Michael Moore: An Influential Filmmaker Essay -- Cinema

Michael Moore, an Academy Award-winning filmmaker is known for his highly controversial documentaries. He appeals to the newer generation, trying to educate people along with addressing our unresolved social issues in the United States. He gives incite to corrupt things that our government is involved in that citizens do not know about if they do not read or watch the news. Michael Moore proved to be a big-time influence through his work in the movie industry. His main message is to get people to stop following their government blindly, but rather speak out, ask questions, get involved, and most of all shows peoples power to be able change what needs to be changed. He proves being patriotic means taking responsibility and being informed about what’s happening in the media and all of Michael Moore’s films give the audience this. Time magazine named Michael Moore one of the World’s 100 most influential people. Through his Oscar and Emmy awards, he proves even a powerless author and producer with nothing more than a pen and a movie camera can make a tremendous difference. His documentary Bowling for Columbine reiterated that by a determination and persistence that not only him, but patriots can create change. He interviewed some of the surviving victims of the Columbine shootings along with Charlton Heston, the NRA president. He shows the gruesome effect of allowing guns and bullets to be so easily accessible. Kmart was his main destination and he took it upon himself by going right to the top of a major corporate food chain. The documentary was about how he was able to get them to stop selling bullets completely. Getting Kmart to stop selling bullets doesn’t mean that you’re going to prevent kids from going somewhere ... ...n in public, which many people are not courageous enough to do, and for that many respect him. Michael Moore proves that one man can make a difference. He is a great example of exercising our right to free speech and questioning the government. If something doesn’t seem right he is a spokesperson for finding out the truth. Michael was a small town boy who grew up to become one of the most influential documentary film makers of our time. Works Cited Bowling For Columbine. Dir. Michael Moore. 2002. Fahrenheit 911. Dir. Michael Moore. 2004. Penn, Sean. Time.com. 18 April 2005. 8 March 2012 . Sicko. Dir. Michael Moore. 2007. The Oprah Winfrey Show. Michael Moore's Sicko. 1 January 2006. 8 March 2012 .

From being a maintenance planner at BMW

From being a maintenance planner at BMW , Norbert Reithofer was able to work his way up to being the head of production, and finally to being the company’s chief executive.Judging from his associates, his ability to build his network of alliances is indubitable. For example, the former CEO and now chief of BMW’s supervisory board is Joachim Milberg who was actually Reithofer’s thesis adviser in graduate school.This does not say, however that Reithofer’s ability to make alliances is limited to the top level. In 2002, he was able to halve the time requirement for full production of the next-generation three series from 6 months to three, with Burkhard Goeschel, BMW’s Development Chief.The increased level of production did not compromise the cars’ quality, as skeptics would like to think. Reithofer and Goeschel was able to assemble a team of R&D who worked for three years. From its introduction in March, none of the produced cars were reported t o have any quality problems. Reithofer believes that managers should be role models and should work together.Being the CEO, Roethofer will seek to keep the managers and workers to stay ahead. At present, he is expecting brands like Toyota’s Lexus and Nissan’s Infinti to set up plants in Europe and work on building BMW-like cars.

