The effects of Strategic marketing on Business performance Literature review

The impacts of Strategic advertising on Business execution - Literature survey Example In the current time, advertise has gotten profoundly serious. In this serious market, a procedure is expected to offer item or administration which will show improvement over the opposition. The promoting procedure must be executed by a legitimate technique. To make a showcasing system for business an organization should consider the accompanying elements. At the point when the market is appealing and the organization is holding a solid situation in that specific industry, at that point it must contribute the best assets for supporting the contribution. Be that as it may, in the event that the organization isn't in a decent position, at that point it must concentrate on fortifying the organization first. At the point when the market isn't unreasonably appealing and the organization is holding a solid situation in any industry, at that point the organization should offer viable deals and advertising exertion for making great benefit. Besides, in either situation where organization isn 't too solid then it ought to advance those contributions which will demonstrate generally gainful for business. Writing Review According to the investigation led by Jaakkola (2006), there is a solid association among advertise and monetary execution. Deals volume has direct impact on benefit. Singular coefficient contrasts from nation to nation. Four estimating sets, i.e., market and development direction, back to front, and outside in showcasing were utilized for evaluating promoting execution in scarcely any organizations. The ‘inside out capabilities’ have high impact on execution in the majority of the example nation he utilized aside from Hong Kong in light of the fact that the market structure and quality of rivalry are good with high market direction. The association among advertise direction and market execution is very low in Finland. This demonstrates advertise direction in Finland is terrible and high market direction of the business setting doesn't pay off. Where Finnish organizations are acceptable in making benefit from ‘inside out capabilities’, Austrian organizations are acceptable in changing over ‘outside in capabilities’ into great business execution. German organizations are acceptable into development direction and create benefit with it. Finnish organizations have a more uplifting viewpoint than others and they act in showcase situated way. They constantly consider clients and rivalry and thus the money related execution experiences it. The adequacy of vital promoting process in Finnish organizations is amazingly low. This alludes to solid spotlight on innovative item improvement as accentuation ought to be put more on immaterial advancement of procedures and capacities of organization. It shows that how ‘inside out capabilities’ is the individual build and have huge impact on upper hand advancement and supporting business execution. The advancement procedure emphatically identifies wit h advertise execution and upper hands, however its all out impact on budgetary execution is negative. The ‘outside in capabilities’ and advertising direction remember slight destructive result for business execution of an organization (Jaakkola, 2006). As indicated by the investigates done by Garland and Brooksbank (2008), the promoting procedure is very pervasive in organization if there should arise an occurrence of progressively far reaching circumstance. The higher performing firms place more significance to a comprehensive circumstance examination than the lower performing organizations. There are five sorts of circumstance concentrate to be specific purchaser, interior, commercial center, business condition and contender.

Why Is Africa So Poor Essays - World, Economy, Structure, Aid

Why Is Africa So Poor? Africa has consistently been poor. In spite of the fact that, for the vast majority of mankind's history, the entire world has been poor.It was distinctly in the eighteenth century with the mechanical and rural revolutionsthat Europe, particularly England, began to lift itself out of poverty.Unfortunately, while the remainder of the world was industrializing Africa was abandoned. There are numerous purposes behind this including: defilement, sickness, misuse, topography and religion. In this paper I will clarify how these variables influence Africa and make them so poor. Debasement is one of the greatest and most significant components that have caused Africa's overwhelming neediness. It is such an awful issue in light of the fact that the defilement is for the most part in the administration who control the entirety of the nations cash and recourses. A case of this is the Nigerian government. The previous president Goodluck Jonathan was supposedly given over $200million for the dubious $1.3 billion offer of OPL 245 oil field. This oil field was probably the biggest wellspring of salary in addition to the fact that Jonathan took a pay off none of the cash that he earnt from the deal went to the residents of Nigeria. This is only one of the numerous models that can be named in a large portion of the nations of Africa. A subsequent factor in that can be utilized to clarify Africa's neediness issue is on the grounds that Africa is inconceivably wealthy in normal assets it has been pulling in the voracious for a long time. This, thus, has prompted the land being involved by outcasts whose need was to abuse however much of the riches as could reasonably be expected, to be sent out back to their own nation. This thusly prompted struggle, both universal and ancestral, as different nations, groups and clans have battled for control of the rich common assets. What's more, where there is struggle, there is likewise crushing destitution. Another explanation that can be considered answerable for Africa's cash issue is all the illnesses. There are a ton of illnesses in Africa, one of the most notable being HIV-AIDS. I think this is a central motivation behind why is Africa so poor in light of the fact that these ailments are similarly as poisonous to the economy as they are the body. Neediness in any case will in general lead to sickness since individuals can't stand to take appropriate measures against it, and afterward the illness itself prompts more destitution in light of the failure to function also and the expense of clinical assistance. Taking everything into account

