Christmas Poetry That Summons the Yule Spirit

Christmas Poetry That Summons the Yule Spirit For many people, Christmas poetry plays a major role in the celebration of the holiday. Some famous Christmas poems are popular works devoted to the yuletide- none more prominent than A Visit From St. Nicholas, often called The Night Before Christmas- while others are parts of poetic works that honor the holiday and often embellish greeting cards and other seasonal messages. These  pieces lend the spell of Christmas to the season, recalling lost magic and adding subtle touches of beauty and romance to the holiday ambiance: A Visit From St. Nicholas, Clement C. Moore Despite controversy over the provenance of A Visit From St. Nicholas, it is widely believed that professor Clement C. Moore was the author.  The poem was first published anonymously in the  Troy (New York)  Sentinel  on Dec. 23, 1823, though Moore later claimed authorship. The poem famously starts: Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the houseNot a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. This poem and cartoonist Thomas Nasts images of a rotund Santa beginning with an 1863 Harpers Weekly magazine cover are largely responsible for our image of St. Nick: He had a broad face and a little round belly,That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself For a spin on the holiday tradition, you might enjoy Cajun Night Before Christmas, especially if youre an aficionado of southern Louisiana culture: Twas the night before Christmas An all tru de house Dey dont a ting pass Not even a mouse. De chirren been nezzle Good snug on de flo An Mama pass de pepper Tru de crack on de do. Marmion: A Christmas Poem, Sir Walter Scott Scottish poet Sir Walter Scott was well known for his narrative style of poetry. His most famous work is  Lay of the Last Minstrel. This extract is from another of his best-known poems, Marmion: A Christmas Poem, written in 1808. Scott was famous for vibrant storytelling, imagery, and detail in his poems: Heap on the wood!The wind is chill;But let it whistle as it will,Well keep our Christmas merry still. Loves Labours Lost, William Shakespeare These lines from Shakespeares play are spoken by Lord Berowne, a noble who attends to the king. Though it wasnt written as a Christmas poem, these lines are often used to add a seasonal touch to Christmas cards, greetings, and social media status updates: At Christmas I no more desire a rose,Than wish a snow in Mays new-fangled shows;But like of each thing that in season grows. Love Came Down at Christmas, Christina Rossetti Christina Rossettis Love Came Down at Christmas, which has a lyrical, melodious beauty, was published in 1885. Rossetti, who was Italian, was famous for her romantic and devotional poems, and her views about Christmas bore an Italian influence: Love came down at Christmas;Love all lovely, love divine;Love was born at Christmas,Stars and angels gave the sign. Christmas Bells, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of the most revered American poets. His poem Christmas Bells is a deeply touching work written soon after his beloved son Charley was seriously wounded fighting in the Civil War. Having already lost his wife in a freak fire accident, Longfellow was a broken man. His words come from the depth of sadness: I heard the bells on Christmas DayTheir old, familiar carols play,And wild and sweet the words repeatOf peace on Earth, good-will to men!