Easyjet Case Analysis Essay

Is the budget airline segment an attractive place to be? Why (not)? Yes, the budget airline segment is very attractive in a country where the people are interested to travel in low cost airlines without much comforts like business class and food. And more over if the company can reduce its costs in the areas of operations and utilising the resources more efficiently, then budget airline segment is definitely an attractive place. Some of the areas where we can look into reduce the costs are like using the no frills strategy, reducing the number of travel agents, reducing the aircraft stay in a airport (which reduce the fees to be paid for the airports). The above are the some of the strategies used by the easyjet airways and also they used their resources to maximum extent like they operated Boeing flights for 11 hours per day compared to their rivals who used 6 hours per day. Rising middle class all over the world is also another factor which makes the budget airline segment an attractive place because they can afford the air travel at such a low price there by increasing the volumes of air traffic and helps in increasing the profits of the airlines. As the prices are low for the aircraft, the profit margins are also very low and the airlines has to strictly adhere to its operating policies like punctuality and low fares to attract masses and generate revenues. If one cannot stick to their standards they may lose the market (as in the case it was mentioned some 60 out of 80 carriers went bankrupt). Some other aircraft carriers which are successful in this segment are American southwest airlines and Indian Spicejet (They generated profits after introducing the new strategy of low prices). Also in the case it was mentioned the European budget airline segment was expected to grow by as much as 300% by 2004. So it is definitely a best place to compete and sustain. Also some of the business executives also prefer the low cost airlines as they might be travelling a lot and travelling low cost carriers reduces their expense and as they are available at any point of time. Porters five forces can be also used to know the attractiveness of a industry. Bargaining power of Suppliers: The suppliers of the industry are major aircraft manufacturing companies, some of the outsourcing firms, and travelling agents. Here in this case aircraft manufacturers like Boeing have their upper hand. When coming to outsourcing and travel agents airlines try to minimise their intervention to be competitive. Bargaining Power of Buyers : Since there will be lot of competitors in the industry and ultimately the bargaining power rests with the majority of the customers or travellers in this case. Threat of New Substitutes : In many places in Europe, High Speed Rail network directly competes with low-cost airlines. Still 50% of people travelling in some of the routes preferred business class travel. Threat of New Entrants : As mentioned earlier there is scope of 300% growth by 2004 and so many new entrants try to compete in this industry but from the data available it is mentioned 60 out of 80 entrants went bankrupt. So this may restrict the new entrants to think before entering this sector. Intensity of Rivalry Among competetors: The intensity of competition is very high from the competitors like British airways which launched a separate airlines to tap the low budget airline segment So overall considering the above all cases and if an airline can reduce their costs and increase their operational performance, then definitely budget airlines is the place it can compete. How does EasyJet deliver its customer value proposition? Some of the value propositions offered to the customers by the Easyjet are 1. The airlines flew brand new fleet of Boeing 737s to impress the people and let them know they don’t compromise on the safety of the carriers 2. They hired the experienced pilots and crew at market rates and customers are pleased to find the smiling crew when they boarded the flight. 3. They operated strictly according to schedule and had the policy of refunding amount if they are late by 3 hours 4. The cost of changing to another flight was very less (â‚ ¬10+ difference of the fare) 5. Passengers are required to carry their 6 character reference number instead of the tickets. This reduces the paper wastage. 6. Stelios portrayed image of Man of the people by personal interaction with customers. 7. No pre-assigned seating offered. Allotment was based on first come first serve basis. The Harvard Business School case study on Amazon Web Services (AWS) by Huckman, Pisano, and Kind, outlines Amazon’s expansion into selling â€Å"cloud† services. In 2002, 8 years after Amazon appeared as an online retail bookstore, the company started exposing product data in a â€Å"developer-friendly† format to its affiliates via an application program interface (API). The resulting positive response exceeded expectations and led Amazon executives to recognize a market for renting their highly reliable and scalable technical infrastructure to developers in the form of pay-as-you-go web services. By 2008, Amazon had introduced 12 services, including four core offerings described as â€Å"Infrastructure Web Services†: Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Simple Storage Service (S3), Simple DB, and Simple Queue Service (SQS). While the move into cloud computing was an unexpected and bold step by Amazon that surprised the application hosting industry, was AWS a disruptive strategy or a new business model? Clayton Christensen describes a disruptive technology as â€Å"changes that toppled industry’s leaders.† While the idea of leveraging existing assets to create a new business opportunity and gain a competitive advantage was a unique concept and industry differentiator for Amazon, it was not disruptive by definition. Incumbent leaders on the server and computing side like IBM, Sun, and HP all had sophisticated back-ends and application frameworks similar to Amazon and each were starting to develop initiatives to provide infrastructure and software solutions in the cloud. In addition, many large corporations such as Network Appliance, EMC, and Dell already offered online storage capabilities comparable to S3, albeit few provided a similar pay-as-you-go model. AWS was also in front of the other Internet giants, but not by much as each major player already had a mature web hosting business and was starting to develop web service offerings. Microsoft introduced two families of web services in 2005: Windows Live, a suite of consumer software services, and Office Live, a similar range of services targeted to small business. Salesforce.com established force.com in 2007, a platform for developers to create business applications, and Google introduced App Engine in 2008, which was expected to evolve and compete directly with AWS. Amazon first considered creating a broader developer-oriented business when the company realized it was spending â€Å"†¦70 percent of its time building and maintaining the back-end technology ‘muck’ that did not differentiate Amazon from its competitors.† The company brilliantly identified the right new business model at the right time and Andy Jassy’s foresight and vision gained Amazon the first-mover advantage in the developer business. The company, however, did not redefine the back-end infrastructure technology supporting their services nor did they introduce a pioneering approach to data center management that significantly reduced overhead costs and destabilized competition. Amazon’s strategy introduced nothing that neither â€Å"toppled† the industry leaders nor prevented them from responding relatively quickly in offering their technology in the same manner as Amazon. While Amazon‘s cloud computing and web services offering is rich, encompassing, and ahead of its competition, AWS is a new business model positioned to reduce costs and increase free cash flows through better asset utilization. It will be interesting to see the impact true technology companies like IBM, Google, and Microsoft have on AWS as their web services solutions mature. What if AWS cannot maintain the volumes needed to offset their costs? Does Amazon’s move away from their core business and heavy investment in technology leave them inflexible and vulnerable to the strategy of a new online bookstore that utilizes cloud computing in a disruptive way to reduce costs and sell books for less?

