Social Stratification in Brisbane and the wider Australian society.

Social Stratification in Brisbane and the wider Australian society. Social stratification has always been evident in society. From the works of Marx, to Davis and Moore, different sociologists have theorized why there is social inequality. In Brisbane, like the wider Australian society, suburbs can be mapped socially, showing the diverse nature of Brisbane. For this reason, this essay will attempt to prove through the definition of capitalism that Brisbane is a Functionalist society, not a Marxist society.Social stratification exists in Australian society because people are individuals; individuals that have different life chances and belong to different social classes. "Social difference becomes social stratification when people are ranked hierarchically along some dimension, weather this be income, wealth, power, prestige, age, ethnicity, gender or some other characteristic." People with the same rank in society tend to have the same life chances. Fortunately in Australia we have social mobility. Social mobility defined as the possibility for indiv iduals to change social class by own effort in an upwards or downwards direction.Grant Moore and Alex Groetaers shake hands on tenn...In Brisbane, suburbs can be socially mapped. Three suburbs that have been socially mapped includes: Hamilton as an upper class suburb, Mount Gravatt as a middle class suburb and Inala as a lower class suburb. Each suburb has a certain amount of prestige. Inala had some run-down houses and was home to many government facilities. Mount Gravatt had a variety of houses. Hamilton had a private school, overlooked the river and had a castle. After examining the Australian Bureau of statistics 2001 census results for each of the above mentioned areas, trends began to emerge. It was discovered that the household size decreased as the social class increased, 2.2 in Hamilton, 2.3 in Mount Gravatt and 2.7 in Inala. However the median household income increased as the social class increased. $400-$499 in Inala, $600-$699 in Mount Gravatt and...

