classic† as â€Å"a work of enduring excellence.† Harry Potter’s popularity has lasted since 1998, when the first book came out. Granted Harry Potter is a series, but seven years is a long time for a book or literary piece to hold an entire world’s attention. American citizens become tired of a television series after only a few months. Though popularity doesn’t equal classic, it doesn’t mean that the Harry Potter series lacks the serious literary elements to be a classic. Shaun Johnson comments: â€Å"I dismissed the validity of said literature based on its resounding popularity. I had also grown cynical about popular culture; it was my understanding that most things therein could only be trusted for false sensationalism and no... ... Marketing and the Translation of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Books.† The Lion and the Unicorn 29.2 (2005): 8 pages. Maughan, Shannon. â€Å"The Harry Potter Halo.† Publisher’s Weekly 246.29 (1999): 4 pages. Minzesheimer, Bob. â€Å"Editors Crown Tolkein Lord of Science Fiction.† USA Today 3 Mar. 2003, sec. Life: 3d. Nikiforuk, Andrew. â€Å"The Real Power of Harry and Frodo.† Canadian Business 76.2 (2003): 2 pages. Radigan, Winifred M. â€Å"Connecting the Generations: Memory, Magic, and Harry Potter.† Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 44.8 (2001): 2 pages. The Harry Potter Series. Advertisement. Multilingual Books. 14 Nov. 2005. http://www. multilingualbooks.com/harrypotter.html. Tucker, Nicholas. â€Å"The Rise and Rise of Harry Potter.† Children’s Literature in Education. 30.4 (1999): 221-35. â€Å"Wizards and Muggles.† Christian Century 116.33 (1999): 1 page.

Simulation †Case Study

Kathy, the project manager, obviously did not have the people skills or knowledge of the culture needed to be successful on this project. Had she researched the culture, listened to her team members, and worked with them rather than over them, this project would have been more successful. Also she should implement incentives for the team. The problems facing Kathy are that her team resented her, drug their feet, and caused the project to not meet the deadline. Her team resented her because she pushed them too hard as she did not take her people’s culture, feelings, expectations, and work habits into consideration. This caused the team to drag their feet, as a short term problem, and cause the long-term problem of ultimately missing the deadline. The decision facing Kathy was how to get the team to work more efficiently. Since Kathy did not take her team into consideration and cause her team to resent her. Without the ability to read people and sympathize with them, it is difficult to effectively manage people. Lacking this ability cause Kathy’s team to resent her and drag their feet. Had she taken the time to get to know her team and their work habits, she would have known that pushing them without giving them breaks would not have worked. They became bitter toward her and her ethics and caused more problems for her than necessary. Instead of working a round-the-clock schedule, and pushing and demanding the team to work beyond their capability, Kathy could and should have taken different approaches. Above all she should have worked harder to understand her team better and work with them rather than above them, or given them incentives for their work. Unfortunately, giving incentives can cause people to cheat through their work instead of doing their best, but most people would use the incentives as a means for motivation to do their best and meet the expectations of the project. Working long hours is usually a given when working with close deadlines, but requiring the team to work round-the-clock is a bit much. Kathy could have petitioned to hire more people or extend the deadline. Hiring more people could put the project over budget, but the project could have been completed more efficiently and on time. Moving the deadline could cause people to relax more, but if given more time to complete from the beginning, it could have reduced a lot of the stress put on Kathy and the team. If I were Kathy, I would take time to understand the people she works with, implement incentives for making deadlines, and petition to hire more people. As soon as she met with her team she should have gotten to know them and taken the time to understand their work ethic. As soon as the team started to fall behind, more people should have been hired to make up the time. The project manager should get their hands dirty and dive in to help make the deadlines. Cut the project into phases. Say the foundation has to be done by a certain time. Let the team know that if they make that deadline the will receive an incentive, and if the team surpasses that expectation, they get a better incentive. I would make it a dinner if deadline met, and an afternoon off if the team has started the next phase before the deadline of the first phase has come. This would cause the team to want to do better and go beyond their expectations which would cause the project to be complete by the deadline and hopefully within budget.

