From the Farm, Inc Marketing Plan Essay Example for Free

From the Farm, Inc Marketing Plan Essay The purpose of this paper is to determine how to drive more sales to From the Farm’s website as well as increase overall brand awareness through the use of targeted marketing and advertising programs and also to gain a deeper insight of prospective customers which can assist in forming target market segments and creating targeted marketing and advertising programs that cater to those segments. Furthermore, we need to determine how to remain cost-effective with these proposed improvements to the marketing programs. Being a small e-commerce startup with limited funds and personnel, FTF has struggled for over four years to create effective marketing programs and have seen very little positive impact of their past marketing efforts. The lack of an effective marketing strategy which includes targeted advertising has led to increased and somewhat unnecessary marketing costs because several of the marketing campaigns are built on the premise of â€Å"testing it out† and seeing what kind of response it gets. The implementation of targeted marketing and advertising programs can not only increase From the Farm’s sales revenue, but also be more cost-effective since the campaigns are targeted and relevant to their audience. In addition, an improved digital marketing strategy can help FromTheFarm. com improve their overall market positioning due to the fact that they will gain a better understanding of their customers through the data that is collected and thus enable them to build a more effect online marketing strategy. Furthermore, this enhanced insight of their customers can also enable them to improve their product development and product offerings on their website. All of these things combined can definitely contribute to growing their sales revenue and more importantly, by having targeted marketing and advertising programs, they can ensure that every dollar spent is not a dollar wasted. Company Background From The Farm, Inc. (FTF) is a privately-owned e-commerce company headquartered in Stockton, California which specializes in the sales and home delivery of gourmet and organic foods and produce. FTF was founded in 2008 with the purpose and intent of becoming â€Å"America’s Online Farmer’s Market†. According to a report done by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), farmers only earned an average of $0. 16 for every dollar spent on the food they produced (Canning, 2011). FTF’s mission is to provide an online marketplace which connects customers with American Family farms by offering farm-fresh products and other specialty food items delivered straight to their door. By allowing customer to purchase directly from the farmer though the website, they cut out the middle man, and therefore give customers the opportunity to taste and experience what truly fresh food and produce tastes like while also supporting the success and livelihood of hard-working farmers all over the county. FromTheFarm. com is currently funded by its parent company, Onions, Etc. , one of the largest onion distributors in the United States. Currently, FTF only has two full-time employees – the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)/General Manager and a Marketing Specialist – in addition to the Founder/CEO, one marketing intern, and one contract-based Marketing/PR Consultant. Any other tasks with regards to finance and accounting are handled by Onions, Etc. personnel and all IT related tasks are outsourced to an outside IT firm and web design firm. FTF has undergone major organizational changes in the past twelve months, in an effort to restructure the marketing team with the intention of implementing an improved marketing strategy in order to grow sales and increase brand awareness. Due to limited funds and personnel, FTF has struggled to create an effective targeted marketing and advertising strategy and as a result have not seen much growth since being founded in 2008. 1. 0 Market Summary and Target Audience Being that From the Farm is a small, family-owned company they do not have the financial strength that other larger food retailers have; however they still have a tremendous opportunity to capture the market being that the food e-commerce market has yet to be penetrated. According to a recent report by eMarketer, as of 2012, U. S. -commerce sales have grown to $224. 2 billion and are expected to grow to $361. 9 billion by 2016. Currently, online food and beverage sales is the smallest U. S. e-commerce category, however, this segment reached sales of $5. 09 billion and experienced a 17% growth in 2012 (eMarketer, 2012). Another report by Nielsen indicates that the sales rate for consumer packaged goods online is expected to reach $25 billion by 2014. This t rending growth can be attributed to the fact that more and more consumers are beginning to do their grocery shopping online (Nielsen, 2011). FTF can definitely capitalize on this emerging trend since the online grocery shopping experience is primarily fueled by a needs-driven experience since there are a greater variety of options available online. In addition, e-commerce allows for smaller companies such as FTF to compete against â€Å"Big Brand† companies since the big brand physical advantages become nonexistent and opens up the opportunity to create a niche brand for customers who prefer to buy their food and groceries online. With a creative and effectively targeted market program, FTF can reach a significant amount of customers online and leverage unique and exclusive products such as tropical fruits, figs, Piedmontese beef, and fresh cherries to capture these customers. There is a huge opportunity to capitalize on the available internet marketing technologies being that there is so much data available through these marketing channels and the fact that many consumers are turning to e-commerce to purchase goods. According to a recent Digital Marketing Report by eMarketer, â€Å"88. % of US internet users ages 14 and up will browse or research products online in 2012, an 83. 9% of that group will make at least one purchase via the web during that year† (Peart, Utreras, Wang, 2011). Target Market Since From the Farm is a food e-commerce company, it is easy to assume that this website and its products can appeal to the masses. There is a large assortment of foods from fresh fruit and produce includin g exotic tropical fruits to certified organic meats to an array of desserts which means that FTF has something to offer every kind of customer. FTF’s customers will consist of individuals who are 25 years old and up and have a wide range of preferences when it comes to food, whether it may be parents looking for healthy foods for their kids or health conscious individuals who prefer organic and gluten-free products or chefs and restaurant owners that need to order in bulk, From the Farm can accommodate a very diverse set of needs. Nonetheless, From the Farm’s products aren’t just for those who want to purchase these items for personal consumption because From the Farm also offers products that can be sent as gifts. As stated previously, From the Farm’s customer base is diverse since it consists of individuals with varying needs and preferences when it comes to food selections. The primary market that FTF will target is the online grocery shopper market. The profile of typical online shoppers is as follows: single or dual-income households with no children and are technically savvy, affluent, and time poor. This group consists of early adopters of new technology and is heavy internet users who regularly purchase goods online. Convenience is a main factor for this group and they have little to no concern about product price or delivery charges. The other major category within this market is families with young children. Similar to the previously discussed category, this category includes single parents, dual-income households, middle-income and above average-earning households. The key differentiator is that this category has one or more children, typically with at least one child under the age of five years old. This group consists of adults in their late 20s to 40s. The individuals in this category turn to online grocery shopping because it saves them time, is less hectic, and overall more convenient in nature. Other categories include college students and military families who are not located close to a standard-size store or who wish to purchase products found only in their home regions. In addition, the elderly, disabled and those individuals who find it difficult to get out of the house make up a significant share of online grocery shoppers. As such, the share of senior citizens and disabled individuals has grown over the past five years and is expected to continue growing in the future. Furthermore, online grocery shoppers are more than twice as likely as the average internet user to go online to read and post product reviews, download coupons and search for recipes, according to a study by the Nielsen Company from September 2009 (Panteva, 2012).