CP24 Clint Oram from SugarCRM Talks about Starting Running CRM Business

CP24 Clint Oram from SugarCRM Talks about Starting Running CRM Business Welcome to the 24th episode of our podcast with Clint Oram from SugarCRM!You can download the podcast to your computer or listen to it here on the blog. Click here to subscribe in iTunes.   INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi Guys. Today I have a sugar sweet guest with me. Clint, please introduce yourself, who are you and what do you do?Clint: Pleasure to be here today, my name is Clint Oram. I am a co-founder of SugarCRM and I run marketing here for the company.Martin: Great. Tell us a little bit about SugarCRM; what are you actually doing?Clint: SugarCRM is a customer relationship management company. We compete against Microsoft and Salesforce every day. We are the up-and-comer in the market place, disrupting the way companies and more importantly customer facing business professionals leverage CRM technology to build better relationships with their customers.Martin: Great. I mean, everybody knows that you need to convince the customers to buy with you so therefore you need some kind or CRM tools for that.Lets talk about the beginnings of SugarCRM. So lets go back like 9 or 10 years, what was it like? How did you feel when you started the company?Clint: Well, it has been more than 9 or 10 years, it has now been 13 years and going into 14 years, so it has been certainly a very exciting journey and a big part of my life now. As I look back in 2004, in January of 2004, a group of us that were working together at another CRM company well we saw the opportunity to build a different type of CRM company. Our vision all along has been that legacy customer relationship management software solutions have been very focused on helping managers manage their sales people, their customer service people and they havent actually been focused on helping customer facing professionals build a relationship with their customers. That is the irony of this CRM industry, it is called customer relationship management, but it is not called work force management. That was the opportunity that we saw, there was a lot of changes in the market place happening around subscription business models, around open source, around software as a service and we grabbed a hold of those business model shifts and turned them into a company that is focused on helping sellers sell and customer service agents deliver extraordinary customer service. That was our vision 13/14 years ago.Martin: When you moved from being an employee to starting your own company, how did you feel? After day one when you left the other company, how did you feel? Have you been afraid of what could happen? What was the feeling like? Tell us.Clint: That is an interesting journey in itself because you described it as gong from an employee to being owner, and I would describe the next step in there is to realize that you are an employee again because at the end of the day you always have a boss, and my boss is my customer. I dont have anywhere near as unilateral freedom to just do whatever I want to do because I have to make my customers successful. I have to make them happy, because if they arent happy and successful, they dont pay me money and I cant do payroll.But behind that journey and the thought process es there, I think the hardest part of starting a company was to have the courage to leave a good job. I was doing very well at my previous company, I had a great career path ahead of me, I had a lot of respect from my management team and so I was in a good spot. In fact as I told my family that I was getting ready to do this, I had some family members saying: That is awesome, that is great, starting your own thing, I am so proud of you. And I had some family members saying: You are crazy, why would you leave a great job and have no salary and take all that risk? So all those factored in there together, but I think probably the single hardest thing about getting Sugar started was finding that courage to go do it.Martin: Yes. I mean for example when I started the company, I was always thinking about what is the worst thing that could happen to me after like 6/12/24 months in the game. What was your thought process, because I know you had some kind of interesting first 12 months?Clint: Yes, for us the 3 of us that started the company together, there was John Roberts, Jacob Taylor and myself. And the 3 of us were all peers at a previous CRM company called Epiphany, and we all worked together on a day to day basis, and we are all married and 2 of us had young children. My son was 2 years old, Johns son was 2 years old, Jacobs wife was pregnant and so there was a lot of family commitments going on. But at the same time, all of our wives were working and so we had from a family perspective, each one of us had a guaranteed income from the perspective of our wives working. We had insurance, we could pay for insurance things like that through our wives. We made an agreement, we said we are giving ourselves one year, no salary expectations and at the end of 12 months, we will sit down and re-evaluate where we are at, but in that first year we are not going to worry about if we are making money or not, we are just going to focus on building an awesome idea and get things going.But to be honest, to be really frank here, it worked much faster that we every thought. We had a bit of a story book beginning; just kind of take you through 2004 which is the year that I will remember forever, it was in