25 Growth Hacks Your Content Marketing Desperately Needs

25 Growth Hacks Your Content Marketing Desperately Needs Growth hacking is a marketing technique that uses creativity, analytical thinking, and social metrics to sell products and gain exposure, according to Wikipedia. When your product is your content, applying growth hacks to it makes perfect sense. If theres anything you want for your content, its exposure. 25 #GrowthHacks That Will Amplify Your Content Marketing Why Do I Need Growth Hacks For My Content Marketing? One of the things that we have been talking about quite a bit on this blog is a concept that we've come up with called content hacking. It's about learning to get more from your content than just another blog post with the occasional tweet. It's about using your content to drive maximum traffic and lots of attention. It's about getting results, in other words. After all, why else would you be creating content? With that in mind, here are 25 killer ways that you can hack your content marketing, in no particular order. 1. Write Awesome Headlines Headlines matter.  A  lot. You already know this, yet you still write mushy headlines that don't always drive results. Why do you do this? If you needed further proof at just how important a headline is, consider Inbound.org, a site that is about "voting" up content based on the headline. Maybe that isn't how it is supposed to work ideally, but a simple scroll through the homepage and it's easy to see that headlines  are a factor.   Recently, I took some advice from Upworthy.com and started writing a minimum of 25 headlines for every blog post  (we'll talk more about this in a bit) that I write. It hasn't always been easy, but it has paid off well. My headlines are better than before, though I am sure that I still have a long way to go. Write headlines that get people to want your full content even if all they have to go on is that headline. Write Better Headlines With A  Free Headline Analyzer The headline analyzer  will help you: Use headline types that get the most traction for social shares, traffic, and search engine ranking. Make sure you have the right word balance to write readable headlines that command attention. See the best  word and character length for search engines like Google and email subject lines, while also seeing  how your readers will scan your headlines. Try The Free Headline Analyzer Now 2. Make Content More Sharable How easy is it for your readers to share your content? It's not that readers are lazy, but they aren't going to work too hard to share a post; you need to make it easy for them. I'm sure you have a few share buttons, but are you placing sharing options within your post itself? Simple WordPress plugins like and Markerly allow you to make the content in your post shareable with a simple click. These are important triggers that you can use to get your readers sharing content for you. Create beautiful boxes in your blog posts. #ClickToTweet 3. Test Share Button Positions Where are the share buttons on your page? Are they above or below the fold? Believe it or not, but it can make a difference.  AddThis (one of the leading social sharing tools) suggests that social share buttons placed "above the fold" performed the best for most sites. Keep your button near the top of the page: Avoid making your readers scroll to find your sharing button. It is okay to have the button at the top and bottom of the page, but  users will find it easier at the top. Of course, this may not be the case for each site, so it is important to try out a few different arrangements. In some situations, you can even keep them fixed to the side of your blog post. 4. SEO Keywords For Targeting It feels like SEO is becoming a bit less important in the new order of content marketing, but I am not convinced that it shouldn't matter at all. One of the big benefits of choosing keywords is that it keeps you in touch with your audience. You will know what they are searching for, and what is on their mind. I recommend learning how to use Google Adwords to find keywords that work for your audience. Generate a list, and write a post to go with each group of keywords. There are several plugins out there that will keep you honest. WordPress SEO Plugin:  Yoast's plugin is certainly the most popular SEO plugin out there, and it's pretty powerful for being free. It will analyze the content in your post to make sure that it is staying true to your keywords. It is a must-have for every blogger. Scribe:  While it requires a monthly fee, Scribe makes it even easier to analyze your content and make sure that you are staying true to your keywords. I have found it to be the best plugin available for content analysis, and well worth the price of admission. 5. Let Your Content Lead To A Call To Action Every time someone reads your content, you should be leading them to an inevitable call to action. On the blog, we provide a sticky header  that offers our readers all of the helpful guides we've ever written in exchange for a simple email address. This simple header  leads to hundreds of new "leads" each month. It's simple, helpful, and worth including on every post. Neil Patel does a great job of asking for action from his readers at the bottom of every post. There is nothing wrong with asking as long as you are providing value to your readers. 6. Add A Pop-Up. Yes, A Pop-Up. Ok, now let's take it one step further. Maybe you need to make your call to action a little more actionable like this pop-up ad from GrooveHQ. Groove's super-compelling pop-up. Who wouldn't want to grow their business? I know that pop-ups aren't always well-loved, but they do work. It's hard to argue with results. Give the OptinMonster plugin a try, and grab the 'exit intent' add-on while you do. This plugin will only "pop-up" on readers that are already leaving your site. What do you have to lose? You also need to pay close attention to the text on your pop-up. For example, take a look at Groove's language above.  Who doesn't want to grow their business? This is a compelling call to action. Make your call to action something that no one can refuse. 7. Gamify Your Blog Gamification is subject unto itself, but it takes advantage of a key component of growth hacking–the desire to make what we do and what we think, as readers, public.  There is a unique human desire for connectivity and personal sharing that makes sites like Facebook and Twitter work. Why not use this for your own site? Poststat.us, a site that uses Love It Pro to gamify its reading process. One of the ways that we can do this is with a WordPress plugin call Love It Pro. This simple plugin allows visitors to 'vote' on your posts with a simple button. You can track your most loved posts in a sidebar widget, or use them as a way to prioritize them on your homepage. This simple gamification will make your content all the more sticky. 8. Use Your Network For More Than Self-Promotion So often, we think about our blog and social networks as outbound channels–channels for sharing our content with others, but not necessarily connecting with them.  Chris Lema is a blogger who knows better. Lema blogs regularly about the products he loves and people that he respects. He is a well-know force in the WordPress community simply because of his willingness to reach out and give generously.  Jump on Chris's email list, and you will know what I mean. It may not sound like a content marketing growth hack at first, but using your blog to make friends with key players in your industry is a great idea, a great way to make friends, and a method of building referrals and shares. 9. Guest Blogging Yeah yeah yeah, Matt Cutts said that guest blogging is dead. He didn't mean it. At least not really. Guest blogging as a link-building tool is dead, but as a way to build trust and awareness for your personal brand, it is very much alive. Guest blogging is still a powerful method  for promotion and professional networking if you're doing it right. Referral links from guest posts provide consistent traffic and recognition. At , we've had an aggressive guest blogging campaign since launch, and there isn't a day that it doesn't pay off. As you can see, many of our top referrals come from guests posts day in and day out. This doesn't even take into account the 'street credit' that we build by writing on these blogs. Guest blogging is still a classic way to hack your content marketing. 10. Think Beyond The Borders As a blogger, it can be pretty easy to think only in terms of our own blog, but if we were honest with ourselves, we'd see that there is a whole big world out there. Modern content marketers need to think beyond the borders of their blog and take their content elsewhere. Here are a few ideas: Videos on YouTube Podcasts and audio content Udemy course, or Skillshare Slideshow Quora, or other answer sites Forum contributions The thing that we have to keep in mind is that our content is still connected to us and to our own authority, no matter where it's hosted. Building traffic isn't always about the traffic. Sometimes it's about the authority and relationships that we build. That's what makes it a perfect growth  hack. 11. Write Longer Copy Blogger Neil Patel recently published a great post regarding  search rankings and post length  on his blog. In his research, he discovered an "average content length for a web page that ranks in the top 10 results for any keyword on Google has at least 2,000 words." I did my own research and found very similar results. So, what does that mean for you? Well, clearly you need to write more! Source  Quick Sprout No matter how we spin the results, longer copy is rewarded by Google. As pointed out in my own research, content length isn't the only key to success–quality still matters–but you  have to know that the length of your post matters a lot. 12. Write More Headlines, At Least 25 It may sounds like old news, but your headline is one of the most important aspects of your post. If you mess it up, you lose your chance at ever achieving a real content hack. Upworthy.com knows a thing or two about headlines. In their slide deck The Sweet Science Of Virality,  they emphasize the importance of the headline again and again. More importantly, they emphasize the value in writing a minimum of 25 headlines for each post. The full Upworthy presentation is excellent, and definitely worth a look, a bookmark, and possibly even a print out. It's that good. We also break down the results a bit further here, and provide some details on WHY writing more headlines works so well. 13. Shoot For Virality Speaking of Upworthy.com, there is a lot more that we can learn from them. Their entire model is built on the simple idea that they can manufacture virality with the right formula. You may think that it can't be done, but they've come as close to it as anyone, and they've even given us a few of their keys for success. It seems that the key is to be a true connoisseur of human nature. You need to understand how people think. As a blogger, trying to understand what motivates people to share content is an important step in the process.  