Identifying Pivotal Talent Positions Management Essay

Identifying Pivotal Talent Positions Management Essay Talent managementis fundamentally HR process which many modern organisation practice to attract, recruit, develop and retain their workforce to achieve competitive advantage. In todays globalised word where companies are stressing for new practices for skilful workforce, talent management become vital for organisation success. Despite the larger number of practitioners and academics trying to define the Talent management, it lacks clear meanings and systematic approach to back its theory. Talent management faces many challenges in practice, as critiques believe its a rebranding of HR practices. Organisation develops their strategies to achieve their objectives and goals. To achieve these strategic goals organisation human capital plays key role. Organisation integrates and aligns its talent management processes with business strategies to create a pool of successful talented worker and then utilise these talent to obtain competitive advantage in overwhelming globalised competition. Talent management practices help identify potential leadership, develop skills, attract talent from external market and create employer image as part of its business strategy. Concept of Talent Management Talent management has received the interest of most practitioner and academics among all HR practices. This has significant increased since the group of consultant from McKinsey came up with the phrase War for Talent in 1997. There has been a recent paradigm shift from traditional HR strategy to talent specific in todays competitive environment. Considering the significant shift the notionof talent management remains valuable. The organisations competitive advantage of its human capital is arguably more important. Talent management can be divided in to key areas of activities and process which systematically help to identify the key positions in any organisation, that can contributes towards the competitive advantage of it. Creating different human resource architecture to create a pool of talented incumbent employees that can fulfil these key positions. It will be vital to clarify that key positions are not limited to top management but it can be lower management, different operations unit or the part time. There is not prà ©cis or set definition of talent management;Author has to make many assumptionswhile defining it. As Aston and Morton described that there isnt a single consistent or concise definition (Aston Marton, 2005). Key function of talent management is to attract, recruit and retain the talent. According to Hartley (2004) its spread of wide range of activities for instant succession planning, employerperformance and management etc. And Creelman (2004) The process of attracting, recruiting and retain talented employees Knez et al (2004) had similar thought that its continuous process of external recruitment and selection and internal development and retention. Talent management generally highlights the selected individuals through carefully set the selection process and activities and they are referred as talented individual. Which are seen as key element in the success of an organisation. Lastly extending the issue to retain these talents. For example HSBC has talent review process for their senior managers that help them to clarify their goals and give business an external view of potential managers. Talentmanagement means differently for different people. For some its managing or finding the best talent in an organisation and for some its recruiting and developing talented people. Talent management aspect that should be included an organisation talent management practice. Performance management Leadership development Workforce planning/identifying talent gaps Recruiting Talent Management for the Twenty-First Century As the 21stcentury unfolds, radical changes happening in todays business and workforce. Companies once dominated by America and Europe now has more ownership across globe. There has been growing urgency and attention on HR practices to continuouslyengage and retains employees.Companies are going beyond traditional approaches in practice to retain their well-performing employees. Employee retention is king. And employee engagement is not far behind. Coos of the nations fastest growing companies overwhelmingly cite retention of key workers as the most critical factor to plan for in the next year ahead (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2004). Similarly demographic changes occurrence are increasing, there are more young people in developing nations who are educated and skilful which has lead the global movement for job as more and more companies seek skilful labour for their varied positions. There demands had created scope and impact for the hunger for skilled workers everywhere. These changes can be summarised in following points Increasing number of young population More global companies operations Increase in outsource and offshore Need for Competitive edge Spread of ownership in other regions Hence globalisation has increasing made difficult to hire, retain and develop talented employees for businesses. Companies are in search for new practices for hiring and then developing, motivating and converting into strategic assets. Furthermore companies need to integrate and align its talent management processes with business strategies to create a pool of successful talented worker and then utilise these talent to obtain competitive advantage in overwhelming globalised competition. The key agenda of companies to attract and retain key talent, which can key factor in organisation influence and effectiveness. A Theoretical Model of strategic Talent Management Strategic talent management deals with all the employees within an organisation. Strategic TM focuses on identifying and creating the pool of talented employees then develop these talents to occupy key positions. Identifying pivotal talent positions The first step of managing the strategic talent management is to identify the key position within an organisation. Most of the literature review suggest the key attention to identify the key performers and their development and retain but latest theories advocates that identifying the key position in organisation which has central role in organisational success. Developing Talent Pool The second step in strategic management is the developing the pool of incumbents talented people. Developing the talented people pool to fill the key positions identified in earlier step. However there are various method of creating talent pool depending on the organisational structure but one thing should be keep in mind that these are highly talented and incumbent people and key positions assigned to these people must utilise to the maximum capacity. There are two key elements to talent pool one that organisation should understand the importance of external labour market and secondly due to increasingly mobility of the external employer it is a possibility to high skill labour from external market. As Peffer and Leblebici (1973) argued that organisations facing the greatest threat from external sources aggressively recruited executives with experience from the external labour market. Create a differentiated HR Architecture There has been continues debate on linking between strategic HR practice and organisation. There is no set HR practice that can help identify or utilise the talent pool rather there are suggestion to apply methods of HR. Practicing the contingency HR