January of 2004, actually January 18, 2004, which is just one week from now, that John and I went out to lunch at a Thai restaurant and he threw out the idea about starting a CRM company and asked me if I was interested in working with it on it with him and I said: Yes, absolutely. We started shaping the idea and we knew we needed an architect, I am a developer myself but I am much more front end user experience developer, and we needed a core back end architect. So we went to Jacob who was one of our colleagues, a couple of months later after we had started shaping the idea and we recruited him on board and so it was in March that the 3 of us came together and at the end of March we pitched our idea to a VC, a venture capitalist that we knew   to see if she t hought it was interesting and she gave us some very positive feedback which we then learnt later all VCs give you very nice positive feedback, they all say that is a very interesting idea.Martin: If they dont invest then its not really what they say.Clint: True, but we took her positive words as complete affirmation that we are aboard and we quit our jobs based upon what she said and we went off and we started the company, and we ended up learning later that she was just saying nice words just because she knew us. That was kind of a funny point as we took that moment of Hey guys, you have a great idea, I think you should keep working on it and we   took that as a justification back to our wives and our family and said, Hey, a VC says we have got a great idea, so we are going to do it.It was in April 2004 that we started working full time on the idea; we had an alpha version of the product out in the market place in May. In June a different VC found us and became interested in us, an d gave us our first 2 million dollars in June of 2004. By August we had 10 employees, by October we had our first customer on board and by the end of the year we had done $250,000 at revenue, and that was from a launch in January where we said hey lets go do this, to December. At that point we had 20 employees, 2 million dollars in the bank and our first revenue on board. That was an exciting year, no doubt about it.Martin: Good. If I remember correctly, that you used a specific marketing tactic in order to attract customers. Can you explain this a little bit?Clint: Absolutely. So open source was a big thing in 2004, and if you were in the market in 2004 doing software, you remember some major market forces happening. This was, we were in the .com hangover. So the .com boom in 1997/8/9 generated a huge amount of venture capital investment into the software world. You had companies like pets.com which was awful, or you had Amazon which was a huge success, and Google which was a huge success. But out of that came the .com collapse in 2000 where a lot of these or so many of these good ideas were vaporized. And what you had was well funded start ups with sales people driving around in their BMWs showing up and selling dreams for 7 figures, for millions of dollars and other companies. There is a lot of frustration in that .com hangover, that 2000-2004 period of enterprise software companies selling air.The backlash, the response to that was companies wanted to have more confidence that software vendors were committed to their success. Out of that came subscription billing; you have got to earn the customers every year. Out of that came commercial open source which is where we focused, which was the whole idea of try before you buy. Also out of that was the starting of the idea of software as a service, that the vendor in many cases can run the software more efficiently than you can run it yourself.So these were all the ideas that started with it and we took advanta ge of all 3, but our focus was open source; it was building an community around us. And the core idea there was though a freemium model and building a community of enthusiastic and committed developers. We could take our ideas to market and gain traction in a completely new and different way. And we were just, well frankly extremely successful at it. We have become the leader in open source CRM.Our business model has shifted since then, we are not focused on open source the way we were in the past but it was a fantastic way to get us started back in 2004 because the market was looking for an open source CRM leader and we jumped on that opportunity before anybody else did and we out executed our competition.Martin: So awesome to hear that, Clint.BUSINESS MODEL OF SUGARCRMMartin: When I am looking at business models, one thing that I am always very much interested in is what is your sustainable competitive advantage over others? Why should customers use SugarCRM and what dimensions ar e you trying to be the best at?Clint: That is an excellent question there. Here is the thing that I have learned over 13 years; technology changes and you need to be taking advantage of the most modern technology all the time. For the first era of SugarCRM, our advantage was open source; we were giving away an incredibly robust piece of enterprise software that has outclassed our competition and we were ahead of the game out there.But as time moved forward, what we found was companies became less interested in open source, and also just became less interested in how the software was deployed. What I mean by that was the things that were driving companies to look for open source and software as a service stopped becoming the focus of a buying decision.What we started shifting towards was what do you do with the software, and is it helping my people be more effective? And through that time we had mobile technology really become a focus. We have had social technology, really become a f ocus. And we have had today, it is predicted analytics, it is machine learning. My point there is technology shifts over time.And as you reach a point as a start up or as a company, as a whole, where you move past being a start up where you have a unique technology advantage by being a fast mover around