Atlanta Race Riot

Taylor Schultz History 1100 Dr. Howard November 15, 2010 Influences of the Atlanta Race Riot â€Å"A city lay in travail, God our Lord, and from her loins sprang twin Murder and Black Hate. Red was the midnight; clang, crack and cry of death and fury filled the air and trembled underneath the stars when church spires pointed silently to Thee. And all this was to sate the greed of greedy men who hide behind the veil of vengeance† (Primary Source 20, line 20). The Atlanta Race Riot occurred in 1906 in Atlanta, Georgia. Many innocent African Americans were murdered by hostile mobs of white men.Racism and hatred towards African Americans had been around long before the Atlanta Race Riot, but previously built tensions of jealousy, hostilities, abuse of blacks and whites eventually lead to this event. Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Dubois, and many other African American and white leaders tried to gain respect from whites for the black community and earn equality, but the majority o f whites were not willing to cooperate. The main influences of the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 were poor whites and the â€Å"sexual assaults† they accused blacks of, politics, and media releases.After slavery had ended, and African Americans were free, whites still felt that they held a power over the blacks. So, when African Americans were becoming more successful, by owning their own pharmacies, grocery stores, and businesses the poor and middle class whites were not thrilled. These white classes were angry, because blacks were accomplishing more and making better wages then they were. The poor whites were so furious that they started creating mobs against all African Americans accusing them of wrong doings that many had no part in. The men composing the mobs, which created the disorder were principally of the hoodlum class† (Primary Source 13, page 7). Anytime a white man even heard of an African American touching a white woman, mobs would immediately form and attack, often killing a black man who looked remotely close to what the victim described him as. In 1906, the Savannah Morning News reported â€Å"there were four attempted assaults on white women by negroes in and around Atlanta today, and these and the publication of them in extras led to the gathering of the mob which killed ten or fifteen Negroes in the city tonight† (Primary Source 11, page 1).African Americans were not given the chance to go to court for any of the trials and were killed without proper identification by the court. It was getting to the point where blacks could not even walk outside their homes at night without being hunted by the white mobs; â€Å"attack spread rapidly and within a few moments the appearance of a Negro was the signal for a riot. The Negroes scattered from the streets, going to their homes by back alleys, or flocked to Decatur Street, the home of the tougher element† (Primary Source 12, page 2).All of these lynchings and outburst of rage from the poor whites over â€Å"sexual assaults† from black men towards white women were not fair towards the blacks. It was a way of whites getting back at blacks because of their own personal issues of jealousy, hostility, and personal self-assurance that they were better. After a long fight to gain freedom, African Americans wanted political equality. Many black philosophers and educators had their own views on how political equality should be met. Booker T. Washington was a black man who had been born into slavery and had gained his independence.He was a highly successful man who attended an Agricultural Institute. He founded the Tuskegee Institute, providing technical education for African Americans. Washington believed that blacks needed to work hard to show whites that they had value, so that eventually whites would realize this and accept black equality. â€Å"Washington was willing to accept social, residential, commercial, and educational subordination†(Seco ndary Source 1, page 46). On the other hand, W. E. B. Dubois was another successful black man whose views differed from Booker T.Washington. Dubois grew up in a largely white community, earned a PhD at Harvard, and believed that equality should be pushed for and gained as soon as possible. African Americans sided with both views from Washington and Dubois and had faith and believed that no matter which strategy worked it would eventually lead them to gaining equality. But, most elite whites wanted no part of it. Once white elites had heard speeches from both these leaders and knew what a good majority of blacks wanted, they came up with scandals to get African American’s votes.Many Democratic and Republican parties promised African Americans that if they gave their vote to them, they would stop lynching and crime rates would go down. â€Å"The party in which gave them the ballot had really no means of protecting them in the enjoyment of it† (Primary Source 8, page. 291 ). Laws like the Klu Klux Klan Act and The Compromise of 1850 were put in place during voting times to stop prejudice and violence, but once votes were gained, acts were dropped, giving none of the protection to African Americans that they had been promised. The whites, on their side, rather helped this plan by the savage means to which they resorted on those States in which the Negros were in majority, to overturn or prevent Negro rule† (Primary Source 8, page. 291). The Media attention that was brought up during the times of the Atlanta race Riot became a large influence on the whites and their bias opinions towards blacks. For the most part, the media sided with the whites, and encouraged the white people to start uproars with their black neighbors.The media loved all the press that they were able to release at this time in 1906, because they knew it would get a lot of attention, and people would believe everything they were posting. When the Riots were at their highest, Ma yor Woodward wrote, â€Å"I am thankful for all the papers that did not join in the business of getting out extras Saturday night. Many of the reports that were published were not only fuel to the fire, but entirely false† (Primary Source 5, page. 1).This statement shows that the media approved violence and did not mind the killing of innocent people, because it gave them something to broadcast about. When these mobs saw that they were getting press from the media, they started to consider themselves famous â€Å"protectors of the people†. â€Å"Flaring headlines in the special editions of the afternoon papers wrought the populace to a high pitch of excitement† (Primary source 13, page 2). Even though the media had no proof of reporting rapes or crimes that black men had done they would still write about them.Eventually, it got to the point where African Americans were getting fed up, and even announcing to places like the New York World saying, â€Å"There has been no carnival rapes in and around Atlanta. There has been a frightful carnival of newspaper lies† (Secondary Source 2, page 153). The white mobs already had so many racist views on blacks without the media leaking in, so when the media did decide to write alleged reports accusing the blacks falsely, it swept up the intensity and encouraged whites to be more violent then they ad ever been before. The Atlanta Race Riot caused many unnecessary deaths, and lead to more hostilities between blacks and whites then there had ever been. Although many events caused the Race Riot, the main ones were: the bad judgments poor whites held against blacks, and their horrendous approaches at getting back at them, the disagreement on political views from whites and blacks, and the media that influenced and encouraged whites to rebel against blacks and cause violence instead of trying for equality.Leaders and protectors stood by and watched deaths occur, and nobody tried to make any changes u ntil after the Riot took place. If whites and blacks had come together and taken away prejudice views and hatred towards each other, they could have accomplished more things and many innocent people could have lived.

Academic Coaching

Academic coaching classes are becoming more and more popular as the schooling system becomes increasingly competitive. Parents desperate to get their children into good quality schools will go to great lengths to help them pass entrance exams and excel in interviews. However, it is unclear how effective coaching classes really are. Here are some advantages regarding coaching classes: Coaching classes use different methods to those utilized in the classroom.This means alternative approaches to learning that could be more suitable to your child are made available. Various teaching methods can be beneficial to different children; if your child is being exposed to two kinds, there is a very good chance one will be effective for them. Children receive more individual tuition at coaching classes, meaning teaching is catered to their abilities more directly. If your child does not eceive one-on-one tuition in coaching classes, they will at the very least be in very small classes.They will h ave a learning plan tailored to their needs, allowing them to succeed at an increased pace. Coaching classes can be provided specifically for certain entrance exams. This gives your child a head start in the admissions process, placing them above candidates that have not had coaching classes. Therefore they are more likely to gain a place. On the other hand, coaching classes do have a umber of disadvantages: They are, in most cases, unsubsidized and very expensive.They can pile pressure onto your child, who is likely to already feel nervous about upcoming exams. Your child may worry that even after the coaching classes they won't pass, which will leave them feeling stupid and unmotivated to learn. Coaching classes could artificially boost your child's performance. This may not be in their best interest as they could be placed in a school not suited to their abilities.