Upworthy has invested the time in understanding this, and it has allowed them to virtually manufacture viral growth. As content hackers, we should certainly try to do the same. 14. Link To Your Posts From Your Posts We all know that links are a good thing when it comes to the search rankings and the web, and we all want others to link to our content. But what about linking to our own content for a change?  Google rewards this behavior as well, and it is an important step in the blogging process. The trick is to choose key phrases in your new blog post that can be cross-linked to other posts on your blog. For example, if you have written a blog post for the keyword 'write better headlines,' it would make sense to link to that post using a variety of phrases such as 'here's how we write great headlines,' or 'writing better headlines is easy.' As Google indexes your page, it will take into account both the link, and the text that you are using to connect the two posts. The result is better ranking for you. 15. Infographics One of the lessons that many content marketers have been learning lately is that the more time you spend on your content, the more likely you will have a pay-off. The more time you spend on your #content, the more likely you will have a pay-off. #bloggingHard work and effort matter, and this applies to your content. This is something that Moz engineer  Ã‚  Dr. Peter J. Meyers calls big content. Infographics, particularly well-researched ones, can certainly fall into this category. Our recent infographic on content hacking resulted in 10x more shares than our more conventional posts, and it is still bringing in new traffic each day. If the key is better content,  infographics are a fun way to go about it and a relatively easy way to growth hack your content marketing. 16. Offer A Free Course Creating content that you can reuse in multiple different ways is a huge content hack. A great example of this is a blog series that you turn into an ebook or an email autoresponder course. Serious content hackers learn to stretch their content as far as it will go. Udemy.com is a great place to offer your free or paid online course. Online learning is a currently undergoing huge growth, and it's a great place to showcase your reusable content. Sites like Udemy, Google Helpouts,  or Skillshare allow you to create step-by-step courses for your audience. You can choose to give them away for free, or to sell them for a profit. Either way, it's a great way to get more life out of the content that you created, and find new fans who discover you through your course. 17. Tell A Great Story In 2013, Groove did a really brave thing. They shut down their content marketing blog, a blog that was already bringing them 10,000 unique visitors each month. It was both a bold move and, as it turns out, a great idea. Groove decided to shift their story from "generic evergreen content" to the story of their own success. Now Groove is sharing intimate details about their journey to making 500k in revenue each month. It's a bold move, and requires an unprecedented level of transparency. Fortunately though, it has paid off in spades. In the first 5 weeks of the new blog, Groove gained 5,000 new email subscribers! It's hard to argue with results like that. This comes back to some of the things I mentioned about virality: We love connecting to others on an emotional/personal level. Stories and transparency help bridge that gap. A great way to hack your content marketing is to use this natural instinct of people wanting to know and connect in this way to your advantage. 18.  A/B Test Your 'About Us' Page Your 'About Us' page is one of the most visited areas of your website. Unfortunately, it’s often one of the most ignored, especially when it comes to a good call to action. Use some of the advice from this article to create a second version of your About Page and test out your changes with Optimizely, a service that helps you with A/B testing. For some inspiration, take a look at how Copyblogger places an effective call to action right in the middle of their About Us page. You're telling people who you are. Why wouldn't you give them the opportunity to connect now that they've gotten to know you? 19. Get Good At Email Marketing It's 2015, but email is not extinct. Freelance writer Barry Feldman wrote an email marketing mega-post on the entire subject that covers it from top to bottom, but the easy summation of it is this: Email marketing is a tactic that you must get right. Over and over again, it's been proven that email marketing will consistently result in more conversions and more paying customers than social media. It is just that good. At , email marketing is a major part of what we do. We offer several opportunities for readers to join our Content Marketing Update each week. It's an email newsletter that is filled with the most recent content marketing articles from around the web. It is a simple product, but it still brings in hundreds of new signups each week. The bottom line is that email works, and if you aren't using it to the fullest potential, you need to be. It's the classic way to growth hack your content marketing. Recommended Reading:  21+ Easy Ways To Build An Email List That Will Skyrocket By 552% In 1 Year 20.  Share Visuals Buffer looked into their tweets a while back and found they got 150% more clickthroughs when they shared images with their tweets instead of just text alone. But what if you could get even more engagement with your social messages than Buffer? Can you master the #hashtag better than @jimmyfallon? https://t.co/A4SrKpeQPi pic.twitter.com/uJBAhtQFt9 (@) October 27, 2015 When we started researching the best ways to get the most clickthroughs from social media, we started sharing a few GIFs in our tweets. Those  tweets got 22.3% more engagement than our tweets with graphics alone- and 166.6% more clickthroughs. Motion in social media feeds can stop scrollers dead in their tracks. If you're using plain text social messages, think of hacking your networks with images, GIFs, and videos. 21.  Grow Your Google+ Audience Search is now social, and one of the best ways to get noticed on search is to get noticed on Google+, Google's own social network. Many brands have a presence on Google+, but place little priority on the network because they've focused on Facebook or Twitter. Now is the time to change that. The more people that have you in your Google+ circles, the more likely you are to show up in social search, the default setting for Google searches. Weight is put on those in your circles when it comes to the search results on this setting. You want to show up in other's searches? Get in their circles. These days, SEO is all about social connections and great content, so getting as embedded as you can in the Google+ network only makes sense. This is a simple content marketing hack–get more followers on Google+. Get found in Google search. 22.  Promote Your Content On Social Media More Than Once In case you haven't heard, it's ok to promote your content on social media more than once. Networks like Twitter actually require it for true success. One of the easiest ways to grow the number of readers for each post you write is to simply share it more often. If each share results in a few new clicks, the math should take care of itself pretty quickly. At , we not only make this process easy by connecting social media scheduling right to your blogging workflow, we also provide a detailed guide on how to promote your content on social media (more than once). 23.  Autoresponder The Universe Email-based autoresponder courses are an epic content marketing growth hack that you should be using to grow your blog. They're not the same as your regular email newsletter. Instead, they are simple courses that drip content to your readers as soon as they sign up for your email marketing mailing list. They are a great way to drive deeper engagement with your readers, and keep them connected to your brand. Our "6 Free Marketing Tips" autoresponder course is consistently one of our best methods for driving new email addresses to our list. It is a major source of new leads for our product, and (shhh...don't tell) was put together using content that we originally created ages ago. That's right, autoresponder courses are a great way to recycle older content for a new audience. 24.  Make Your Blog Faster Faster? Yes, faster. Back in 2010, Google engineer Matt Cutts announced that Google is now factoring site speed into search rankings. So, it only makes sense that you would make your blog as fast as possible. Credit: Search Engine Journal One of the things that happens with blogs, especially WordPress-driven ones, is that we fill it up with a bunch of crummy plugins and themes that degrade our site's performance slowly over time. It's important that you spend some time reclaiming that speed and improving how you rate on Google. While it can be a bit technical, WPMU DEV has a great guide for speeding up your WordPress blog. Follow it, speed things up, live long and prosper. 25. Promote Your Content Mercilessly One of the biggest mistakes that content marketers make is that they focus more on the content than its promotion. While it is true that great content can "rise to the top," the biggest winners are still the ones that promote themselves the best. The best content marketers aren't the best at making content – they are the best at selling it.There are a ton of ways to growth hack your content marketing, but none of them compare to promoting your content mercilessly, and fighting for each new visit. Don't make the big mistake of assuming that if you write it, they will come. You have to go out and tell people about what you've written. What Content Marketing Growth Hacks Will You Rock? Content hacking is, at its core, all about making your content easy to find, consume, and share. Anything that helps break down barriers to these three foundational concepts is a content hack worth trying. What content hack has worked the best for you?