a particular piece of technology which we have done multiple times now, and you end up being known in the market place for being an expert in the business problems that you solve. That is where our customers come to us, our customers come to us because we are experts in CRM, all we do is CRM, our entire focus as a company is CRM.If you look at salesforce.com, they do all kinds of things; they do platform as a service, they do collaboration software, they do social media monitoring, they are doing e-Commerce, they are doing all kinds of things above and beyond customer relationship management. Microsoft of course does, they do a lot of things. In fact right now Microsoft is trying to buy CRM leadership by giving away their software for free. And it is interesting to watch that play out because that is working or some companies, but other companies dont want that approach. And really what we are seeing there is companies that dont consider CRM to be their competitive advantage, in other words they are not thinking about their customer experience as a unique competitive advantage and they are just buying CRM technology as a commodity, they are shifting over to Microsoft right now, and frankly in the market place that is putting some pressure on both Sales Force and SugarCRM.But those companies that look to the way they interact with their customers, their customer experience as a unique differentiator for them, they are investing more than ever with us. So we are riding through this shift in the market place right now by focusing on delivering CRM expertise, and that is what we do best. That is our competitive advantage. And that comes both from a technology persp ective, but also from the expertise within the company, the people that work at SugarCRM, their CRM experts and our customers come to us for that expertise.Martin: So if Microsoft is basically pitching on a cost dimension through the customers: Hey guys, we are free, buy us, get us. Now the question to you would be how do you pitch value to your customers so that they select value over cost?Clint: The interesting thing in there, of course, is I know that story well. Martin, I know that free story well; I gave away my software for the first 10 years of the company, I gave away a version of my software for free. What I learned within my own business is that when it comes to strategic software, software that is incredibly important to how you grow as a company, companies value what they pay for, and if they are paying nothing for it then they dont value it and they dont see it as a strategic piece of their business. That is what we saw and why we ultimately started moving away from the freemium model and we started putting all of our attention on a commercial model is because the companies that really valued our software the most, they wanted to pay for it, they wanted to feel like they were a customer as opposed to somebody who had just downloaded free software. So I firmly believe Microsoft is going to learn that all they are doing is collecting the cheapest customers who dont want to pay anything anyways and I wish them good luck.We are focusing on customers, companies that really value the quality of their customer experience. There is a partnership between us, there is a give and a get that goes both directions that makes it a valuable partnership for us on both cases. I am very comfortable with where we are going to land in the future; we are going to be a stronger and more valuable company as a result of what Microsoft is doing in the market place today.ADVICE TO OTHER ENTREPRENEURS FROM CLINT ORAMMartin: Great. Clint, over the last 13/14 years, what have been your major top 2 or 3 learnings that you could share with other first time entrepreneurs?Clint: Yes, that is a great question there. I come from a family of entrepreneurs on one side, so in my dads family, every generation going back, grandfather, great grandfather, great great grandfather, they were all entrepreneurs, building their own businesses. In fact my dad built a software business in the early 80s that was somewhat similar nature to what I am doing here at Sugar, about connecting people together and helping them collaborate and work together more effectively, it was focused in a different industry, focused on the media industry, and I learned a lot watching my dad build his company in Sacramento California where I grew up back in the 1980s when I was a teenager. This was when technology was really hitting stride; there was the TRS 80, there was the personal computer. When I was a 10 year old kid, the very first video games were coming out, and I was in the video game p arlor playing Pacman and all that, so it was a fun exciting time. It was the beginning of the technology industry the way we know it today.I had the opportunity to watch my dad build that company, and there are some things I watched him do well and some things that I think he made some mistakes on. One of those was he had a hard time delegating decision making, he had a hard time releasing power, if you will, to the people around him, and he put himself in the centre of all the decision making, and the company just couldnt scale. This company couldnt scale because he had to be the centre of all decision making. For me, when I started Sugar, I took that lesson to heart and I think one of the things I have done really well here at SugarCRM is to hire people that are smarter than me and give them the authority to run their parts of the business and collaborate with them, but stand back and give them authority and accountability. That is something that I think many entrepreneurs have a hard time appreciating that, understanding that. Because they have got a vision and they want to execute on that vision and it is easier to execute on the vision in the short term if you just do it yourself, but in the long term, if people dont know what you want them to do when you leave the room, if they dont feel like they can get things done when you leave the room then you can