Bible Essay Research Paper The BibleIn the

Bible Essay, Research Paper The Bible In the Holy Bible, instructions guide all types of human existences to a better apprehension of life. Many of these poetries reach out to adult male through instructions of human nature and how to make society # 8217 ; s moral values. A personal favourite poetry that may make out to every adult male and non merely those who pattern the JudaeoChristian faiths is:# 8221 ; The male parents shall non be put to decease for the kids, nor shall the kids be put to decease for the male parents ; every adult male shall be put to decease for his ain wickedness. # 8221 ; ( Deuteronomy p178, vs.16 ) because it tells of a regulation that every adult male should populate by # 8211 ; it demands justness to insulate the felon and thereby screen any guiltless relation of any unfair penalty. This is illustrated in the United States justness system and how society punishes it # 8217 ; s offenders. This poetry delivers the message that every adult male, despite size, colour, spiritual penchant, or personal background, should presume duty for his actions. Throughout clip work forces who have entered the courthouses dispersing the United States, like the colourful foliages scattered across peoples # 8217 ; paces during fall, have pleaded artlessness # 8211 ; faulting parents and their unfair upbringing. They scream to the jury that it truly wasn # 8217 ; t their mistake, but the mistake of their parents because if they had a perfect childhood so they wouldn # 8217 ; Ts have committed the offense. It is true that the values that kids develop in their early old ages are of import in act uponing future determinations but how does this explicate the many grownups that climb above their atrocious childhood and go successful happy persons. This proves that the person is in charge of his every move and every action in life # 8211 ; he is in charge of his ain fate. Sin is neer forced upon anyone but simply delivered by merely one individual # 8217 ; s pick. In the test of the Oklahoma bomber, the jury will non oppress his household because it was his offense, his wickedness. His household didn # 8217 ; Ts make him do it and they didn # 8217 ; t assist him carry through it. When the work forces who committed the flagitious offenses against humanity during World War II under Adolph Hitler # 8217 ; s way pleaded artlessness, the tribunals laughed. Some of these work forces claimed there was no other pick, Hitler made them make it. Despite there being few options, these work forces did take to perpetrate the offenses. They did non hold to slay the kids and deprive the small 1s of their artlessness and unity. Der fuhrer was their # 8221 ; father # 8221 ; and they tried to utilize him as a whipping boy as he used the Hebrews. It neer worked because these work forces pointed the laden guns at the victims. These work forces commanded the gas Chamberss to go on cooking living households. These work forces made their pick of wickedness. Society chose to penalize the person and non lt ;< br /> their guiltless household members for the offenses accomplished. Today people all over the universe attempt to bury old coevalss # 8217 ; offenses against humanity. In Germany it took many old ages after WWII for ulterior coevalss to even compose in history books what truly happened. These younger coevalss felt ashamed and slightly responsible for the offenses their ascendants committed. It took old ages to speak of the crisp biting wire environing the decease cantonments lodging the inexperienced person. Coevalss should experience horror to the point where they wouldn # 8217 ; t Lashkar-e-Taiba history repetition itself. They should non take the duty of the offense. As the bible says, one must take duty for his ain actions # 8211 ; non one # 8217 ; s male parent # 8217 ; s or old coevalss # 8217 ; . After the war ended the captives from the concentration cantonments were allowed back to their places. Many of these places were burned to nil. However those towns still in being were creeping with people who shunned these war victims # 8211 ; utilizing force and choler to force them back out of that town. These people continued the hatred the war brought out by faulting these victims for Germany # 8217 ; s convulsion after the war ended. These people are every bit guilty as Hitler for they blamed the inexperienced person for the war. They made themselves guilty, to another grade, of the same horror Hitler, # 8221 ; the male parent # 8220 ; , displayed. They tried to fault a minority group for something everyone in Germany was responsible for # 8211 ; the Jews did non destroy Germany, the authorities and the general population was responsible for all of her mistakes. These people chose their ain way of inhuman treatment and wickedness by advancing force against inexperienced person bystanders ; therefore, perpetrating the same offense against humanity. They treated the victims with such choler that they made these places cemeteries for the Jews. It was their pick, it was their wickedness. Unfortunately, these acrimonious, anti # 8211 ; semetic people were neer punished by society but those knowing of the hateful rejection now look back ill with this sight of unfairness. Every adult male, no affair the grade of unfairness served, must populate up to his actions. If he is strong plenty to perpetrate the inhuman treatment, he entirely is strong plenty to confront it once more with effects. Society unites all religions and all backgrounds. Decisions are made uniting all these different positions to make a criterion of values for society to reenforce. This poetry found in Deuteronomy is besides found in this universal standard society strongly upholds. One does non hold to be Judaic or Christian to understand the importance of taking duty for one # 8217 ; s offenses. Blaming household, friends, and other guiltless persons is morally incorrect and wholly unacceptable in society # 8217 ; s eyes. Mankind must larn to accept single penalty for offenses committed or else justness will neer be served.

Darwin Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Darwin Assignment - Essay Example Evolution is more an educated guess work where we try to find evidences and answers for questions that are related to what could have taken place. The drawback in the evolutionary theories is that it is not able to provide the evidence of how the organisms were formed or how the different species came into being. Scientists till date find it impossible to generate the amino acids which make up the proteins needed in the cells to be formed. Even if a certain theory comes close it falls short in relation to the time period. There are plenty of flaws in evolutionary theories which does not answer or give a solution in entirety. Moreover it has been proved that the entire system must be there for making a start. This has been very clearly explained in Michael Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box, where he with examples he proves that just one cell cannot reproduce without the components that are required for its growth. When all these interpreted theories are studied it seems absurd. The only answer that settles all debates is a Creator. Schools must encourage the students to analyze on their own and do some critical thinking by providing information for and against evolution. This would certainly encourage both teachers and students to collect, analyze and interpret data. This would make them understand better that science is still in the process of finding an answer to evolution. Putting forward every aspect can in fact be a better option in helping the children come to their own conclusion. Education is to stimulate mental growth and not force down thoughts. This open minded approach would be the intelligent design which zeroes in on a creator of an intelligent nature. â€Å"The intelligent design (ID) movement claims that life as we know it could not have developed through random natural processes -- which only the guidance of an intelligent power can explain

Managing human resources in business context Case Study

Managing human resources in business context - Case Study Example Although intense rivalry between the top brands is important to be taken care of, the emphasis for tobacco manufacturers should now be on dealing with the people. Anti-Smoking campaigns, new laws and the gaining public awareness about the harms of smoking is decreasing the annual consumption of cigarettes. This is definitely a de-motivating feature for the company and its employees. However the thing tobacco industry has kept going in its favour is the addictive nature of cigarettes. This fact however presents the company with serious corporate social responsibility issues and therefore British American Tobacco should keep these issues in mind when developing a new human resource management strategy as proposed in this paper. British American Tobacco is the most globalization brand in the world. The brand has millions of diverse customers across the globe, with access to over 180 markets globally, and makes the best quality tobacco products. The brand commits its customers to always be indulged in principles of corporate social responsibility, a practice kept running through out the group. (http://www.British American Tobacco.com/) With the exception of the Chinese state tobacco monopoly, UK holds the 3 of the top 5 tobacco companies within its boundaries. Philip Morris leads the market with 18% share, BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO follows with 11%, while Imperial Tobacco and Gallaher hold fourth and fifth position in the global tobacco pie. The missing third spot belongs to Japan Tobacco. Cigarette and Tobacco Pie Share in UK Market share In UK, the cigarette and tobacco market is predominantly captivated by Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco; the two firms enjoy an 80% hold in the market. BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO has its manufacturing facilities in UK but exports most of its production. (Cullum and Pissarides, 2004) (Action on Smoking and Health, Fact sheet no.18) Rank Brand Name % share of UK cigarette market Manufacturer 1 Lambert & Butler KS 13.5 Imperial Tobacco 2 Benson & Hedges Gold 7.3 Gallaher 3 Mayfair King Size 7.1 Gallaher 4 Richmond Superkings 6.6 Imperial Tobacco 5 Richmond King Size 4.9 Imperial Tobacco 6 Marlboro Gold King Size 4.4 Philip Morris 7 Regal KS 3.5 Imperial Tobacco 8 Royals King Size Red 3.4 BAT 9 Superkings 3.3 Imperial Tobacco 10 Silk Cut Purple 3.2 Gallaher Top 10 UK cigarette brands: 2004 Recent Developments at BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO Recently, BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO has strengthened its position in the Tobacco world market with different moves. As per the most recent developments, to expand their reach farther, BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO is in process of acquiring small firms internationally so as to have extended access to the markets, and to have stronger position at the same. The group is also quite close to the completion of purchasing House of Prince (HoP).

Samping and Data Collection Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Samping and Data Collection - Coursework Example Therefore, when carrying out the research, they will be the target population. The main advantage of direct observation is that it gives direct access to the customers without relying on reports made by the client (Freedman, Pisani & Purves, 1978). This is because one actually observes and records the purchasing routines of the client. Therefore, it avoids the many problems associated with an interview or questionnaire form of sampling (Hays, 1981). For example, an individual may not accurately remember their purchasing pattern. In connection to this, there is a likely hood most customers will respond in a manner that they actually feel that they should be purchasing. However, in real life situation they may behave differently. The data will be collected through observation, taking notes and using store security camera. Whenever the customers enter the store they will be monitored on which product they are buying and which ones they prefer asking their whereabouts. This information will be recorded down. However, the observation will be done in a professional way so as to avoid scaring the customer. In addition, at the end of the day the interior cameras will also be used to analyze the client’s movement and their choice of goods (Hays, 1981). All the collected data will be recorded in a notebook and will be stored in a lockable file cabinet. This data will also be backed up by a computer and other storage media which also be kept in the

