A Heightened Agent Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

A Heightened Agent - Coursework Example After having supper, I lit up the cigarette, placed it between my lips, and tried to smoke right beside my mother. Understandably, I choked out because I had never smoked before and my lungs were not used to allowing the in-pour of smoke. My mother snatched the cigarette from me and tore it to pieces. To this day, I regret how upset I had made her. This shows that â€Å"errors in cultural performance committed by post-adolescents are generally seen as more serious and are more likely to arouse direct criticism, punishment, or other sanctions† (Hirschfeld 612). Back then, I perceived my parents, especially my mother as the foundation of our structure. My mother always has rules and principles that everyone must abide by. While many people experience a shift in the structure today, my structure is based on my parents even today. I think it is because of the fact that I have become more responsible, caring, and respectful toward my parents over the passage of time than I was as a child.

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Recruitment and Selection Methods in Tesco

Recruitment and Selection Methods in Tesco Introduction: Recruitment and Selection Process is one of the basic HR Processes. Recruitment and Selection is very sensitive as many managers have a need to hire a new employee and this process is always under a strict monitoring from their side. Recruitment and selection are two most important functions of personnel management. Recruitment process can be done in many ways like internal or external, and it involves with many steps of recruitment policies like job advert, job application process, Evaluations, job description and, legislations and training. The primary purpose of recruitment and selection is to achieve ones desire end, appointing the right person to the right job. Recruitment refers to the process of attracting, screening, and selecting qualified people for a job at an organization or firm. Selection refers to Selection is the process of choosing the most suitable candidates from those who apply for the job. It is a process of offering jobs to desired candidates. This report focuses on recruitment and selection of TESCO plc. The main objective of this report is to critically analyse the recruitment and selection method applied in relation to market environment 1.2 Tescos background: Business of the company Tesco sells daily necessary things like food and also non food items. It carries more than 23,000 items ranging from cloths, stationary, groceries, wine, entertainment digital appliances, finance insurance, books, patrol gas, pharmacy, phone broadband. History of the company Tesco was founded by Jack Cohen, who sold groceries in the markets of the London East End from 1919. The Tesco brand first appeared in 1924. After Jack Cohen bought a large shipment of tea from T.E. Stockwell, he made new labels by using the first three letters of the suppliers name and the first two letters of his surname forming the word TESCO. The Global Oneness Commitment (2009) Business growth of Tesco: The two diagrams shows the growth of Tesco in the last five years Performance over last 5 years ÂÂ   2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Sales 37,070 43,137 46,611 51,773 56,563 Sales in o/s stores 7,559 10,480 11,031 13,824 14,994 No. Of stores 2,365 2,711 3,263 3,989 4811 No. Of o/s stores 586 814 1,275 1,614 2,013 Floor space 51,771 58,720 68,189 75,959 83,459 Floor space-O/S stores 27,580 32,817 40,404 46,410 52,470 Growth rate of the performance ÂÂ   2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Sales 10.47% 16.37% 8.05% 11.07% 12.57% Sales in o/s stores 13.14% 38.64% 5.26% 25.32% 18.42% No. Of stores 2.03% 14.63% 20.36% 14.28% 16.38% No. Of o/s stores 32.88% 38.91% 56.63% 26.59% 36.59% Floor space 14.03% 13.42% 16.13% 11.39% 11.59% Floor space-O/S stores 24.73% 18.99% 23.12% 14.86% 21.66% Source: Tescos Annual report and financial statement 2008 The business locations of the of Tesco Tesco operates in 14 different markets/countries through 4,811 stores all around the world with 468,508 staff work there. In the UK it has 2,282 stores and 286,394stuff work there. The details of UK stores are as follows: Table 1 Tescos store size in UK. UK Extra (average size 71,310 sq feet) 190 (Regular) Tesco (average size 29,984 sq feet) 10 Metro (average size 11,638 sq feet) 181 Express(average size 2,211 sq feet) 1130 Home Plus (average size 40,800 sq feet) 13 One Stop (average size 1,357 sq feet) 513 Table 2: Tescos stores outside the UK are as follows: Country Stores 2 USA 115 3 Czech Republic 113 4 France 1 5 China 79 6 Hungary 7 Japan 144 8 Malaysia 36 9 Poland 319 10 Republic of Ireland 116 11 Slovakia 70 12 South Korea 347 13 Thailand 609 14 Turkey 99 1.3 Objectives 1. To critically evaluate the current recruitment and selection approaches of Tesco plc. 2. To critically examine an alternative recruitment route that other companies are applying. 3. To draw conclusions about the room for improvement in Tesco recruitment and selection approach. 2. Literature review: Recruitment can be defined as a set of activities and practices used for the primary purpose of legally identifying sufficient numbers and quality of people fitting for a given purpose. It is carried out to provide an organisation with a pool of qualified potential individuals from which judicious selection for the most appropriate applicants can be made for filling vacancies in the organisation. A review of the HRM literature indicates that recruitment and selection are regarded as integrated activities and where recruitment stops and selection begins is a questionable point (Beardwell et al., 2004). Nevertheless, for the purpose of this work it is useful to differentiate between the two activities. As defined above, numerous authors (Whitehill, 1991: Roberts, 2008; McCormack and Scholarios, 2009) describe recruitment as a process of building a pool of potentially qualified applicants. Whereas selection is seen as a set of activities concerned with predicting which applicants will make the most appropriate contribution to the organisation in view of the present and future human resource requirements (Beardwell et al., 2004: McCormack and Scholarios, 2009). The