never leave the room. That is how to build a company, so that is one lesson learned.Another lesson learned I thing I think in there, I watch a lot of young entrepreneurs, early entrepreneurs spend almost too much time trying to be clever in making business decisions and being afraid, you make the decision in some key area of, for instance, financing or customer contract, you know, in business relationships as a whole and I watch entrepreneurs be too clever for their own good and they assume that the person on the other side of the table is being a Machiavelli, right. What I find is if you build a relation ship of trust, if you have confidence in your ability to deal with any unforeseen negative circumstances in the future, if you have confidence in yourself, if you have trust in the people that you do business with, you end up shaping your own reality, you get what you create. If you believe that everybody else is going to take advantage of you, then they probably will take advantage of you. If you believe that your business partners, your vendors, your suppliers, your customers, your investors, if you believe that they will be focused on success, then they will be focused on success. So I think that is a very important lesson for every entrepreneur to think about.The third lesson that I would talk about is how to actually execute strategic planning. I put a lot of effort into the actual mechanics of strategic planning and how to build a business plan and share a business plan with your investors and your customers and your employees. That is an area that I think a lot of entrepreneu rs dont know where to get started with and they have got a very clear idea in their head, but being able to write that idea down in a way that translates into strategy, culture and tactics within the company is an area that I know a lot of entrepreneurs have challenges with.Those are my thoughts in there; hire people smarter than you, be willing to trust the people around you and put time in writing down your thoughts so that your strategies, so that people know what to do when you are not in the room.Martin: I mean, the last point of having an actionable plan on executing your strategy so that you are reaching your vision is, from my point of view, very closely related to delegating power, because if your vision is only in your head, nobody knows what he should be striving for and what he should be executing basically.Clint: That is exactly the case. When I started the company back in, our first business partner that we recruited was Josh Stein from DFJ Venture Capital, he was the venture capitalist that invested in SugarCRM. We learned a lot from him over the past decade plus he has become a good friend, he has become a mentor, we have learned I think a lot from each other. He said something that was very insightful to me once, he said, “the job of a CEO is to have a vision, to hire great people and to find the money to grow”, that is what you do as a CEO. That is what you do as a leader, you have the vision, you hire great people and you get the resources to give to those people. That is what I think any CEO; any entrepreneur needs to be thinking about.What you end up finding is a lot of entrepreneurs, they want to do the job, they want to do everybodys job, having fun building the company and they want to make all the decisions and they are almost uncomfortable hiring other people because that person may not have the same vision that you have and you end up hiring B players instead of A players and then you dont take the time to write your ideas down a nd you end up spending your energy doing other things, you should spend your energy doing what the company has been built to do as opposed to focusing on having that vision, articulating that vision, hiring great people and finding capital to grow the company, and that is what an entrepreneur really needs to be thinking about at the end of the day, those 3 things.Martin: Great stuff. Clint, thank you so much for your insights and sharing your knowledge!Clint: My pleasure, it was great talking to you today.THANKS FOR LISTENING!Thanks so much for joining our 24th podcast episode!Have some feedback you’d like to share?  Leave  a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed this episode, please  share  it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.Also,  please leave an honest review for The Cleverism Podcast on iTunes or on SoundCloud. Ratings and reviews  are  extremely  helpful  and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we r ead each and every one of them.Special thanks  to Clint for joining me this week. Until  next time!

Seattle University Admissions Acceptance Rate and More

With an acceptance rate of 74 percent in 2016, Seattle University is a moderately selective university. In general, successful applicants will have both grades and standardized test scores that are above average. Those interested in applying will need to submit an application that includes high school transcripts, scores from the SAT or the ACT, and two letters of recommendation. To schedule a visit to the campus, which is encouraged for any interested students, contact the admissions office. Admissions Data (2016) Seattle University Acceptance Rate: 74  percentGPA, SAT and ACT Graph for Seattle UniversityTest Scores: 25th / 75th PercentileSAT Critical Reading: 540 / 640SAT Math: 530 / 650SAT Writing: - / -What these SAT numbers meanSAT comparison for Catholic collegesTop Washington colleges SAT comparisonACT Composite: 25 / 30ACT English: 24  / 31ACT Math: 24  / 28What these ACT numbers meanACT comparison for Catholic collegesTop Washington colleges ACT comparison Seattle University Description Located on a 48-acre campus in Seattles Capitol Hill neighborhood, Seattle University is a private Jesuit university that offers 61 undergraduate and 31 graduate programs. Students come from all 50 states and 76 other countries. The university ranks highly among universities in the West. Classes tend to be small with