Making Cigarrette Smoking Illegal Research Paper

Making Cigarrette Smoking Illegal - Research Paper Example This has been taken on by youngsters who are getting hooked on to this habit for all the wrong reasons. The legal aspects of cigarette smoking should therefore be understood before one can suggest that these need to be made illegal. This paper covers how smoking cigarettes is a bane all over the world, and how this problem seems to come up from different angles of the society which essentially disrupts the basis of optimism to cultivate within the different nations of the world. The manner in which youth is getting addicted to smoking is something that needs to be understood properly here. This is because cigarette smoking not only affects a young man or woman but also the ones who live with them (Lillard, 2005). The passive smoking element is therefore all the more significant to comprehend within the related thick of things. It would only be natural to understand where the problems come up from and how these will be resolved within the most apt way possible. It has been found out t hrough research that often times passive smoking of cigarettes is even more harmful than the ones who smoke regularly. When this research came about, many people did not believe it but with the passage of time, this has been proven with due research and evidence of study (Cook, 2007). The cigarette smoking domains in essence highlight the kind of issues that can come about and how these will mean problems for the people who smoke and the ones who take the brunt of such nuances. Cigarette smoking is not only a problem; it is indeed a serious anomaly within the society because the smokers are affecting it in more ways than one. They are not only creating concerns within their own health domains but also directly influencing the lives of others that surround them. Smoking essentially requires steps from different quarters and the need is to make sure that its legal status is looked upon. If the decision-makers can deem it as an illegal act, this will save the lives and health basis of a number of people around the world. How society views smoking is something that says a great deal about the society under question (Tong, 1987). This means that its different nuances are linked with its people who regularly smoke cigarettes. Their actions and undertakings depend largely on how much they smoke and what they make out of smoking in essence. This needs to be properly comprehended before one can outline the due role of the society within the shaping up of the smoking concerns. How media portrays the cigarette smokers needs to be given attention to as well. This means that the smokers are having a good time at the hands of the media in certain countries of the world. However, in other nations this is not the case. There are a few countries which have completely banned the sale and advertising of cigarettes, which indeed is a step in the right direction. But this does not end here as much needs to be achieved in the long run. The manner in which corporations are tackling this issue also needs to be understood (Raw, 1989). They are perhaps going overboard by highlighting aspects that work to their own advantage. This is a disservice to the society and should be comprehended as such. If the corporations and the media play their due role, then they can easily make smoking an illegal commodity for everyone, however this requires persistence by the media experts and the corporate giants. Similarly, the celebrities

US Treasury Yields Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

US Treasury Yields - Essay Example High-interest rates and inflation during Carter regime discouraged investment with US long-term Treasury yield exceeding 15% and short term T-Bills yielding nearly 20%. Reagan regime restored consumer confidence, through the appointment of Paul Volcker the chair of Federal Reserve Board with his tireless effort and determination of defeating a national economic disaster bore fruits. His fruits were putting the nation into an intentional recession where money supply was tightened, which slowed down the pace of economic growth in the economy, reducing the employment. Inflation was completely abated in the year 1982. After inflation Volcker was devoted to rejuvenating the economy, one of the policies was to reduce the interest rates, this increased money in circulation within the economy that encouraged investment reduced the cost of production and cost of living taming demand-pull and cost pull inflations. Reduction in interest rates encouraged investment with long T-Bills yielding 1% and short-term T-bill yielding 4%. Federal Reserve opinion to increase the interest rates will increase the cost of capital in the economy, and a consumer will be compelled to spend extra coins on the food basket. It will also be translated to investment where due to high-interest rates the profit margins of the lenders will be reduced, moneylenders lend with an objective optimizing revenue.

A critical evaluation of central government urban regeneration Essay - 1

A critical evaluation of central government urban regeneration policies since the 1980s in Docklands, London - Essay Example The shift in the political scenario shall also not be advantageous, the future cabinet is expected to comprising of representatives from suburbs and South East, and therefore these representatives shall not share "same commitment to high levels of regeneration funding, particularly if economic circumstances demand a squeeze on public spending" (Cross, 1993). It is important that realistic approach shall be adopted to ensure optimum utilization of the available opportunities. It is important to initially settle the objectives into list of practical and non-practical items. It is evident that the current government "cannot guarantee to regenerate every town and every city in Britain that has fallen behind". Every location has its strategic and economic significance, and two cities at different locations shall never share similar significance, this is natural phenomenon and has contributed towards mass migration of the dwellers in the past. Britain has to face the truth that the locatio ns, which previously exhibited potential for investment in 19th century, are insignificant in the current economic and strategic setup. The general consensus among the legislatives exists that "port cities had an advantage in an era when exporting manufactured goods by sea was a vital source of prosperity; today the sea is a barrier to their potential for expansion and they are cut off from the main road transport routes" (Cross, 1993).

Plato - democracy Essay Example for Free

Plato democracy Essay Aristotle was a pupil of the famous philosopher Plato. During his lifetime (384-322 BC) he learned and taught Socratic philosophy which was taught to him. He was taught this philosophy by Plato, who is responsible for all of Socrates written works since Socrates himself did not write down his teachings. During his teen years he was enrolled in Platos â€Å"Academy† where he then taught for about 20 years after his graduation. After this he started his own school called the â€Å"Lyceum†. Here he  taught of philosophy and politics. His political teaching broke down regimes into six categories. These categories are then broken down into three groups of pairs. Each of these pairs has one â€Å"good† form and one â€Å"bad† form. The first tier consists of Monarchy and Tyranny. Each of these is â€Å"the rule of the one†, but according to Aristotle, a Monarchy was better than Tyranny because a Monarch puts the needs of his people before his own. The second tier is Oligarchy and Aristocracy. Both of these are  Ã¢â‚¬Å"the rule of the few† but Oligarchy was considered a better form because the Oligarchy was not necessarily influenced by money and class whereas Aristocracy was. The third tier was Polity and Democracy. Both of these were â€Å"the rule of the many† but Democracy was considered better for the same reasons that Oligarchy was better than Aristocracy. With his teachings of philosophy, and his image of an ideal regime which could possibly be attainable (unlike his predecessor Plato â€Å"ideal city†). he was a very influential character in the future of society. Due to his father being a court physician for King Amyntas of Macedonia, Aristotle was a childhood friend of the later King Phillip. His friendship with King Phillip was the main reason he was asked to teach Phillips son Alexander (later known as Alexander the Great). Aristotle played a pivotal role in the development of Alexander the Great and it is quite possible that he would have not had such a conquest as he did had it not been for Aristotles.