recruitment and selection process refers some critical points. These are its very sensible process to change the internal organization of the company and to change on the external job market The recruitment and selection process meet with the some criteria, these are Process should be easy to realize the target people and audience of the recruitment and selection process. This process is not for the HRM organizations staff/employee, This process created only for the organization/companys manager, Manager are the main client for the recruitment and selection process. Despite recruitment and selection being considered as integrated activities unfortunately human resources literature discussions tend to neglect recruitment and place greater emphasis on selection. In view of this (McCormack and Scholarios, 2009) comment that the more effective an organisation is at identifying and attracting a high quality profile of job applicants, the less important the selection stage of hiring becomes. Therefore it can be suggested that an effective and agile recruitment strategy is the most fundamental human resource function and if managed well can have a significant impact on organisational performance and is critical to developing a more agile competitive edge (Pilbeam and Corbridge, 2006: Evans et al, 2007). As the contemporary business environment become increasingly competitive and labour markets continue to grow more diverse, organisations need to be more proactive in their resourcing strategies. Evans et al., (2007) and Richardson, (2008) argue that ineffective recruitment approaches can result in long-term negative effects, among them high training and development costs in efforts to minimise the incidence of poor performance and high turnover which in turn, impact on staff morale, the provision of high quality goods and services and the retention of organisational memory. Richardson, (2008) goes further to argue that at worst, the organisation can fail to achieve its objectives thereby losing its competitive edge and market share. However, it is important to consider that the process of implementing an effective and successful recruitment approach could bring along with it other costs related to the perceptions and attitudes of the people involved in this change. 3.1 Research methodology: 3.1.1. Sources of Information Primary Data: The primary data was collected by questionnaire survey. I prepared a questionnaire and asked the related person to fill it up. Secondary Data: I did browse the companys website to gather information. I also used the internet service to send the questionnaire. This report is the result of the collaboration of the members in the group and both primary and secondary information have been used. 3.1.2. Research Approach The face to face survey of the HR Department of Tesco, Sainsbury etc helped me to collect the data. This survey research approach has helped me to get a better understanding of their situation and problems. A questionnaire was prepared with questions that helped on providing information about their selection and recruitment process. 3.1.3. Research Instrument 3.1.3.1. Questionnaire I prepared a questionnaire with set of 8-10 questions related to the topic and asked the HR Mangers and employees of Tesco Sainsbury etc. Close End and open end: The questionnaire contains the MCQ type questions and also there were some options to write freely. I also used the checklist method of questionnaire (Yes/No). 3.1.3.2. Mechanical Tools Instrument like paper and pen were used for the questionnaire and for noting down notes. Computer, pen-drive, and printer were used for typing and printing the report. Analysis and evaluation: Primary analysis: I have done my primary analysis on 50 Tesco employees using a survey questionnaire (see appendix). From my primary analysis i have found out 60% of the employees think internet and job centre are the medium of advertisement.30 % think internet and store advertisement are the best way of job advertisement. Only 10 % think newspaper and job centre are the most popular medium of advertisement. 80% of the employees are happy about Tesco recruitment and selection process. But 40% of the employees think Sainsburys recruitment and selection process are better than Tescos to some extent. Many of the employees opinion was Sainsburys uses smarter recruitment and selection process than to Tesco. Namely their situation based test, using of video to identify skills and the mathematical test for identify numeric skills. From the survey I have also found out most of the employees think Tesco should make applications form available both online and offline. Those who have access to the internet can apply online and for those who do not, can collect a form from Tescos customer services, complete it and send it off by post or hand it in personally to customer services. This in turn could be given to the department which consists of this job and then be examined. Also Tesco should place more interviewers so that more applicants can be interviewed and so shortlisted applicants can be dealt with in a shorter period of time. Tesco should assess applicants during the interview as it would save time as both can be dealt with straight away/ at the same time. Secondary analysis: I have done my secondary research by reading through books, websites, magazines and newspaper. The findings are discussed below. Recruitment involves attracting the right standard of applicants to apply for vacancies. Tesco advertises jobs in different ways. The process varies depending on the job available. Tesco first looks at its internal Talent Plan to fill a vacancy. This is a process that lists current employees looking for a move, either at the same level or on promotion. If there are no suitable people in this Talent Plan or developing on the internal management development programme, Options, Tesco advertises the post internally on its intranet for two weeks. For external recruitment, Tesco advertises vacancies via the Tesco website www.tesco-careers.com or through vacancy boards in stores. Applications are made online for managerial positions. The chosen applicants have an interview followed by attendance at an assessment centre for the final stage of the selection process. Selection involves choosing the most suitable people from those that apply for