practice depending on organisation structure. Lapak and Snell (2002) differentiate between four categories, knowledge based employment, job based employment, contract work and Alliances or partnership. In summary,some HR practices can be best suited for particular organisation but could have different impact on other industry. There is need to define HR practices to utilise the talent pool and appointment to key positions to have successful competitive advantage. Talent Management Challenges Talent Crunch Most companies are facing the shortage of talent employees. Attracting and retaining employee for company growth for all levels its a challenge for companies. For example Essar Group has grown to sixty thousand employees from twenty thousand in last 3 years and more then fifty percent of their employees tenure is less then two years. Creating Value Proposition Companies are finding difficult to create value proposition for their employees with four generations as work force. Its difficult for organisation to create value proposition for every employee with diverse needs, assumptions and preferences belonging to different generation group. Leadership in pipeline The shortage of robust leadership talent pool is biggest threat for organisations. There are not enough talented leaders to replace the existing or to fill the expansion of companies growth. Its becoming more difficult in globalised world to choose skilful leaders with required skills, leadership qualities, business knowledge and global diverse sensibility. Deloitte, for example has talent management and succession planning to improve and retain their employees to become future leaders. Transferring key knowledge and relationships Companies facing difficulties in transferring knowledge to other employees from people retiring or changing jobs. Its a greater threat from companies that are heavily embedded in tacit knowledge such as customer relation. Work/life Balance Issue Companies heavily investing on talent management in developing and retain their employees at mid-level of their careers, they need to consider responsibility of creating balance between work and life. There is fear of employee escaping the organisation pressure to develop skills can lead to high turnover. Redesigning Talent Management Practice Some critiques argue that there is a need to redesign the TM practices and program to attract workforce. The importance of young professional is critical for firms with fresh skills and talent. Father there is rethinking required to link the different roles and relations together to generate better outcome. Short tenure of talent Acquiring and retaining talented employees are critical to organisations. Companys competitive advantage is dependent on retaining the talented people at key positions. There is high turnover of employees in retail business due to market influence and an internal mindset. Gap, for example believes retaining employees for more then three years is key to future business success. Rebranding HR practices Three different prospective can be extracted from literature review. TM was defined and associated, as the part of HR process but defining does not help to understand how to manage talent. Some argue that managing, recruiting and staffing through Internet may require additional skillets for HR staff but it does not help in principle of improving the selection processbut it hep to rebrand the HR practices to keep them fresh as it does not help one to understand the strategic and effective importance of managing talent. Importance of Talent Management In todays competitive market the value of talent employee become the vital part of the organisation. Therefore telnetmanagement plays any important strategic role in an organisation. The organisation gets advantage of employees competence and productivity. They get strong association with organisation and often put best dedication at work, which ultimately shows result on organisation balance sheet. Further it enhancesemployee commitment and pride towards the organisational and it reduces staff turnover. Jack Wiley, executive director of Kenexa Research Institute, said, People have a fundamental need to know how they are doing and what the future holds for them, Organisation with talent management in practice produces competitiveworkforce to adoptchanging and competitive market. Recruit, develop and retain talent, which help in companys financial success. Having effective talentmanagement strategy helps organisation overcome the fear of losing talented employees, itshelp to have backup if not equally talented but replacement to develop the similar talent. Talentmanagement help create short term and long term backup plans. Organisations with various contract or permanent employees often search for replacements. Having backup plans with talent management reduces the losses of time and value spent on finding replacement or recruiting new staff. Continues practice of talent grooming doesnt allow the volume within organisation it creates equally or similar talented workforce. Grooming process increase employees qualities such as leadership, multitask, competence and knowledgebase. Talent management help define ethics and vlaues of workforce of the employees. Reason ethics are important for an organisation because for recent years many fast growing or big organisation being involved in ethical scandals. Understanding and implementing employees ethical values or considering in organisation culture shows workforce importance towards their employee. Talent monument not only important for organisation but it plays equally vital role for employees. Employees get a chance to develop and acquire new knowledge and talent, whichincreases their potential. Every employee understands the importance of new skills, which can leads to their future progress. Employees prefer to stay with organisation where they believe their skills being utilise and continue sly grooming under health talent management scheme. Many organisation demands the demonstration from all its function for their strategy value to organisation. There is growing pressure on HR for its strategic contribution. Financial resources may be the lifeblood of a company, but human resources are the brains. Its long been accepted that sound financial management is critical to business survival. This is especially true challenging economic times. However, having strong talent and sound talent management is queerly critical to business survival. To summarise the important points in bullet points Increase Revenue Improve Product Quality Increase Customer Satisfaction Reduce Cost Reduce Cycle Time Increase return on share hold investment IncreaseMarket share and capitalisation Business Strategy and Talent Management A business strategy of a company is its long-term planning or direction and steps it will pursue to accomplish those goals. A more formal definition can be: Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term, which achieves advantage in a changing environment through its configuration of resources and competences with the aim of fulfilling stakeholder expectations. (Exploring corporate strategy, 2008) If we look at the reason behind the success and failure the organisation it ultimately come down to talent. Talent leads organisation to make decisions regarding where to invest in financialand human capital. This further leads to how to innovate, compete and how to motivate and achieve the business strategy? Right or wrong decisions are made, which result in success or failure and most of the time