Business Plan for Record Label

Business Plan for Record Label Business Planning Introduction to unit eight coursework In this unit, I have the opportunity to structure a business plan for a business proposal, which I will have the opportunity to create. For this segment of the assignment, I will clarify the main activities of the business, in addition to its aims and objectives. The assignment will also be focusing on the marketing and financial planning of my chosen business, notwithstanding, the operations and financial planning of the proposed business proposal. At the end of it all, I will be evaluating my business and its viability. However, to start a business I will need a business plan. A business plan is essentially a plan of a business that is to be set up; this is usually a written piece of statement about the business (think of it as a blueprint). This is a useful document to have because; firstly, it outlines the business itself and outlines what the business is essentially about, and secondly, it allows the owner/manager of the business to work towards the success of the business by spotting and avoiding failures. In general, a business plan will have the following statements; what the business is all about (i.e. the nature of the business), the aims and objectives of the business (What they hope to achieve and expect in the future) and how the individual plans and will o about creating the business. This can be illustrated in a majority of ways however; a financial planning of the first six months or perhaps even a year would be ideal or information about how the investments are to be raised for the business. A business plan is a very indispensable piece of document to have if someone is considering starting their own business, this is because a business plan outlines/predicts what the business will be like after setting up that gives a clear understanding of how the aims and objective are to be obtained as well as defining them. Furthermore, a business plan will also help to plot any pitfall along the way, i.e. a detailed cash flow of a businesss first six months will be able to suggest if the business will have a higher cost when compared with the profit they make, even before the business has started, and this can prevent major loss of profitability. Not only does a business plan outlines and spots major flaws in the business, but many businesses and entrepreneurs use it as a source of motivation; a backdrop to compare their current performance against. Further adding more, a business plan would be beneficial to establish or to re-evaluate the businesss competitive position within the market place by conducting a thorough analysis of the competition. This would involve finding out the strengths and weaknesses of the competition and how the business can be taken advantage of. In conclusion, as mentioned above, a business plan is important for a business because it helps to clarify the vision of the business and decide whether to forge ahead with the idea. Without a business plan, it would be very difficult to convince external investors to invest the business. Not only that, a business plan will also help the business determine their target market that they want to aim their product at, which is always useful to know. The Business Proposal For my chosen business proposal, I have decided to create a music label, and have named it P.K. Media. Generally, the term â€Å"Record label† is something that is associated with the music industry. A Record label is a brand and a trademark, which is associated with the procedure of marketing and distributing musical recordings and music videos of their signed artists. A record label is also the company that manages the artists/bands and coordinates, manufactures, promotes and distributes their productions i.e. music/videos. Record labels are also responsible for the enforcement of copyright protection on the media that they distribute such as CDs and DVDs, so that their content (such as music), cannot be copied and sold as pirated versions of their work to the customers by other individuals. The business I intend to propose will primarily focus on the production and the promotion of the music of its artists/bands in the local area, the Midlands. The reason for this is that there is a much lower cost of setting up a music label for the local area as there are less promotional activities which the label would have to finance and carry out, thus reducing the start up cost of the business compared to if it was a nationwide business. The main services/products that P.K. Media will provide to its consumers and music acts are as follow: * Music sold using online services such as iTunes and the business website. Some music will be available for free download as a promotional activity. * Provide live performances by its artists and bands as a secondary service. o Commissions from artist will be charged on this, depending the amount of tickets sold by the act. * Offer promotional services for unsigned artist and band acts and charge commission depending on their popularity, music sold, the amount of record deal they receive etc. o Free promotional services will also be available for unsigned artists on the businesss website for uploading their work to display to the internet audiences. o Manufacturing CDs and DVDs will also be available for artists wishing to use for promotional use, however it is highly likely that there will be a fixed cost for this service. * Record deals will be available for artists; majority of the aforementioned services will available with this, as the business will undertake the sole responsibility for the promotion, distribution, production and the sales of the artist/bands music signed to P.K. Media. * Recording facilities and personnel will be available to customers who wish to record their own music that will be mixed by a professional studio engineer. Customers will be charged on an hourly basis or perhaps special offers upon depending upon how much music they wish to record. Live performance are a good way of raising additional profit other than selling CDs because with live performances, My business can charge commission from the local pubs/bars to supply the live performances with beverages, as a result the pubs and bars will also get some promotion of their products and services which will benefit their businesses as well. Furthermore, the business will also be able to make profit through selling tickets for the live performances. The location of this business will be varied and may not be based in a single location, the reason being that if my business is organising the performances, then it will have to be located at the performances to manage the bands and other aspects of the performance i.e. selling the tickets. However, P.K. Media will need facilities to record the band/artists music and venues for live performances, for this it will be a necessity to have access to a recording studio and to be able to rent a venue in the local area. Having acce ss to a studio can be done in a number of ways such as renting a recording studio in the local area or purchasing the equipment and setting up the recording studio at home or other location, such as a youth centre or other rented location like flats or houses. The cost of the musical equipment such as; mixing boards, computers, mics, instruments, audio processing hardware and sound proofing the location can add up to a significant amount and as a new business the cost of starting up should be kept at a minimum. Ultimately, a more convenient option would be to rent a recording studio, which is pre-provided with all the equipment needed (as described above). Another issue which may arise would be that if my business had to purchase the musical equipment I would have to purchase the low-end equipment as the high-end (studio quality) equipment can cost thousands and upwards and as a small independent music label there would be limitations for the finance. In addition, the low-end equipm ent could also reduce the quality of the recording, and as a record label that will not be beneficial for the artists because consumers would not want to purchase bad quality products especially if the product is aimed at entertainment purposes. Imagine listening to ones favourite song with hissing noisiest, crackle and static noises, it would not be pleasant to listen to which is why quality of the audio is a substantial element of a record label. Reason for choice of business? The idea of a record label interested me because; with a record label, there is no need to purchase stock; it is a service-based business, which means that a record label does not have to manufacture or purchase anything other than to sign the artist and record CDs. A record label is basically, the intermediate service between audiences/customers and the artist. In essence, while the artist makes the product, the record label simply delivers it to the customers, almost like an intermediary. Another thing which seemed interesting is that the possibility of a sole ownership of the business. Since a record label is a service-based business, it is not necessary to have partners (as with any other businesses). It can be set-up with a moderately low cost, which mean that there is no need to invite external investors to invest in the business and hold a percentage of shares in the business, leaving room for more creative control over the business. Personal interest is another factor that may have influenced my choice to pick a record label for a business proposal. Unqualified amateur musician myself, I find that music is the greatest past time for all ages which is why I liked the idea of providing people with good quality of music to listen to which is easily accessible and is at moderately low price. Overall, I believe that a record label should be a viable business proposal for this assignment because like many businesses it requires marketing strategies, target consumers and a product. A further consideration is that almost everyone listens to music (to some extent) whether it is purchased from store or downloaded from the web and it is because of this that music is considered as one of the major immersed art form, which hints of a profitable market sector. What are Aims and Objectives? It is imperative for a business to have a basic requirement and have clear aims and objectives in order to prosper and move forward in their field. Aims and objectives are frequently used together to set/represent a certain achievement which is why they can often be mistaken to having similar meaning, however, they have a significant different to each other. Aims, to summarise, are essentially a brief statement, which majority of the time are short sentences; for instance, ‘maximise profit or ‘increase customer growth. Aims are most commonly use to identify the overall target of a business, states their intentions, and what they hope to achieve in the future of the business. On a different note, objectives are more complex and ‘to the point than aims. Objectives, unlike aims, are more detailed and can be longer depending on the objective itself. For example, if a company wanted to increase their market, they could set themselves and objective of ‘increase employee productivity by 20%, within in the next six months. As you can see, an objective is more complex, and more detailed. Furthermore, the detail in objectives tends to be numerical details such as specific dates, time frame, percentages etc. This is because objectives are a follow-up of aims. An objective is set merely set to accomplish or to achieve an aim. To illustrate, if a businesss aim is to ‘maximise profit, then they may decide to set themselves the objective of ‘increase sales from 15.7% to 20%, within six months period. By increasing the sales of the business from 15.7% to 20%, a business can ensure that they are retaining their customers and increasing their profi t within six months. However, some businesses may decide to have a sub-objective to this which could be something like ‘increase employee productivity by 2% in 30 days, to ensure that the business is getting the most out of their employees. This also proves the fact that individuals who either own the business or are in charge of the business are the ones who normally make aims. They may decide that their business should be making more profit so they pass it down to the managers who would look at it and perhaps add more detail to it, and as aims are passed down from person to person they become more detailed and complex, thus being objectives. There are a numerous reason as to why a business should set itself aims and objective;, the most obvious one would be that aims and objectives sets a goal for the business and gives some a target to work for, for many businesses this is a good source of motivation. Aims and objectives can also help a business realise their progress because aims and objective provide a backdrop for achievement in which a business can compare their current or previous progress with their aims or objective and calculate what is required to be done in order to meet those targets they have set for themselves. A controversial use of aims and objectives is to use them as a publicity device, in unit one, I had to investigate Tesco as a business and what I found was that Tesco had use their objectives as a publicity device by having economical objectives such as ‘reduce carbon footprints to gain good publicity from the media and their customers. Nevertheless, businesses have to be careful how they use or establish their aims and objectives because if they set objectives for their employees which are not applicable or achievable for the business then the business could face some pitfalls. The employees may feel under-pressure/ stressful and could de-motivate them which would evidently lead to a low productivity rate and could in some circumstances affect the businesss income. S.M.A.R.T Targets SMART targets or sometimes called SMART Objectives, are considered to be a sub-division of objectives, SMART targets are a method to ensure that the objectives which are set by a company are actually achievable by the business and the employees; it is a method of measuring the credibility of an objective which has been set. SMART is an acronym that stands for: Specific objectives, which are set, need to be specific and state exactly what the business wants to achieve. The reason an objective needs to be specific is because the manager/supervisor and the employee need to know what is expected of them and perhaps the time frame if that is applicable. Measurable most often, when objectives are set they need to be able to measure how much an individuals or a business have progressed towards those targets. Measuring a target is often very crucial towards the success of achieving that target because by measuring a target, businesses can estimate how much work is underway and how much additional effort needs to be exerted in order to achieve certain objectives. Achievable when objectives are set, one of the major issues, which a business must realise is that the target is achievable for the business. The business needs to think about; whether they have the required skills, recourses, investments, tools, human recourses etc. If the objectives are unrealistic or not achievable by the business then (as mentioned above) it can affect the productivity of employee and de-motivate them, and low productivity would surely affect the businesses activities and profits. Realistic or relevant objectives should also be relevant to the businesses aims. For example, if a business wants to increase market share, it would be irrelevant for them to set the target eliminate competitors products from the market; it would be very unrealistic. An objective needs to be relevant, they need to be something, which the business can take an action upon or have access to. Timely