Ethical Leadership is Mostly about Leadership Integrity Essay

Ethical Leadership is Mostly about Leadership Integrity - Essay Example It has been determined that very ethical leaders lead the most successful organizations in the world and these leaders have steered them towards this path. Those organizations which have been seen to collapse or are on the verge of collapsing recently have been led by leaders who have turned out to be very unethical in their practices and these practices has led to the mistrust of their leadership both from within their organizations, and also from the public which the organization has to serve. The lack of confidence in an organization due to the unethical practices of its leaders leads to a mistrust from those who receive the services of such an organization and in the process, the customers of such an organization may choose to look for alternative organizations that provide the same services and have a more credible leadership. Scandals that arise due to matters of ethics within an organization are very difficult things to deal with and they not only affect the leadership of such an organization but they also affect the employees or subordinates and their families. It is therefore best for leaders within every organization in the world to ensure that they maintain the highest standard of ethical leadership that can be achieved within the organization (Sama and Shoaf, 2008, 39 - 46). It is a fact that the integrity of the leadership within an organization is what determines its following of ethics (Perles, 2002, 59 – 66). If the leadership is corrupt, then the practices of the organization will more likely than not be corrupt because the leaders will not be working for the organization’s best interests but for their own interests.  

Annotated bibliography Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Annotated bibliography - Research Paper Example However, they only contribute 33 percent to the country’s GDP. The proposal is supported by findings that SMEs in developed countries, where SME authority exist, contribute a higher percentage towards GDP. The article points out how lack of SME authority has affected SMEs in Saudi Arabia. The major effect has been lack of support services and financing programs, which has led to the poor performance of SMEs in Saudi Arabia. The article is relevant to my study since it demonstrates the importance of SME Authority in order to establish order in the SME sector and increase their contribution to the Saudi Arabian economy. The article is based on finding from various countries where establishment of SME Authority have enhanced the role of SMEs. The proposal is credible since the article provides enough evidence on the role of SME Authorities have played in developed and emerging countries in Asia and Europe. However, the article is limited since the author does not acknowledge the resources used in establishing the credibility of the findings. Howard, B 2008, Big in Smalls: Howard Bryant FCMA Helped to Turn a Tiny Dot-Com into the World's Largest Online Seller of Branded Underwear. He Explains Why an SME Is a Tougher Test of Professional Mettle Than a Multinational, Financial Management (UK) , July-August, Available at: http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-184538268/big-in-smalls-howard-bryant-fcma-helped-to-turn-a. The aim of the article is to outline challenges facing SMEs and how CIMA, an institute in UK that trains graduates in the field of business, can enhance its programs to equip the graduates with relevant skills to serve the SME sector effectively. The article involves a systematic analysis of factors that hinder SME performance and proposes the skills CIMA students would require in solving various challenges. The sturdy supported by findings that exposure of finance and accounting students to work in SMEs enables them gain wider breadth competence in business. The article is relevant to my study since it establishes to challenges facing SMEs and the role of professionals in the field of finance and accounting in resolving these challenges. The article makes use of statistics from reliable organizations such as Office of National statistics in UK and is thus credible. Moreover, Howard Bryant, who authored the article, is a finance director and consultant in the area of finance and the findings are believable. Possible limitation is that the article is based on findings from SME sector in UK and some findings might not apply to Saudi Arabia. Fu, Y.-K 2011, Marketing activities management in SMEs: An Exploratory Sudy, Human Systems Management, Volume 30, DOI 10.3233/HSM-2010-0743, pp. 155-166. The article aims to establish and compare the tendency of national-level and regional level sales managers to engage in the eight marketing activities management systems. A survey was conducted using questionnaires devised to measure the par ticipation of sale managers in marketing activities. The study supported findings by Siu (2002), whose study found that sales managers play a crucial role in determining the performance of SMEs. Moreover, Siu (2002) found out that findings regarding SME practices and performance are region specific and there is thus need for adoption of contingency approach. The article is relevant to my study since it focused on marketing activities in Eastern business environments where Saudi Arabia is

