Personal and Professional Development Assignment

Personal and Professional Development - Assignment Example 5). This provides wider scope and opportunities for the individual to look at his own career progress from a wider perspective and takes measures that can help him improve his professional skills and abilities. There are various other types of training and development, such as job or workplace training and development. These are related to promoting and improving skills and capabilities of a person in relation to his workplace environment and his job specification. Alsop (2000, p. 1) defined Continuing Professional Development as an educational process by which people put efforts to maintain and enhance professional competence from a wider perspective. Often, both CPD and lifelong learning are used interchangeably. From the business point of view, there are various types of on-the-job as well as the off-the-job training and all these different types of training are considered to be critical components of professional development. Often termed as organizational development, Human Reso urce Management gives greater significance to imparting specific training and development programs with a view to foster the skills, abilities, knowledge, wisdom, experience and ultimately the productivity of employees required to make them fit for a particular job task. But, in contrast, a person who attempts to carry out CPD will certainly think in a wider perspective and thinks about developing the overall skills and abilities required for him to improve his professional skills, rather than required for a specific job. As Mackay (2007, p. 185) emphasized that Continuing Professional Development is a personal commitment to keeping one’s professional knowledge up to date and keeping on improving his professional abilities. As part of gaining such ongoing professional development, most people keep on updating their CVs, ensuring professional recognition, showcasing their achievements, accelerating career prospects and ensuring greater work satisfaction. Following are the majo r factors that explain why CPD is different from other types of training and development In CPD, the learner is in a free thinking and free-working aspirations where as the learner in almost all other types of development programs is in control. For instance, an employee working as a machine operator who is attending a development program in a technology company will be under the control and pressure of his manager to get accustomed with the working conditions in his business organization. CPD is considered to be a holistic process and therefore it can address various aspects of life and value-elements related the society or family in general. In CPD, people will be promoted to think how they want to be and evaluating how they are performing. People also will be prompted to look forward about working from the current situation toward the future direction. In almost all other types of training and development, people are thinking only about the present job, performance in that partic ular job, managers’ or superiors’ feedback related to that specific job etc. With continuing professional development, individuals are becoming responsible for controlling and managing their own development and career-success. But in other types of development, not only they but also managers or those who give training and development to them are also responsible for their professional deve

Puritans, Max Weber Essay Example for Free

Puritans, Max Weber Essay 1.Explain: Puritans wanted to purify the Church of England. Puritans were people who wanted to get rid of things that were not stated by Jesus Christ or by the Bible. They rejected decisions and traditions established by the Church (i.e. people). Examples: paintings of God and Jesus, rich ornaments and dà ©cor, hierarchy in Church, selling pardons. They also thought that the temples should be smaller and not so monumental. Puritans’ beliefs were a threat to the hierarchy and wealth of the English Church, so they were persecuted and unwelcome in there. They had to look for a place they could live the way they wanted. 2.Describe the Puritans who set sail to America in 1620. Majority of Puritans who set sail to America on Mayflower in 1620 was well-educated and belonged to upper middle class (they were rather rich). Those people couldn’t worship God according to their beliefs because their religion was a threat to the Church of England. Puritans were constantly persecuted and they left to Netherlands, and then to Virginia in Noth America. Their trip resembled Exodus to the promised land. Puritans called themselves Pilgrims, because it was a pilgrimage to the new world where they hoped to be free and to establish the Church there. 3.The literary genres Puritans practiced and did not practice. 4.Explain the notion of predestination and how Puritans shaped they lives according to it. Puritans believed that they don’t have any influence on whether they will go to heaven or to hell. They believe that God knows it before they are born and they can do nothing about it. (There is a paradox of free-will - although one may be a good person, he/she can still go to hell.) God may change his mind, but people cannot do anything. For Puritans, the fact that someone is rich and successful means that this person may be predestined, so they work even harder and look for success, hoping that maybe this would be a sign of their predestination. 5.What biblical events did the first Puritans in America draw parallels to? Puritans considered themselves to be like pilgrims to the Promised Land, like Jews running from Egypt to Israel. As they wanted to establish a Church they considered it to be a mission. 6.How did Max Weber compare Protestants and Catholics in terms of the notions of hard work and calling? According to Max Weber, Catholics believe that the hard work is their way to salvation. People have to work hard to be good people. Protestants, on the other hand, believe that they should work hard because it is their duty, as this is God’s will and it is useful for the whole country and society. For them it a kind of vocation. Every Protestant feels the vocation to work and to worship God (Everyone has his own mission in life – there have to be poor farmers and rich lawyers – this is God’s will and it is completely normal.) In case of Catholicism, only priests feel the vocation to serve God. 7.Explain how Max Weber analyzed in his discussion of Protestant ethics the notions of work, investment, charity, waste. Work– every Puritan has a vocation to work. It is a duty and God’s will. Work is useful for the whole society; thanks to work we make our community better. â€Å"Not leisure and enjoyment, but only activity serves to increase the glory of God, according to the definite manifestations of His will† Investment  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ If someone has money and is successful in business, it means that he is in God’s favor. Money should be multiplied not wasted and spent on unimportant things as luxuries and amusement. Charity– if someone needs charity it means that he is a beggar. If someone doesn’t work – he sins and offends God, as it is a duty to work. Supporting charity means supporting offending God. WASTE – waste of time is the worst and the deadliest sin. â€Å"Not leisure and enjoyment, but only activity serves to increase the glory of God, according to the definite manifestations of His will† – only hard work praises God an d any other activity is a waste. 8.What did a Puritan sermon look like (use in particular Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God). In the 18th and 19th centuries during the Great Awakening, major sermons were made at revivals, which were especially popular in the United States. These sermons were noted for their fire-and-brimstone message, typified by Jonathan Edwardss famous Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God speech. In these sermons the wrath of God was clearly one to be afraid of, although fear was not the message Edwards was trying to convey in his sermons, he was simply trying to tell the people that they could be forgiven for their sins. It combines vivid imagery of Hell with observations of the world and citations of scripture.