normally, when objectives are set, they have a timescale such as ‘increase the growth and the market share of the business by 2010. Setting timescale within an objective is beneficial as it gives a business a deadline as t when the objective needs to be achieved by, so the business can move onto their other objectives, which needs to be completed towards their aims. Aims for my business Just like any other modern businesses, my business needs to have aims and objectives, which it should be able to accomplish. Setting aims and objectives will help determine investors as well as myself the main goals of my business, and along the way, it could also help my business spot the potential target market hic hi should aim my business at in order to achieve some of businesss targets. ‘Minimise costs and increase potential profit. One of the major aims of my business would be to minimise the costs of the business, which goes into the production of the products (i.e. music albums and singles) and therefore must be kept at a minimum range. The reason behind this is that, if I were to start the business as a sole trader, there would be a limited amount of investments, which I could have access to and since my business is a record label there arent any need of purchasing any kind of stock or manufacturing materials in the sense of hard labour. As a newly set up business, it would be most advantageous to reduce the cost of the business to reduce the chances of getting into a cash flow problem such as over-budgeting or not having enough sales of the product where the costs would out-weigh the profit. It is because of this issue that leads to many businesses failing within the first year because they run into cash flow problem such as these; however, a good cash f low analysis should be able to determine any issue such as these that may arise. As well as reducing costs, my business also needs to be considering maximising its profits because without profit there will be no business to operate. Maximising profit is a necessity for any business, because it is what influences/motivates their day-to-day operations and their employees, without profit a business would not have the funding to employ employees or rent premises or other necessities. Furthermore, another crucial reason for a good profit for a business is that if a business is backed-up by inventors then the business (Owner) needs to prove to the investors that the business is worthwhile investing in because if the business starts to show a decline in profits then the investors are going to be the first ones who will back-out from the investments because they will not to make a loss themselves. As a summary, if there is no profit, there is no business. In my businesss quest to maximise profit; there could be a number of challenges/issues that could affect my business achieving the aim of ‘Minimise costs and increase potential profit, and the following explains; One of the most significant issues that my record label business would have to deal with is the recession, which was caused by the financial crisis during the year 2007 and the year 2009. The financial crisis was the reduction in the availability of loans (credit) and to some extent; tightening of the condition required to obtain a loan from the banks, this evolved into the interest rates being incredibly high. The definite caused behind the credit crisis is highly doubtable, however, one reason might be that UK bought many mortgage debts from the U.S. (this might have been directly or indirectly) therefore when U.S. mortgage default rose, preponderance of the UK banks lost money. Because interest rates rose dramatically, many individuals in the population had to pay more for their loans and mortgages, which meant that individuals and many businesses had less disposable cash to spare and consequently, many businesses found themselves being either bankrupt or making employees redundan t to prevent bankruptcy. The reason why I believe that the recession may affect my business is because many individuals are un-employed, which means that they may be on some sort of limited income (either through council or jobseekers allowance). Ultimately, this would mean that many individuals would have less disposable income to spend on CDs and DVDs for personal entertainment and if my business is not selling many products, it will be in a high risk of having very high costs that could out-number the total sales of the business. This could put my business in a potential risk of being bankrupt, as you can see from fig.1, it is estimated that the recession will only get worse. In contrast, the recession may not be disastrously bad for my business. The reason behind this would be that because of the recession more people would be un-employed and have a whole lot of spare time on their hands as less people would be working nine to five shifts, this would mean that individuals would be looking for activities to pass their time. This could mean that people will be more reliant upon entrainment such as the cinemas, movies, theatre, music etc. This could potentially excel my business because more individuals would be interested and looking to escape from reality through the financial crisis, similarly to people who went through the Great Depression in the United States during 1929, which saw the rise of movie sales. To conclude, the recession is something that is known as an external factor, which no business has a control over. The recession could have a big impact on my business; however this factor could prove to be advantageous for my business as mentioned earlier, there are a lot more people with more spare time on their hands, and as a result they will be looking for something to entertain themselves and if marketing is done correctly for the business, it will prove to be beneficial. As one can see above, regardless of the recession and the credit crisis that started in 2007, the sales of digital music increased dramatically through the years and the digital music industry is more profitable than ever in the US with industry profit of 2.9 Billion dollars, a 15% from 2004 which was only 0.4 billion profit being made. One of the major issues that my business will have to confront other than the recent financial crisis is the piracy of music through the internet. In essence, music piracy the violation of copyright infringement (copyright), this means the unauthorised use of materials that is covered by the copyright law. For electronic and audio-visual media, this is normally referred to as piracy. Piracy is a factor that could have the biggest impact at my businesss aim to ‘Minimise costs and increase potential profit. As one can see in the article opposite, the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) has predicted that music piracy has risen by thirty-six percent, which has cost the UK music industry twenty-six million pounds, which is a tremendous amount of load-sum. Music piracy is a factor which could directly affect my business because if my business released a single which was popular (Music hit) then the probability is that a lot of customers will be reluctant to purchase the single or the album in order to save money and they would perhaps download the product through an illegal download website or through the use of torrents (which is a peer-to-peer download service provided free from the internet). This is the most likely event to occur because as mentioned previously, the recession has left a lot of people un-employed which means that they may have a very low inco me and have limited amount of disposable cash to spend on entertainment. Because a lot of my businesss target consumers will be getting my product (music) through the internet without pay for it, this could result in my business have a major decline in profit because although the products my business offer may be very popular amongst the target consumers but because they are not paying for the goods my business will have no way in which they can financially benefit from. Many of the bi names in the record label business like ‘Universal Music or the ‘Sony BMG group do tend to copyright the CDs and DVDs that they manufacture and distribute, however, recent technological development has given an regular computer user to copy content from these copyrighted disks (using free software from the internet) from a single click of a button, and if that individual uploads the content of the disk to the internet then the content of that disk will be exposed to thousands if not millio ns of users on the internet which is why the modern music industry is suffering from million of pounds and dollars of damage from piracy and it is very unfortunate for my business as there is no method to battle the rising issue of music piracy because if my businesss products were copyrighted, many consumers or users will be able to find a way to copy content. In addition, copyrighting thousands of disks would prove to be a very costly task and evidently, this will prevent my business in achieving my aim to ‘Minimise costs and increase potential profit. However, not all is tenebrous, my business could still prevail if it turned to a more digitals means to provide the products to the customers, such means could be; having free web player on the businesss website to play the hit singles; free selected music downloads of popular songs; and most importantly selling products through the internet. Most of these solutions would eliminate the cost of producing CDs because a lot of teenagers nowadays are using things like their mobile phones, mp3 players and devices such as the iPod for playback of their music. If the popular products of my business (songs) are being provided free from the companys own website, then the business will have more exposure from the public, which, in the end, could work out to be beneficial. As the businesss website generates more viewers, the chances are internet companies like Google; YouTube; Amazon etc. who will want to advertise their services on my businesss website, which the business could generate some i ncome from as well as gaining public interest and recognition as business. Music piracy most definitely will affect my business and the corporate aim to ‘Minimise costs and maximise potential profit. Internet nowadays is available to almost every house, office and schools/college in the country that millions of people have access too, and the internet is too big to have control over. Nevertheless, good marketing and internet advertisement may fill in the lacunae of profit that may be lost due to music piracy. ‘Increase/attain good public relations with the local community and customers. In my opinion, good public relations with customers should be an imperative aim for abounding businesses. After all, businesses depend on their customers satisfaction and support by which if they did not have good relationship with customers then it will be highly likely that the business will not be able to retain their customers. This issue could lead to a decline in their profit margins or worse gain an incredible amount of bad publicity or a bad reputation as a whole. A record label is not a publicly noticeable business because a record labels product is what gains notoriety as publicity rather than a business as coherent whole. This is because customers are mainly attracted to the stars and the music they make rather than the service that provides them the service. This can be beneficial or a drawback, consider which way one looks at it. From my personal perspective, it is a benefit because it means that my business will not be in the public eye and will not attract major interest if my business were have an issue, this could be a number of things like mistakes (which a lot of businesses make) or redundancy of a major band or artist etc. So in order to gain good public relations with the local community and customers will be a very laborious task to conduct. Nevertheless, with dubious tasks, there are always strategies, and my main strategy to in achieve this aim to ‘Increase/attain good public relations with the local community and customers, will be to organise youth activities and perhaps cultural events, the next page will explain this. As one can see in 4 (Next page), an extract from BBC news website, the level of youth crime has increased dramatically over the past decade in the United Kingdom. Teenage knife crime has increased so much that law enforcements had to enforce harsh laws upon teenage delinquents in order to keep crime at a minimum. The articles below states that boys from the age of eleven to eighteen are likely the ones to be carrying knifes, and are the most likely culprits in the rise of such crimes. The article also states that most of these young offenders have been; excluded, dropped out of school or have already had been given time to serve under law custody. So ultimately, these are the age groups which are been targeted by the law to tackle such crimes. How does this issue help my business to achieve good customer relationship one may wonder? Well to start with, teens that have been expelled, excluded, dropped out etc. from school have nothing to do other than wonder around with friends on the streets and cause trouble to the society and the individuals in the local community. This leads me to believe that, organising local youth music activities and providing creative services such as recording facilities and musical guidance for youths free of charge may be a very beneficial factor not only for my business but also to the local community. Having to organise such events for young people will be very beneficial to a majority of people youths, local community and my business. This is because firstly, by providing youths will free services and activities will encourage them to stay off the streets and be passionate and involved in something creative for their time, and secondly, by having lees teens on the streets in the local community will prevent crime and hopefully reduce the crime rate locally, so older generation who may be intimidated by teens will feel much more safer. Personally, I believe that teens only resort to crime as a recreational activity as well as to gain attention to themselves; this is only an opinion of course. However, by giving teens, facilities to be in and express themselves artistically through music may help to make a productive use of their time; also, it could be a place where teens can get attention that they desire from other like friends, other social groups or even the community. Knife sentencing not effective A selection of knives found by police The study found young people were living in constant fear of attack Longer jail terms are not an effective way of persuading teenagers to stop carrying knives, research suggests. Pentonville Prison governor Nicola Marfleet interviewed 14 to 17-year-olds who had either been excluded from school or were serving time in custody. She found most believed tough sentences were only meant to scare them, and they were more likely to be tagged. The Home Office said the government was using a combination of deterrence and education to tackle the problem. Rival gangs The study found that some boys were carrying knives from the age of 11. Ms Marfleet concluded that knife-crime prevention work must be targeted at this age group in order to be effective. She interviewed about 24 boys in focus groups at pupil referral units in Hackney and Haringey, north London, and four boys one-to-one at Feltham Young Offender Institution in west London Possession of a knife carries a maximum jail term of four years, but most of the teenagers did not believe they would receive such a harsh punishment. Two of those interviewed said that regardless of the possible penalty, they would not stop carrying a knife because they needed one for protection. Almost all of the teenagers said they could not rely on par