CEO of the company takes all the credit or blame depending on the outcome of the decision. Its the talent within an organisation that leads to execution and implementation of the business strategy. People are all there is to an organisation (Garry Hamel, 2003). Collins argues, Having the right people comes before having the right strategies. Rob Ben argues with their sixty years of combine experience of corporations and various business that CEO and senior executives worries as much about talent management as much they do about the financial of the company. This shows that talent management plays as important roles and financials do. Talent management is the central part of any business plan and its more desirable part of HR. Organisation needs talented people to meet the needs to deal with complex business needs. Since the 1990s the business expansion has significantly with low trade barriers, easy communications and company globalisations. Many companies expansion was based on globalisation into India and China. This change has lead to global talent competition across boundaries. There is an increase demand for talented people with shrinking pool of talented people this has increased the business concerns of expansion of their HR activities for the retention of the talent. HR is more strategically driven and company facing problems or lack of success in financial of it eventually leads to executive criticism and public scrutiny which leads to termination of CEO. Figures are not known but itsbelieved executive turnover is high in recent years. The high turnovers mean there could be fault in selection process. Some reasons could be the mismatch between CEO and the business situation and strategy; on other hand many deal effectively different complexity and strategic driven business. Many argue oppose to the above reasons they believe business and CEO face constantly changing businessenvironment and challenges, response should be fast enough to avoid missing the opportunity. This shows the important of HR and talent managementprecisely in business strategy. Since 1990s it been mortgaged that connection between talent management and business strategy has its routes in two trends. The emergence of talent as strategic resource and competitive advantage. The evolution of the Human Resources functions as a strategic business partner (Rob Ben, 2009) Conclusion Given the high level interest shown by different quarters from academics to practitioners and from employer to business itself, talent management is still not reached on concisedefinition and practise. Talent Management has been discussed and pursued heavily between practitioner and press without being linked systematically and peer-review. It has been widely define and discussed which has not potentially contributed to the understanding of concept. Some commentators argue that its been used to rebrand the HR practices of recruitment process to cater the needs of demographic changes.

History And Development Of The Internet Essay -- essays research paper

History and Development of the Internet The internet is a global computer network connecting millions and millions of users throughout the world. (Leiner, 2). It has become one of the fastest growing forms of communication today. (Marshall, 1). The Internet started as a Defense Department Cold War experiment in the 1950’s. (Academic American, 225). The government needed a way to relay information between tanks and headquarters so the APRA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) sought a way to let signals from the battlefield reach a headquarters computer using satellites and radio signals. At the same time the command posts of the nation were located deep underground in mountains in fear of nuclear war. (Diamond, 3). Paul Baran, working for the U.S. Air Force, developed a network that could reroute itself around damage caused by the impact of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile by using "redundancy of connectivity". This meant that in the event of a break in the network the server would re-route the information in an alternate path through a new technique called "packet switching". Packet Switching is a means of breaking up the message being sent into small packets which carry enough inform ation to seek out its destination and sending them out separately towards the destination server. The message after being broken up would take separate routes to the destination and then be re-assembled by the computer at the server where the message was being sent. This was good because with more than one route for information to travel on, the enemy did not have one central point to target their attack to break the lines of communication and in the event of some break in the line information could still travel through. (Diamond, 4). This all interested the APRA enough to fund the research and development of an experimental computer network with hopes of demonstrating the feasibility of remote computer operation from the battlefield. Vinton Cerf also called "The Father of the Internet", a graduate student working at UCLA began to take interest in the 4 node APRAnet, and in 1973 developed the first TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) software. (Leiner, 4). TCP/IP software converts messages into streams, transmits them acro... ...e the controversial newsgroups (until this point net. had held everything). Some systems had refused to carry the controversial newsgroups like net.rec.drugs so the ".alt" (alternative) hierarchy was created. (Diamond, 12) After the development and merger of APRAnet and usenet the internet began to grow exponentially. (Diamond, 11). The internet evolved from a small government project to the fastest growing form of communication it is today. (Blom, 2) Bibliography "Internet." Academic American Encyclopedia. 1996. Diamond, Edwin and Stephen Bates. "The Ancient History of the Internet." American Heritage. Oct. 1995: pp. 34+. In Social Issues Resource Series, Inc. History- Article #17. Blom, Eric. "Ruts in Rural Info Highway." Maine Sunday Telegram (Portland, ME). CD Newsbank. 12 April 1998. Mashall, Joshua Micah. "Will Free Speech Get Tangled in the Net?" American Prospect. Jan./Feb. 1998: pp. 46-50. In Social Issues Resource Series, Inc. Internet, Censorship- Article #1. Leiner, Barry. "A Brief History of the Internet." 17 December 1998. http://www.isoc.org/internet-history/brief.html

Seeking Atonement in Crime and Punishment Essay -- Crime Punishment Es

Seeking Atonement in Crime and Punishment Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment was a complicated man who committed a crime. Raskolnikov murdered a woman who was a plague to mankind, especially the poor of Russia. In the chilling process however, he also murdered her younger sister, Lisaveta. To be purified, he drives himself through much agony. Not until the closing of the novel did he realize he must confess to be atoned and to find love. Consciously, Raskolnikov was averse to admitting his misdeed. He rationalized himself by asserting that the ends justify the means. Alyona's malignant nature, extremified by her outward appearance, and effect on the base community depending on and surrounding her. Her sole use for the profits were to upkeep continuous prayers in her horrible name. Although Raskolnikov excused himself this way, the true and conscious reason was only to test his power and ideologies about criminal psychology and the "superman". In his theory, to be above the law one cannot be discovered because to be punished would be to...