a vacancy, whilst keeping to employment laws and regulations. Screening candidates is a very important part of the selection process. This ensures that those selected for interview have the best fit with the job requirements. In the first stages of screening, Tesco selectors will look carefully at each applicants curriculum vitae (CV). The CV summarises the candidates education and job history to date. A well-written and positive CV helps Tesco to assess whether an applicant matches the person specification for the job. The company also provides a job type match tool on its careers web page. People interested in working for Tesco can see where they might fit in before applying. The process Tesco uses to select external management candidates has several stages. A candidate who passes screening attends an assessment centre. The assessment centres take place in store and are run by managers. They help to provide consistency in the selection process. Applicants are given various exercises, including team-working activities or problemsolving exercises. These involve examples of problems they might have to deal with at work. On the other hand, Sainsbury has a bit different recruitment and selection process. After succeeding on online test Sainsbury takes first interview. Here HR manager call the candidates into a room individually to answer a few questions. These are just to make sure that whether the candidates have their passport, are the correct age for the job (as stipulated when they applied) and are being interviewed for the job they actually applied for apparently HR have a habit of messing that bit up. After this, all the interviewees will be sat in a room for the second recruitment test. The second test is split into four sections and given using a video. It usually takes around one hour to complete, and is quite simple. The first sectionÂÂ  is on customer service and is very similar to the other test that the candidates sat online. Again, they are given a situation that is in video format and are asked to identify the best and worst responses out of a selection of four. The second sectio nÂÂ  is on attention to detail. Candidates will be shown video clips, and will be asked to identify two things wrong with these video clips. The third sectionÂÂ  is on mathematics. The final sectionÂÂ  is all about candidates. It is the only part of the test not done by video, and comprises a series of statements with which candidates have to agree or disagree. Finally, 2nd interview comes up where candidates have to sit for face to face interview. Finally I can say that from the research it is clear that in some of cases Sainsbury has better system in recruitment and selection process. Tesco need to apply those systems in compare to other relative supermarket. If they put proper recruitment and selection technique then it will be easier than before. They can apply some techniques like video clips, mathematical terms etc. It will help Tesco to improve their recruitment process. Conclusion: Tesco PLC has an effective Recruitment and Selection however there are advantages and disadvantages which need to be considered. Advertising jobs online has its advantages as its cheaper than having it printed in newspapers for example and can be changed if required. However there are a few disadvantages. Some people may not have access to the Internet making it difficult to view the advertisement for the particular job. Some may have problems in using the Internet or not know how to use it and some may not have a computer in which case they would not even be able to access the Internet.. Tesco should make sure they know what is required of the job before shortlisting is taken place as applicant who may have the requirements may not be part of the applicants who are shortlisted or the opposite. Tesco should place more interviewers so that more applicants can be interviewed and so shortlisted applicants can be dealt with in a shorter period of time. Tesco should assess applicants duri ng the interview as it would save time as both can be dealt with straight away/ at the same time. Thus meaning Tesco should carry. References and bibliography: 1.Richardson, A. M, (2009) Recruitment Strategies: Managing/effecting the recruitment process [Online] available from http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UN/UNPAN021814.pdf [Accessed 4-0ct- 2010] 2. McCormack, A. and Scholarios, D. (2009) Recruitment, chapter 3 in Redman, T and Wilkinson, A, (2009) Contemporary Human Resource Management 3rd Edition, London: Financial Times Prentice Hall 3. UCL, (2008) Human resources-Recruitment and selection policy [Online] Available from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/hr/docs/recruitment.php [Accessed 22 Oct- 2010] 4. Pilbeam, S. and M. Corbridge (2006) People Resourcing. Contemporary HRM in Practice, London: Prentice Hall. Volume 17(4), pp.567-582. 5. TESCO-CARRERS, (2009)The application process-Tesco careers [Online] available from : http://www.tesco-careers.com/home/recruitment [Accessed 25-Oct- 2010] 6. SAINSBURYS, (2010) Careers at Sainsbury.[Online] available from http://www2.sainsburys.co.uk/aboutus/recruitment/careers_new.htm[Accessed 25-Oct- 2010]. 7. COURSEWORK, (2010) Tesco PLC has an effective Recruitment and Selection however the are advantages and disadvantages which need to be considered. .[Online] available from http://www.coursework.info/AS_and_A_Level/Media_Studies/Internet/Tesco_PLC_has_an_effective_Recruitment_a_L126195.html[Accessed 30-Oct- 2010] 8. Iles, P.A. and Robertson, I.T. (1997), The impact of personnel selection procedures on candidates, in Anderson, N. and Herriot, P. (Eds), International Handbook of Selection and Assessment, Wiley, Chichester, pp. 543-66 9. Anderson, N., Born, M. and Cunningham-Snell, N. (2001a), Recruitment and selection: applicant perspectives and outcomes, in Anderson, N., Ones, D., Sinangil, H.K. and Viswesvaran, C. (Eds), Handbook of Industrial, Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 1, Sage, London and New York, NY, pp. 200-18 10. Beardwell, I. Holden,L. and Claydon (2004) Human resource management; A contemporary approach. 4th Edition. Harlow: Pearson Education 11. Gililand,S.W.(1993) The perceived fairness of selection system: an organisational justice perspective, Academy of management review, 18: 694-734.

