Book Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Book Review - Essay Example The intended audience is quite broad, as the author strives to encompass individuals who would like to improve their communication skills and interpersonal interactions beyond verbal communication. Components of the book are factual and the author’s presentation of the material was not technical as evidenced by her informal writing style. One will also find a mixture of information and opinion, along with many examples from authentic or imagined situations. The book is well structured, with an introduction, nine chapters and a plethora of references at the end. The chapters have general titles and are succinctly and sequentially presented into mini sections Author’s Purpose The use of the word â€Å"Power† in book’s title gives away the author’s tendency to see body language as a technique for enhancing a person’s ability to control the world, and other people, through body language. I strongly confirm the position that the author used social engineering methodologies to illustrate her points of view relative to the power of body language. Through anecdotal stories, the author demonstrated how she â€Å"helped† people to change their personal presentation style. There seemed also to be a bias towards creating certain conformity, especially for women. For example, the case study of â€Å"Cindy† who preferred wearing â€Å"tight suits and stilettos† (p. 14) and was transformed in two or three weeks from â€Å"overdone office floozy to striking young professional† (p. 14). This stereotypical language betrays a tendency in the book to dramatize and over-simplify, and for my own professional purposes, I would be much more accepting and respectful of the choices people make in their own non-verbal language. The book also has a tendency to make general judgments about a person’s appearance such as â€Å"In today’s world having yellow teeth is like dying a slow social death†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (p. 230). There may be reasons such as illness, medication, poverty and/or depression which can contribute to an individual’s appearance falling outside of the â€Å"ideal† professional look. Also, it appears that the author spoke in generalities and may have minimized medical conditions and/or multi-cultural values and norms contributing to an individual’s appearance or body language. The author implies that transformation is within reach of every reader. For many people who are overweight or underweight, older than average, living with disability or any number of other physical and social challenges, this is too simplistic. Just advising people to â€Å"lose the weight† and pointing out that â€Å"a landmark Harvard study found that overweight women earn an average of $6,710 less a year than women who are not overweight† (p. 215) could actually be a harmful reinforcement of social prejudice. These observations show that the author wants to pro mote a particular and rather elitist view of body language as an extension of a dominant and successful personality. This may reflect a preoccupation with the worlds of media and business, and this means that the purpose of the book is to address issues in these areas, rather than in general educational or therapeutic contexts. Personal Reaction I found this to be an interesting book; with many useful tips, but at the same time I did not warm to the author’s style. The breezy and casual tone suggested to me that the author

Consumer behaviour Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words - 1

Consumer behaviour - Case Study Example Situational analysis on the company is conducted to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats which used as a basis of formulating the various alternative strategies for addressing the underlying issue. The best option is selected for the implementation and this option is cost effective and has significant favorable effects to the company. Problem statement Levi Strauss & Co. is a giant apparel company based in San Francisco and it is privately by the Levis for the last 147 years which has been marked by the years of success characterized with increased profits and the overall sale of its cloth wears. Levi Strauss is an all American brand and that its corporate image among the potential and the existing customers has a higher level of publicity. Therefore the goals and the objectives of this giant apparel cloth wear company for the last few years is to constantly sustain their increased sales and profitability, maintain its market share, consistently develop new products that is available to the existing and the emerging market segments through regular company research and development and finally is to consolidate its customer base by maintaining customers loyalty and satisfaction. Unfortunately Levi Strauss & Co in the recently over a period of time has become difficult in meeting these goals and objectives. Notably this trend has been attributed by the consumer changes in the cloth ware and apparel industry where there is frequent changes in fashion and designs thus affecting the changes and preference of the consumers across the entire market segment (Stamatiadis 2009). The key move that Levi Strauss & Co did not take keenly in during this period of fashion change and designs of the clothing wear in this industry is the failure to make changes according to the changes in the taste and preference of their existing customers thus contributing to Levi Strauss & Co being always seasons behind in terms of the emerging trends and designs hence their major competitors. More important is that they have not been able to sustain the market segment that comprises the young comprising of the under twenty five and the kids who have perceive that the Levi’s styles are too tight and they are suitable for the old generation thus resulting into the loss of the market share in which the younger generation has been Levi Strauss & Co major existing customers. One of the major setbacks is the failure to consolidate the younger generation who have been contributing more to their profits (Stamatiadis 2009). These emerging issues has resulted into the company realizing little success in its operations and the overall revenue generation and the loss of the customers and the reduced market share in the cloth wear industry, the changes in the consumer behavior in due to change in their taste and preference has resulted into their competitors such as JNCO, Old Navy and Kirkwear having an added advantage over them this resulting into th e loss of market share from 31% to 17% despite increase in the market of jeans wear and the overall cloth wear in a span of three years. The implication of these problems to Levi Strauss & Co include tumbling sales due to the loss of market share and the existing customers, layoffs of the employees where they reduced the number of employees by 40% laying off over 15000 total number of employees, plant closings due to the reduced sales and the loss of t