Waiting for the Sun :: Essays Paper

Waiting for the Sun 1 The theme of "Sweat" [Titles] is that in a fight between good and evil, good wins out eventually, because any evil done will come back to the source in time. There are three concepts that support this theme. They are conflict, irony and symbolism. 2 The conflict of the story is good vs. evil. Delia is good. She goes to church on a regular basis, sometimes more often than regularly. She continues to stay and fulfill her marital responsibilities, regardless of the fact that her husband is cruel. [She also kills Sykes, or at least lets him die.] 3 [Combine with previous paragraph.] Sykes is evil. He cheats on his wife and abuses her mentally, physically and verbally. The most evil thing Sykes does is let the snake loose in Delia’s hamper. His intent is that the snake will attack and bite Delia. Delia would die from the snake’s venom, and then she would be out of his life. 4 Irony supports the theme of this story. Sykes puts the snake into the hamper so that it will bite Delia when she goes to do the laundry. Instead, Delia gets away from the snake, and Sykes gets bit. This is ironic because Delia said, â€Å"What goes over the devils back, is got to come over his belly,†(762) earlier in the story. [What Delia says undercuts the irony.] 5 [Combine with previous paragraph.] Another irony of the story is when Delia notices there is only one match left. She curses Sykes for never getting any, and then she lights her lantern. When Sykes goes to get one, the match safe is empty. He is left in the dark because he never bought any matches. [Wouldn't one expect no matches if no one bought any? I don't see the irony.] 6 The most important concept of this story is symbolism. Sykes kicks a pile of white laundry, which symbolizes ["is"?] an evil act. The laundry is white which symbolizes good. Sykes â€Å"stepped roughly on the whitest pile† (761). A snake symbolizes evil or death. In the story the snake delivers the death.

Africa Since 1940

The colonization of the African nation has played an important part on the world and how blacks were treated. What they endured as a people, showed the high element of inequality and injustice brought on by a group of people on to another. This period in time brought a change in a nation rocked with pain and anguish. Intervention and invasion from other countries saw the decline in the wealth that Africa once possessed. The notion that Africans were uncivilized was the mindset of the Europeans as they made their presence known. What they did was to manipulate the minds of the African people to gain what they set out to attain. Their goal has always been to rob them of their livelihood, to destroy and steal what were rightly the Africans. Ignorance and defiance became the downfall of many, as they trusted the words of the whites. The destruction and atrocities that Africans faced was indicative of the cruel way in which European invaded the nation and took control in the name of colonization. Many books made note of the colonizing of the African nation. Three of those great books are: African Since 1940 The Past of the present by Frederick Cooper, The Nigerian Civil war by John de ST. Jorre and African Perspectives on Colonialism by A. ADU Boahen. However, of the three books Boahen provides more supplemental materials that support my thesis. The most important economic change that occurred in Africa was during the period 1880-1960. This period marked the colonization and the scramble for African colonies. Boahen writes â€Å"The first and the most important of the economic changes that had occurred in Africa by 1880 were the abolition and suppression of that most inhuman and abominable of all trading activities- namely, the slave trade-and its replacement by trade in natural products, which has become known in typical Euro- centric terms as legitimate trade† (Boahen pg. 1). Slave trade exemplified the harsh cruelty that Africans faced. They were sold into slavery and beaten and many die during that time. The middle passage journey of slaves that were sold across the world to work on plantations proved to be the worst journey in history. Slave trade only profited the European as slaves were an aspect of making money for their masters. Not only were the African people forced to leave most of the power countries’ economies weak and on the brink of collapse. They needed new ways to generated money which they did by overflowing Africa and retaining most of the Natural resource such as ivory, diamond, and gold. The scramble for Africa open door to a new way of thinking: the county did not just change economically but socially. According to Cooper by the 1700s the era in, â€Å"Pan- Africanist was at its highest point of mobilization in African political history†. (Cooper 24) . For the first time westerners such as Marcus Garvey from African decedent who was captives of slavery, began to challenge imperialism. They launch organizations: International African Service Bureau based out of London. Regional linkages were established between countries and hybrid culture was form. People of western African coast began referring to themselves as nations. Black influential understood the gravity of slavery and knew that the change has to begin with them. The 1880 was a better time period in Africa because Slavery was abolished and therefore, the old African country way of life have been abolish to some degree in that now people were no longer under bondage. These individuals were free to live a life in less fear and with a more renew sense of hope for the future. It was good that a new Africa was emerging because this means that individuals will be more incline to want to strive for a better life for themselves and their families and to make a better future for their children. Moreover, after the abolition of slavery the formation of legitimate trade means that individuals could have a source of gaining employment to help to support their family. Boahen mentioned that in the 1880 (African had become more deeply integrated into the capitalist world-economy than before, a development which the ensuing colonial system was to intensify,) which exemplify the fact that Africa was become more stabilize as an economy in of itself where job can be provided for its citizen. (Boahen pg 5). The economy development of Africa in the 1880 meant that the qualities of life for the people were going to improve over time. With the economy improving this would open up individual access to job opportunities. The invasion of European forces into Africa brought a division among the African people. Elements that were formulated such as governmental, educational and their religious system were imposed in a cruel manner as many Africans throughout that time in history were brutally harmed by the Europeans. This abuse was due to the fact Different language religion and other aspects of life were enforced by the Europeans colonization. So, with the abolishment of slavery individuals learn both the language of their ormer ruling countries and the original language of their ancestors through parents teaching of their children. Language plays a crucial part in an individual