The Importance of Dreaming and Sleeping Essay -- Dreaming Dreams Psych

The Importance of Dreaming and Sleeping Dreams and dreaming is an important part of our lives. They’re a reliable source of insight, personal enrichment, and life affirming revelations. Dreams are the language of a person's subconscious mind. Before a person starts to dream, there are certain cycles or stages that a person goes through in their sleep. Sleeping is important to our lives. Many people spend about twenty five years sleeping and dreaming. There are four-ninety minute stages of sleep that a person goes through a night. To begin with stage one. This is when breathing is regular, heart rate slows down, and blood pressure decreases. A person could still be awake during this stage. Slowly the person drifts to stage two. During this stage, the person is unaware of what is going on in the outside surroundings. As the person falls deeper into sleep, the person goes into stage three and four. It is harder to wake someone up when they reached this stage. It takes about an hour for a person to go through all four stages. Yet, not everyone goes through all of these stages a night. Throughout the night, stages four and five repeated. REM (rapid eye movement) takes place when a person is at the deepest level of sleep. In REM, eyes move quickly under the eyelid. Dreaming takes place at this stage. Dreams occur more often and they are more real at this stage. These dreams are story like, intense, and passionate. (Encarta-psychology, CD-ROM) There are many ways to look at dreams. The psychoanalytic, biological, and cognitive views of dreaming. In psychoanalytic view, Freud came up with a theory called the "wish-fulfillment theory." Wish-fulfillment theory is " dream a interpretation that emphasizes the roles of the manifestation content of dreams" (Huffman, Vernoy, and Vernoy, 139). In a psychoanalytic view, they say that dreams are hidden signs of suppresses needs. In a biological perspective, they believe that dreams are not important- they are stimulation of brain cells. In a cognitive view, they believe dreams are an important part of information processing. (Huffman,Vernoy,and Vernoy, 140) There are no proven facts on why we dream. This is why there are a lot to go with these theories on dreaming. There alot of dream theorists that wrote on why people dream. Freud was always enchanted by dreams. He believed tha... ...(Encarta, Psychology, CDROM)These people say the dreams are important to live a full and complete life. It is difficult for us to study dreams and how they work while we’re sleeping. People can only decide for themselves and believe what they was to believe in. Only the dreamer can determine what is right or wrong. Outline I. Introduction to sleep A. Introduction statement II. Typical sleep cycle A. stages of sleep B. dreaming sleep III. Theories of sleep A. Freud’s theory B. Jung’s theory VI. Understanding dreams A. Self understandin B. Scientific understanding Bibliography 1.Encarta Psychology CD ROM 2.Karen Huffman, Mark Vernoy, Judith Vernoy PSYCHOLOGY IN ACTION Wiley John and Son. Inc. COPYRIGHT 1999 3.The CG Jung page HTTP//:WWW.CGJUNG.COM 4. The Sigmund Freud page HTTP//:WWW.LANDOW.BROWN.EDU Ps: to the person who gets this i got this with no bibliography or outline and every word and sentence was wrong but i did no reasearch and thats the part that worked for me and i used the internet to fine suitable pages and book titles hehe well hope your teacher likes it The Importance of Dreaming and Sleeping Essay -- Dreaming Dreams Psych The Importance of Dreaming and Sleeping Dreams and dreaming is an important part of our lives. They’re a reliable source of insight, personal enrichment, and life affirming revelations. Dreams are the language of a person's subconscious mind. Before a person starts to dream, there are certain cycles or stages that a person goes through in their sleep. Sleeping is important to our lives. Many people spend about twenty five years sleeping and dreaming. There are four-ninety minute stages of sleep that a person goes through a night. To begin with stage one. This is when breathing is regular, heart rate slows down, and blood pressure decreases. A person could still be awake during this stage. Slowly the person drifts to stage two. During this stage, the person is unaware of what is going on in the outside surroundings. As the person falls deeper into sleep, the person goes into stage three and four. It is harder to wake someone up when they reached this stage. It takes about an hour for a person to go through all four stages. Yet, not everyone goes through all of these stages a night. Throughout the night, stages four and five repeated. REM (rapid eye movement) takes place when a person is at the deepest level of sleep. In REM, eyes move quickly under the eyelid. Dreaming takes place at this stage. Dreams occur more often and they are more real at this stage. These dreams are story like, intense, and passionate. (Encarta-psychology, CD-ROM) There are many ways to look at dreams. The psychoanalytic, biological, and cognitive views of dreaming. In psychoanalytic view, Freud came up with a theory called the "wish-fulfillment theory." Wish-fulfillment theory is " dream a interpretation that emphasizes the roles of the manifestation content of dreams" (Huffman, Vernoy, and Vernoy, 139). In a psychoanalytic view, they say that dreams are hidden signs of suppresses needs. In a biological perspective, they believe that dreams are not important- they are stimulation of brain cells. In a cognitive view, they believe dreams are an important part of information processing. (Huffman,Vernoy,and Vernoy, 140) There are no proven facts on why we dream. This is why there are a lot to go with these theories on dreaming. There alot of dream theorists that wrote on why people dream. Freud was always enchanted by dreams. He believed tha... ...(Encarta, Psychology, CDROM)These people say the dreams are important to live a full and complete life. It is difficult for us to study dreams and how they work while we’re sleeping. People can only decide for themselves and believe what they was to believe in. Only the dreamer can determine what is right or wrong. Outline I. Introduction to sleep A. Introduction statement II. Typical sleep cycle A. stages of sleep B. dreaming sleep III. Theories of sleep A. Freud’s theory B. Jung’s theory VI. Understanding dreams A. Self understandin B. Scientific understanding Bibliography 1.Encarta Psychology CD ROM 2.Karen Huffman, Mark Vernoy, Judith Vernoy PSYCHOLOGY IN ACTION Wiley John and Son. Inc. COPYRIGHT 1999 3.The CG Jung page HTTP//:WWW.CGJUNG.COM 4. The Sigmund Freud page HTTP//:WWW.LANDOW.BROWN.EDU Ps: to the person who gets this i got this with no bibliography or outline and every word and sentence was wrong but i did no reasearch and thats the part that worked for me and i used the internet to fine suitable pages and book titles hehe well hope your teacher likes it