Role of Parliament in Germany Essay Example for Free

Role of Parliament in Germany Essay This article is about the current parliament of Germany. For the governing body of the Germany. Confederation from 1815 to 1866, see Bundesversammlung (German Confederation). Confederation from 1815 to 1866, see Bundesversammlung (German Confederation). The Bundestag (Federal Diet; pronounced [ˈbÊŠndÉ™staË k]) is a legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag was established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier Reichstag. It meets in the Reichstag Building in Berlin. Norbert Lammert is the current President of the Bundestag. With the new constitution of 1949, the Bundestag was established as the new (West) German parliament. Because West Berlin was not officially under the jurisdiction of the Constitution and because of the Cold War, the Bundestag met in Bonn in several different buildings, including (provisionally) a former water works facility. In addition, owing to the citys legal status, citizens of West Berlin were unable to vote in elections to the Bundestag, and were instead represented by 20 non-voting delegates, indirectly elected by the citys House of Representatives. The Bundeshaus in Bonn is the former Parliament Building of Germany. The sessions of the German Bundestag were held there from 1949 until its move to Berlin in 1999. Today it houses the International Congress Centre Bundeshaus Bonn and in the north areas the branch office of the Bundesrat (upper house). The southern areas became part of German offices for the United Nations in 2008. The former Reichstag building housed a history exhibition (Fragen an die deutsche Geschichte) and served occasionally as a conference center. The Reichstag building was also occasionally used as a venue for sittings of the Bundestag and its committees and the Bundesversammlung, the body which elects the German Federal President. However the Soviets harshly protested against the use of the Reichstag building by institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany and tried to disturb the sittings by flying supersonic jets close to the building. Since 1999, the German parliament has again assembled in Berlin in its original Reichstag building, which dates from the 1890s and underwent a significant renovation under the lead of British architect Sir Norman Foster. Parliamentary committees and subcommittees, public hearings and faction meetings take place in three auxiliary buildings, which surround the Reichstag building: the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus, Paul-Là ¶be-Haus and Marie-Elisabeth-Là ¼ders-Haus. Together with the Bundesrat, the Bundestag is the legislative branch of the German political system. Although most legislation is initiated by the executive branch, the Bundestag considers the legislative function its most important responsibility, concentrating much of its energy on assessing and amending the governments legislative program. The committees (see below) play a prominent role in this process. Plenary sessions provide a forum for members to engage in public debate on legislative issues before them, but they tend to be well attended only when significant legislation is being considered. The Bundestag members are the only federal officials directly elected by the public; the Bundestag in turn elects the Chancellor and, in addition, exercises oversight of the executive branch on issues of both substantive policy and routine administration. This check on executive power can be employed through binding legislation, public debates on government policy, investigations, and direct questioning of the chancellor or cabinet officials. For example, the Bundestag can conduct a question hour (Fragestunde), in which a government representative responds to a previously submitted written question from a member. Members can ask related questions during the question hour. The questions can concern anything from a major policy issue to a specific constituents problem. Use of the question hour has increased markedly over the past forty years, with more than 20,000 questions being posed during the 1987-90 term. Understandably, the opposition parties are active in exercising the parliame ntary right to scrutinize government actions. One striking difference when comparing the Bundestag with the British Parliament is the lack of time spent on serving constituents in Germany. This is in part due to Germanys electoral system. A practical constraint on the expansion of constituent service is the limited personal staff of Bundestag deputies. Despite these constraints especially those deputies that are elected directly normally try to keep close contact with their constituents and to help them with their problems, particularly when they are related to federal policies or agencies. Constituent service does also take place in the form of the Petition Committee. In 2004, the Petition Committee received over 18,000 complaints from citizens and was able to negotiate a mutually satisfactory solution to more than half of them. In 2005, as a pilot of the potential of internet petitions, a version of e-Petitioner was produced for the Bundestag. This was a collaborative project involving The Scottish Parliament, International Teledemocracy Centre and the Bundestag ‘Online Services Department’. The system was formally launched on 1 September 2005, and in 2008 the Bundestag moved to a new system based on its evaluation.[1] ELECTION : Members serve four-year terms; elections are held every four years, or earlier in the relatively rare case that the Bundestag is dissolved prematurely by the president. The Bundestag can be dissolved by the president on the recommendation of the chancellor if the latter has lost a vote of confidence in the Bundestag. This has happened three times: 1972 under Chancellor Willy Brandt, 1983 under Chancellor Helmut Kohl and 2005 under Chancellor Gerhard Schrà ¶der. All candidates must be at least eighteen years old; there are no term limits. The election uses the MMP electoral system. In addition, the Bundestag has a minimum threshold of either 5% of the national party vote or three (directly elected) constituency representatives for a party to gain additional representation through the system of proportional representation. Thus, small minority parties cannot easily enter the Bundestag and prevent the formation of stable majority governments as they could under the Weimar constitution. Since 1961, only two new parties (Bà ¼ndnis 90/Die Grà ¼nen and PDS/Die Linke) have entered the Bundestag. The most recent election, the German federal election, 2009, was held on September 27, 2009.[2] Distribution of seats in the Bundestag Half of the Members of the Bundestag are elected directly from 299 constituencies (first-past-the-post system), the other half are elected from the parties’ Land lists in such a way as to achieve proportional representation for the total Bundestag (if possible). Accordingly, each voter has two votes in the elections to the Bundestag. The first vote, allowing voters to elect their local representatives to the Bundestag, decides which candidates are sent to Parliament from the constituencies. The second vote is cast for a party list; it determines the relative strengths of the parties represented in the Bundestag. At least 598 Members of the Bundestag are elected in this way. Parties that gain more than 5% of the second votes or win at least 3 direct mandates are allocated seats in the Bundestag in proportion to the number of votes it has received (dHondt method until 1987, largest remainder method until the 2005 election, now Sainte-Laguà « method). When the total number of mandates gained by a party has been determined, they are distributed between the Land lists. The distribution of the seats of that party to the 16 Lands is proportional to that partys second vote results in the Lands. The first of the mandates allocated to each Land go to the candidates who have won direct mandates in that Land. The rest are assigned in order to the candidates on the Land list put forward before the election. In addition to this, there are certain circumstances in which some candidates win what are known as overhang seats when the seats are being distributed. If a party has gained more direct mandates in a Land than it is entitled to according to the results of the second vote, it does not forfeit these mandates because all directly elected candidates are guaranteed a seat in the Bundestag. ORGANISATIONS : Parliamentary groups The most important organisational structures within the Bundestag are parliamentary groups (Fraktionen; sing. Fraktion), which are formed by political parties represented in the chamber which incorporate more than 5% of the Bundestag legislators; CDU and CSU have always formed a single united Fraktion. The size of a partys Fraktion determines the extent of its representation on legislative committees, the time slots allotted for speaking, the number of committee chairs it can hold, and its representation in executive bodies of the Bundestag. The Fraktionen, not the members, receive the bulk of government funding for legislative and administrative activities. The Bundestags executive bodies include the Council of Elders and the Presidium. The council consists of the Bundestag leadership, together with the most senior representatives of each fraktion, with the number of these representatives tied to the strength of the Parliamentary groups in the chamber. The council is the coordination hub, determining the daily legislative agenda and assigning committee chairpersons based on Parliamentary group representation. The council also serves as an important forum for interparty negotiations on specific legislation and procedural issues. The Presidium is responsible for the routine administration of the Bundestag, including its clerical and research activities. It consists of the chambers president (usually elected from the largest fraktion) and vice presidents (one from each fraktion).