culture as it is the mean through which communication took place. Cooper mentioned that â€Å"At any one moment, Africa appears as a mixture of diverse languages and diverse culture; indeed, linguistically alone, it is the most varied continent on earth† (Cooper pg11). This mean linguistically speaking Africa came out of the slave trade become a more diverse country. This diversity is obvious in more than one language that which is spoken by individuals from the continent of Africa. The African people depended on their cultural languages to bind them together. This help them to confuse their colonizers in their intent and goal of enforcing slavery. African understood the importance of language and how they could use it to their advantage. Additionally, the 1880 was a period in which the Christian missionary was also experiencing dramatic change. The change in the Christian missionary mean that individuals where having a renew view of religion and how it should be practice. Boahen also mentioned that change in the religion in African societies resulted in stratification, which means that there were different groups of individuals in the African society; therefore, the further stratification of African societies into a relatively small Christian educated elite, particularly in western and southern Africa, and a large traditional and illiterate group† (Boahen, 17). So, it is obvious that as people were becoming more educated they were more able to view religion from a different perspective. The 1880 was also a period in which there was changing political trends that were towards a sense of greater centralization. Boahen mentioned that even though there was a change in some of the empires in terms of disintegration such as empires such as Asante and Oye empires some empires became even stronger (Boahen, 2008). So, there were the emerging of new empires such as the Sokoto empire and the Tukulor empire of Masina that were in much larger existence especially in certain area state as the century in West Africa begins to emerge. New political change in Africa was evident in Nigeria such as constitutional experimentation (Boahen, pg 12). So, the constitution help to lay out the foundation for how individuals in the new African, societies wanted to be treatment by their government in making sure those individuals in the societies was educate. So, with modernization there came a renew way of engaging in political activities as it will benefit the country of Africa. However the prosperity and flourishing of the countries of economy depended on the mobilization of African leaders yet this did not come forth. Cooper writes â€Å"The development effort of late colonial regimes never did provide the basis for a strong national economy; economies remained externally originated and the state’s economic power remained concentrated at the gate† (Cooper 5). He was also concern about where the blame for the wars lie cooper writes â€Å"By looking at the post-war era as a whole, one can begin to explain the succession of crises that colonial and postcolonial states faced, without getting into a sterile debate over whether a colonial legacy or the incompetence of African governments is to blame† (Cooper 6). The African nation had many crises to deal with mainly poverty that resulted from the war. Colonization of the African people drove them deeper into poverty many regions had to sell their labor. Cooper writes â€Å"In parts of African, colonization drove rural dwellers into deepening poverty, sometimes as a deliberate policy to create labor reserves where people had little alternative to selling their labor cheaply, sometimes as a result of actions which made difficult ecosystems worse† (21). Poverty is one of the worst elements of people’s lives and this epidemic led the African people to seek for help. War is the most dreaded and the resulting effect of break-down of laws and orders in a civilized society. The Nigerian civil war which is known as the â€Å"Biafra War† took place on July 16th 1967 to January 15th 1970, political conflict was caused by the attempted secession of the southern providence of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed republic of Biafra. The conflicts accrued when Great Britain invaded Africa and divided up the some of it colonies causing a great separation among the African people; where people in the north were Muslims and in the south were Christian. However due to the division it ended in economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tension among the various peoples of Nigeria. During the war millions died and many were displaced leaving the colony in a state of distress. Due to the war hunger and starvation arose in Biafra many young children died; soldiers were out raged and they decided to take matters into the own hands St. Jorre writes â€Å"hungry soldiers tried to hijack a food convoy, and he beat them to a pulp† (St. Jorre pg. 251) this provided the severity and level of starvation that was felt in Biafra that even those responsible for aintaining the law put their needs above the people. Starvation does not respect anyone and during this period it evident that hunger claimed many lives. The depth and continuance of the war resulted in more deaths as starvation continued and no help was evident. As the Biafra’s people would look for help from the western world it was eminent that something needed to be done. The starvation was not ending and if they could only receive a little help it could go a long way this could be attain by pricking the conscience of the western world. ST.  Jorre writes â€Å"By striking at the heart of the Western world’s moral conscience with the real threat of millions starving to death if the war continued, backed up the imagined one of genocide if they surrendered, they succeeded where all their other tactics intensive lobbying, signing the oil away repeated appeals to the religious, ideological and the political sensibilities of the outside world had failed† (ST. Jorre pg. 241). This sad way of life was the start of new recognition for other African countries that had to deal with the epidemic of starvation. ST. Jorre writes â€Å"The immediate benefits of such concern were useful enough, especially the money, the lobbying publicity and public support that followed each new starvation newspaper story or television film† (ST. Jorre pg. 242). Even in such distraught moment in history something good came of it as the Western nation would become aware of it and help to prevent an occurrence elsewhere. African people endured the worst life possible due to greed from their European colonizers. Their lands were invaded and lives were destroyed as many were taken as slaves to work on plantations to make money for them. What the Europeans did not only hurt the African people physically but emotionally too they have never recovered. This led to war on the Continent as poverty took over and the means of survival was as the height in the minds of all Africans. Many aspect of their lives were taken away their culture, their language and their believe were destroyed. The European brainwashed the African people and took over and kill many in the process.