Instant Car-Pooling on the Android Platform

CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 CS 8803 – AIAD Project Report. Instant Car-Pooling on the Android Platform Vinaya Shenoy Parikshit Sudumbrekar Madhura Tipnis 1 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 Table of Contents: Introduction Objectives Motivation Technology Overview Related Work Architecture Project Screen-Shots Evaluation Future Work Project Experience Conclusion References 3 3 3 4 5 5 6 14 14 15 16 17Table of Figures Figure 1: Android Technological Overview Figure 2: Carpool Application – Starting Window Figure 3: Carpool Application – Create a new Event Figure 4: Carpool Application – Contact List Figure 5: Carpool Application – Events Created history Figure 6: Carpool Application – SMS for carpool invitation received Figure 7: Carpool Application – Car pool Invitation Details Figure 8: Carpool Application – Details for the event creator Figure 9: Carpool Application – Map showing pick-up points 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 2 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORTTEAM#2 Introduction: With increasing convergence between different technologies like the cellular world, internet (IP) world, different applications have become popular and many more are under development. One of the prominent services popular amongst the users is the â€Å"Location Based Services† and â€Å"presence†. The current location-based services out there in the market use the policy of ‘broadcasting locations' while enabling any activity between the various users. This may lead to unintended recipients being the beneficiary of certain events.With this in mind, we aim to develop an application/service that would enable selective delivery of events/messages to the intended recipients based on their location. This would help in avoiding thousands of messages being sent to unintended recipients. Thus, not only the location of the intended recipient is taken into consideration; but the context of the location i s also taken into consideration. In this project, we define the context of the recipient as its distance from the initiator of the event. Objectives: The objectives of the „Instant Car Pooling Application? can be stated as follows: 1.Enable users to create events that would specify the following information? The total vacancy in the car. ? The time at which the event is going to take place. ? The Final destination. 2. Development of the logic that would enable? Poll in the location information of all the intended recipients. ? Take decision based on the context on the location. ? Send „sms? to all the selected recipients and handle the accepted or rejected messages received from the recipients. 3. Generate a Google Map that shows the initiator the map between his location, all the recipients that agreed to his car pooling event and the final destination.We aim to demonstrate all these scenarios on the „Android Emulator?. Motivation: The application under considerat ion, the „Instant Car Pooling? application, is a novel idea which has never been implemented before. This became our source of motivation for going ahead with this project. All the current car pooling methods are 1. Time consuming. 2. Require a lot of before-hand planning. 3. Require several rounds of communications in the form of series of e-mails or a series of telephonic conversations. 3 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 Also, there seems to be an absence of a „Car Pooling? pplication on the mobile phones. This motivated us to develop our application on the „Android Platform? , one of the upcoming and latest mobile platforms launched by Google. A different source of motivation behind the development of this application is that of the „Georgia Tech India Club?. All the members of this club complained about receiving thousands of mails which either requested for a Car Pool or which offered a Car Pool. Thus, uninterested students used to receive such ma ils. We thought; why not develop a „mobile-based instant Car Pooling application? s our gift to the student community of Georgia Tech? This really gave us the passion to go after the completion of this project. The initiator of the event could select intended recipients from the contact list. The application then checks for the relative context of the location of all the selected recipients and forwards the event to only those recipients that satisfy the context. Technology Overview: Figure 1: Android Technological Overview Android is a new operating system for the G1 phone that has been released by Google in 2008.The main difference that sets the Google G1 phone apart from other operating systems is that the Android is based on an open source platform. This implies that anyone can view and even modify the source code. This results in constant evolution of the software. In case a developer senses that there is a certain feature that is currently not included then he or she can incorporate it in the phone and the software would develop. Since it is a fairly new platform, it is not as 4 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 developed as other mobile operating systems.But considering the open source nature and other features, it can go a long way beyond other mobile operating systems. The hardware associated with the phone is provided by various companies. As and when the hardware becomes more advanced, the Android OS will be able to support more features functions. Related Work: 1. Location tracking is the most essential thing and a definite pre requisite for any mobility related application. This can be done in different ways. 2. A social tool has been developed which helps the user connect with people around him. This tool has been developed on the Symbian Operating System.The location of the user is detected in the cell phone by getting information from the cell tower. This application doesn? t need GPS. Each user can keep up with what is happening wi th people in the friend? s list. Broadcasting of messages is the approach followed in this tool. It also provides other features like connecting people with similar interests. It helps the user explore various places in and around the location detected. 