Project Management and Innovation Past and Future Essay Example for Free

Project Management and Innovation Past and Future Essay It is unsurprising that development of innovation is often run as a project. Yet, theoretically both project management and innovation studies have evolved over time as distinctively separate disciplines. In this paper we make an attempt to conceptualize the innovation project management and past as well as future of same. By doing so, we contribute to the nascent academic debate on the interplay between innovation and project management. This paper is concerned with three topics and the interplay between them, namely â€Å"Innovation†, â€Å"Research and Development (RD)† and â€Å"Project Management†. The interest in these topics has exploded recently as they emerged both on the policy agenda and in the corporate strategies. The contribution of technological innovation to national economic growth has been well established in the economic literature. In the last couple of decades, new technologies, new industries, and new business models have powered impressive gains in productivity and GDP growth. While originally there was a tendency to equate RD and innovation, contemporary understanding of innovation is much broader than purely RD. RD is one component of innovation activities and knowledge creation among others. Innovation emerges as a pervasive and complex force, not only in the high-tech sectors in advanced economies, but also as a phenomenon existing in low-tech industry of developing, or catching-up economies. Still, the link between RD and innovation is often at the core of the innovation studies. Presently, we are witnessing â€Å"projectification† of the world as a growing number of specialists organise their work in projects rather than on on-going functional basis. The connection between RD and project management has a long history. Most tools of project management have been developed from the management of RD, often with military purposes (Lorell, 1995). The most vivid example of managing RD projects in the public sector is the PRINCE2 method (UK OGC, 2005). Due to the above mentioned difference between RD and innovation, RD projects should be distinguished from innovation projects too. Innovation is a non-linear process, not necessarily technology-led and may not necessarily result from formal RD investments. Innovation is the exploration and exploitation of new ideas and recombination of existing knowledge in the pursuit of sustained competitive advantage. Besides, both innovation and RD projects by their nature differ from conventional projects. Thus, there is a need to examine the Innovation Project Management (IPM) as a distinctive area of managing innovation in projects, using the tools and methods of the project management. The Evolution of Project Management Theory The genesis of the ideas that led to the development of modern project management can arguably be traced back to the protestant reformation of the 15th century. The Protestants and later the Puritans introduced a number of ideas including ‘reductionism’, ‘individualism’ and the ‘protestant work ethic’ (PWE) that resonate strongly in the spirit of modern project management. Reductionism focuses on removing unnecessary elements of a process or ‘ceremony’ and then breaking the process down into its smallest task or unit to ‘understand’ how it works. Individualism assumes we are active, independent agents who can manage risks and create ideas. These ideas are made into ‘real things’ by social actions contingent upon the availability of a language to describe them. The PWE focuses on the intrinsic value of work. Prior to the protestant reformation most people saw work either as a necessary evil, or as a means to an end. For Protestants, serving God included participating in and working hard at worldly activities as this was part of God’s purpose for each individual. From the perspective of the evolution of modern project management, these ideas were incorporated into two key philosophies, Liberalism and Newtonianism. Liberalism included the ideas of capitalism (Adam Smith), the division of labour, and that an industrious lifestyle would lead to wealthy societies Newton saw the world as a harmonious mechanism controlled by a ‘universal law’. Applying scientific observations to parts of the whole would allow understanding and insights to occur and eventually a complete understanding. LITERATURE REVIEW In this paper we seek to establish bridges between two distinctive disciplines – project management and innovation management (innovation studies). Despite seemingly interrelated nature of both subjects, these two research domains have been developing relatively isolated from each other. Innovation Studies Innovation studies are rooted in the seminal writing of Joseph Schumpeter in the 1920s-1930s (e. g. Schumpeter, 1934), whose ideas started to gain popularity in the 1960s, as the general interest among policymakers and scholars in technological change, RD and innovation increased. The field formed as a distinctive academic discipline from the 1980s. Scholars like Richard Nelson, Chris Freeman, Bengt-Ake Lundvall, Keith Pavitt, Luc Soete, Giovanni Dosi, Jan Fagerberg, Bart Verspagen, Eric von Hippel and others have shaped and formed this discipline. The seminal publications in the area include, inter alia, Freeman (1982), Freeman and Soete (1997), Lundvall (1992), Nelson and Winter (1977, 1982), von Hippel (1988). Regarding the definition of innovation – a general consensus has been achieved among innovation scholars who broadly understand this phenomenon as a transformation of knowledge into new products, processes and services. An in-depth review of the innovation literature is beyond the scope of this paper (refer to Fagerberg (2004) for such analysis). Our intention is to outline main directions of research. In a recent paper, Fagerberg and Verspagen (2009) provide a comprehensive analysis of the cognitive and organizational characteristics of the emerging field of innovation studies and consider its prospects and challenges. The authors trace evolution and dynamics of the field. Reflecting the complex nature of innovation, the field of innovation studies unites various academic disciplines. For examples, Fagerberg and Verspagen (2009) define four main clusters of innovation scholars. They are â€Å"Management† (cluster 1), â€Å"Schumpeter Crowd† (cluster 2), â€Å"Geography and Policy† (cluster 3. 