Large classes Essay

When students are in large classes it is very hard for the teacher to give every student individual attention. What can educational authorities do about this? It is quite obvious that when the students are in very large numbers in a class, the teacher can’t pay individual attention. I think as far as students are attentive in the class, teachers attention to individual hardly matters. Not all students in a class need personal attention, because they are smart and grasp the lessons quickly by themselves. However some of the students who are a little weak can surely get personal attention of the teachers. Nevertheless for the teacher to be able to monitor progress of all students of a class, it is necessary that proper student teacher ratio is adhered to. Student-Teacher ratio refers to the number of teachers in a school or university with respect to the number of students who attend the school or university. For example, a student teacher ratio of 10:1 means that there are 10 students for every one teacher available. The term can also be reversed to be teacher-student ratio. If one classroom has a 30:1 ratio and the other has a 10:1 ratio, the school could claim to have a 20:1 ratio overall. But if the ratio is 50:1, the school needs to hire more teachers. In a way 40:1 is the ideal ratio where all students can get proper attention of the teacher. Summarizing, this is the responsibility of the educational authorities to inspect schools and universities periodically to ensure a right student-teacher ratio and in the event of this ratio changing due to greater number of students, educational authorities must strictly advice schools to hire more teachers and maintain appropriate student – teacher ratio. This shall help all students get better attention of the teachers if not individual attention.