3. There is a mobile social networking service called Loopt which broadcasts the location of the user even when the phone is closed.It also allows sending of messages or sharing of photos between contacts. This Loopt is currently limited to the Sprint network. Architecture: The users that have this application installed on their cell phones can use this application as either initiators of car pooling event or as invitees for a car pooling event. When the user launches this application, the user is given three options to choose from. The user can create a new car pool event, view the events that he has created earlier or view invitations for car pool event from other users.When the user chooses to create a new event, he is given a for m which has fields such as subject of the car pool, time of the car pool, vacancies in the car, destination address of the car pool, and a button to choose from the list of his contacts. The user enters the values in the fields and then clicks on the contact list. The contact list is displayed from which the user selects the contacts he wants to send the invitation of the car pool to. All the invitees will be sent an SMS with the details of the carpool event.When the invitee accepts an invitation, the carpool application on his phone will respond back to the initiator with the current GPS location of the invitee. When the initiator gets back the positive reply from an invitee, he will retrieve the location co-ordinates from the sms and using reverse geocoding functionality of the Geocoder utility will calculate the street address of the contact. Now when the initiator views the event generated, he can see all those who all have responded to the event. A Google map is created with th e locations of all those who have responded to the event.It gives the order of pick up as per the order in which the invitees have responded. We have used the Google Map API here for 5 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 generation of the route map based on the location as detected by the geo coder. Once the vacancies are full, the other invitees who try to accept the invite later are displayed a message which says that the car is full. Project Screenshots: Figure 2: Carpool Application – Starting Window This is the first screen that appears on the cell phone display when the user starts the application. There are three options that are provided.They are ? ? ? Create an event – This allows the user to start a new car pool. View created events – This allows the user to go back and view the car pool events that have been created earlier by him. View Invitations – This option lets the user view invitations for other car pooling events from his friends. 6 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 Figure 3: Carpool Application – Create a new Event This screen appears on the cell phone display when the user chooses to create a new car pooling event. In the subject box, the user can type out a short description of the purpose of the car pool.Since it is an instant car pooling application, the day is set to the current day as recorded in the cell phone. The user is given a list of times to select from when he clicks on the â€Å"pick a time† option. Also the user is allowed to specify the number of vacancies in his car to go to a particular destination. The user enters his destination address in the destination 7 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 box. Then the user can select contacts from his contact list to whom all the event will be sent to. Figure 4: Carpool Application – Contact List This screen is the contact list.The user can select the contacts he wishes to send the car pool event invite to, with the hel p of check boxes provided next to the names of the contacts. When the user clicks on â€Å"add to event†, the invitation is sent to the selected contacts from the contact list. This event is sent in the form of a „sms?. 8 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 Figure 5: Carpool Application – Events Created history This screen is displayed on the cell phone display when the user chooses to view the car pool events created by him. The user can click on the individual events to view the details of each event.This list contains all the past events as well as the pending events. 9 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 Figure 6: Carpool Application – SMS for carpool invitation received When the message is sent to the contacts, the message as shown above appears on the display of the contacts to which the message is sent. The name of the car pool event generator also appears in the message pop up. 10 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 Figure 7: Carpool Ap plication – Car Pool invitation details When the user clicks on â€Å"view invitation† option on the main page, the user is displayed the screen above.The invitation gives details of the car pool which includes the subject of the car pool, the name of the initiator of the event, the time at which the car pool is scheduled to take place, the destination of the car pool and the status of the reply. The user is given to options to respond to the message of either attending or not attending. The user can click on either one depending on his choice. Once the user responds to a message he won? t be given an option to change his decision. 11 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 Figure 8: Carpool Application – Details for the event creatorThis page will be displayed to the user who created the events. It will give him a summary of the event with details such as the subject, the time of the event, vacancies in the car, destination of the car pool, invitees to the even t, and the order of pickup of the invitees who responded. The order of pickup is decided on first come first serve basis currently. Also the user is given an option to check the map of the route now by clicking on â€Å"show route map†. 12 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 Figure 9: Carpool Application – Map showing pick-up pointsThe route map is displayed to the creator of the car pool event when he clicks on the â€Å"show route map† option. Along the route, the pick-ups in the order of first come first serve are plotted. The interesting thing about this application is that in the beginning when no recipient has accepted the invitation, the initiator of the event can view a map of source (his location) and the final destination. As and when recipients accept the car pooling invitation, the map is updated and it shows all the intermediate pick-up points (the locations of the recipients who have accepted the car pooling invitation).Thus, the initiator of t he event now has the entire map, wherein he has all the information about the route to follow. 13 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 Evaluation/Testing: We tested our application by running four instances of the emulator on the same machine. In each emulator we stored three contacts with their numbers being the port numbers on which the other three emulators were running. We then tested the following scenario: 1. When a user creates a new event, the event is created properly ensuring that all the parameters are valid. For eg, the user can? put a time in the future or put a negative vacancy, give no invitees. Also, we verify the destination address provided by the user to ensure that the address is correct and exists on the map. 2. Once the event is created, we verified that all the invitees got an sms message with the proper details and the invitation is displayed in their invitation list. 3. When an invitee accepts an invitation a reply sms with his GPS coordinates is sent bac k to the initiator. 