1), Periphery† (cluster 3. 2) and â€Å"Industrial Economics† (cluster 4). For the purposes of our analysis we shall have a closer look at the â€Å"Management† cluster, since it is here where the connection between innovation and Project Management can be found. In fact â€Å"Management† is the smallest cluster within the entire network of innovation scholars, consisting of only 22 scholars, mainly sociologists and management scholars, with a geographical bias towards the USA. This small number of scholars (22) is in sharp contrast with the biggest clusters ? â€Å"Geography and Policy† (298 scholars) or â€Å"Schumpeter Crowd† (309). In terms of publication preferences, apart from Research Policy, the favorite journal for innovation scholars, members of â€Å"Management† cluster see management journals as the most relevant publishing outlets, particularly Journal of Product Innovation Management, Management Science and Strategic Management Journal. Fagerberg and Verspagen (2009, p. 29) see a strong link between innovation and management and provide a following description: â€Å"Management is to some extent a cross-disciplinary field by default and firm-level innovation falls naturally within its portfolio. †¦. So between innovation studies and management there clearly is some common ground†. Project Management The project management as a human activity has a long history; e. g. construction of Egyptian pyramids in 2000 BC may be regarded as a project activity. However, the start for the modern Project Management era, as a distinctive research area, was in the 1950s. Maylor (2005) determines three major stages of the PM historical development. Before the 1950s, the PM as such was not recognized. In the 1950s, tools and techniques were developed to support the management of complex projects. The dominant thinking was based on â€Å"one best way† approach, based on numerical methods. The third stage, from the 1990s onwards is characterized by the changing environment in which projects take place. It is more and more realized that a project management approach should be contingent upon its context. It is also noted that a shift is observed over time in development of project management – from focus on sole project management to the broader management of projects and strategic project management (Fangel, 1993; Morris, 1994; Bryde, 2003). Reflecting these changes in the managerial practices, the body of academic literature on PM has evolved and burgeoned. International Journal of Project Management and Project Management Journals became the flagship publication outlets for PM scholars and practitioners. A large number of (managerial) handbooks outlining the methods and techniques of PM have been published, e. g. Andersen et al (2004), Bruijn et al (2004) Kerzner (2005), Maylor (2005), Meredith and Mantel (2006), Muller (2009), Roberts (2007), Turner (1999), Turner and Turner (2008). Despite a growing number of publications, there is no unified theoretical basis and there is no unified theory of project management, due to its multidisciplinary nature (Smyth and Morris, 2007). Project management has a more applied nature than other management disciplines. Although the PM has formed as a distinct research field, there is no universal, generally accepted definition of a project and project management. Turner (1999) develops a generic definition of a project: A project is an endeavor in which human, financial and material resources are organized in a novel way to undertake a unique scope of work, of given specification, which constraints of cost and time, so as to achieve beneficial change defined by quantitative and qualitative objectives. There have been several attempts to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art research in PM and outline its trends and future directions (e. g. , PMI, 2004; Betts and Lansley, 1995; Themistocleous and Wearne, 2003; Crawford et al, 2006; Kloppenberg and Opfer, 2002). In a recent article, Kwak and Anbari (2009) review relevant academic journals and identify eight allied disciplines, in which PM is being applied and developed. These disciplines include such areas as Operation Management, Organizational Behavior, Information Technology, Engineering and Construction, Strategy/Integration, Project Finance and Accounting, and Quality and Management. Notably, one of these eight allied disciplines is â€Å"Technology Application / Innovation / New Product Development / Research and Development†. The authors found that only 11% of journal publications on the subject of project management fell under the â€Å"Innovation† heading. Yet, importantly, this area showed sustained upward interest, and hence the number of publications, since the 1960s. Overall, Kwak and Anbari (2009) conclude that the mainstream PM research proceeds largely in the â€Å"Strategy / Integration / Portfolio Management / Value of PM / Marketing† direction (30% of all publications examined by the authors). PM AND INNOVATION: THE PAST Projects in one form or another have been undertaken for millennia, but it was only in the latter part of the 20th century people started talking about ‘project management’. Earlier endeavors were seen as acts of worship, engineering or nation building. And the people controlling the endeavors saw themselves as members of groups focused on specific callings such as generals, priests and architects. There is an important distinction to be drawn here between projects: ‘a temporary Endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result’ and the profession of project management; or at least ‘modern project management’. For a discipline to be considered a profession a number of attributes are generally considered necessary; these are: †¢ Practitioners are required to meet formal educational and entry requirements, †¢ autonomy over the terms and conditions of practice, a code of ethics, †¢ a commitment to service ideals, †¢ a monopoly over a discrete body of knowledge and related skills. Within this context, project management is best considered an ‘emerging profession’ that has developed during the last 30 to 40 years. Over this period project management associations around the world have developed a generally consistent view of the processes involved in ‘project management’, encoded these views into ‘Bodies of Knowledge’ (BoKs), described competent behaviors and are now certifying knowledgeable and/or competent ‘Project