Free Essays on Case Study Analysis

Case Study Analysis Janice is Chief of Research and Development and she is also John’s boss. John is Janice’s assistant. Janice is highly paid and John is underpaid. John is attempting to impress everyone with his new software package while Janice is just covering herself for not completing the project her boss assigned to her. John, Janice and ultimately Janice’s boss are affected by Janice’s decision. John will be affected because he is hoping to receive a promotion and a raise as a result of his creation. Janice will either receive praise from her boss from a job well done or possibly criticism for having her assistant complete an assignment that was given to her. Janice’s decision is definitely an ethical one because it is based on right and wrong. Specifically, it’s based on Janice’s definition of right and wrong. On one hand she needs to fulfill her obligation to her manager and turn in a software package that will address the company concerns. On the other hand, she has an employee that has worked hard and deserves credit for what he has done. Taking credit for his idea would be wrong in the eyes of most observers but Janice has to weigh the ramifications of not completing her assignment with the idea of taking credit for someone else’s work. Janice has the first and most obvious decision to make. She needs to decide if she should take credit for work that is not her own. If John will not go along with the idea of her taking credit for his work she has another decision to make about punishing him by lowering his evaluations and possibly firing him. John’s issue is different in that he can go along and get the promotion and raise he wants but no credit for the work he did. . John has to decide if he wants credit for his work or if he wants a guaranteed raise and promotion by letting Janice take the credit. According to Kant’s categorical imperative an act is ethical only if it remai... Free Essays on Case Study Analysis Free Essays on Case Study Analysis Case Study Analysis Janice is Chief of Research and Development and she is also John’s boss. John is Janice’s assistant. Janice is highly paid and John is underpaid. John is attempting to impress everyone with his new software package while Janice is just covering herself for not completing the project her boss assigned to her. John, Janice and ultimately Janice’s boss are affected by Janice’s decision. John will be affected because he is hoping to receive a promotion and a raise as a result of his creation. Janice will either receive praise from her boss from a job well done or possibly criticism for having her assistant complete an assignment that was given to her. Janice’s decision is definitely an ethical one because it is based on right and wrong. Specifically, it’s based on Janice’s definition of right and wrong. On one hand she needs to fulfill her obligation to her manager and turn in a software package that will address the company concerns. On the other hand, she has an employee that has worked hard and deserves credit for what he has done. Taking credit for his idea would be wrong in the eyes of most observers but Janice has to weigh the ramifications of not completing her assignment with the idea of taking credit for someone else’s work. Janice has the first and most obvious decision to make. She needs to decide if she should take credit for work that is not her own. If John will not go along with the idea of her taking credit for his work she has another decision to make about punishing him by lowering his evaluations and possibly firing him. John’s issue is different in that he can go along and get the promotion and raise he wants but no credit for the work he did. . John has to decide if he wants credit for his work or if he wants a guaranteed raise and promotion by letting Janice take the credit. According to Kant’s categorical imperative an act is ethical only if it remai...