Health teaching section Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Health teaching section - Essay Example Health Belief Model, which reliably detects the health behaviors of individuals, may assist in overcoming this issue by guiding our efforts towards the most appropriate educational measures to modify the health behavior of teenagers in this regard (Hodges & Videto, 2011). On the basis of this model, a teenager can be expected to take health-related measures if; Planning will be specifically directed towards the above mentioned issue and will aim to achieve measureable actions that are achievable, realistic and taken in a timely manner (SMART) (ONeill, 2006). Smart is being used to elaborate on the planning need for a teenage pregnancy. The teaching plan will span over a period of 4 weeks. Every teaching session will start by determining the prior knowledge status of students before delivery of new information. This will include a short assessment (pre-assessment) of students about the key aspects of the upcoming lesson using a questionnaire containing Multiple Choice Questions. The outcome of this assessment will serve the purpose of gaining an insight into the baseline knowledge of students. The teaching session will start after this assessment. The duration of instruction will span over a period of 20 minutes. The teacher will make sure that the classrooms are well-equipped for teaching. This will include the provision of a multimedia video projector, computer, appropriate lighting in the classroom, classroom furniture and the required stationary. After completion of instructions, an open discussion session will be conducted under teacher’s supervision. The discussion will aim to answer and highlight the issues pertaining to the material taught earlier. The teacher will make sure that every student of the class participates in the discussion. After completion of discussion, a post-instruction assessment will be carried out to get an idea about the learning achieved by

Criminology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Criminology - Essay Example The disorder can be found in children as a conduct disorder, which can accelerate and grow into antisocial personality disorder. Psychopathy and sociopathy are associated terms with this disorder. Characteristics of this disorder are a persistent and repeating pattern of disregard for others and the public norms. In addition, there are expanded criteria to this statement such as: aggressiveness, lack of remorse in an act against another, deception, failure to comply to social norms, etc (American Psychological Association, 2000). There is some disagreement upon the classifications of this disorder. In particular, there is some discrepancy that exists between the APA, American Psychological Association, and the WHO, World Health Organization. The criteria for the APA classification for antisocial personality disorder are stated above. The WHO defines the characteristics of antisocial personality disorder has mostly the same criteria as the APA classification, however it eliminates the progression of a conduct disorder to antisocial disorder, which is one of the main criteria’s in the APA diagnosis. There are not any effective treatments for antisocial personality disorder.