Managers’. Certainly, if ‘modern project management’ does not qualify as a fully fledged profession at this point in time, it will evolve into one fairly quickly. The Evolution of Project Management Tools The central theme running through the various project management concepts is that project management is an integrative process that has at its core, the balancing of the ‘iron triangle’ of time, cost and output. All three facets must be present for a management process to be considered project management. The evolution of cost and scope control into relatively precise processes occurred during the 14th and 18th Centuries respectively. Time management lacked effective measurement and control until the emergence of ‘critical path’ scheduling in the 1960s. The branch of management that gave rise to the development of the Critical Path Method of scheduling was Operational Research (OR). OR is an interdisciplinary science which uses methods such as mathematical modeling and statistics to assist decision making in complex real-world situations. It is distinguished by its ability to look at and improve an entire system, rather than concentrating on specific processes which was the focus of Taylor’s ‘scientific management’. The growth of OR was facilitated by the increasing availability and power of computers which were needed to carry out the large numbers of calculations typically required to analyze a system. [pic] Figure 1. The Iron Triangle The first ‘project’ to add science to the process of time control was undertaken by Kelley and Walker to develop the Critical Path Method (CPM) for E. I. du Pont de Numours. In 1956/57 Kelly and Walker started developing the algorithms that became CPM. The program they developed was trialled on plant shutdowns in 1957 And the first paper on critical path scheduling was published in 1959. The critical meeting to approve this project was held on the 7th May 1957 in Newark, Delaware, where DuPont and Remington Rand jointly committed US$226,400 to fund the project. The foundations of modern project management were laid in 1957; but it took another 12 years before Dr Martin Barnes first described the ‘iron triangle’ of time, cost and output in a course he developed for his UK clients in 1969 called ‘Time and Money in Contract Control’. PM AND INNOVATION: THE FUTURE Defining PM for Future The biggest challenge facing project management is answering the question ‘what is a project? ’ Until this question can be answered unambiguously the foundation of project management cannot be defined. Current definitions such as the PMBOK’s ‘a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result’ can apply to the baking of a cake as easily as the construction of a multi story building. They are both temporary endeavors to create a unique outcome but in all probability the baking of a cake is not a project. The traditional view of projects embedded in the various BoKs is derived from both the management theories underpinning ‘modern project management’ and the industrial base of early project management practitioners (construction / defense / engineering). The BoKs tend to treat projects as naturally occurring entities that need to be managed. This is an easy enough assumption when focusing on a building or a battle ship. There is a physical presence that occupies a defined space that needs creating in a defined timeframe to a defined scope. This view assumes project exists and project management is about transforming the raw materials of the project into a finished and useful form. Consequently it is the presence of the project itself that defines ‘project management’. The PMBOKs version is ‘The application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements’. However, if we cannot precisely define a ‘project’, there is no basis for project management and consequently no foundation for a useable theory of project management. Researchers and academics are starting to reverse the idea that a project is necessary for project management to exist and suggest it is the application of ‘project management’ to an endeavour that creates a project. Some of the ideas being discussed include: †¢ Projects as ‘Temporary Knowledge Organizations (TKOs)’. This school of thought focuses on the idea that the primary instrument of project management is the project team and the recognition that predictability is not a reality of project management. Some key ideas include: o The concept of the project team as a ‘complex adaptive system (or organism)’, living on the ‘edge of chaos’; responding and adapting to its surroundings (ie the project’s stakeholders) offers one new set of insights. o The idea of ‘Nonlinearity’ suggests that you can do the same thing several times over and get completely different results. Small differences may lead to big changes whilst big variations may have minimal effect. This idea questions the validity of ‘detailed programming’ attempting to predict the path of a project (the ‘butterfly effect’, constrained by ‘strange attractors’). The concept of ‘Complex Responsive Processes of Relating’ (CRPR) puts emphasis on the interaction among people and the essentially responsive and participative nature of the human processes of organizing and relating. According to the modern trend in these field, consequence of accepting these theories is to shift the focus of ‘project management’ from the object of the project to the people involved in the project (ie, its stakeholders), and to recognize that it is people who create the project, work on the project and close the project with all innovation. Consequently the purpose of most if not all project ‘control documents’ such as schedules and cost plans shift from being an attempt to ‘control the future’ this is impossible; to a process for communicating with and influencing stakeholders to encourage and guide their involvement in the project. Notwithstanding the advantages of project management, it would be unreasonable to expect all innovation to be carried out through projects. In fact, many ideas are generated by employees in a company on a regular basis, not only within project teams. Thus, there is certainly a room for functional, on-going organization of innovation process. Even more so, in certain situations project management can be detrimental to innovation. Aggeri and Segrestin (2007) show that the recent project development methods in automotive industry can induce negative effects on collective