4. When the initiator gets a accept response, the event is updated and the initiator can see the pickup location of the invitee on the map. . When the carpool for an invite becomes full, all invitees who respond after that get a carpool full response sms. Future Work: This project provides a proof of concept of the „Car Pooling? application. It is a stripped down version of our dream „Car Pool? application. There are a lot of improvements that can be incorporated into this project that makes it more complete and feature rich. The future work with regards to this project can be summarized as follows: 1. Currently, the initiator sends car pooling invitation to his friends from his contact list.Their location is forwarded back to him when they accept the invitation. This helps in the creation of the Google Map for the event initiator. In the future, we could have a web service that handles all this location information. This would also solve some privacy related issues like the publishing of recipient location etc. 2. At the moment, the routes are decided on the „First Come First Serve? basis. This means, the route is decided on the order in which the recipients accept the car pooling invitation. But the path obtained from this may not always be the shortest path.Thus we could have algorithms like the „Dijkstra? s? algorithm or Algorithmic concepts like „Dynamic Programming? to calculate the shortest path between source, destination and all the recipients. Thus, optimization on this front can be obtained. 3. The web service can be programmed to handle the context of the location. The context of the location can be determined by its proximity to the location of the event creator. Thus, the web service can determine a radius and determine the recipients which fall within the 14 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 adius as the ones who would receive the car pooling event message; while those which lie outside the radius would be ignored. Thus, broadcasting of the event can be avoided. 4. Other features can include displaying only the events that are pending when the user clicks on the „View Created Events? button. All the past and completed events could be stored in a separate „history log?. 5. Currently, the final destination needs the complete address of the location. In the future, the final destination address could be populated by extracting information from the „subject? of the event and using Google Maps functionalities.For example, if the user types in „Trip to Wal-Mart? as the subject, then the final destination address could be filled automatically by the closest Wal-Mart store located near him. Project Experience: Working on the project was a learning process with a lot of interesting discoveries. The Android platform being comparatively new was a challenge to work on, since very less documentation was available as well as little support was available thro ugh the online communities. During the initial phase of the project, all the various APIs that were supported were studied to determine their use and feasibility towards the project.During this initial feasibility study, we realized that certain API support have been removed from the latest version of Android. This included the crucial one of Google Maps, which our project was dependent on. Thus, began another study to determine the use of actual Google Map APIs through the Android code. Also the basic idea of the project made us realize that how convenient car pooling can be made with this application. The project exposed us to the latest technology in the area of mobile platform development. In class the various issues in mobile computing were covered.Also there was an extensive explanation of mobile computing in general. This discussion helped us a lot in the project. We realized that issues such as less power on the device, etc. can be a problem if there are huge amounts of comp utations to be done. Thus, we made a point to keep the client as this as possible and with this aim in mind, we also aim to develop a web service in the future that would completely take care of all the computation and make the clients really „thin?. Location based services were extensively covered in the class. This motivated us to incorporate them into our project.We have extensively used locations in our project, in fact we have the plotted the Google Map by making use of them. Due to such background developed in class, we thought of experimenting on the Android platform. It gave us a boost to explore the yet not totally discovered areas in Android API usage. 15 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 Initially we wanted to test the project by executing instances of the Android emulator on different machines. These emulators would then communicate between each-other through means of messages. But, we were not able to demonstrate in this fashion due to certain technological challenges.In the end, we demonstrated the application by executing different instances of the Android emulator on the same machine. We further aim to test the performance of our application by adding a number of recipients and measuring the time taken for the Google Map to build. This would help us in determining whether the time remains for large number of recipients, finding the bottle-necks if any and moving towards a cut-off for the number of recipients for which the application shows normal execution time. Conclusion: Thus, this project successfully demonstrated a mobile based „Car Pooling? application.This application would help in the process of creation of „instant car pool? events. Thus, we successfully reduced the long conversations needed for normal car pool events. In future, more functionality can be added to make this application more robust and more feature rich. With the advent of smart phones, this application, when developed to its fullest, would be ab le for all to use and make their journeys much more enjoyable and comfortable. 16 CS 8803 AIAD TERM PROJECT REPORT TEAM#2 References: 1. Android API documentation. (n. d. ). Retrieved from Android Developers: http://developer. ndroid. com/reference/packages. html 2. Android Development Community Forum (n. d). Retrieved April 2009 from http://www. anddev. org/index. php 3. Google Maps API documentation. (n. d. ). Retrieved from Google maps: http://code. google. com/apis/maps/documentation/ 4. Strickland, J. (n. d. ). How the Google Phone Works. Retrieved April 2009, from How Stuff Works: http://electronics. howstuffworks. com/google-phone5. htm 5. What is Android. (n. d. ). Retrieved April 2009, from developer. android. com: http://developer. android. com/guide/basics/what-is-android. html 17