an average size of 19, and the university has a healthy 12  to 1  student / faculty ratio. The university has an interesting 15-course core curriculum that culminates in students applying their education to contemporary social problems. In athletics, Seattle University recently moved from Division II to Division I NCAA competition, where they compete in the  Western Athletic Conference. Enrollment (2016) Total Enrollment: 7,487  (4,657 undergraduates)Gender Breakdown: 39  percent male / 61 percent female96 percent full-time Costs (2016 -17) Tuition and Fees: $41,265Books: $1,500 (why so much?)Room and Board: $11,499Other Expenses: $4,170Total Cost: $58,434 Seattle University Financial Aid (2015 -16) Percentage of New Students Receiving Aid: 96  percentPercentage of New Students Receiving Types of AidGrants: 95 percentLoans: 59  percentAverage Amount of AidGrants: $20,484Loans: $7,357 Academic Programs Most Popular Majors:  Accounting, Criminal Justice, Finance, Humanities, Marketing, Nursing, Political Science, Psychology Graduation and Retention Rates First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 87  percent4-Year Graduation Rate: 64 percent6-Year Graduation Rate: 75  percent Intercollegiate Athletic Programs: Mens Sports:  Swimming, Tennis, Golf, Basketball, Baseball, Cross Country, Track and FieldWomens Sports:  Rowing, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Basketball, Volleyball If You Like Seattle University, You May Also Like These Schools: University of Washington: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphGonzaga University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphCentral Washington University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphNew York University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphOregon State University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphStanford University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphUniversity of San Diego: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphWillamette University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphLewis Clark College: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphLoyola Marymount University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphUniversity of Oregon: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT GraphSanta Clara University: Profile | GPA-SAT-ACT Graph Data Source: National Center for Educational Statistics

Maya Blue Distinctive Color Used by Maya Artists

Maya Blue is the name of a hybrid organic and inorganic pigment, used by the Maya civilization to decorate pots, sculptures, codices, and panels. While its date of invention is somewhat controversial, the pigment was predominantly used within the Classic period beginning about AD 500. The distinctive blue color, as seen in the murals at Bonampak in the photo, was created using a combination of materials, including indigo and palygorskite (called sak luum or white earth in the Yucatec Maya language). Maya blue was used primarily in ritual contexts, pottery, offerings, copal incense balls, and murals. By itself, palygorskite was used for medicinal properties and as an additive for ceramic tempers, in addition to its use in the creation of Maya blue. Making Maya Blue The striking turquoise color of Maya Blue is quite tenacious as such things go, with visible colors left on stone stele after hundreds of years in the subtropical climate at sites such as Chichà ©n Itzà ¡ and Cacaxtla. Mines for the palygorskite component of Maya Blue are known at Ticul, YoSah Bab, Sacalum, and Chapab, all in the Yucatà ¡n peninsula of Mexico. Maya Blue requires the combination of ingredients (the indigo plant and palygorskite ore) at temperatures between 150 C and 200 C. Such heat is necessary to get molecules of indigo incorporated into the white palygorskite clay. The process of embedding (intercalating) indigo into the clay makes the color stable, even under exposure to harsh climate, alkali, nitric acid and organic solvents. The application of heat to the mixture may have been completed in a kiln built for that purpose--kilns are mentioned in early Spanish chronicles of the Maya. Arnold et al. (in Antiquity below) suggest that Maya Blue may also have been made as a by-product of burning copal incense at ritual ceremonies. Dating Maya Blue Using a series of analytical techniques, scholars have identified the content of various Maya samples. Maya Blue is generally believed to have been used first during the Classic period. Recent research at Calakmul supports suggestions that Maya Blue began to be used when the Maya began painting internal murals on temples during the late pre-classic period, ~300 BC-AD 300. Murals at Acanceh, Tikal, Uaxactun, Nakbe, Calakmul and other pre-classic sites dont seem to have included Maya Blue in their palettes. A recent study of the interior polychrome murals at Calakmul (Và ¡zquez de à gredos Pascual 2011) conclusively identified a blue painted and modeled substructure dated to ~150 AD; this is the earliest example of Maya Blue to date. Scholarly Studies of Maya Blue Maya blue was first identified by Harvard archaeologist R. E. Merwin at Chichà ©n Itzà ¡ in the 1930s. Much work on Maya Blue has been completed by Dean Arnold, who over his 40 year investigation has combined ethnography, archaeology, and materials science in his studies. A number of non-archaeological material studies of the mixture and chemical makeup of Maya blue have been published over the past decade. A preliminary study on sourcing palygorskite using trace element analysis has been undertaken. A few mines have been identified in the Yucatà ¡n and elsewhere, and tiny samples have been taken from the mines as well as paint samples from ceramics and murals of known provenience. Neutron activation analysis (INAA) and laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy (LA-ICP-MS) have both been used in an attempt to identify the trace minerals within the samples, reported in a 2007 article in Latin American