learning processes and these effects have managerial implications for innovative developments. Argument for Managing Innovation in Projects The origins of project management in the manufacturing and construction ndustries determine an engineering perspective, viewing a project as a task-focused entity, proceeding in a linear or similar way from the point of initiation to implementation. This view prevailed until comparatively recently. This view is seemingly in stark contrast with the nature of innovation. It is increasingly being acknowledged that the innovation is a complex non-linear process. The earliest view on innovation process as a pipeline model (whereby a given input is transformed to a specific output) has been largely abandoned. Presently, however, project management is increasingly recognised as a key generic skill for business management (Fangel, 1993), rather than a planning-oriented technique or an application of engineering sciences and optimization theory, in which project management has its roots (Soderlund, 2004). The â€Å"management by projects† has emerged as general mode of organizing for all forms of enterprise (Turner 2003). This new conceptualization of project management enables to embrace the non-linear nature of innovation. Even a creative and non-linear nature of innovation is often characterized as an organizational or management process, rather than spontaneous improvisation. Davila et al. (2006) state, Innovation, like many business functions, is a management process that requires specific tools, rules, and discipline. Hence, a project, with its defined objective, scope, budget and limitations, can be an appropriate setting of innovation. The other closely linked element in the new world of project management with innovation is embracing uncertainty. Writing on paper cannot control the future! Schedules do not control time; cost plans do not control costs. Plans outline a possible future and provided a basis for recognizing when things ‘are not going to plan’. For innovation project management to succeed, both project and senior management are going to need to embrace uncertainty and learn skills to manage it rather than expecting predictability and inevitably being disappointed by the variability of ‘reality’ as it unfolds. Challenges of Empirical Studies Scarcity and unreliability, or even lack of data poses a big challenge in research in both innovation and project management. A macro-level research n PM is obstructed by the lack of data on the number of projects, carried out by firms and public institutions, and their characteristics. Problems stem from the definition of a project and the non-disclosure policy of most companies. In such circumstances, PM research has tended to rely on case-studies or on small-scale tailor-made surveys. There i s a widely acknowledged lack of large-scale empirical research in PM (Kloppenborg and Opfer, 2002; Soderlund, 2004). It is claimed that the Independent Project Analysis (IPA) is the market leader in quantitative analysis of project management systems, i. . in project evaluation and project system benchmarking (IPA, 2007). All IPA analyses and research are based on proprietary databases. As of mid-2009, IPA’s databases contain more than 11,000 projects of all sizes ($20,000 to $25 billion) executed across the world. Each year, approximately 1,000 projects are added with representation from the many different industries served by IPA. Each project in our databases is characterized by over 2,000 project attributes, including technology, project scope, project type, project costs, year of authorization, and geographical location (IPA 2009). All information contained in the IPA databases is carefully protected and kept as confidential proprietary data (IPA, 2009). Due to the issues of confidentiality, access for academic researchers is restricted. In the innovation field, academic community has been increasingly using several sources of data, such as granted patents, tailor-made surveys, as well as other data provided by national statistical offices. European research on innovation uses several instruments to obtain data on innovation indicators and to assess national innovation performance. The two main instruments are the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) and the European Innovation Scorecard (EIS). As of 2009, five successful CIS surveys have been carried out: CIS1 (1992), CIS2 (1996), CIS3 (2001), CIS4 (2004) and CIS 2006. Each new round was characterized by an improved questionnaire, in line with the evolution of understanding of the phenomenon of innovation. The more recent surveys embraced understanding of innovation in a broader sense, and for example, paid more attention to service innovations. Further, it is expected that the future surveys will also include management techniques, organizational change, environmental benefits, and design and marketing issues. We argue that, taken into consideration the growing relevance of innovation projects, a clearer and explicit wording should be used in CIS questionnaire for determining whether innovation is organized and carried out in projects or functionally. CONCLUSIONS Innovation studies and project management as distinctive disciplines have been developing in a relative isolation from each other. The analysis in innovation studies domain has rarely explored the mechanisms and patterns of innovation in projects in contrast to traditional (functional or hierarchical) organization. However, since innovation management in companies is increasingly organized in projects, it is of utmost importance to directly address the interplay between innovation management and project management. In this paper, based on the relevant literature and insights from practice, we conceptually examined the relationships between these two research areas aiming at bridging the gap between them. It is widely acknowledged within the discipline of innovation studies that there is a high percentage of failure of innovation initiatives, in other words, failure is inevitable when managing innovation. The key skill set of the competent project manager will be identifying and managing stakeholder expectations using tools such as the Stakeholder circle to help identify the project’s key stakeholders. Innovation is perceived as a luxury, not as a necessity. Therefore, it is of high priority to manage innovation effectively and efficiently with constrained budgets.