People’s Attitude Towards Abortion in Australia

People’s attitude towards abortion in Australia Abstract: The hypothesis, â€Å"It is apparent that in Australia people are not supportive of abortion. † would be tested in the report. The aim of it was to reveal the current views of people in Australia towards abortion, under the circumstances of different age and cultural background. A questionnaire about justified reasons, legalization and values on abortion was constructed and the target group would be 20 international students and 20 local Australians. The international students were mainly Chinese, and a few from South-East Asia. Though most participants did not have a really strong stance of supporting abortion or not, when there were further questions about Pro-choice behaviour and legalization of abortion, it was discovered that participants were actually in respect of freedom of choice, and agreed that abortion should be legalized. Therefore it could be said that comparing the 2 sides, participants were rather supportive to abortion. Based on the results, extended researches covering a larger target group which could mostly represent different cultural groups could be conducted to test whether abortion was really generally acceptable or not or could it be legalized under all cases. Introduction Abortion had been a controversial issue for hundreds of years, discussions and debates were always held to argue whether it should or should not be declared legal. This issue was crucial at all time because the attitude towards it were mainly influenced by various important values of life like morality, human rights and freedom of choice, adding that they were the key factors to determine whether it should be declared legal. â€Å"Abortion can be defined as the expulsion or removal of an embryo or foetus from the uterus of the pregnant mother† (Blade, 2008). It could be divided into two types. First, the â€Å"spontaneous abortion† occurs when the mother’s body ejects the foetus due to different reasons, usually natural ones (without human effort). This report focused on another type of abortion, â€Å"induced abortion†. This was what people usually mean when they use the word abortion. In other words, it was the â€Å"termination of pregnancy†. After the Federation in 1901, abortion was handled by the British Offences Against the Person Act of 1861. In the act, abortion was illegal , no matter under what circumstances. However, since then, abortion would be legal in some cases under the law. For instance, Natasha,(1998), suggested that under the McGuire ruling (1986) in Queensland, abortion could only be legalized when the mother was in threat that abortion could preserve her life or health. Another case that abortion could be legalized was that if the newborn baby would die immediately or within a short period. For the current legislation about it in Queensland under the Queensland Criminal Code, the viewpoint remained similar that the court would prohibit abortion unless the mothers life or health is in danger. Though, it did not reveal any response on the change of attitudes of people towards abortion. The aim of the report was to reveal the current views of people in Australia towards abortion, under the circumstances of different age and cultural background(international students versus local Australians). It appeared that nowadays more and more people were supportive to abortion. This view would be supported by the results from survey and then a discussion part of it would be included and at last the conclusion and recommendation would be formulated. Methodology: Questionnaires about the attitudes of abortion of people were used to collect data for the report. A qualitative methodology was used. The reason for choosing it was because the report focused more on depth, rather than quantity. According to the Family Health International (2005), a qualitative research provided information about the â€Å"human† side of an issue, which was often contradictory. It could also interpret the complex reality or create a better understanding to a specific situation and the implications of the qualitative data. Another important point was that it could help identify intangible factors (age, gender, nationality, religion, etc) in the report. These factors were the keys that influence a person’s attitude toward the issue. The emphasis of the questionnaire was to understand participant’s standpoints for or against abortion, therefore 10 out of 14 questions were about their opinion, the rest were 3 attribute questions and 1 knowledge question. The total number of participants was 40. There were altogether 20 international students studying in Australia and 20 local Australians completed the questionnaire. Among the participants, 23 of them were female and 17 were male. In the student group, 2 of them were under or below 18 and 18 were at the age of 19 to 30. Among the local Australians, 6 of them were between 31-45 and another 14 were 45 or above. A point to note was that for the international students, 15 of them were Chinese. To make sure the information would be kept secret, no questions were about identity or other private information. The questionnaires were given out in two ways. The first way was to distribute them at school and at homes, and another way was to distribute them through the internet. Participants were quite interested to the questionnaire as they thought that it was a controversial issue. However in the process, participants found confused with the last open-ended question about the relationship between culture, age and abortion as it was not required to state reasons but lines were given. Moreover, due to a lack of time in completing the questionnaire, i. e. in 5 or 10 minutes, the data collected might be distorted. Results: The purpose of the questionnaire was to find out the attitudes of people in Australia towards abortion. Questions were divided into 3 main categories: justified reasons for abortion, legalization of abortion and viewpoints and value towards abortion. For the justified reasons for abortion, a total of 8 choices were given to participants and they could choose more than one answers, including: 1. psychological reasons e. g. resisting abrupt change of life 2. economic reasons e. g. financial burden of raising children 3. unwanted babies e. g. pregnant in mistake 4. caused by rapes 5. unready for responsibility 6. as problems with relationship or wants to avoid single parenthood 7. mother has health problems 8. has already all the children she wanted or all children are grown From the questionnaire, participants thought that the most justified reasons for abortion were â€Å"economic reasons† and â€Å"pregnancies caused by rapes†, both of them make 62. 5% of the total. The next would be â€Å"unready for responsibility† (35%), â€Å"unwanted babies† (32. 5%), à ¢â‚¬Å"mother has health problems† (30%), â€Å"problem for relationship or wants to avoid single parenthood† (22. 