10 Fascinating Facts About Painted Lady Butterflies

10 Fascinating Facts About Painted Lady Butterflies The painted lady is one of the most familiar butterflies in the world, found on nearly all continents and in all climates. They are a favorite subject of study in elementary school classrooms and are a familiar visitor to most landscape gardens. Yet common as they are, painted ladies have some unique attributes.  Here are 10 fascinating facts about the painted lady, or  Vanessa  cardui. 1. The painted lady is the most widely distributed butterfly in the world. Venessa cardui  inhabits every continent except Australia and  Antarctica. You can find painted ladies everywhere from meadows to vacant lots. Its sometimes called the cosmopolitan butterfly, because of its global distribution. Although it is resident only in warmer climates, it often migrates into colder regions in spring and fall, making it the butterfly with the widest distribution of any species.   2. The painted lady is sometimes called the thistle butterfly or the cosmopolitan  butterfly. It is called the thistle butterfly because thistle plants are its favorite nectar plant for food; it is called the cosmopolitan butterfly because of its global distribution. Its scientific name- Vanessa cardui- translates as butterfly of thistle.   3. Painted ladies have unusual migration patterns. The painted lady is an irruptive migrant, meaning that it migrates independent of any seasonal or geographic patterns. Some evidence suggests that painted lady migrations may be linked to the El Nià ±o climate pattern. In Mexico and some other regions, it appears that migration is sometimes related to overpopulation. The migrating populations that move from North Africa to Europe may include millions of butterflies, and migrating populations numbering hundreds of thousands of individuals are common.  In spring, painted ladies fly low when migrating, usually only 6 to 12 feet above the ground. This makes them highly visible to butterfly watchers, but also rather susceptible to colliding with cars. At other times, evidence suggests that painted ladies migrate at such high altitudes that they are not observed at all, simply appearing in a new region unexpectedly.   4. Painted ladies fly fast and far. These medium-sized butterflies can cover a lot of ground, up to 100 miles per day during their migration. A painted lady is capable of reaching a speed of nearly 30 miles per hour. Painted ladies reach northern areas well ahead of some of their more famous migrating cousins, like  monarch butterflies. And because they get such an early start to their spring travel, migrating painted ladies are able to feed on spring annuals, like fiddlenecks (Amsinckia). 5. Painted lady butterflies do not overwinter in cold regions. Unlike many other species of butterflies that migrate to warm climates in winter, painted ladies die once winter hits in colder regions. They are present in cold regions only because of their impressive ability to migrate long distances from their warm-weather breeding areas.   6. Painted lady caterpillars eat thistle. Thistle, which can be an invasive weed, is one of the painted lady caterpillars favorite food plants. The painted lady probably owes its global abundance to the fact that its larvae feed on such common plants. The painted lady also goes by the name thistle butterfly, and its scientific name- Vanessa cardui- means butterfly of thistle.   7. Painted ladies sometimes damage soybean crops. When the butterflies are found in large numbers, they can do serious damage to soybean crops. The damage occurs during the larval stages when caterpillars eat soybean foliage after hatching from eggs.  Ã‚   8. Males use the perch and patrol method for finding mates. Male painted ladies actively patrol their territory for receptive females in the afternoon. Should a male butterfly  find a mate, he will usually retreat with his partner to a treetop, where they will mate overnight. 9. Painted lady caterpillars weave silk tents. Unlike other caterpillars in the genus Vanessa, painted lady larvae construct their tents from silk. Youll usually find their fluffy shelters on thistle plants. Similar species, such as the American lady caterpillar, make their tents by stitching leaves together instead. 10. On overcast days, painted ladies can often be found on the ground, huddling in small depressions. On sunny days, the butterflies prefer open areas filled with colorful flowers.