Clockwork Orange And The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction Essay -- essay

Clockwork Orange and the Age of Mechanical Reproduction For Walter Benjamin, the defining characteristic of modernity was mass assembly and production of commodities, concomitant with this transformation of production is the destruction of tradition and the mode of experience which depends upon that tradition. While the destruction of tradition means the destruction of authenticity, of the originally, in that it also collapses the distance between art and the masses it makes possible the liberation which capitalism both obscures and opposes. While commodity fetishism represents the alienation away from use-value and towards exchange-value, leading to the assembly line construction of the same--as we see relentlessly analyzed by Horkheimer and Adorno in their essay The Culture Industry. Benjamin believes that with the destruction of tradition, laboratory potentialities are nonetheless created. The process of the destruction of aura through mass reproduction brings about the "destruction of traditional modes of experience through shock," in response new forms of experience are created which attempt to cope with that shock. "Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking one element: its presence in time and space, it’s unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning" when substantive duration ceases to matter, he says, the authority of the object is threatened. (Think, for example of Alex's response to high art...) "technology has subjected the human sensorium to a complex kind of training. There came a day when a new and urgent need for stimuli was met by the film. In a film, perception in the form of shocks was established as a formal principle. That which determines the rhythm of production on a conveyor belt is the basis of the rhythm of reception in a film." (Motifs in Baudelaire) Benjamin distinguishes between two kinds of experience: Erfahrung something integrated as experience, and Erlebnis, something merely lived through. Erlebnis characterizes the modern age and refers to the inability to integrate oneself and the world via experience. Erlebnis, then, ... ...lus (a "very important piece of art," ritualized and de-politicized) is made into a weapon, and the scene of her death is a nearly subliminal orgy of modern-art. Whereas she, as with the use of all high-art among the Bourgeoisie, finds only exchange value in the phallus, phallus as pure sign, Alex initiates the violent reversal of that commodification. He turns it into a tool, here a tool of violence; what she has done is to inject exhibition value into forms of art which have only exchange value, the work of art in the hands of the Bourgeoisie is reinjected with a type of aura, which only lead it further in the direction of losing control (like the reinjection of aura in the robot --Maria's aura--in Metropolis). Control is lost and the phallus becomes a weapon, a violent recontextualization by Alex. He proves to understand well this process. There are also similarities here with the State's control of his mind through conditioning. The state attempts to gain control by turning Alex into a robot (a clockwork orange), thus commodifying him (isn't this the struggle at the end for control of Alex--the liberals and state?). His use-value is a fun ction of his exchange-value.

In what ways have changes in technology led to changes Essay

The technological advances of today had greatly influenced the conceptualization up to implementation of software architectures. Miniaturization of hardware dependence, further enhancement of capabilities and features, faster processing time for the most accurate result(s), and the most considered by many as the most important of all, improvement of user-friendliness were only just an ample of the trends happening today for the software industry. Since these were the trends, software architects had to cope up with the peoples demand for better software interaction experience. The large computers that occupy a whole room but do the same capabilities of our personal computers nowadays were had long been obsolete. Computers had long been recognized by many as a nice help for human living. Man then realized that computers need to be portable in order that man could bring it wherever he goes and utilize it whenever he likes or whenever he needed. Hardware for computers is now made to be as compact as possible, (great example would be the hardware of mobile phones). This trend is then accompanied by the need for better algorithms and implementation codes. The task for creating such algorithms and codes had turned to be more complex as time goes. Software makers had then thought that it is better that this problem be distributed to a group of people so that it would be easier to solve. People they will select to handle the task should have the knowledge for the specific task he should do. And then after this creation of algorithm phase, the remaining problem would then be how the person to use would utilize the code without requiring him to know all the science behind it. Technology is fast changing. Computer and software improvements are a part of this changing technology. That is why the field of software architecture emerged. References: Software Architecture. Retrieved July 10, 2007 from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Software_architecture.