Business Plan for Record Label Business Plan for Record Label Business Planning Introduction to unit eight coursework In this unit, I have the opportunity to structure a business plan for a business proposal, which I will have the opportunity to create. For this segment of the assignment, I will clarify the main activities of the business, in addition to its aims and objectives. The assignment will also be focusing on the marketing and financial planning of my chosen business, notwithstanding, the operations and financial planning of the proposed business proposal. At the end of it all, I will be evaluating my business and its viability. However, to start a business I will need a business plan. A business plan is essentially a plan of a business that is to be set up; this is usually a written piece of statement about the business (think of it as a blueprint). This is a useful document to have because; firstly, it outlines the business itself and outlines what the business is essentially about, and secondly, it allows the owner/manager of the business to work towards the success of the business by spotting and avoiding failures. In general, a business plan will have the following statements; what the business is all about (i.e. the nature of the business), the aims and objectives of the business (What they hope to achieve and expect in the future) and how the individual plans and will o about creating the business. This can be illustrated in a majority of ways however; a financial planning of the first six months or perhaps even a year would be ideal or information about how the investments are to be raised for the business. A business plan is a very indispensable piece of document to have if someone is considering starting their own business, this is because a business plan outlines/predicts what the business will be like after setting up that gives a clear understanding of how the aims and objective are to be obtained as well as defining them. Furthermore, a business plan will also help to plot any pitfall along the way, i.e. a detailed cash flow of a businesss first six months will be able to suggest if the business will have a higher cost when compared with the profit they make, even before the business has started, and this can prevent major loss of profitability. Not only does a business plan outlines and spots major flaws in the business, but many businesses and entrepreneurs use it as a source of motivation; a backdrop to compare their current performance against. Further adding more, a business plan would be beneficial to establish or to re-evaluate the businesss competitive position within the market place by conducting a thorough analysis of the competition. This would involve finding out the strengths and weaknesses of the competition and how the business can be taken advantage of. In conclusion, as mentioned above, a business plan is important for a business because it helps to clarify the vision of the business and decide whether to forge ahead with the idea. Without a business plan, it would be very difficult to convince external investors to invest the business. Not only that, a business plan will also help the business determine their target market that they want to aim their product at, which is always useful to know. The Business Proposal For my chosen business proposal, I have decided to create a music label, and have named it P.K. Media. Generally, the term â€Å"Record label† is something that is associated with the music industry. A Record label is a brand and a trademark, which is associated with the procedure of marketing and distributing musical recordings and music videos of their signed artists. A record label is also the company that manages the artists/bands and coordinates, manufactures, promotes and distributes their productions i.e. music/videos. Record labels are also responsible for the enforcement of copyright protection on the media that they distribute such as CDs and DVDs, so that their content (such as music), cannot be copied and sold as pirated versions of their work to the customers by other individuals. The business I intend to propose will primarily focus on the production and the promotion of the music of its artists/bands in the local area, the Midlands. The reason for this is that there is a much lower cost of setting up a music label for the local area as there are less promotional activities which the label would have to finance and carry out, thus reducing the start up cost of the business compared to if it was a nationwide business. The main services/products that P.K. Media will provide to its consumers and music acts are as follow: * Music sold using online services such as iTunes and the business website. Some music will be available for free download as a promotional activity. * Provide live performances by its artists and bands as a secondary service. o Commissions from artist will be charged on this, depending the amount of tickets sold by the act. * Offer promotional services for unsigned artist and band acts and charge commission depending on their popularity, music sold, the amount of record deal they receive etc. o Free promotional services will also be available for unsigned artists on the businesss website for uploading their work to display to the internet audiences. o Manufacturing CDs and DVDs will also be available for artists wishing to use for promotional use, however it is highly likely that there will be a fixed cost for this service. * Record deals will be available for artists; majority of the aforementioned services will available with this, as the business will undertake the sole responsibility for the promotion, distribution, production and the sales of the artist/bands music signed to P.K. Media. * Recording facilities and personnel will be available to customers who wish to record their own music that will be mixed by a professional studio engineer. Customers will be charged on an hourly basis or perhaps special offers upon depending upon how much music they wish to record. Live performance are a good way of raising additional profit other than selling CDs because with live performances, My business can charge commission from the local pubs/bars to supply the live performances with beverages, as a result the pubs and bars will also get some promotion of their products and services which will benefit their businesses as well. Furthermore, the business will also be able to make profit through selling tickets for the live performances. The location of this business will be varied and may not be based in a single location, the reason being that if my business is organising the performances, then it will have to be located at the performances to manage the bands and other aspects of the performance i.e. selling the tickets. However, P.K. Media will need facilities to record the band/artists music and venues for live performances, for this it will be a necessity to have access to a recording studio and to be able to rent a venue in the local area. Having acce ss to a studio can be done in a number of ways such as renting a recording studio in the local area or purchasing the equipment and setting up the recording studio at home or other location, such as a youth centre or other rented location like flats or houses. The cost of the musical equipment such as; mixing boards, computers, mics, instruments, audio processing hardware and sound proofing the location can add up to a significant amount and as a new business the cost of starting up should be kept at a minimum. Ultimately, a more convenient option would be to rent a recording studio, which is pre-provided with all the equipment needed (as described above). Another issue which may arise would be that if my business had to purchase the musical equipment I would have to purchase the low-end equipment as the high-end (studio quality) equipment can cost thousands and upwards and as a small independent music label there would be limitations for the finance. In addition, the low-end equipm ent could also reduce the quality of the recording, and as a record label that will not be beneficial for the artists because consumers would not want to purchase bad quality products especially if the product is aimed at entertainment purposes. Imagine listening to ones favourite song with hissing noisiest, crackle and static noises, it would not be pleasant to listen to which is why quality of the audio is a substantial element of a record label. Reason for choice of business? The idea of a record label interested me because; with a record label, there is no need to purchase stock; it is a service-based business, which means that a record label does not have to manufacture or purchase anything other than to sign the artist and record CDs. A record label is basically, the intermediate service between audiences/customers and the artist. In essence, while the artist makes the product, the record label simply delivers it to the customers, almost like an intermediary. Another thing which seemed interesting is that the possibility of a sole ownership of the business. Since a record label is a service-based business, it is not necessary to have partners (as with any other businesses). It can be set-up with a moderately low cost, which mean that there is no need to invite external investors to invest in the business and hold a percentage of shares in the business, leaving room for more creative control over the business. Personal interest is another factor that may have influenced my choice to pick a record label for a business proposal. Unqualified amateur musician myself, I find that music is the greatest past time for all ages which is why I liked the idea of providing people with good quality of music to listen to which is easily accessible and is at moderately low price. Overall, I believe that a record label should be a viable business proposal for this assignment because like many businesses it requires marketing strategies, target consumers and a product. A further consideration is that almost everyone listens to music (to some extent) whether it is purchased from store or downloaded from the web and it is because of this that music is considered as one of the major immersed art form, which hints of a profitable market sector. What are Aims and Objectives? It is imperative for a business to have a basic requirement and have clear aims and objectives in order to prosper and move forward in their field. Aims and objectives are frequently used together to set/represent a certain achievement which is why they can often be mistaken to having similar meaning, however, they have a significant different to each other. Aims, to summarise, are essentially a brief statement, which majority of the time are short sentences; for instance, ‘maximise profit or ‘increase customer growth. Aims are most commonly use to identify the overall target of a business, states their intentions, and what they hope to achieve in the future of the business. On a different note, objectives are more complex and ‘to the point than aims. Objectives, unlike aims, are more detailed and can be longer depending on the objective itself. For example, if a company wanted to increase their market, they could set themselves and objective of ‘increase employee productivity by 20%, within in the next six months. As you can see, an objective is more complex, and more detailed. Furthermore, the detail in objectives tends to be numerical details such as specific dates, time frame, percentages etc. This is because objectives are a follow-up of aims. An objective is set merely set to accomplish or to achieve an aim. To illustrate, if a businesss aim is to ‘maximise profit, then they may decide to set themselves the objective of ‘increase sales from 15.7% to 20%, within six months period. By increasing the sales of the business from 15.7% to 20%, a business can ensure that they are retaining their customers and increasing their profi t within six months. However, some businesses may decide to have a sub-objective to this which could be something like ‘increase employee productivity by 2% in 30 days, to ensure that the business is getting the most out of their employees. This also proves the fact that individuals who either own the business or are in charge of the business are the ones who normally make aims. They may decide that their business should be making more profit so they pass it down to the managers who would look at it and perhaps add more detail to it, and as aims are passed down from person to person they become more detailed and complex, thus being objectives. There are a numerous reason as to why a business should set itself aims and objective;, the most obvious one would be that aims and objectives sets a goal for the business and gives some a target to work for, for many businesses this is a good source of motivation. Aims and objectives can also help a business realise their progress because aims and objective provide a backdrop for achievement in which a business can compare their current or previous progress with their aims or objective and calculate what is required to be done in order to meet those targets they have set for themselves. A controversial use of aims and objectives is to use them as a publicity device, in unit one, I had to investigate Tesco as a business and what I found was that Tesco had use their objectives as a publicity device by having economical objectives such as ‘reduce carbon footprints to gain good publicity from the media and their customers. Nevertheless, businesses have to be careful how they use or establish their aims and objectives because if they set objectives for their employees which are not applicable or achievable for the business then the business could face some pitfalls. The employees may feel under-pressure/ stressful and could de-motivate them which would evidently lead to a low productivity rate and could in some circumstances affect the businesss income. S.M.A.R.T Targets SMART targets or sometimes called SMART Objectives, are considered to be a sub-division of objectives, SMART targets are a method to ensure that the objectives which are set by a company are actually achievable by the business and the employees; it is a method of measuring the credibility of an objective which has been set. SMART is an acronym that stands for: Specific objectives, which are set, need to be specific and state exactly what the business wants to achieve. The reason an objective needs to be specific is because the manager/supervisor and the employee need to know what is expected of them and perhaps the time frame if that is applicable. Measurable most often, when objectives are set they need to be able to measure how much an individuals or a business have progressed towards those targets. Measuring a target is often very crucial towards the success of achieving that target because by measuring a target, businesses can estimate how much work is underway and how much additional effort needs to be exerted in order to achieve certain objectives. Achievable when objectives are set, one of the major issues, which a business must realise is that the target is achievable for the business. The business needs to think about; whether they have the required skills, recourses, investments, tools, human recourses etc. If the objectives are unrealistic or not achievable by the business then (as mentioned above) it can affect the productivity of employee and de-motivate them, and low productivity would surely affect the businesses activities and profits. Realistic or relevant objectives should also be relevant to the businesses aims. For example, if a business wants to increase market share, it would be irrelevant for them to set the target eliminate competitors products from the market; it would be very unrealistic. An objective needs to be relevant, they need to be something, which the business can take an action upon or have access to. Timely