Antiquity listed below. Although there were some problems with correlating the two methodologies, the pilot study identified trace amounts of rubidium, manganese, and nickel in the various sources which may prove useful in identifying the sources of the pigment. Additional research by the team reported in 2012 (Arnold et al. 2012) hinged on the presence of palygorskite, and that mineral was identified in several ancient samples as having the same chemical make up modern mines at Sacalum and possibly Yo Sak Kab. Chromatographic analysis of the indigo dye was securely identified within a Maya blue mixture from a pottery censer excavated from Tlatelolco in Mexico and reported in 2012. Sanz and colleagues found that blue coloration used on a 16th-century codex attributed to Bernardino Sahagà ºn was also identified as following a classic Maya recipe. Recent investigations have also centered on the composition of Maya Blue, indicating that perhaps making Maya Blue was a ritual part of sacrifice at  Chichà ©n Itzà ¡. Sources Anonymous. 1998.  Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology at Ticul, Yucatà ¡n, Mexico.  Society for Archaeological Sciences Bulletin  21(12).Arnold DE. 2005. Maya blue and palygorskite: A second possible pre-Columbian source.  Ancient Mesoamerica  16(1):51-62.Arnold DE, Bohor BF, Neff H, Feinman GM, Williams PR, Dussubieux L, and Bishop R. 2012.  The first direct evidence of pre-columbian sources of palygorskite for Maya Blue.  Journal of Archaeological Science  39(7):2252-2260.Arnold DE, Branden JR, Williams PR, Feinman G, and Brown JP. 2008.  The first direct evidence for the production of Maya Blue: rediscovery of a technology.  Antiquity  82(315):151-164.Arnold DE, Neff H, Glascock MD, and Speakman RJ. 2007. Sourcing the Palygorskite Used in Maya Blue: A Pilot Study Comparing the Results of INAA and LA-ICP-MS.  Latin American Antiquity  18(1):44–58.Berke H. 2007.  The invention of blue and purple pigments in ancient times.  Chemical Society Reviews  36:15 –30.Chiari G, Giustetto R, Druzik J, Doehne E, and Ricchiardi G. 2008.  Pre-columbian nanotechnology: reconciling the mysteries of the maya blue pigment.  Applied Physics A  90(1):3-7.Sanz E, Arteaga A, Garcà ­a MA, Cà ¡mara C, and Dietz C. 2012.  Chromatographic analysis of indigo from Maya Blue by LC–DAD–QTOF.  Journal of Archaeological Science  39(12):3516-3523.Và ¡zquez de à gredos Pascual, Domà ©nech Carbà ³ MT, and Domà ©nech Carbà ³ A. 2011.  Characterization of Maya Blue pigment in pre-classic and classic monumental architecture of the ancient pre-Columbian city of Calakmul (Campeche, Mexico).  Journal of Cultural Heritage  12(2):140-148.

My relationship with God Free Essays

As a start for developing a closer relationship with God, I decided that I wanted to try daily devotionals and Bible reading. I considered finding a devotional guide, but instead decided to begin by simply reading the Bible for myself. I thought about finding a daily devotional guide, but chose instead to start my devotional readings by simply reading the New Testament and letting God speak to me as He determined not as some other person might have been inspired. We will write a custom essay sample on My relationship with God or any similar topic only for you Order Now My decision was partially based on a need for this to be a personal journey and a knowledge that many people who attempt to read the Bible begin at the beginning and get discouraged when they reach the histories of the Books of Law. And, as a Christian, I believe the importance of the New Testament speaks for itself. This was a particularly difficult task for me. Choosing a time to read regularly and coupling it with prayer for understanding and meditation to determine the meaning of the scriptures was very difficult. I discovered that the first thing in the morning was not a good time for me to try to read my Bible. Too often, I was overly tempted to hit the snooze button and often did not find my concentration level where it should be to really understand the scriptures, even though most of it was familiar territory. I then tried to do my devotional reading at the end of the day and found that too was a bad idea. Some days exhaustion seemed to bull me away from my studies in an untimely manner and I decided that too was a bad time. Instead I chose to set aside an hour every morning just before lunch. This seemed to be the best time for me to be able to devote my attention to the Bible and not be distracted. I set an alarm to let me know when I could be done and then tuned out all distractions. In the three weeks, I managed to read through all of the gospel of Matthew and get started in Mark without feeling like it was a chore. As the time wore on, I found myself looking forward to my daily devotional more than I had in the beginning and found it was easier to maintain once I found the appropriate time. Intercessory prayer as a devotional tool also appealed to me. Like many churches, the church I grew up in had a prayer chain devoted to praying for those in need. Remembering the peace and joy that came from praying for another person without any goal or personal motivation lead me to choose intercessory prayer Practicing this devotional method reminded me of the need to be more worried about others than I am about myself. I thought this was going to be my favorite devotional form, but I found that it wasn’t. Too often it felt like I was pushing my will onto God instead of allowing His will to work through me. The other two devotional forms I chose were praise singing and random good deeds. These are the two forms of devotion which I believe had the biggest impacts on my life. I chose to do my devotional singing while in the car. I turned off the radio and began singing hymns in the car and immediately noticed a change in my attitude. I was no longer as willing to spout off angrily at other drivers, no longer feeling the need to drive unreasonably fast and no longer impatient in traffic. Changing my heart through