An Analytical report over Strategic planning for GigaSoft Pvt. Ltd Essay

An Analytical report over Strategic planning for GigaSoft Pvt. Ltd - Essay Example Modern day software market has multiple requirements along with essential factors like smooth user interface, quick and clear functionality, market sustainability and compatibility with other platforms and devices. Thus, Software market is becoming more and more specific onwards. The competition arises only between software that offer similar utilities and functionality. For a very ground example of word processor, before 2005 Microsoft Word had been a ruling word processors for all types of writing requirements such as letters, drafts, reports, stories, forms, graphic patterns, papers etc. However, taking a look of current word processing market, it is quite significant that every one of those patters have different specific software offering numerous specific utilities. There are options like Open Office, Word perfect, Adobe Story, PDF software, CeltX. Some of them like CeltX offer their services on I-phone and Android devices while Open Office offers a very small size as compared to Microsoft Word and is much easily portable. There are also online word processors like Office Web apps and Google docs which offer a facility of secure cloud storage free of data loss concerns. Accordingly, soft ware marketing and management is synchronized with user demands. While working on numerous word-processing and document management software GigaSoft faced a failure in competing with existing word-processors. Recent replacement strategies of development and marketing have shown unwanted lacking in providing full functionality over all supportive platforms. Also, there is tracked some inefficiency in coping with small gadgets and newly introduced platforms. Some frequent crashes due to the incompatibility with recent market demands are also noticed. Those indicative factors have incorporated a lack of proper management. Hence, an immediate strategic planning for upcoming management strategies is required to be generated and applied. Identifying the faults and loopholes Looking at the recent data sheets and amendments made by GigaSoft corporation. There are seen some specifically lower graphs after the new adjustment for current marketing strategies which involve developing the software over various platforms other than earlier Microsoft platforms. GigaSoft is using waterfall method for production while the twist in the company’s strategy had proved out to be unproductive. It is essential to first analyze the reasons for difficulties before going for a new structure (Gouws & Gouws, 2004). Some noticed reasons for the failure in marketing strategy hold: Drifting away from the most popular platform, which makes the products incompatible for many formats and devices. Failing in synchronizing with the modern devices which require an essential coordination with popular devices other than Windows PCs and Laptops. Failing in development of multi-operative software products Violating the norms of cost-effectiveness by misreading the market graphs, As those reasons are end-results of a long time malfunction in management and planning, basic structure of the company must provide some focus for what errors of management led to those ends. A lack of synchronization in finance, engineering and marketing streams led to produce over costly products. A lack of

PM 3G should launch this year (internationl businese) Article

PM 3G should launch this year (internationl businese) - Article Example It has not been introduced in some countries because of the initial cost of setup. These 3G machines are very expensive and also, licensing fees for its provision is really high. In Thailand's case, though, licensing wouldn't be as expensive as other countries and Thailand's Prime Minister seems to be concerned about the notion of the existence of 3G technology in Thailand. Furthermore, the world is moving towards technological change and it is no more an environment to sit back and relax. Companies and countries alike have to act and adapt quickly, otherwise they fall behind economically and in other world affairs. In a very short time from now, we would move into the age of 4G or something similar, but more advanced than 3G. 3G has hit the market few years ago and engineers are continuously working to develop more sophisticated and advanced technology. This is the time to make money. These days, product life cycles are very short and based on my knowledge, 3G technology would be replaced soon. Look at the example of the U.S. The U.S. telecommunications' providers have capitalized on the opportunity and offered the 3G mobile broadband at sufficiently high prices to match demand. Now, the demand for 3G mobile broadband has gone down a bit, so the providers are offering good deals and discounts to make use of the few remaining days of the current techno logy.