normally, when objectives are set, they have a timescale such as ‘increase the growth and the market share of the business by 2010. Setting timescale within an objective is beneficial as it gives a business a deadline as t when the objective needs to be achieved by, so the business can move onto their other objectives, which needs to be completed towards their aims. Aims for my business Just like any other modern businesses, my business needs to have aims and objectives, which it should be able to accomplish. Setting aims and objectives will help determine investors as well as myself the main goals of my business, and along the way, it could also help my business spot the potential target market hic hi should aim my business at in order to achieve some of businesss targets. ‘Minimise costs and increase potential profit. One of the major aims of my business would be to minimise the costs of the business, which goes into the production of the products (i.e. music albums and singles) and therefore must be kept at a minimum range. The reason behind this is that, if I were to start the business as a sole trader, there would be a limited amount of investments, which I could have access to and since my business is a record label there arent any need of purchasing any kind of stock or manufacturing materials in the sense of hard labour. As a newly set up business, it would be most advantageous to reduce the cost of the business to reduce the chances of getting into a cash flow problem such as over-budgeting or not having enough sales of the product where the costs would out-weigh the profit. It is because of this issue that leads to many businesses failing within the first year because they run into cash flow problem such as these; however, a good cash f low analysis should be able to determine any issue such as these that may arise. As well as reducing costs, my business also needs to be considering maximising its profits because without profit there will be no business to operate. Maximising profit is a necessity for any business, because it is what influences/motivates their day-to-day operations and their employees, without profit a business would not have the funding to employ employees or rent premises or other necessities. Furthermore, another crucial reason for a good profit for a business is that if a business is backed-up by inventors then the business (Owner) needs to prove to the investors that the business is worthwhile investing in because if the business starts to show a decline in profits then the investors are going to be the first ones who will back-out from the investments because they will not to make a loss themselves. As a summary, if there is no profit, there is no business. In my businesss quest to maximise profit; there could be a number of challenges/issues that could affect my business achieving the aim of ‘Minimise costs and increase potential profit, and the following explains; One of the most significant issues that my record label business would have to deal with is the recession, which was caused by the financial crisis during the year 2007 and the year 2009. The financial crisis was the reduction in the availability of loans (credit) and to some extent; tightening of the condition required to obtain a loan from the banks, this evolved into the interest rates being incredibly high. The definite caused behind the credit crisis is highly doubtable, however, one reason might be that UK bought many mortgage debts from the U.S. (this might have been directly or indirectly) therefore when U.S. mortgage default rose, preponderance of the UK banks lost money. Because interest rates rose dramatically, many individuals in the population had to pay more for their loans and mortgages, which meant that individuals and many businesses had less disposable cash to spare and consequently, many businesses found themselves being either bankrupt or making employees redundan t to prevent bankruptcy. The reason why I believe that the recession may affect my business is because many individuals are un-employed, which means that they may be on some sort of limited income (either through council or jobseekers allowance). Ultimately, this would mean that many individuals would have less disposable income to spend on CDs and DVDs for personal entertainment and if my business is not selling many products, it will be in a high risk of having very high costs that could out-number the total sales of the business. This could put my business in a potential risk of being bankrupt, as you can see from fig.1, it is estimated that the recession will only get worse. In contrast, the recession may not be disastrously bad for my business. The reason behind this would be that because of the recession more people would be un-employed and have a whole lot of spare time on their hands as less people would be working nine to five shifts, this would mean that individuals would be looking for activities to pass their time. This could mean that people will be more reliant upon entrainment such as the cinemas, movies, theatre, music etc. This could potentially excel my business because more individuals would be interested and looking to escape from reality through the financial crisis, similarly to people who went through the Great Depression in the United States during 1929, which saw the rise of movie sales. To conclude, the recession is something that is known as an external factor, which no business has a control over. The recession could have a big impact on my business; however this factor could prove to be advantageous for my business as mentioned earlier, there are a lot more people with more spare time on their hands, and as a result they will be looking for something to entertain themselves and if marketing is done correctly for the business, it will prove to be beneficial. As one can see above, regardless of the recession and the credit crisis that started in 2007, the sales of digital music increased dramatically through the years and the digital music industry is more profitable than ever in the US with industry profit of 2.9 Billion dollars, a 15% from 2004 which was only 0.4 billion profit being made. One of the major issues that my business will have to confront other than the recent financial crisis is the piracy of music through the internet. In essence, music piracy the violation of copyright infringement (copyright), this means the unauthorised use of materials that is covered by the copyright law. For electronic and audio-visual media, this is normally referred to as piracy. Piracy is a factor that could have the biggest impact at my businesss aim to ‘Minimise costs and increase potential profit. As one can see in the article opposite, the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) has predicted that music piracy has risen by thirty-six percent, which has cost the UK music industry twenty-six million pounds, which is a tremendous amount of load-sum. Music piracy is a factor which could directly affect my business because if my business released a single which was popular (Music hit) then the probability is that a lot of customers will be reluctant to purchase the single or the album in order to save money and they would perhaps download the product through an illegal download website or through the use of torrents (which is a peer-to-peer download service provided free from the internet). This is the most likely event to occur because as mentioned previously, the recession has left a lot of people un-employed which means that they may have a very low inco me and have limited amount of disposable cash to spend on entertainment. Because a lot of my businesss target consumers will be getting my product (music) through the internet without pay for it, this could result in my business have a major decline in profit because although the products my business offer may be very popular amongst the target consumers but because they are not paying for the goods my business will have no way in which they can financially benefit from. Many of the bi names in the record label business like ‘Universal Music or the ‘Sony BMG group do tend to copyright the CDs and DVDs that they manufacture and distribute, however, recent technological development has given an regular computer user to copy content from these copyrighted disks (using free software from the internet) from a single click of a button, and if that individual uploads the content of the disk to the internet then the content of that disk will be exposed to thousands if not millio ns of users on the internet which is why the modern music industry is suffering from million of pounds and dollars of damage from piracy and it is very unfortunate for my business as there is no method to battle the rising issue of music piracy because if my businesss products were copyrighted, many consumers or users will be able to find a way to copy content. In addition, copyrighting thousands of disks would prove to be a very costly task and evidently, this will prevent my business in achieving my aim to ‘Minimise costs and increase potential profit. However, not all is tenebrous, my business could still prevail if it turned to a more digitals means to provide the products to the customers, such means could be; having free web player on the businesss website to play the hit singles; free selected music downloads of popular songs; and most importantly selling products through the internet. Most of these solutions would eliminate the cost of producing CDs because a lot of teenagers nowadays are using things like their mobile phones, mp3 players and devices such as the iPod for playback of their music. If the popular products of my business (songs) are being provided free from the companys own website, then the business will have more exposure from the public, which, in the end, could work out to be beneficial. As the businesss website generates more viewers, the chances are internet companies like Google; YouTube; Amazon etc. who will want to advertise their services on my businesss website, which the business could generate some i ncome from as well as gaining public interest and recognition as business. Music piracy most definitely will affect my business and the corporate aim to ‘Minimise costs and maximise potential profit. Internet nowadays is available to almost every house, office and schools/college in the country that millions of people have access too, and the internet is too big to have control over. Nevertheless, good marketing and internet advertisement may fill in the lacunae of profit that may be lost due to music piracy. ‘Increase/attain good public relations with the local community and customers. In my opinion, good public relations with customers should be an imperative aim for abounding businesses. After all, businesses depend on their customers satisfaction and support by which if they did not have good relationship with customers then it will be highly likely that the business will not be able to retain their customers. This issue could lead to a decline in their profit margins or worse gain an incredible amount of bad publicity or a bad reputation as a whole. A record label is not a publicly noticeable business because a record labels product is what gains notoriety as publicity rather than a business as coherent whole. This is because customers are mainly attracted to the stars and the music they make rather than the service that provides them the service. This can be beneficial or a drawback, consider which way one looks at it. From my personal perspective, it is a benefit because it means that my business will not be in the public eye and will not attract major interest if my business were have an issue, this could be a number of things like mistakes (which a lot of businesses make) or redundancy of a major band or artist etc. So in order to gain good public relations with the local community and customers will be a very laborious task to conduct. Nevertheless, with dubious tasks, there are always strategies, and my main strategy to in achieve this aim to ‘Increase/attain good public relations with the local community and customers, will be to organise youth activities and perhaps cultural events, the next page will explain this. As one can see in 4 (Next page), an extract from BBC news website, the level of youth crime has increased dramatically over the past decade in the United Kingdom. Teenage knife crime has increased so much that law enforcements had to enforce harsh laws upon teenage delinquents in order to keep crime at a minimum. The articles below states that boys from the age of eleven to eighteen are likely the ones to be carrying knifes, and are the most likely culprits in the rise of such crimes. The article also states that most of these young offenders have been; excluded, dropped out of school or have already had been given time to serve under law custody. So ultimately, these are the age groups which are been targeted by the law to tackle such crimes. How does this issue help my business to achieve good customer relationship one may wonder? Well to start with, teens that have been expelled, excluded, dropped out etc. from school have nothing to do other than wonder around with friends on the streets and cause trouble to the society and the individuals in the local community. This leads me to believe that, organising local youth music activities and providing creative services such as recording facilities and musical guidance for youths free of charge may be a very beneficial factor not only for my business but also to the local community. Having to organise such events for young people will be very beneficial to a majority of people youths, local community and my business. This is because firstly, by providing youths will free services and activities will encourage them to stay off the streets and be passionate and involved in something creative for their time, and secondly, by having lees teens on the streets in the local community will prevent crime and hopefully reduce the crime rate locally, so older generation who may be intimidated by teens will feel much more safer. Personally, I believe that teens only resort to crime as a recreational activity as well as to gain attention to themselves; this is only an opinion of course. However, by giving teens, facilities to be in and express themselves artistically through music may help to make a productive use of their time; also, it could be a place where teens can get attention that they desire from other like friends, other social groups or even the community. Knife sentencing not effective A selection of knives found by police The study found young people were living in constant fear of attack Longer jail terms are not an effective way of persuading teenagers to stop carrying knives, research suggests. Pentonville Prison governor Nicola Marfleet interviewed 14 to 17-year-olds who had either been excluded from school or were serving time in custody. She found most believed tough sentences were only meant to scare them, and they were more likely to be tagged. The Home Office said the government was using a combination of deterrence and education to tackle the problem. Rival gangs The study found that some boys were carrying knives from the age of 11. Ms Marfleet concluded that knife-crime prevention work must be targeted at this age group in order to be effective. She interviewed about 24 boys in focus groups at pupil referral units in Hackney and Haringey, north London, and four boys one-to-one at Feltham Young Offender Institution in west London Possession of a knife carries a maximum jail term of four years, but most of the teenagers did not believe they would receive such a harsh punishment. Two of those interviewed said that regardless of the possible penalty, they would not stop carrying a knife because they needed one for protection. Almost all of the teenagers said they could not rely on par