The Symbolic Meaning Behind the Black Procession in OConners A Late E

The Symbolic Meaning Behind the Black Procession in O'Conner's A Late Encounter with the Enemy Czechoslovakian philosopher and political mind Vaclav Havel, in his discourse The Power of the Powerless, talks about the danger of "living within a lie" (84). He argues that individuals who refuse to develop a strong sense of self and instead "merge with the anonymous crowd and flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudo-life" (38) inevitably experience a "profound crisis of human identity" (45). Havel was speaking specifically of communism, but more broadly of the human condition. His warning is similar to moral message of Southern writer Flannery O'Conner in her short stories, specifically A Late Encounter with the Enemy. O'Conner, unlike Havel, sends her message through her fictional characters. They frequently live in contrived worlds the neglect the realities of their lives. O'Conner operates on a highly symbolic and ironic level to demonstrate this to her readers. In A Late Encounter with the Enemy, the General is typical of O'Conner's characters, unwilling to reveal his actual self. But when he is faced with the black procession at graduation, it reminds him of his true, forgotten past, and it is this truth -- the enemy -- which ultimately leads to his death. The General refuses to remember the past. He refers to it as "a dreary black procession" (399). The past is of no importance to him because he is only concerned with the present. All he cares for are parades and "beautiful guls" (400). The General is able to justify his avoidance of the past. O'Conner tells us that he "didn't have any use for history because he never expected to meet it again" (399). There is only one moment from the... ...he gives about him, giving the reader a clear picture of what sort of character he is. But he is weak in his sense of self, content to live as a symbol of a glorious past rather than as a true human. O'Conner exploits this weakness and slowly breaks the General down through the course of the story. She demonstrates the dangers of living a lie, of becoming someone that one is not. Her message is that the fate of the General will be the fate of all man if he chooses to live within a lie. O'Conner warns that life lived without human identity is comparable to Havel's river of pseudo-life. Only she uses the image of a black procession -- dark, solemn and resulting in painful death. The analogies are very different, but the message is the same. Works Cited Havel, Vaclav. The Power of the Powerless. trans. Paul Wilson. Hutchinson Educational, 1985.

New Technologies Essay

Public relations is the management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or an organisation with the public interest, and plans and executes a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance. Public relations is the management function that identifies, establishes, and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and the various publics on whom its success or failure depends. Cutlip Scott et al. Effective Public Relations, Prentice Hall 2000 Public Relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you. Public relations practice is the discipline which looks after reputation – with the aim of earning understanding and support, and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between organisations and its publics. Harrison Shirley, Public Relations – An introduction, Thomson Learning 2000 Public relations practice is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics. Jenkins Frank, Public Relations Techniques, Butterworth Heinemann 2nd edition Public relations consists of all forms of planned communication, outwards and inwards, between an organisation and its publics for the purpose of achieving specific objectives concerning mutual understanding. Jenkins Frank, Public Relations, Pitman 5th edition Comparison of the characteristics of advertising and public relationsUse of media Purchase media space Normally relies on or time gaining media coverage Degree of control over Relatively tight control Relatively little if any the message over the content and control over content and timing of the message timing of the message Message credibility Normally low credibility Normally relatively high credibility Types of target audience Relatively narrow target Often aimed at a audience usually market relatively broad range related of publics/audiences Focus of the activity Relatively short-term Situation oriented Expected time horizons Market/sales oriented Both short and long term for planning and results objectives and impact. objectives and impact. Forms of evaluation Established measurement Relatively limited number Techniques for coverage of evaluation techniques and cost efficiency used, often confined to measures of media coverage Mode of payment for Agencies receive payment Agencies paid on the agency services in the form of commission basis of fees for from the media based on consultant’s time or by the space or time booked annual retainer for the client Black Sam, Public Relation: revision workbook, HTL publications 1992 pg8 Comparison of propaganda and public relations Sender Varying degrees of source Clear identification of the Identification sender Purpose To build a movement or To achieve consent or a following develop dialogue Message One sided, varying degrees May moderate between of accuracy arguments accuracy important Media Similar media may be used in both cases Receiver Similar audiences may be targeted in both cases Black Sam, Public Relation: revision workbook, HTL publications 1992 pg9 â€Å"New Technologies are drastically changing the whole business of Public Relations† Mobile phones, video recorders, DVD players PCs etc, technology that began as business-to-business has steadily developed for use in the home, in the business market, technology is primarily a productivity tool, but in the home it is much more leisure or entertainment, competing for attention against TV or the cinema. Technology is the technical means people use to improve their surroundings. It is also knowledge of using tools and machines to do tasks efficiently. We use technology to control the world in which we live. Technology is people using knowledge, tools, and systems to make their lives easier and better. People use technology to improve their ability to do work. Through technology, people communicate better. Technology allows them to make more and better products. Our buildings are better with the use of technology. We travel in more comfort and speed because of technology. Yes, technology is everywhere and can make life better.www. ask. com According to most of the articles in the reference list, and the interview with Dan Pinch (consultant at PR agency Weber Shandwick), the biggest impact for the world of public relations in the last five years is most certainly the internet. It has overcome time-zone problems in communicating with clients in the United States as well as the Eastern European countries, and it has so much to offer in speed, quality and communication. Along with various interactive software packages (appendix (ii)) that make it easier for consultants to do their job efficiently and swifter than before. Understanding the unique properties of the internet: *it provides a unique medium in which communities and groups can form, reform, transform and dissolve. *It is relatively inexpensive, *users can be anonymous or have different online personality and act differently as a result, *it recognises no geographic boundaries, *once a message is out, the sender loses control, and *there are already many more internet than non-internet channels for communication. â€Å"It is clear that the internet has and is continuing to change the communication model or paradigm. It is changing the very nature of the relationship between an organisation and its publics in terms of process, content, location, speed and power. † The Public Relations e-Commission www. icas. co. uk e-PR @ ICAS, internet information The internet has created new tools and changed objectives; an altered geography of web sites, newsgroups, usenets, chat rooms, and mailing lists, and a revised lexicon with terms like rogue web sites, metatabs, text-crawlers, reciprocal linking, hyper-text-perts, and search engine placement; the names can make the internet sound very complex, however it is a useful communication tool. With information travelling at the velocity of light, communicators discover fresh ways to deliver and monitor news that keeps them two steps ahead of the media and the competition. Do you want to know if your client or company will be front-page news before the scoop is even in print? No problem! With the emergence of new methods of monitoring media, you can be notified before the news hits the stands or makes the airwaves; today public relations practitioners are receiving ‘real-time’ news-breaks. Public relations consultants can distribute information or look at reports of media placements in literally seconds than wait a week or two. Which system to use depends on the user’s needs, budget and equipment available for collecting or broadcasting data; the more exclusive and appropriate the information sent or received, the more expensive it is. Service companies are constantly coming up with new programs and applications to help public relations practitioners reach the media. Clipping services have upgraded their offerings with daily fax delivery and on-line media monitoring to match the client’s clip profile. Source: Public Relations Society of America, Technology transforms media relations work. Public Relations Journal, Nov 1993 v49 n11 p34(1) News distribution companies allow PR agencies to get vital information to the press on a large scale in a short time. Traditionally an agency would have to do their press release, put them in envelopes, and mail them out to all journalists. With news distribution companies like Pr Newswire, Pimms, Expedite all you do is e-mail them the release with a list of contacts and they will e-mail, fax, or post the information out. Pr Newswire also has capabilities of putting information onto a newswire service which can be accessed by large broadcast and press agencies. Contact Management Software are programmes supplied by companies like Media Disk and PR Newswire, they are large databases containing numerous names of journalists, together with respective publications; the systems should be continuously updated to keep data current. These systems allow users to build mailing lists for effective targeting and distribution of messages. Technology has changed many aspects (from speed of receiving documents via e-mail, to message boards and chat rooms where rumours can be heard of first etc. ) in the world of Public Relations. However, the areas in which it has not changed much is the talking to journalists, PR consultants still have to use the phone a great deal and face-to-face communication will always remain an important way of conducting business; clearly shown with the latest British Airways advertisement, with the strap line ‘It’s better to be there’. The advertisement shows that the use of technology is all well and good however making the effort to go and see the client is even better! (appendix (v)). According to Dan Pinch ‘Human contact of the actual daily job will always stay the same, Public Relations is all about human contact; that will never go away’. â€Å"Public relations whether it is offline is and always will be about human relationships! † The Public Relations e-Commission www. icas. co. uk e-PR @ ICAS, internet information To keep with the times it would be obvious to assume that many of the PR firms are or should be using a combination of easy data access and delivery technology to maintain their client base. Clipping services, news wires and informational databases have upgraded their offerings to supply their clientele with information releases. The functions of Public Relations can now be helped along with today’s technology, the creation of publicity for products and services can be done in numerous ways, from the internet to placement in films. Opinion forming on a particular issue can be dealt with by posting an article on the internet and getting feedback from the public. The ability to download photographs from the internet can help media relations. The use of television, cinema, radio, and internet can help with business sponsorship; getting more coverage in a variety of ways. PR on the Internet also includes a new set of assumptions, with response speeds measured in seconds, not hours, and a â€Å"through the looking glass† distortion that can make a single person on an Internet newsgroup more potent than the entire public relations department of a major corporation. â€Å"Nobody is small on the Web,† says Alan Wallace, a principal at Santa Monica-based Inter Active Agency, a brash, two-year-old firm dedicated to the proposition that PR agencies not already on the Internet are already out of business. Source: Richard Rapaport, PR finds a cool new tool. Forbes, Oct 6, 1997 v160 n7 pS100(6) The internet has clearly made the workload easier to handle for PR firms, however there is also a negative aspect about this tool; there are scarier implications that surround the world of internet, such as the reality, that corporate status can be savaged as dissatisfied customers and shareholders exchange comments on the World Wide Web. It can all occur without the companies’ knowledge, if they are not monitoring, and contributing to the forum, message boards and chat rooms it can end up as a damaging mix of rumours and misrepresentation, and severe consequences can follow, as Quigley Cold-Eeze discovered (appendix (iii)). When a company faces a crisis, there has never been a more powerful or potentially more destructive tool than the internet, according to Text 100 managing director Katie Kemp: â€Å"Once it gets on the net, you lose control of it. † Source: Haymarket Publishing Ltd, PR makes its way to IT boardrooms, Marketing, May 27, 1999 p59(2) PR agencies that have the technical expertise can set up monitoring services. Edelman Technology, the high-tech sector of Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, assists the complex needs of technology corporations large and small. Staffed by IT specialists in key global markets, Edelman is among the leading industry players in the area of high-tech PR. Edelman has a system called I-Wire which monitors the internet, checking on 55,000 user groups and bulletin boards. It means that if there’s trouble, the team responsible can take action. â€Å"As technologies converge and the pace of development slows, competition for press coverage will intensify,† says Lewis. â€Å"Agencies with little knowledge of journalism and poor technical expertise will be exposed. Weak stories will fail, and so will weak agencies. â€Å"