Infosys Case Analysis Essay Example for Free

Infosys Case Analysis Essay ? Case analysis infosys document structure We have approached the case by first analyzing the identified issues, and then associate root causes to those issues. Further to it we have used two frameworks, â€Å"Web of Change† and â€Å"Hewitt Best Employer Characteristics†, to theoretically assess the weaknesses in Infosys Human Resource and Change Management policies. These frameworks can be used by organizations to better plan their change management and human resource management initiatives. We have used â€Å"Hewitt’s Best Employer Survey†, to identify the key initiatives which Infosys should undertake to enable it to reach its target of â€Å"Best Employer† by 2011. Further to it we believe that â€Å"Best Employer† and â€Å"Best Performer† are complementary goals, and it’s difficult to achieve one without the other, and hence we have identified the key initiatives which can help Infosys to achieve â€Å"Best Performer† target without compromising on its â€Å"Best Employer† objective. about infosys Infosys is the second largest Indian IT software services company. Infosys has reached pinnacles of success in short span of 20 years, through innovative business strategies and human resource practices. Currently it is facing challenges around balancing between business growth and employee satisfaction. About its business Model Infosys delivers IT services to its clients globally in a model called GDM (Global Delivery Model). The main characteristic of this model is that it decouples client location and project execution. Project is executed in locations which provide best combination of cost and talent. Project teams are spread across client site and offshore development centers in countries like India, China, and Mexico etc which provide rich availability of talent at competitive cost. Usually teams at client site document requirements and manage client relationship and offshore team manages delivery. This is a human resource intensive industry and the challenge is exacerbated by the fact that most of the resources are highly skilled professionals (engineers, MBAs, computer scientists etc). Being an industry where human resource is your only asset and your only competitive advantage, managing, ssues and Root Cause analysis In this section we’ll analyze the issues identified in the case and will attempt to identify root causes which led to employee dissatisfaction. After our analysis we believe that issues mentioned in the case is symptomatic of gaps in general principles of leadership, change management and HRM. Policies are not written in blood and stone, and they change ov er the lifetime of organizations. What should not change are basic organizations principles around human resource management. Our assessment is that policy changes in Infosys were reflective of external environment and business imperatives. However, diverging from the basic principles of Change management, leadership, communication and employee development in implementing new policies is what led to its fall in Best Employer ratings. â€Å"Stock Options started lacking luster to the new employees and created equity imbalance among employees† Stakeholders involved New Employees Discontentment Impact Inequity of income/wealth effect in the company which created tension between employees. New employees who had seen Infosys from outside as an organization committed to fairness, equity, and employee wealth creation got disenchanted. Root Cause Failure to Manage Expectations This issue primarily arose because of incorrect expectation setting of new employees. Infosys kept on using stock options and the millionaires’ stories as branding activity, even when stock options were no more an incentive to new recruits. Company should have made it very clear about its new compensation philosophy when it discontinued ESOPS. 1. Managing scale and attrition risk Stakeholders involved Employees Managers Discontentment Impact Infosys was growing at a speed where it was doubling its organizational strength every 1-2 years. However organization was plagued by high attrition rate. Employees felt lack of motivation, due to repetitive process tasks, which the business model demanded. Due to high growth, a lot of employees moved up the managerial ladder, but lacked proper training and orientation and hence couldn’t connect to employees Root Cause Lack of Employee fulfillment ( from the job ) Detached Lleaderships To stress on the need for the above two, we’ll give two examples from Indian public sector. Indian Railways Indian railways has recently transformed itself into a highly profitable organization, and according to the officer on special with Railways, single most critical factor which contributed to this success is involvement and commitment of employees of railways despite having a poor compensation structure. Employees of Indian railways take great pride in their work, since they believe they are contributing to the running of the country’s biggest infrastructure and are responsible for transporting of 2 crore customers every days. This association with organizational goal and pride in your organization is what makes an organization for perpetuity. Due to changing business needs, Iinfosys couldn’t connect to its employees in motivating them. Indian Army A unit commander in the army is able to inspire its soldiers to give up their life, compensation etc notwithstanding. The only reasons soldiers are so committed, is their immediate leader. It depends on the unit commander’s ability to connect to his soldiers, motivate them and show a genuine concern for their wellbeing, is what motivates the soldiers to do the unthinkable for their leader. According to research in human resources field, people leave managers and not companies. The leadership skills of managers are the greatest source of employee fulfillment at work. Lack of engagement and commitment of managers towards their subordinates, was probably the single biggest reason for high attrition rate at Infosys. 