A business plan for Mr. Rentals

This is a business plan of the company called Mr. Rentals that started in 199, founded by Glen and Kerrianne Hickman and is based in Perth Western Australia in a suburb called Balcatta. The business is about renting appliances and electronics and house goods such as VCRs and TVs from their stores for a particular period of time. (Mr. Rental, n.d.).The pricing techniques that the company should use must depend on the demand for the electronic appliances in the area they are operating. Furthermore, they should also consider the brand and the model of the appliance they are renting and depending on that they should set the price at which it should be rented.Moreover, they must also consider the price of that particular appliance at which it is being sold in the market. This is because if they will charge a higher price to the customers, firstly their market would decline. Secondly, if the appliances would be available to the customers on high rates, they would prefer saving some money a nd buying the appliance themselves.The prices of the company are charging for its rentals vary from the range of the products that they offer and also on the number of days or months for which the customer wants to hire the appliance. Under the kitchen items, Mr. Rentals offers freezers, fridges and microwaves. The freezers available are large and medium chest freezers and upright freezers that cost $11, $9 and $ 13 per week. The company offers medium, larger, extra large and bar fridges that cost $13, $15, $19 and $8 per week while the microwave is available at $ 6 per week.Under the lounge items comes audio, DVD and VCRs, game consoles, set top boxes, TVs and TV stands. The prices of these items vary from home theater system for $14 and stereos for $10 while DVD players for $3, DVD recorder for $11, DVD and VCRs combo for $6 and VCRs for $2 per week.Under game consoles the play station 2 is for $7, PS3 for $23 and Xbox 360 for $16.   106cm LCD TVs for $30, 106cm Plasma TV for $3 5, 51cm flat screen TV for $5, 66cm LCD TV for $20, 68cm flat screen TV for $20 and 81cm LCD TV for $23, TV units for $5 and set top boxes for $6. Under laundry items are dyers and washers. Dryers are available at $8 and washing machines from $10 to $16.Under the office items come computers, data projectors, printers and desks. The computers are available at the prices ranging from $23 to $33, data projectors are for $150 and printers for $6 and desks for $5.To promote its business, Mr. Rentals should use an advertising and promotional strategy and it would be best if the company advertisers in magazines that are related to females or whose target market are the household women. Furthermore, they can also advertise in the magazines that are famous amongst the bachelors. This could bring attention of the prospective customers and they would get to know more about the offerings of the company.Besides that, Mr. Rentals can also develop promotional literature such as flyers, catalogues,   leaflets,  free samples,  ad newspaper,  etc. Other than this, Mr. Rentals can use search engine tools to drive traffic to their website, EZ-Mail list, EZ-Affiliate tools, EZ-Hit counter tools, etc. The best time to do these promotional activities is when the demand of the items is the most. For instance, there is a higher demand for the laundry items in the summers because children go out to play in summers and dirty their clothes and same is with the elders.The demand of the game consoles, lounge items such as TVs, VCRs and audio systems is most during the vacations. The demand for the kitchen items such as fridge and freezers is also higher in the summers therefore they should be promoted in the summers more than in winters or in any other season.Doing the SWOT analysis would give a clear view of the strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats of the company. Mr. Rentals promises free delivery within 24 hours that saves time of the customers and the company also has the offers online facility to place orders after which the company delivers, installs as well as demonstrates the appliance without any charges. Mr. Rentals also offers free services for the customers if they might have any complain or they might want any repairs or replacement of the appliance to be done.  Moreover, the company offers flexible agreement terms that can serve the customers well along with easy payments with several options such as direct debit, centre pay or credit card facilities. Mr. Rentals has the latest appliances available and they give the facility of up gradation to its customer with great package deals. These are all the strengths of the company and the company can benefit from it by maintaining this and also by adding some more facilities for the company.Weaknesses for the company can be types of deals it provides. If the company does not offer a wide range of deals or they do not have the brands available that suit the customers the most, their market wo uld decline.Therefore, sue to the competition existing in the market, they must ensure that they keep all the latest appliances in their stores. Opportunities for the company would be the deals that it offers. It must offer more and more interesting deals to attract the customers. However, a threat for Mr. Rentals would be the decreasing prices in the home appliances. If the electronic appliances manufactured by the companies are of lower prices, the demand for renting appliances would greatly reduce as people would prefer to buy the electronics instead.The results of the market research produced from the primary and secondary resources show that Mr. Rentals is quite popular amongst the customers. The primary data used is the company’s data that was available in the company and its website. Moreover, market research done through the surveys and questionnaires used tells about the likeliness of the customers for the electronic appliances and the deals offered by the company.Th e list of the products that the company is willing to sell is mentioned above in the paper. They basically deal with four categories of electronic appliance i.e. the kitchen, lounge, office and laundry items. The target needs of the company are realistic, achievable and sufficient to make a profit.To attract the target market, Mr. Rentals have a very good option of making allowance for seasonal factors such as in summers or during the holidays when there is a higher demand of laundry items in the summers and lounge items during the vacations. During such seasonal periods, the business can work to full operation.ReferencesMr. Rental. (n.d.).   Wanna read a bit about Mr. Rental’s History? October 27, 2008. Retrieved from: http://www.mrrental.com.au/home/index.php?id=32

Motivation and how management can use it for a better, more Essay

Motivation and how management can use it for a better, more profitable, effecient workplace - Essay Example A. As the workplace structure and workers themselves change, management faces the problem of how to motivate employees (Gerstner, 2002). Gerstner (2002) poses the questions of â€Å"How do you pull the levers of motivation to change the attitudes, behavior, and thinking of a population? Different people are motivated by different things that may include money, career advancement, and recognition† (Gerstner, 2002). Effectively changing the attitudes, behavior, and thinking of workers demands that a manager knows what levers of motivation to pull in the first place. B. A global executive should provide leadership and direction to management levels according to business goals, mission, and vision. Global leaders and executives have certain characteristics and skills in order to succeed in the globalize world of business (Gregersen, Morrison, & Black, 1998). C. Knowing how to motivate well will enable managers to realize the full potential of each employee. Much literature about theories of motivation and work relate to the subject of inspiring employees to be their best (Gagne & Deci, 2005). D. This report will discuss motivation and how managers can use it for a better, more profitable, efficient workplace. This report will also explore the different theories, concepts, and practices managers can use to motivate employees. E. A leader is a visionary who has the end goal in mind and can see the big picture. A leader is a motivator of his/her followers. There are a variety of leadership styles a leader may holds; what separate a leader from the rest are the traits they posses to succeed and the various background assumptions held true by the . Some of these traits may include intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity, and sociability (Cox, 2001). F. Executives are motivated by the goal and fits in the business component. S/he reacts rationally to external conditions and