Space design considerations for an architecture school

And teaching staff in newly approved Institution / Program. Then it gives detailed time schedule for processing of applications . Page- 72 : It provides further information about Unapproved Institutions, detailed points to be carried out Action in case of violation of Regulations. It provides objectives , eligibility , processing fee and procedure for approval, conditions for approval regarding Collaboration & Twining Program between Indian and Foreign Universities or Institutions in the field of Technical Education, Research and Training .Peg 73- 81 : It gives information about the program , duration and eligibility for students o be considered while giving admission to under graduate degree program, Post Graduate Degree and Post Graduate Diploma Programs (Full Time), Diploma Program, Post Diploma Programs . Page- 107 : It lists the approved Nomenclature of Courses of 400 courses taught under CACTI. It gives information in tabular form regarding the Norms for Intake & Peggy-111 .Num ber of Courses / Divisions in the Technical Institutions of under graduate level, Post Graduate Degree and Post Graduate Diploma Level, Private Limited or Public Limited Company/laundry Establishing Diploma or UnderGraduate or Post Graduate Institute. Peg 12- : it describes the Norms for Land requirement and Building Space for Technical Institution , like the land requirement in acres in Other than Rural places(Competent Authority to certify that the place is not located in a rural area) and Rural Places as defined by Competent Authority.It gives detailed requirements of built-up area divided in 1 . Instructional area (NINA, carpet area in sq. M. ), Administrative area (DAD, carpet area in sq. M. ), Amenities area (AMA, carpet area in sq. 2. Circulation area (CIA) is equal to 0. 250 (NINA+DAD+AMA). M. ). , 3. Total built up area in sq. M. Is equal to (NINA+DAD+AMA)

Democracy essays

Democracy essays It is a tendency to practice democracy over the world. There are lots of governments in the world which are trying their best to promote a sense of democracy for their nationals. Obviously, we can find that there are still some areas in Hong Kong where we cannot have freedom, such as freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and so on .In order to make such a change, therefore, it is more than urgent to propagate democracy in our society. For us to do this , the best way is that we should cultivate such a sense in our youngsters who are ,as it has always been said, the future pillars of our society. As we all know, our future masters are still in school, the target, therefore, should be set on students in their campus life. Therefore, we should consider what the meaning of democracy is. No one can doubt the meaning that a democratic society is a society in which people can have their own opinions, choices, speeches to choose anything freely and are not disturbed by any persons. As we know more about democratic system in school, we will have democratic society in Hong Kong sooner or later. Organizing a students union has its undeniable role in promoting democracy in school. As the students can cast their votes to decide which the best union is. They will cater for the students?needs. In the short run, it can ensure that their own ballots would influence the election results and their votes would be respected in that it can have our just and equal system in school. What is also worth noticing is that by offering an opportunity for the students to express their own views, it is a good idea that students can enjoy freedom of press. For example, students can write articles to express what they think and what they need that they may be fulfilled by the school. Furthermore, the school authority should examine their opinions one by one, and give the responses seriously. ...