Business Writing 101

Business Writing 101 Business Writing 101 Business Writing 101 By Ali Hale The term â€Å"business writing† covers any piece of writing produced in a business context. I’ll focus here on documents that are produced for internal use (such as memos and plans), and reports aimed at clients. Most jobs today involve a significant amount of writing, especially as you rise up the corporate ladder. Many of us find writing business documents a daunting process – and often procrastinate over it. This article should help you to gain confidence and to know where to start and how to progress. As with any forms of writing, your business writing will benefit if you follow the writing process (planning, drafting, revising, editing and publishing). Planning Your Business Writing Whatever the piece of writing you’re faced with – whether it’s an email to shareholders or a complex report – you should write a plan before you begin. In some cases, that plan will be very brief, perhaps a list of bullet points that you want to cover in your email. For longer documents, your plan may include: facts that you need to check or look up; a list of people whose input is required; the titles of sections or subsections; a list of illustrations or diagrams required. Having a plan means that you can â€Å"chunk† a large project into manageable sections. This is a good way to avoid feeling overwhelmed or stuck on your business writing. Structure Most companies will produce similar types of document on a regular basis. For example, a software company might produce an annual report to shareholders, a monthly newsletter for clients, and a new user guide each time a new software module is released. For each of these documents, your company should have a standard template. This not only saves a lot of work in formatting a new document each time – it provides you with a structure. If no templates exist (which is common if you are a member of a very small company, or if you work for yourself) use a previous example of the same type of document to create a template. When you have to come up with a structure from scratch, consider these possibilities: 1. Chronological Structure Some documents, especially short ones, are best structured chronologically (in order of time). A good example would be a work plan, stating what needs to be done each week for the next quarter. 2. Alphabetical Structure If you need to create a document which involves a large number of separate items, consider ordering it alphabetically (A – Z). This applies particularly to glossaries of terms. 3. Topic Structure In many cases, documents are best split into different topics or areas. For example, a Frequent Asked Questions page for your website could be divided into â€Å"about us†, â€Å"complaints† and â€Å"delivery†, with each section containing several questions related to that topic. Longer Business Documents When you produce a long and complex document such as a report, you should provide an overview at the start. This is often known as an â€Å"executive summary†. (You may also hear it called an â€Å"abstract†, â€Å"synopsis† or â€Å"overview†.) Here’s a ficticious example of an executive summary in a report by â€Å"Big Brother Corp† for their client â€Å"WidgetInc†. Note that a real executive summary would be longer and more detailed: The main objective of this report is to provide a detailed analysis of WidgetInc’s customer demographics. This was done using standard industry procedures (primarily telephone surveys of randomly-selected customers). Big Brother Corp found that 89% of WidgetInc’s customers are aged under 25, and that 63% are male. It is recommended that WidgetInc targets this segment by advertising on popular game and video websites. As well as providing an executive summary, long documents require: A table of contents Clearly-labelled sections and subsections, normally using a numbered structure Business Language and Style All business materials should be written in a clear, formal, professional way – but without using technical jargon or buzzwords. â€Å"Clear†, â€Å"formal† and â€Å"professional† means that you should avoid: Vague or ambiguous statements Jokes, humor, anecdotes and clichà ©s Unsubstantiated facts Slang or potentially offensive language You should also take care over your grammar, punctuation and spelling. Use your company’s style guide when you’re unsure about a particular point of language, layout or style. If a style guide doesn’t exist, create one. A couple of examples illustrating what you might include are: The word government should not be capitalized, unless it starts a sentence All titles, headings and subheadings should be in Title Case (You might decide differently on those points – the organization I worked for used sentence cases for titles, headings and subheadings, following the Guardian newspaper’s style guide.) Avoid padding out your document with impressive-sounding words that don’t say anything. Your writing should be concise and to the point – it shouldn’t involve waffling. In many cases, you will also include a title page, diagrams, appendices, footnotes and other supporting material. Using the Passive Voice The passive voice is used to avoid attributing an action to a specific subject (person or group). For example: The data was analyzed according to our protocols. Rather than: Joe analyzed the data according to our protocols.. In this case, it is probably appropriate to use the passive voice: the reader of the report is unlikely to need to know who analyzed the data – they just want to know that this was done. BusinessWriting.com suggests: Use passive voice when you do not know the actor, you want to hide the identity of the actor, or the actor is not important to the meaning of the sentence. However, the current trend in business writing is to use the passive voice sparingly, especially when communicating with customers. It can make a piece of business writing less engaging, and it can also seem evasive. Business Emails Much of the writing which you do during the business day will be in the form of emails. Many of these will be simple and straightforward, and you won’t necessarily need to plan them in detail. Even for short emails, you should: Write a clear subject line Write a clear subject line – and don’t forget to change the subject line if you’re replying to an email and introducing a different topic. Start with the person’s name, as you would with a letter – it can seem rude or abrupt to launch straight into the body of the email. Sign off with an appropriate closing such as â€Å"Best regards† or â€Å"Warm regards† and your name. In formal contexts where you are not already acquainted with the recipient, use â€Å"Yours sincerely† (or, if you don’t know the name of the recipient, â€Å"Yours faithfully†). Spell-check your email – errors don’t just make you look unprofessional, they can cause confusion, and waste time and resources. Be careful not to use jargon or acronyms unless you’re certain the recipient will understand them. This is particularly important for external communications, eg. with clients, customers or the media. Be familiar with basic email etiquette. Longer emails Keep your emails as succinct as possible, and consider sending an attachment or link to a webpage if you have a lot of information to convey. A good way to structure an email and to make it easy for the recipient to take in all the information is to use bold subheadings to separate sections on different topics. For example: Delivery dates We expect one article (text and image) to be delivered each week, by Wednesday noon. Images Please supply all images as .bmp files. They should be 600px by 400px, and should have a resolution of 300dpi or higher. Payment Invoice bob@widgetsinc.com on completion of work. If you’re sending a lengthy email, you may want to put a one- or two-line summary at the top. It’s also a good idea to make it very clear at the end of your email what action you want. State this clearly, and as a list if appropriate. For example: Could you please email me with: The latest date from Project X Your drafted report on Project Y The times and dates which you would be available to meet next week Remember that, even if your business writing is in the form of an email, you should be professional, polite and ensure that you have provided all the information which the recipient is likely to need. Check Out Other Articles from The Writing 101 Series: The Writing Process Creative Writing 101 Story Writing 101 Letter Writing 101 Business Writing 101 Freelance Writing 101 Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Business Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:50 Incorrect Pronunciations That You Should AvoidEmail Etiquette5 Ways to Reduce Use of Prepositions