PEST analysis, (Political) in the UK Speech or Presentation

PEST analysis, (Political) in the UK - Speech or Presentation Example Individual making investment will be able to claim income tax reduction as an income tax relief. In the western world, the corporate tax rate in Britain is believed to become one of the lowest tax rates. Corporate tax rate has been dropping from 34% in 1990 to 24% in 2013 (Neville 2013). The introduction of new tax relief will lead to further reduction from 24% in 2013 to 21% in 2014. The second political factor is labour law. Currently the UK government have introduced regulations that will implement key changes to the obligations of redundancy collective consultation. This was approved in 6th April, 2014 and there would be publication of new Acas guidance for handling redundancy consultation (lorber & Novitz 2012). The third one is the environmental law. There have been implementations on environment regulations known as extended producer responsibility. These regulations are derived from European legislation and ensure that producers of particular products take full responsibility of reprocessing, recycling, and finance treatment of these items. The other political factor is trade restrictions which are inform of sanctions in the UK. The Sanction measures that have been applied include arms embargoes and several other trade control restrictions. Arms embargoes prohibit exportation of dual-use-items-goods and weaponry which have both military and civil use (Kenner 2011). The last political factor is technology. According to internet economy of UK, internet has allowed access to any information transforming life in UK. Technology use in UK has increase dramatically as evident in the use of smart phones. The rapid growth in tables, data â€Å"dongles†, and smart phone has enabled users to perform a lot of task both at home and in the office (Kenner 2011). The use of smart phone has doubled between 2008 and 2010 as shown

Internet and Digital Marketing Communications Essay

Internet and Digital Marketing Communications - Essay Example Dropbox Company is a company that designs a service to share and sync files over the internet between personal computers. It is a downloadable application. Through it, the users can easily share and synchronize files across smart phones and personal computers. The company is located in San Francisco, United States. The company further offers the customers with specific tasks, which include collaboration on office documents, running a startup and backing up photos. Despite the success of the company, the past few years has proven challenging to the management and the entire company. During this time, the company experienced a crisis management problem and lost many of its customers, making the image of the company to be tarnished. The company has since then taken a major step to win back the customers improve the image of the company as well as attracting perspective customers. Despite these great services to the users, users have been asking for new features. Most of these features violate the commitment of the company to offer a simple product that is also easy-to-use. Therefore, Dropbox needs to go beyond syncing and file sharing so that it targets the customer needs. This is the only way it can stay the course. This situation has raised the need for the company to take the company back to its previous performance or to even high heights. The marketing department of this company has been pointed to have the most significant role in this activity. This is because this department has a major responsibility in guiding. and leading the other departments of the company in the development, production, fulfilling the products and the services to the customers. Marketing communication Marketing communication is a strategy that refers to the process of creating awareness, reminding or/and persuading customers of a product or a service (Yeshin, 2002). Marketing communication is significant in influencing a buyer’s purchasing decision. Integrated marketing communication (IMC), on the other hand, refers to judicious and the effective use of promotional tools of a product in passing a message across to the customers or potential customers (Yeshin, 2002). The effect of IMC to the existing and prospective customers is often noticeable. This is because the framework of IMC involves the interaction of different marketing communication elements, which have potential to improve or trigger other communication media to contribute (Belch and Belch, 2003). A marketing plan is important in attaining success in marketing. This is because it enables a company and its marketing team to focus on the marketing process. A marketing plan can be prepared using different approaches. However, there are key stages to these different approaches. These key stages are contained in an acronym SOSTC, that is, situation analysis, objectives, strategies, tactics, and control (Reid, 2003). Integrated marketing communication is an aggressive marketing strategy that aims to capture and use extensive amount of information about customers to set and track marketing strategy