NETFLIX CASE STUDY- FINANCE AND COMPANY ANALYSIS Essay

NETFLIX CASE STUDY- FINANCE AND COMPANY ANALYSIS - Essay Example Netflix was actually formed with the idea to provide Rental DVDs to customers without taking any charges from the customer for returning the DVDs late. Initially the company was taking late charges from their customers but after two years, Netflix changed their strategy and no late payment was charged for returning the DVDs late. The company also introduced the subscription services in which customers could select 4 movies rentals per month for a fee i.e. $15.95 per month. After few months, company offered unlimited plan for rental DVDs in which subscriber can have as many DVDs as they like for only a flat fee $19.95 per month. This scheme led to the success of company and its website volume grew by more than 300 percent. Company also made IPO of 5.5 million shares to raise capital of $82.5 in 2002 in order to expand its business. In the mid of 2011, Netflix changed its pricing and service structure. The company separated the two businesses i.e. DVD rental business and online video streaming with new enhanced price. Formally, company used to charge flat rate $10 per month for both the services. However the new pricing structure brought $8 for each service which collectively costs $16 for subscribers who were using both services. The situation had become worse when almost 1 million subscribers left Netflix’s services and its stock price fell down from $298 to $63 within few months (Netflix b). The CEO of the company, Reed Hastings, found that the root cause of the problem was ineffective communication with customers. He admitted that the company did not clearly mention the reasons of new policy to its subscribers (Netflix c). However, the increasing competition has been a real concern for the company and with the growing market and increasing marketing budgets and campaigns of competing firms, Netflix h as been facing threats from the competitors. In addition to this, competitors have been able to attract customers of Netflix by offering

Consumer behaviour and marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Consumer behaviour and marketing - Essay Example The only plausible way to do this is to ensure that the targeted customers are responding positively to the products or services of these companies. Marketing is one of the best ways to make sure that these customers have a connection to the companies’ products or services that is desirable. However, with the increased customer awareness and insight into brands all over the world, the marketing strategies of the companies have had to undergo a tremendous metamorphosis as a way of trying to predict the consumer behaviour and their influence on the businesses. According to Bian & Moutinho (2011, p. 200), customers have a great impact on the way a particular business behaves in the aspect of branding, usage, perception and even quality. The way the customer behaves towards a certain product is influenced by a number of different diverse factors. Some of these factors could be attributed to attitude of the customers towards a certain product of a certain company, fashion, culture among many others (Danaher & Rossiter, 2011, p.12). It is the responsibility of the companies to ensure that they come up with products that are in alignment with these different factors. In so doing, they must first identify which factor affects which type of the targeted customer and in the process come up with products that are considered appealing to this specific group of target customers. In other words, marketing is a strategy that puts the interests of the customer at heart. Companies are bound to fail if they come up with products without taking a survey of the market to identify the different needs of different customers. Different strategies of marketing are applied with respect to different fields. For instance, the kind of strategy that could be applicable to social marketing may not be fully applicable to another field such as manufacturing among others. However, no matter which field the marketing takes place, the main point of focus is on the customer. In every busin ess, the customer is the king. The customer is the main reason why people engage themselves in business activities (Geigenmuller & Outland, 2012, p. 430). This paper will indulge in the discussion of how the different forms of consumer behaviour influences the way companies conduct their marketing. It will illuminate upon the response of these companies in the marketing aspect with respect to changes in consumer behaviour. What happens to the marketing strategies laid down by different companies if the consumer behavior is varied? Since there are many diverse aspects of consumer behavior and attributes to name but a few such as fashion, culture, perceptions, attitudes, motivation and even group influence. Though these attributes sometimes intertwine, for the purposes of a clear investigation into this topic of influence of consumer behavior on marketing, this paper will narrow the attributes down to culture as a consumer attribute. Definition of terms For an in-depth and profound an alysis of this topic, a number of terms that will be applied extensively in this paper will be defined here. These terms are the consumer behavior as well as the culture concept of consumer behavior. Consumer behavior is a term used by different marketers and marketing strategists to describe extensively the way different consumers respond with respect to a number of factors. Consumer behavior