song made my daily commutes easier and relieved tension in my life. I found myself with an sincerely improved attitude and a greater desire to praise God for the miraculous things he was working in my life and int eh world around me. The author says that the practice of doing good deeds simply for the sake of doing them is a good thing because it reinforces the image that we want non-believers to have of Christians. I found that the biggest impact it had on me was that this is a manner I believe Christians should act in. By committing daily random acts of kindness I felt better about myself. I felt that I was behaving more the way that Christ would want me to behave. My random acts of kindness included letting others go first in the grocery line and putting coins in parking meters. Finally, last week, I also purchased a small quantity of stuffed animals and placed them randomly on the windshields of cars at the doctor’s office. I believe that the act may have helped just one other person to get through a rough day and that is what God has called each of us to do. These actions are things that I will continue. I believe that the daily Bible readings will be the most difficult to consistently maintain, but I also believe it may be the most important for my continued spiritual growth. The praise singing and random good deeds are easy to maintain because they have an immediate uplifting effect. The Bible reading requires the biggest commitment, but a better understanding of God’s purpose for me should be found in His word. I believe that the intercessory prayer is also going to continue to be a part of my life, though I am interested in determining how I can best pray without feeling like I am placing demand on my Lord. How to cite My relationship with God, Papers

Texting and Driving vs. Drunk Driving free essay sample

Texting and Driving vs. Drunk Driving Over the last century, technology has helped society move forward, making things faster and easier. Having a vehicle has allowed people to reach a destination faster than they would if they had to ride a bike or even walk. Also the ability to now text using a cell phone speeds up the communication process even more. With all the new technological advances you have to many people taking advantage of it; by texting while they are driving to make business or personal communications even faster. On the other hand you have a new technological advance combined with the alcohol that has been around for ages. Drinking brings out a different side in every person. You have some people that are happy, outgoing, or funny drinkers. Then you have some people that are mad drinkers that want to fight any body that makes a joke about them. We will write a custom essay sample on Texting and Driving vs. Drunk Driving or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Last but certainly not least you have the stupid drinkers; these are the type of people that after drinking decide to get in their car and try and drive and put not only their selves, but many other people in danger. Both texting and driving, and driving under the influence are very dangerous, considering that you could not only kill yourself, but many more people also; but which is worse? The low number of scientific studies may be indicative of a general assumption that if talking on a mobile phone increases risk, then texting also increases risk, and probably more so, 89% of U. S. adults think that text messaging while driving is distracting, dangerous, and should be outlawed. (â€Å"Verifiabilityâ€Å")The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has released polling data that show that 87% of people consider texting and e-mailing while driving a very serious safety threat, almost equivalent to the 90% of those polled who consider drunk driving a threat. †. So why do people continue to text and drive and drive while intoxicated. With all test that have been conducted and the scary results, I don’t understand how people could stand to put their own lives at risk everyday. Another test conducted by the Transport Research Laboratory in London took it a step further. It found that drivers who sent a text had slower response times, and were more likely to drift in and out of lanes compared to drivers who were intoxicated. The study found that reaction times for those who sent a text while driving were 35 percent worse than when they drove without any distractions at all. When driving while intoxicated, the reaction time was only 12 percent worse than when the driver was sober and driving without any texting distractions (â€Å"Neiger†). The third test showed; At 35 miles an hour, Mr. Alterman’s average reaction time was . 57 seconds, but while texting it rose to 1. 36 seconds, more than twice his average reaction time of . 64 seconds while under the influence. Mr. Brown fared better, but his average reaction time of . 45 seconds rose to . 52 seconds while texting, worse than his average time of . 6 seconds while driving drunk. The results of the tests at 70 miles an hour were better in terms of reaction times. But at highway speeds, the extra distance traveled before coming to a complete stop was much greater. For example, Mr. Alterman traveled an average of four feet farther while driving drunk and an average of 70 feet farther while texting(â€Å"Changâ€Å"). As a research shows, texting and driving is much worse than driving while drunk. When you drive drunk it makes your reaction time a little slower and throws your balance off a little bit. But on the other hand texting and driving is much worse because, when you send or read a text you are taking your eyes completely of the road. Taking your eyes off the road can result in a very fatal car crash if you were to drift into the other lane, or if someone just decides to pull out in front of you; how would you know about it? Even though drunk driving is better than texting and driving, neither one of the two need to be done because you never know what could happen, and how many people you can hurt.