5%), â€Å"psychological reasons† (12. %) and the least justified reason would be â€Å"has already children she wanted or all children are grown† (10%). For another category, legalization of abortion, there was an open-ended question asking the participants about one pros and cons of abortion. For the pros, there were several main ideas. First, people thought that after legalization of abortion, risks could be reduced as people no longer find doctors with no license to abort. Secondly, it would a respect to freedom of choice of people. Thirdly, there would be fewer children grown up in an unstable environment. For the cons, people also got similar ideas, for instance, abortion was against the respect of life, i. e. killing innocent life. Also, people could be more irresponsible as they could abort legally. For the last category, viewpoints and values towards abortion, 6 questions were raised. Majorities believed that abortion was becoming common nowadays (25% strongly agree, 50% agree). For the question about whether the people’s views towards abortion was changing, bigger part of them agree with the statement (20%strongly agree, 40% agree) buy quite a number of people maintained neutral (32. %). For the question â€Å" it is inhuman and should be banned†, the 2 sides were almost balanced (5% strongly agree, 32. 5% agree versus 7. 5%strongly disagree and 37. 5% disagree), about 17. 5% people chose to be neutral. In the question of freedom of choice, it was quite one-sided that it should be highly respected (40% for both strongly agree or agree, adding up to 80%). Asking about if it was acceptable in all cases, disagreement (20% strongly disagree, 42. 5% disagree) was more than agreement (32. 5% agree). Though, quite a lot of people thought that they would have different views upon abortion in different cases (35% strongly agree, 32. 5% agree). For the last open-ended question about the relationship between age, culture and views towards abortion, the main ideas of the participants were that aged people, i. e. age group of 45 or above, would be more conservative and therefore have a negative view upon abortion. Moreover, they thought that people with different culture, particularly â€Å"westerners† in the Chinese’s eyes, would be more open and accept the idea of abortion. Discussion and conclusion: The aim of the report was to reveal the current views of people in Australia towards abortion, under the circumstances of different age and cultural background (international students versus local Australians). From the results, we could see that many participants did not have a really strong stance of supporting abortion or not, only a few do. For instance, about 70% of the participants agreed that they would have different views upon abortion in different cases. The most â€Å"justified† cases would be pregnancies by rapes and economic reasons (It was logical that according to Thomson Reuters (2009), an income group of US$39,100 – $65,800 would need a total of $170,460 a year to raise up a children form 0 to 17 year old). Yet, there were enough data to test the hypothesis. There were data supporting the hypothesis. From the results, participants who did not fully support abortion were mainly female or Chinese, whom thought that abortion was inhuman and should be banned. The number made up 32. 5% of the total participants. The reason behind was that female themselves would have real experiences in giving birth so they would have deeper thoughts than male. For Chinese participants, they were young but at the same time they were also deeply influenced by a traditional style of education. The curriculum focused on teaching people to have right values stated by the Confucius and other great figures. According to Vivien (2006), the vice president for education at the Asia Society, china should move away from the traditional forms of practices and adopt a broader curriculum to achieve the goal of becoming a real modern society. Despite there were data supporting the hypothesis, it was in a small proportion. We could find more data that was contrary to it. It also proved that people at older ages might not be conservative. Participants, mostly Australians (mostly aged 45 or above), were rather Pro-Choice. It was because of the trend of abortion. It was becoming more and more common. According to a table drawn by Wm Robert Johnson (2008), the abortion percentage rose from 15. 6% in 1984 to 21. 5% in 2006 in Australia. It might also be because of the cultural background. Comparing to country like China, westernized countries emphasized more on freedom of people. From the results, there were 32. 5% of the total participants who thought abortion was acceptable at all cases. Most importantly, over 80% of them agreed that people should respect the mother’s decision. The data was supported by a report by Monash University (2002). It included a survey on AES voters and candidates (about 2000 people are surveyed a year) about their attitudes towards abortion, from 1987 to 2001. The percentage of people choosing the criteria â€Å" Woman should be able to obtain an abortion readily when they want one† rose from 38% to 59% from 1987 to 2001. On the other hand, the percentage of people choosing the criteria â€Å"abortion should not be allowed under any circumstances† dropped from 6% to 3% in that period. Another evidence was that when participants were asked about whether abortion should be legalized, 65% of them thought that it should be legalized. From the above, we could understand the current views of people in Australia towards abortion, at different ages and cultural background. Though people did not have a strong stance of supporting abortion or not, we could find more evidence showing that people were actually more Pro-Choice than Pro-Life, in other words they would be more supportive to abortion, especially in recent years where abortion was more commonly found. Recommendations: Concerning the implications of the report findings, it was quite obvious that more people in Australia were actually supportive to abortion, based on their Pro-Choice attitude and the agreement of legalizing abortion. The scale and the target groups of the report were small that might distort the real opinion throughout the country. However, based on the report findings, extended researches could be done in examining whether abortion was generally acceptable or not and the possibility to further legalize abortion, as participants of the questionnaire could already clearly state some pros and cons of legalizing abortion. The research should cover a larger target group as Australia was rather multi-cultural. People in different culture could have their views in according to the religion, which was also important in this issue and not discussed in this report. To conclude, though the report did not represent most age and cultural groups in Australia, it could be the basis of further research in testing whether legalizing abortion was possible. References: Blade 2001, â€Å"Should abortion be legalized in Queensland, Australia? †, Available at http://www. bladesplace. id. au/abortion-law-queensland. html C. Natasha 1998, â€Å"Abortion law in Australia†, Law and Bills Digest Group Family Health International 2005, â€Å"Qualitative Research Methods: A Data Collector’s Field Guide†, p. 1-2 â€Å"People and Place† 2004, Monash University, vol 12, no. 4 , p. 25 S. Vivien, E. Owens 2006, â€Å"Education Abroad: The China Syndrome†, Edutopia magazine Thomson Reuters 2009, â€Å"The cost of raising children†, available at: http://moneycentral. msn. com/articles/family/kids/tlkidscost. asp Wm. Robert Johnson 2008, â€Å"Historical abortion statistics† available at: http://www. johnstonsarchive. net/policy/abortion/australia/ab-aust-qld. html