Mexico 1940-82: Higher Priority on Political Stability and Economic Growth than on Social Change :: Mexican History Politics Economics Essays

Mexico 1940-82: Higher Priority on Political Stability and Economic Growth than on Social Change Mexico’s political and economic stability from 1940-1982 can be well understood by looking at one of Sergio’s televisions. In Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman introduces the reader to Sergio Espinoza, a businessman who once employed some 700 workers to produce televisions, stereos and sound systems. His televisions’ high production costs, low quality, high prices and inaccessibility to the poor sketch a rough microcosm of the period from 1940-1982 by laying bare the inefficiencies of import substitution industrialization and the vast inequalities in Mexico. From 1940-82, economic growth and stability came at the expense of social justice and political pluralism. In particular, the Mexican campesinos, the backbone of the revolutionary Zapatista uprising, suffered from the economic development model and from the PRI’s ability to muzzle dissent. The basic model employed after Cardenas to promote growth in the Mexican economy was Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI), whereby Mexico attempted to build domestic industry and a domestic market. The strategy quickly started paying dividends, and the â€Å"import-substitution policies of the Mexican state were successful in generating rapid and sustained economic growth† (Sharpe 28). ISI ushered in the â€Å"Mexican Miracle† of economic growth; the Mexican growth hovered around 6% annually for some thirty years (Hellman 1). The government created incentives for investment and lowered taxation to spur domestic investment. Despite the strong economic indicators, the spoils of growth were not shared by many. Those groups who bled and died from 1910-1917 for a more just and equitable Mexico were subsequently denied the fruits of economic growth and transparent political representation. Efforts to accelerate growth since the mid 1930s â€Å"have tended to produce- or at least, to reinforce- a highly inequitable pattern of income distribution† (Hansen 71). According to Roger Hansen, the author of The Politics of Mexican Development, â€Å"no other Latin American political system has provided â€Å"more rewards for its new industrial and commercial agricultural elites† (87) since 1940 and â€Å"in no other major Latin American country has less been done directly by the government for the bottom quarter of society† (87). Mexico’s development created a middle class and brought a certain measure of industrialization but further disenfranchised the poor. Mexico’s leaders implemented a development policy which violated the ideals of the revolution by shirking the responsibilities of a social democracy. In his essay â€Å"Guatemalan Politics: The Popular Struggle for Democracy,† Garry H.

Nuclear Waste Disposal Essay -- Radiation Pollution Papers

Nuclear Waste Disposal As the millenium approaches, we are faced with the problems created by our technological advances. Everyday we are forced to see the results, from acid rain to polluted beaches. But there is one problem in particular that will probably out-live our generation and the generation which has created it. If properly contained and monitored, it has little affect on us and our environment. However, once it is free of it's containment, it is a destructive and deadly force. This problem is nuclear waste. Thirty thousand metric tons of spent fuel rods from power reactors and another 380,000 cubic meters of high level radioactive waste, have been produced in the United States since the beginning of the nuclear age. Presently, these fuel rods are stored at the nuclear reactors in water filled basins and accumulate at the rate of six tons per day (Whipple, 1996). As the populataion increases, so does the demand for electricity. If we continue relying on nuclear power to provide our electricity, we will continue producing more and more nuclear waste. Greater use of nuclear power and volumes of waste mean a greater chance of accidental release of radiation into the environment. Radiation How it is produced How does radiation in our environment affect us? In order to understand how radiation affects us, we first must understand how it is produced. Fission is the initial step. It is the splitting of uranium or plutonium atoms which produces radioactive "fission fragments" and "activation products" (Bertell, 1985). These products then ionize normal atoms, which leads to a sort of domino affect microscopically. This chain reaction can also cause activation products to be produced by causing chemicals in the air,... ... 1982. http://www.public.iastate.edu/smevela/policy.html. Glasstone, Samuel and Jordan, Walter H. (1980). Nuclear Power and It's Environmental Effects. LaGrange Pk., IL: American Nuclear Society. Liptkin, R. (1995). New Glass Could Store Unused Plutonium. Science News. 148 (23). pp374. Lipschutz, Ronnie D. (1980). Radioactive Waste: Politics, Technology, and Risk. Cambridge, Massachussesetts: Ballinger Publishing Company. Nadis, Steven. (1996). The Sub-Seabed Solution. The Atlantic Monthly. 278(4). pp28-30, 38. St. Joe Valley Greens. (1997). Nuclear Waste Transportation Map. http://users.michiana.org/greens/editorial/transpor.htm. Whipple, Chris G. (1996). Can Nuclear Waste Be Stored Safely at Yucca Mountain?. Scientific American. 274(6). 72-79. Wright, Richard T. (1989). Biology Through the Eyes of Faith. New York: Christian College Coalition.