Hell What We Think We Know - 2123 Words

HELL, WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW The subject of Hell is a subject that turns many people off to organized religion today. After all, who wants to spend their Sunday mornings listening to a preacher rant and rave about the â€Å"Hell fire and brimstone† of Hell or â€Å"burning in Hell† or if you don’t change your ways you will spend eternity in Hell. Most want to be entertained and walk out of church feeling all warm and fuzzy. Therefore, clergy mostly ignore the subject or gloss over it even though they believe Hell exists because of their extensive study of God’s word. After all, it is pretty horrible to think of someone being sent to Hell for eternity, but Hell is given more time in the Scriptures than Heaven. Hell is as difficult to describe†¦show more content†¦The other chamber is for the wicked dead and is more like what we perceive Hell is like. Both are awaiting resurrection, one is for the resurrection to life and the other is the resurrection to condemnation. The third description of Hell is considered the place of the lost for eternity after the resurrection. This is the place where bodies are thrown and burned. It is a place of everlasting punishment where the fire is constantly burning to keep the smell of the burning flesh from becoming too strong. It is described as a place where lost spirits live, where â€Å"their worm never dies and their fire is never quenched† according to the warnings of Jesus. A fourth description of Hell is found in 2 Peter 2:4. Peter describes Hell as a place where fallen angels are sent as punishment. He explains that God did not spare the angels who sinned or people who lived before the flood. He threw them into Hell, in gloomy pits of darkness, where they will be held until the Day of Judgment. This should make it clear to all of us that God judges sinners and Hell is where they find themselves for eternity. The fifth description of Hell is described as the lake of fire, a fiery lake of burning sulfur. 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Were this confl agration to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left in the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes. (Wiesel 20). When Wiesel arrived at the

Who Has the Most Accurate Weather Forecast

When it comes to checking your weather forecast, which weather service provider do you trust the most? If youre not sure, or interested in finding one that might work out for you, take a look at these weather services that repeatedly come out on top for accuracy. For most people,  choosing AccuWeather, The Weather Channel, or Weather Underground might be a good idea especially if youre a snob about air temperatures. All three of these weather apps were the best at getting the nations one-day to five-day high temperatures right—that is, they consistently forecast them within three degrees of accuracy. Why Not All Sizes Fit All Keep in mind, these apps are among the best for most, but not all.  These weather apps  may not be the  most accurate for you, personally. Each of these apps ranks as the most reliable for most locations across the United States. The accuracy of your forecast depends largely on where you live. One reason why a weather service providers forecasts may (or may not) be reliable for your city has to do with how that organization arrives at their forecasts. Weather providers each have a unique recipe. They all largely base their forecasts on the computer models provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, but after that, there is no standard formula. Some services base their weather predictions solely on these computer models. Others use a mix of computers with a dash of human meteorologist skill and gut instinct sprinkled in. At times, computers do a better job at forecasting, and at other times you need a human to improve upon that data. It is the human element that factors in why predictive accuracy varies from location to location and from week to week. A second reason is that your location may be too localized. Most forecasts are generated for major metropolitan areas across the U.S., so if you live along the city outskirts or in a rural area, it is possible that your hyper-local weather may not be getting captured. As more companies allow users to share real-time via their mobile devices, called weather crowd-sourcing, this data gap may become  less of a hindrance. Which Service  Is Most Accurate for You? If youre curious to know which major weather providers give the most accurate forecasts where you live, try  ForecastAdvisor. The website lets you plug in your zip code and will show you how closely forecasts from The Weather Channel, WeatherBug, AccuWeather, Weather Underground, NWS, and others matched the actual weather observed for your area over the last month and year.   Feel Like Your Forecast Is Always Wrong? Did you try Forecast Advisor and were you surprised to see which services rank as best for your city mostly because none of them ever seem to get it right? Dont be so quick to blame your weather provider. There are a couple of reasons why the weather outside your window may rarely seem to match up with the current or forecast conditions showing on your app. And, it is not always related to accuracy. It has to do with where the weather station is and how often the app (or your device) updates. Youre may be too far away from the closest weather station. Most observations that weather forecasts and apps use come from airports across the U.S., so if you are 10 miles from the closest airport, then  your forecast may say theres light rain (and there may be at the airport) but it could be dry at your location. In some cases, the weather observations may not have updated. Usually, most weather observations are taken hourly. So if its raining at 10 a.m., but not at 10:50 a.m., then your current observation may be incorrect. You should also check your refresh time, too. Hate Weather Apps Entirely? If you have been let down by weather apps one too many times and have given up, all hope is not lost. If you want the most up-to-date picture of whats happening weatherwise, a good thing to do is check your local  weather radar. Your local weather radar should  update automatically every few minutes.