Brief History of the Declaration of Independence

Brief History of the Declaration of Independence Since April 1775, loosely organized groups of American colonists had been fighting British soldiers in an attempt to secure their rights as loyal British subjects. By the summer of 1776, however, a majority of Americans were pushing – and fighting for full independence from Britain. In reality, the Revolutionary War had already begun with the Battles of Lexington and Concord  and the Siege of Boston  in 1775.  The American Continental Congress turned a five-man committee including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin to pen a formal statement of the colonists’ expectation and demands to be sent to King George III. In Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The Declaration of Independence. The following is a brief chronicle of events leading up to the official adoption of the Declaration of Independence. May 1775 The Second Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia. A petition for redress of grievances, sent to King George III of England by the First Continental Congress in 1774, remains unanswered. June - July 1775 Congress establishes the Continental Army, a first national monetary currency and a post office to serve the United Colonies. August 1775 King George declares his American subjects to be engaged in open and avowed rebellion against the Crown. The English Parliament passes the American Prohibitory Act, declaring all American sea-going vessels and their cargo the property of England. January 1776 Colonists by the thousands buy copies of Thomas Paines Common Sense, stating the cause of American independence. March 1776 Congress passes the Privateering (piracy) Resolution, allowing colonists to arm vessels in order to cruize [sic] on the enemies of these United Colonies. April 6, 1776 American seaports were opened to trade and cargo from other nations for the first time. May 1776 Germany, through a treaty negotiated with King George, agrees to hire mercenary soldiers to help put down any potential uprising by American colonists. May 10, 1776 Congress passes the Resolution for the Formation of Local Governments, allowing colonists to establish their own local governments. Eight colonies agreed to support American independence. May 15, 1776 The Virginia Convention passes a resolution that the delegates appointed to represent this colony in General Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent states. June 7, 1776 Richard Henry Lee, Virginias delegate to the Continental Congress, presents the Lee Resolution reading in part: Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. June 11, 1776 Congress postpones consideration of the Lee Resolution and appoints the Committee of Five to draft a final statement declaring the case for Americas independence. The Committee of Five is composed of: John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert R. Livingston of New York and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. July 2, 1776 By the votes of 12 of the 13 colonies, with New York not voting, Congress adopts the Lee Resolutions and begins consideration of the Declaration of Independence, written by the Committee of Five. July 4, 1776 Late in the afternoon, church bells ring out over Philadelphia heralding the final adoption of the Declaration of Independence. August 2, 1776 The delegates of the Continental Congress sign the clearly printed or engrossed version of the Declaration. Today Faded but still legible, the Declaration of Independence, along with the Constitution and Bill of Rights, is enshrined for public display in the rotunda of the National Archives and Records Building in Washington, D.C. The priceless documents are stored in an underground vault at night and are constantly monitored for any degradation in their condition.

Capital Investment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Capital Investment - Essay Example What market share the company enjoys? Some of the financials such as debt-equity ratio, earning per share, dividend payout, yield, current price-earnings (P/E) ratio, net profit margin, liquidity or quick ratio are calculated to look at the current state of the company versus others in the industry (Arnold, 2008). These ratios provide only current status of the company but it does not give information about future potentials. It is essential to know whether the company is growing and if yes, then at what rate? Does its growth rate exceed its rivals? Is the market share of the company rising or stable? Is the industry growing or stagnating due to the reasons that lie in external environments? No analysis is complete unless qualitative factors such as brand equity, quality of man power, research and development activities, patents owned and its future implications, the company’s image among stake holders in terms of its management, ethical business dealings and corporate social responsibility factors, the new markets discovered, new projects undertaken for growth are evaluated thoroughly though one many question about the tangibility of these factors; nevertheless, they are equally important. Investors tend to buy any stock because they see the potential of appreciation in its price; in other words, when the stock trades much below its real value also called the intrinsic value then it is a right time to buy the stock. Opposite is also true that when the stock price exceeds its intrinsic value then it is time to sell the stock; however, there are certain important questions to be asked whether calculated intrinsic value is correct and how long will it take to reflect the intrinsic value of the stock in the stock market. Timing is an important factor while deciding about the investment on fundamental factors (Bodie, Kane & Marcus, 2011). It will be interesting to know about the key investment secrets that Warren Buffet

The Classification of People or Individual on the Face of Law Essay

The Classification of People or Individual on the Face of Law - Essay Example Congress has been given big latitude to regulate commerce with any foreign nations and among other of its several states. Constitution, in this case, confers power and legal justification for the federal governments to control the commerce of the state. Commerce regulation involves a wide range of control that includes the exchange of goods and services. However, the definitions of commerce have been a very controversial one. The very constitutions that have given latitude to the Congress to regulate commerce do not explicitly define the commerce that it intends the Congress to be regulated. In its inadequacies, the constitution does not clearly describe the social intercourses between citizens of different states. Consequently, the constitution leaves a huge gap in identifying the commerce and the dividing line between the state power and those of the federal government. Wherefore, with this wide gap of the inadequacy and incompleteness of the clause, there is a legal problem in its application. In particular are the cyberspace and the federal power in regulating it while excising the commerce clause. Considering the case of American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan vs. the federal government, the association complained against the application of the commercial clause because they termed it criminalizing online communication and termed it as violation of the freedom of speech and a violation of the commerce clause that is provided in the constitution of United States of America.