How To Avoid Costly Mistakes In Influencer Marketing With Shane Barker

How To Avoid Costly Mistakes In Influencer Marketing With Shane Barker Did you do a lot of stupid things when you were a kid? Did you get caught and yelled at? Was your #1 go-to argument: Well, my buddy was doing it first only to be told, â€Å"Well, if your friend jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?† As a kid, there are certain people who influence and inspire you. As you get older, that doesn’t change. About 92% of consumers trust earned media, such as word-of-mouth and recommendations from friends and family, more so than any other form of advertising. The result: Influencer marketing. Today, we’re talking to Shane Barker, a digital marketing consultant who specializes in influencer marketing. He shares the top three things needed to execute a successful influencer marketing strategy, as well as pitfalls to avoid. Influencer marketing is the practice of using social media influencers to promote your brand, Website, or products Social media influencers have some type of influence over their followers, who trust and believe in them for information and guidance Don’t look at the follower count; number of followers incentivizes who is an influencer, but fake followers are used to make that happen Brands that use influencer marketing successfully include LinkedIn and LikeToKnowIt Software can be used to find influencers consider engagement rates and profiles, not â€Å"likes†; conduct research to build a long-term relationship Pitfalls to Avoid: Don’t go after the influencer with the largest following and spend time selecting and setting expectations for an influencer Measure success of influencer marketing via affiliate codes/links, Website/landing page traffic, brand mentions, engagement rates, etc. Future of Influencer Marketing: How to scale this type of marketing, develop a win-win strategy, and educate brands on how to find influencers Links: Shane Barker Shane Barker’s Email Content Solutions Global Trust in Advertising and Brand Messages LinkedIn The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to LinkedIn Liketoknow.it Grin Influence.co Fiverr Send suggested AMP topics and guests If you liked today’s show, please subscribe on iTunes to The Actionable Content Marketing Podcast! The podcast is also available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google Play. Quotes by Shane Barker: â€Å"Influencer marketing is essentially the practice of using social media influencers to promote your brand, Website, or products.† â€Å"These people have some type of influence over their following.† â€Å"Not all engagement is good engagement. Is that an influencer you want to have your name associated with?† That’s one of the big questions is like, Oh, what do I pay an influencer? Well, it really depends. It really depends on the influencer because each one of them run their business differently.

Free Essays on Global Marketing

Firms are taking a global perspective today to a much greater degree than in the past. Global marketing is a particular way of looking at the markets of the world and a particular way of responding to international pressures. Companies today are arranging their entire business structure to respond to global demands. Manufacturing is done at different points around the world; distribution is shaped to different requirements; products are repackaged and even reformulated for different world regions; and marketing is shaped to appeal to people in different parts of the world. There are four types of marketing mindset that can be brought to bear on a marketing problem. The global perspective takes a different view of opportunities and facts about the world market than the domestic, international, or multinational perspectives would do. The global perspective in fact encompasses all cultures or nationalities. International and multinational perspectives depend on experience gained from direct contact with one or several other countries and cultures. The marketing manager with a global perspective achieves that view throughout the world, even for areas where no direct prior experience exists. The marketing manager must obviously think differently about the world to use this perspective. A wide variety of types of knowledge are necessary for a global perspective, among them economic knowledge, political knowledge, cultural knowledge, historic knowledge, geographic knowledge, and an understanding of global market knowledge. Each of these types of knowledge applies to each individual country to which one may be marketing and to the international scene, involving relationship between and among countries, as part of the global marketing perspective. In part, the manager is always comparing cultures, analyzing the target culture against the one he or she knows best, their own. With the rapidly advancing tec... Free Essays on Global Marketing Free Essays on Global Marketing Firms are taking a global perspective today to a much greater degree than in the past. Global marketing is a particular way of looking at the markets of the world and a particular way of responding to international pressures. Companies today are arranging their entire business structure to respond to global demands. Manufacturing is done at different points around the world; distribution is shaped to different requirements; products are repackaged and even reformulated for different world regions; and marketing is shaped to appeal to people in different parts of the world. There are four types of marketing mindset that can be brought to bear on a marketing problem. The global perspective takes a different view of opportunities and facts about the world market than the domestic, international, or multinational perspectives would do. The global perspective in fact encompasses all cultures or nationalities. International and multinational perspectives depend on experience gained from direct contact with one or several other countries and cultures. The marketing manager with a global perspective achieves that view throughout the world, even for areas where no direct prior experience exists. The marketing manager must obviously think differently about the world to use this perspective. A wide variety of types of knowledge are necessary for a global perspective, among them economic knowledge, political knowledge, cultural knowledge, historic knowledge, geographic knowledge, and an understanding of global market knowledge. Each of these types of knowledge applies to each individual country to which one may be marketing and to the international scene, involving relationship between and among countries, as part of the global marketing perspective. In part, the manager is always comparing cultures, analyzing the target culture against the one he or she knows best, their own. With the rapidly advancing tec...