Comprehensive Legislation Of Social Media Privacy

Comprehensive Legislation to Protect Social Media Privacy Reading and Writing Workshop II, Section 007 Qiu Jin (Rachel) August 11, 2014 Comprehensive Legislation to Protect Social Media Privacy Abstract The article makes a research on both the present situation of social media users’ privacy, and the work of the FTC and other federal departments to protect social media privacy. However, without a comprehensive legislation in the federal level, the fragmentation of such trial cannot arise enough and active attention to privacy issues in the industry and in public. So the article suggests comprehensive legislation and gives recommendation on primary elements the legislation should take into consideration. Key Words Social Media, Privacy, Legislation, The FTC Introduction Social media is a digital communication process that connects people in the creation and exchange of dialogue, content and communities. 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Examine workplace mindfulness and relation - Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss about the Examine workplace mindfulness and relation. Answer: The aim of this research essay is to gain a thorough understanding of Organization behavior (OB) in the workplaces. However, this essay will mainly argue on the fact that for enhancing the productive performance of the employees whether care needs to be taken with the job design, working environment, goal setting, motivation and rewards. Thus, keeping in mind the topic this essay will start will the theories of OB, which are suitable for organizational setting followed by identifying the organizational issues related to culture, ethics and social concerns along with their managerial interventions and finally comparing and contrasting on the present developments in OB. OB is an important concept to study because it teaches why employees behave like the way they do in an organization. Thus, it guides to understand the complicated nature of employees behavior by identifying their causes and effects of those behaviors. OB further helps in encouraging employees, improvising relations as well as guiding in effective exertion of human resources in the organization (Kinicki and Kreitner 2012). Douglas McGregor was the original proposer of the fact that an employees motivation gets an impact from the attitude of the manager. Thus, he came up with two motivational methods known as Theory X and Theory Y management, which seems to have opposing each other (Kopelman, Prottas and Falk 2012). The theory of X management states that for any individual work is inborn distasteful and so they tries to avoid it as much as possible. Therefore, most of the employees are not ambitious and needs to be directed, as they have no desire to take responsibility. However, as per this theory the main source of employees motivation is monetary then security. On a total contrary comes the theory Y of management, which states that work can become easier if the working conditions are comfortable. Employees are bound to self-directed if they are committed to the organizational objectives. Therefore, through this theory there are chances that an employee can align his or her personal goals with that of the organization by utilizing their own needs for fulfillment as their motivator. Another theory of organizational behavior is Hierarchy of needs theory by Abraham Maslow. This theory is also among those effective theories, which can be applied in the organizational setting (Deci and Ryan 2014). According to Maslow, every employee in the workplace has to cross through a series of needs in association with their employment in which they mainly move from the fulfillment of their very basic needs to survive until the final need of self-actualization. Under this theory, the employees are said to have utilized their time in enhancing their job roles and advance their careers. Victor Vrooms expectancy theory is also applicable for organizational settings for enhancing the productive performance because not like other theories but it focuses mainly on the results. As per this theory, Vroom has proposed that whether the employee will enhance his or her productivity will depend on three variables, which are expectancy, instrumentality and valence (HemaMalini and Washington 2014). Therefore, the interaction in between these three variables in an employees unconscious mind will create a motivating force that will in turn determine how much effort the employees will exert on their jobs. Lastly, Frederick Herzbergs Two-factor theory is there which is also very much applicable for organizational settings. This theory states that an employees motivation will come from his or her job design whereas their job satisfaction will come from the work environment like illumination, companionship and so on (Ozguner and Ozguner 2014). The cultural concerns can have an impact on the employees productive performance, which can raise problematic situations in the organizations. Employees needs to feel that they are an essential part of their organizational culture otherwise their performance will be hampered and they will fail to deliver productive results to achieve the organizational goals. For instance if organizational culture is like the employees can only raise their voice when it is necessary or if one department is more outspoken as well as socially active, then in such cases there can be conflict in the organization among the departments (Hogan and Coote 2014). Thus, here in one organization, each department will develop their own culture, which will affect the performance of the employees, as they will not feel that each one of them belongs to one particular culture and all are equal for the organization. Therefore, managerial intervention is an important part, which can solve these cultural issues in the o rganization. Managers should structure their recruitment process at the very beginning and thus, should hire those officers who have almost similar beliefs and values, which comprises the organizational culture (McFarlin and Sweeney 2014). Managers should act in a fair and uniform manner to all their employees to deal with workplace diversity successfully. Moreover, managers should also encourage interaction between the employees of various cultures backgrounds. The next crucial issue is related to the ethical concerns in a workplace. Good ethical culture can direct an employee towards productive performance as well as to built love and belonging among employees. Code of ethics is always a good indicator of employees commitment, which in turn will increase their productive performance. An employee who has good work ethics will always deliver good work through his or her physical, emotional and mental effort to their job. Thus, they will also look forward to deliver the best work to the organization (Simha and Cullen 2012). Therefore, managers should intervene and take charge of this as well as encourage employees work ethics so that they can