Marketing and Communication Plan for Hilton Hotel Case Study

Marketing and Communication Plan for Hilton Hotel - Case Study Example Maintaining relationship with customers is highly impossible for a firm unless it has an efficient marketing system. The marketing system should be planned and executed in such a manner that existing customers are retained and new customers are created. In this context, Hilton Hotel has approached us to prepare a report on the present marketing system and finds the possibilities of developing a new marketing and communication plan for the firm. After an analysis of the present system of marketing, promotional activities, advertisement, marketing plan and communication system, a detailed report is prepared and presented as indicated by the client. The report contains the proposed plans of promotion, advertising and communication of marketing information which are to be implemented to realize the cherished goal. Increased competition has urged all business organizations to focus their attention to existing operations with utmost care so as to ensure survival and existence in the globalised market. All entities are facing stiff competition that pave the way for restructuring their strategies and finding new markets and customers. The well known fact 'customers are the king' will never get diluted as the very existence of business organization depends solely on customers and their satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is the blend of series of successful marketing efforts by an organization. The marketing efforts include a complex mix of many activities such as promotion, advertisement, marketing planning and communication and so on. To achieve the goal of marketing,-customer satisfaction- business has to endlessly put efforts to develop new and improved marketing strategies and implement the same to reach customers and effect sales. The Present Marketing System Hilton Hotel, started its journey back in 1919, has become one of the favorite brand of business and leisure travelers worldwide. The hotel group has grown to a network of more than 500 hotels and resorts in almost all major cities across the world. The hotel group has achieved many mile stones in its journey to become the perfect companion of travelers all over the world. It is evident from their growth that the marketing strategies of the hotels have been successful since its inception. They have been trying to adapt to the changing business environment and to flourish in a competitive market. Target market and segmentation Hilton Hotel group mainly focus on business and leisure travelers who are from different parts of the world. The target market has been segmented on the basis of customer class and type of journey. Business executives usually prefer economy class who budget their travel and accommodation well before tour is fixed. But, leisure travelers prefer luxury and executive class where they need high class service irrespective of the price. Product Life Cycle and Marketing Communication The hotel has already achieved its growth stage as it has been in existence for many years. In fact, when its product life cycle stage is considered as a whole, the hotel is in its saturation stage where it faces stiff competition from similar hotels. Marketing communication at this stage is very important. When there are many hotels to meet limited demand in the market, it is likely that customers may not know about the new products