2. Strong formalization and process orientation, which came as part of growth, took away bandwidth to innovate from employees. Stakeholders involved Employees Discontentment Impact Employees who were used to getting the thrill and satisfaction from using their skill on technical challenges were feeling cocooned because of new process driven and re-use methodology. Similar impact was observed in people policy issues. All personal policies were getting more and more formalized. Root Cause Lack of employee Motivation Resistance to change One of the basic principles of organization design is that you don’t use strong formalization from highly skilled agents (employees). Formalization is for low skilled repeatable tasks. Infosys should have come up with business models aimed at high end, value added services much earlier. This would have kept its inherent talent not only motivated but better utilized for higher margins. In 1990s moving away from body shopping to GDM provide this opportunity, but in early to middle 2000s, Iinfosys couldn’t reinvent itself. Formalization in organizational policies when it grows out from entrepreneurial stage is inevitable. It’s actually needed to ensure consistent implementation of policies and create a sense of equity and fairness among employee. Dissatisfaction on this front could be attributed to resistance to change, and hence effective change management principles should be employed for disruptive changes. 3. Introduction of variable pay Stakeholders involved Employees Senior Management HR Department Discontentment Impact Variable pay was received with a lot of skepticism by the employees, fearing that it was introduced to reduce their compensation Root Cause/s Change Management Failure Lack of Leadership engagement Communication Failure This was probably one of the most disruptive changes introduced by Infosys. The amount of skepticism and distrust displayed by employees was a first in Infosys. Immediate reaction of employees was that this policy has been introduced to cut employee costs to satisfy shareholders demand for higher and higher profitability. The fact that a vast majority of senior management were shareholders in the company added to employee distrust. There was no clarity among employees how this policy will pan out. A lot of employees were not comfortable in linking their performance to factors outside their control (market conditions, decision taken by management etc). Also since the amount of variable component was high (more than 50% for project managers and above), employees could not understand how much their monthly take home were. This is a classic case of failure in change management and involvement of leadership at every level. Infosys data on variable payout shows that most of the time company has delivered 100% payout and even higher percentage to high performers. So employee skepticism bore from lack of clarity and communication on this policy. Lack of clarity, communication and involvement of employees was to such an extent that even middle management was taken by surprise by this policy. Many managers, who couldn’t appreciate the policy implementation, were reluctant in communicating the changes to the employees. For an employee first point of contact for clarification is his/her immediate line manager, hence it’s important to fully equip leadership at every level with information. To understand the role what leadership plays in motivating, retaining employees, we should look at armed forces. Unit commanders are able to motivate their employees to give their life, despite the fact that compensation package of soldiers is one of the lowest. This commitment in subordinates comes because of total commitment of their leader in engaging with them and motivating with them. Immediate line managers are the biggest reason employees leave an organization and are also the main reason employees go beyond their capabilities to outperform. 4. Retaining Organizational Culture with fast track growth Stakeholders involved HR Department Employees Discontentment Impact Due to business growth imperatives, and its business model, Infosys was doubling its employee strength every 1-2 years. To accommodate this type of growth, it had to lower its hiring standards and quality and culture was a victim of this. Root Cause/s Lack of Employee on boarding ( orientation) planning This issue had an impact on multiple facets. It led to a feeling disenchantment in existing employees, as they felt their brand equity in the market was getting diluted. New employees, who were not able to appreciate infosys inherent culture, didn’t felt comfortable and had a feeling that the organization is biased toward old employees. Root cause of this issue was that although organization had changed its selection criteria, it didn’t change its employee orientation strategy, or training methodology. Infosys should have changed its orientation program to be more customized offering for similar group of employees and using existing employees as mentor to help develop organizational culture and values in new employees. Similarly if you are hiring for quantity and not quality, it should have modified its training plan to be more exhaustive. 5. Broad Banding and promotions Stakeholders involved Employees Discontentment Impact Lack of faith in the organization Chaos and confusion in employees minds Root Cause/s Change Management Communication Leadership This policy again created a lot of employee discomfort since they didn’t knew the details of change. It’s again a classic change management failure. Although the policy was designed to bring more clarity in role structure and bring equity amongst similar roles, across the organization, poor communications created fear and scientism in minds of people. We can observe from the reinvention of Indian Railways, one of the reasons organization could progress on the growth trajectory, was employee commitment to the cause of Indian Railways, despite of low compensation. Employees felt proud to be part of the world’s biggest railways and were motivated to excel. Some of the senior managers lacked clarity about policies, hence they were apprehensive of clarifying the policy. This shows a major organizational failure in terms of change management and engagement of leadership with people. Similarly as discussed above, since employee appraisal parameters were not clearly defined, an employee could not appreciate how his/her appraisal going to impact promotions? Web Of Change – Change Management Framework To do substantiate our above understanding of issues at Iinfosys, we used â€Å"Web of Change†, a change management framework to understand the change management issues at Infosys. â€Å"Web of change: is the framework proposed by Stephen Thomas. This model defines 8 change elements as shown below and the web of change helps us to see how the values of each element changed during the Organization Change process in Infosys. The baseline score is the value of the Change elements in Infosys during the glory years of 1990’s and the re-assessment scores the value of the same change elements in the 2000’s when Infosys was going through the â€Å"Growth pangs†.