History Comparison Betwen Mexican and African Americans Essay Example for Free

History Comparison Betwen Mexican and African Americans Essay The history of Mexican Americans is comparable to that of African Americans: filled with stories of conquest, racism, and discriminatory acts posed by society. The past has triggered Chicanos to fight back against injustices, in hopes of reforming immoral treatment, and emerging as an equal part of America’s society. The Chicano movement yielded some successes in this aspect. However, mass media and stereotypes confirm the notion that Mexican Americans are still viewed as a â€Å"lesser† people. This stems from the long-established concept of racial stratification. In this case, it indicates that Anglo-Americans have hierarchy over Mexican Americans. Consequently, discrimination towards Chicanos is still prevalent, despite ongoing efforts by activists for change. This nation was socially molded based on the idea that there is a hierarchy of races, and as long as that idea exists, Mexican Americans will continue to suffer inequality. In â€Å"Sexual Violence in the Politics of Conquest’, Castaneda explores the sexual crimes against Amerindian women during the Spanish conquest of Alta California. The soldiers accompanying the missionaries on the settlement raped and violated the native women openly. There were many incidents before rules were set to govern the matter, but even after the rapes continued to occur. One court case recorded in 1773 indicates that there was no intention to grant justice to the victims. The natives took matters into their own hands and formed forces to seek their own justice (similar to Chicano activist groups that seek reform for discrimination), but to no avail. Castaneda goes on to explain that the actions of the soldiers were not farfetched from practices of Western civilization (27-28). Because these dark crimes were normal for the dominant culture, they were automatically imposed on the natives, who were supposed to accept this without resistance. This is similar to Mexican Americans during the Chicano movement, who were not given equal opportunities for education and employment because they were not in the central group. In both situations, the majority emasculates the men and oppresses the women of the minority. The idea of hierarchy is apparent in this passage; Catholic missionaries try to strip the natives of their culture and convert them to value Western practices because they consider themselves the ‘prominent’ people. The history of the Chicano Movement can date back to the Manifest Destiny. In the 1840s, the United States planned to expand its territory and take Mexico, which had become independent from Spain. In reporting these events, Leo Cervantes notes the attitude of superiority that the Americans displayed in their imperialist plan. He notes one adherent’s thoughts, who asked â€Å"why resign this beautiful country to the custody of the ignorant cowards who have ruled for the last 25 years? † (13). Cervantes also quotes Thomas Jefferson, who has similar views of the matter, and promoted â€Å"policies of non-miscegenation† during the expansion (14). Even before Anglo-Americans were acquainted with Mexicans, they held predisposed opinions of contempt for them. As I suggested, Arturo Rosales agrees, â€Å"An underlying cause for the hostility Anglo-Americans felt for Mexicans was a preexisting ideology of racism† (5). These preconceived notions of Mexican Americans were the beginning of negative stereotypes attached to them. Today Chicanos are often represented in the media as uneducated thugs, loose women, or undocumented workers. Even whites who claim they are not racist may practice aversive racism by absorbing the images portrayed in media. It is this ideology of racism has contributed to discrimination over the years and inversely, the building of the Chicano Movement. The movement flourished in the 1950s and 1960s, feeding off other civil rights movements, particularly the African American movement. Both African American civil rights activists and Chicano activist protested the unlawful repression of minorities in America. They protested the terrible education system, police brutality, and denial of economic opportunities. Arturo Rosales compares Chicano activist, Cesar Chavez to Martin Luther King. It is expected that on this path to address the plight and repression of their people, Chicanos were met with resistance from White Americans. Rosales notes that police officers and other uniformed officials â€Å"were employed to suppress manifestations of discontent and did so using violence† (xv). It can be suggested that Anglo-Americans considered Chicanos a threat to the racial hierarchy, so they took action. Cervantes supports this theory, quoting Brooks Adams who said, â€Å"When a highly centralized society disintegrates, under the pressure of economics condition, it is because the energy of the race has been exhausted (18). This point illustrates the pressure Anglo-Americans felt to keep superiority over Mexicans. The American achievement ideology suggests four points: Anyone can make it. American society is fair and open. Success is based on merit. Moreover, inequality is the result of differences in ability and ambition. This ideology contradicts the apparent effects of a racial hierarchy. Stratification of races has formed structural discrimination among minorities, specifically, Mexican and African Americans. The poor education, poor neighborhoods, and badly equipped jobs that these minorities are subjected to prevent them from achieving upward mobility. However, white America still neglects to acknowledge these factors. Historian, Oscar Lewis, believed that people living in poverty are to blame for their own situation, yet minorities’ history in America consists of repression and treatment as inferior beings. There is no questioning it; racial classes have been socially constructed and this has directly affected minorities. The Chicano Movement has led to some advances for Mexican American such as the growing numbers of Latinos attending school, and raise concerns about unequal treatment to Chicanos. However, because underlying values of America are products of a deep-rooted, corrupt social structure, issue of prejudice will continue to exist.