deliver productive performance. Managers should act as the role model because if they r into unethical activities then other employees will also follow him because maximum employees have a tendency to mimic their higher authority. Managers should appreciate as well as recognize good ethics of the employe es, which can act as strong motivators for the employees to continue their good work. Lastly, another organizational issue comes from their social concerns, which also is directly affecting the performance of the employees. Lack of ethnicity, racism as well as gender biasness is among those crucial issues, which can have a major impact on the employees performance. Managers should be alert enough to avoid all these by equally treating and maintaining peace in the organization (Heilman 2012). According to Wood et al. (2012), job design has been said to be having a strong impact on work satisfaction, engagement and performance. Authors like Truxillo et al. (2012), have further supported this viewpoint and through his research have concluded that productive performance is related with two dimensions and they are design of the job and high involvement management. Job design highly motivates employees and enhances their performance through increasing the efficiency of work and job specialization. On a contrary to this Bakker, Tims and Derks (2012), have stated that why only job design, there is a major role of working conditions as well which help the employees to proactively balance their work and environment so that they can stay focused and their productive performance increases. Working condition is among the essential determinant for employees to deliver quality performance. If the working condition is, such where employees are able to concentrate totally that will autom atically decrease their rate of error, absenteeism and increase the rate of output, their level of motivation and their length of services. Another factor that has been highlighted in the literature is the setting of goals, which is also associated with productive performance. Leblebici (2012) has stated that having a set goal by the employees help them to enhance their performance because they can set their focus and priorities their work based on their goals and to attain that they will at any cost give their best quality work. Employees will become highly productive in order to reach their goal, which will make them perform well in the organization. Arguing with this statement Wong and Laschinger (2013), has said that primary factor for extracting productive performance is through empowerment of the employees. He has further stated that motivation, goals, rewards, job design or work settings are all secondary when it comes to employees actual performance. As per the findings of the research, it is said that empowering employees will make them more responsible regarding their work. Therefore, they will be more frank and less hesitant to share their suggestions or feedback related to their work or the organization. Being empowered the employees will be co nfident enough to find innovative ways for their tasks which will make their performance more productive and fruitful because they will have that liberty to innovatively handle their errors. Dane and Brummel (2014), has also stated another factor, which also has a major role to play to enhance employee performance, and it is the work engagement. He has stated that work engagement is positively related to that of work performance and active learning with the highly conscious employees.Thus, to conclude this research essay it can be said that as per the aim of this essay a detail understanding has been obtained regarding Observational behavior in the workplaces. The theories of OB, which are much suitable for organizational settings, are found to be the X and Y theory followed by hierarchy of needs theory, expectancy theory and the two-factor theory because these are highly relatable for productive performance of the employees. Moreover, the organizational issues are mainly observed t o be related to cultural, ethical and social concerns in the workplaces. Lastly, there have been contradictory states as well from the researchers who have stated that job empowerment and engagement also increases productive performance of employees in the workplace. References Bakker, A.B., Tims, M. and Derks, D., 2012. Proactive personality and job performance: The role of job crafting and work engagement.Human relations,65(10), pp.1359-1378. Dane, E. and Brummel, B.J., 2014. Examining workplace mindfulness and its relations to job performance and turnover intention.Human Relations,67(1), pp.105-128. Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R.M., 2014. The importance of universal psychological needs for understanding motivation in the workplace.The Oxford handbook of work engagement, motivation, and self-determination theory, pp.13-32. Heilman, M.E., 2012. Gender stereotypes and workplace bias.Research in organizational Behavior,32, pp.113-135. HemaMalini, P.H. and Washington, A., 2014. Employees' motivation and valued rewards as a key to effective QWL-from the perspective of expectancy theory.TSM Business Review,2(2), p.45. Hogan, S.J. and Coote, L.V., 2014. Organizational culture, innovation, and performance: A test of Schein's model.Journal of Business Research,67(8), pp.1609-1621. Kinicki, A. and Kreitner, R., 2012.Organizational behavior: Key concepts, skills best practices. McGraw-Hill Irwin. Kopelman, R.E., Prottas, D.J. and Falk, D.W., 2012. Further development of a measure of Theory X and Y managerial assumptions.Journal of Managerial Issues, pp.450-470. Leblebici, D., 2012. Impact of workplace quality on employees productivity: case study of a bank in Turkey.Journal of Business Economics and Finance,1(1), pp.38-49. McFarlin, D. and Sweeney, P.D., 2014.International management: strategic opportunities cultural challenges. Routledge. Ozguner, Z. and Ozguner, M., 2014. A managerial point of view on the relationship between of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Herzberg's dual factor theory.International Journal of Business and Social Science,5(7). Simha, A. and Cullen, J.B., 2012. Ethical climates and their effects on organizational outcomes: Implications from the past and prophecies for the future.The Academy of Management Perspectives,26(4), pp.20-34. Truxillo, D.M., Cadiz, D.M., Rineer, J.R., Zaniboni, S. and Fraccaroli, F., 2012. A lifespan perspective on job design: Fitting the job and the worker to promote job satisfaction, engagement, and performance.Organizational Psychology Review,2(4), pp.340-360. Wong, C.A. and Laschinger, H.K., 2013. Authentic leadership, performance, and job satisfaction: the mediating role of empowerment.Journal of advanced nursing,69(4), pp.947-959. Wood, S., Van Veldhoven, M., Croon, M. and de Menezes, L.M., 2012. Enriched job design, high involvement management and organizational performance: The mediating roles of job satisfaction and well-being.Human relations,65(4), pp.419-445.