Competitive Sports at an Early Age :: essays research papers

Name Subject Date Should Children Participate in Competitive Sports at an Early Age? Many American parents struggle to answer the puzzling question of what the appropriate age children should start to participate in competitive sports. A subject like this is puzzling because there are many issues that must be addressed, because it is controversial. Some American parents push their children too far, too young. The average American child usually will start to participate actively in competitive sports between the ages of six and twelve and can be unhealthy to a child’s development (CWG 131). The question at what age a child should start, has a different answer for each individual child. Parents often fail to realize that their child may not be physically ready for competitive sports, even though the child is ready. I believe that a child should participate in sports only if he is wanting too participate and is not pushed by their parents. Every parent has a different way of looking at, if their child is ready to start. If a six year little boy wanted to start playing football, the child may not be fully capable of handling such strength and tension that might cause a life long injury (Koppett 294). Some parents may think he is ready, but is probably not. Determining whether or not a child is ready for competitiv! e sports can sometimes be difficult to answer, because to determine if they are ready a child must be mentally ready also. Sports not only take physical strength, but a child must have psychological capacity to get them through such strenuous activity. A child may sometimes become scared when participating in sports. For example, A mother of an eight-year-old Peewee Football player explained, "The kids get so scared. They get hit once and they don’t want anything to do with football anymore. They’ll sit on the bench and pretend their leg hurts†¦"(qtd. In Tosched A32). This quote is a true statement because if a six-year-old child is playing peewee football with an eight-year-old, the eight-year old is a lot bigger that the six year old is and he could cause physical hurt to the six-year-olds tiny body. The psychological part of the story would be that the child would be so scared that he might get hurt which causes physical hurt as well as mental hurt and may scar the ! child for the rest of their life, when that child could of been the next pro- football player of the next century.

Duck and Cover Essay

Duck and Cover The society we live in today is so different than that of World War II. In that era the biggest threat of destroying society was the atomic bomb. In these times of today we face so many different threats of terrorism from other countries and from within our own cities. Even more than just terrorism, today’s society faces some many threats from within itself, such as Ganges in the inner cities, to the fall of inner city government through the influence from the sales of illegal drugs. The survival of a nuclear act was and all ways will be one of society’s main concerns. The atomic boom was the center of fear because, the technology had just been discovered and other countries had the technology in their hands as will. The U.S. had no real protection for the people from being acted by other countries, for the most part it was a wait and see game played with the threats between two countries. It seem to have such an impact on the people of that time it changed their life styles, from saving money for the further too the build and stocking boom shelters in their back yards. Comparing the threat nuclear war to the threat of terrorism today is different in many was in that terrorism has many different faces. Today’s terrorism comes not only from other countries but also comes from within the U.S. from some of our own people. Like the students of World War II, the students of today are still being taught to duck and cover, not for the fear of a boom but for the fear of a fellow student are someone with a cause, coming into the class and shooting it up. Technology has grown so much society of today really has no fear from other countries but more from the terrorism within the U.S†¦ For some children of today duck and cover is practice in their own homes trying to stay safe from the threat, right outside of their own front door.

Turn Baking Soda Into Washing Soda

These are easy instructions for making sodium carbonate, also known as washing soda or soda ash, from baking soda or sodium bicarbonate. Make Sodium Carbonate Sodium bicarbonate is CHNaO3, while sodium carbonate is Na2CO3. Simply heat baking soda or sodium bicarbonate in a 200 F oven for about an hour. Carbon dioxide and water will be given off, leaving dry sodium carbonate. This is the soda ash. The chemical reaction for the process is: 2 NaHCO3(s) → Na2CO3(s) CO2(g) H2O(g) The compound will readily absorb water, forming the hydrate (returning to baking soda). You can store the dry sodium carbonate in a sealed container or with a desiccant to keep it dry or allow it to form the hydrate, as desired. While sodium carbonate is fairly stable, it slowly decomposes in dry air to form sodium oxide and carbon dioxide. The decomposition reaction can be accelerated by heating the washing soda to  851 C (1124 K). Key Takeaways: Baking and Washing Soda Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and sodium carbonate (washing soda) are similar molecules. The difference is  how much water is incorporated into the molecule.If you bake baking soda, it decomposes to form washing soda, releasing carbon dioxide and water.Over time, washing soda decomposes for form sodium oxide, releasing carbon dioxide. Warmer conditions speed the decomposition process. Uses for Washing Soda Washing soda is a good all-purpose cleaner. Its high alkalinity helps it cut grease, soften water, and disinfect surfaces. Keep in mind, sodium carbonate solution irritates the skin and can produce chemical burns in pure form. Wear gloves when using it! Sodium carbonate is used to adjust swimming pool pH, prevent caking in foods, and as a treatment for ringworm and eczema. Its also used on a commercial scale for making glass and paper products.