Research Report On Steve Jobs Media Essay

Research Report On Steve Jobs Media Essay This report examines Steve Jobs early history, educational background, family life, key influences, a discussion of Steves personal philosophy about his field, quotations and important milestones in his career as well as major contributions to the IT industry and personal reasons to his success. It includes the adoption of Steven by Paul and Clara Jobs, his attendance to Homestead high school and his brief attend dance to Reed College. This report includes a look into Steves personal life which involves Daughter Lisa as well as a look into his Key Influences which had been HP engineers the simplistic goal of using computers to do creative work and making life easier. The report summarized quotes on management and creativity that have imprinted clearly in the minds of his followers. We review his creations of Apple I, Apple II, Lisa, Macintosh, NeXT Inc, Pixar, Mac OS X, the iPod, the iTunes Music, the iPhone and the iPad and it concludes with my personal reasons for Steve Jobs succes s. The purpose of this report is to examine the life Steve Jobs. This report will be including different aspects which will include a discussion of his early history which includes his educational background as well as family background, it will include the people and situations that have influenced him, his personal philosophy and several quotations he lives by, some important milestones in his long career, his major contributions to the industry as well as reasoning for his continuous success. The resources used to compile this research report have ranged from websites devoted to Steve Jobs, television websites, blogs, online business articles as well as online IT articles. The goal of this research paper will be to include the most important details of his life which have helped him achieve his level of success in the business field as well as the IT. Early history Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco in 1955. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs of Santa Clara, California. Steve attended high school in Cupertino. He temporarily enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Ore., but dropped out. Jobs went back to California and got a job with Atari, where Wozniak had also worked. Educational background Homestead High Steve was usually bored in school, as he explains with own words, Figure 2 Figure 1 Mr. McCollums ELectronics 1 Class (Steve in the middle) Steve attended Homestead High School. He enrolled in McCollums electronics class. McCollum recalled of one time when Steves entrepreneurial skills showed up. He had called up Bill Hewlett himself, who was the co-founder of HP, to obtain extra parts for his homework. He had also inquired about a summer job in his factory. Steven and Steve Wozniak (Woz) met in 1969, introduced by classmate Bill Fernandez when they were 14 and 19. Woz was working on a little computer board with Bill which they called the Cream Soda Computer. Reed College Steve finished high school and he decided to go to attend Reed College, in Oregon. Even though tuition for Reed was so expensive that his parents could hardly afford it, Steve had his heart se on that institution. He only stayed for a few of months before he dropped out. On the bright side of things, this allowed him to attend classes that were not part of his program. While at Reed, Steve began researching Eastern mysticism. He became a fruitarian. He also began practicing fasting for extended periods of time and used LSD or rare occasion. The Jobs family Since Steve had been born of wedlock in the 1950s, he was given up for adoption. His mother, Joanne, had a college education and insisted that her boy do the same. Unfortunately, his adoptive parents, Paul and Clara, could not meet her expectations as they were a lower-middle class couple. Paul Jobs had not even graduated from high school. Personal life Steve had a baby girl name Lisa. Years past, and he began to recognize his 9-year-old daughter Lisa as family. She gradually spent more time at his home in and he even brought her to NeXTs offices from time to time. He started to get genuinely occupied in her schooling. Key Influences Steves early influence came to be HP engineers. They played an important role in his life. They came to be the first to introduce the Steve to electronics. This had become his number one hobby when he entered Homestead High. What inspired Steve Jobs in the long run was simplicity, ease of use and using computers to do creative work as well as make life easier. He always looked up to Sony, who created consumer electronics business. The Steve Jobs Philosophy Steve Jobs considers he was appropriate to build great products and being enthusiastic about them. He believes he is best for finding a group of capable people and producing equipment with them. His personal philosophy is that everything begins with a great creation. He believes in listening to customers even though customers are not able to tell you about the next breakthrough. He goes on to say, Quotes Steve Jobs has influence many people. He is able to guide and teach them from his perspective on many different topics. Here are some quotes he is most memorable for on Management and Creativity. Important Milestones and Major Contributions Apple I Figure 5 Page 5 An Apple I computer Apple was born in April 1, 1976. With the introduction of the Apple I, the computers made its first sale a few weeks later by Paul Terrel, who has just founded a new chain of computer stores called the Byte shop. He wanted to buy 50 apples at $500 per computer. While the first Apples were made of just a circuit board, the following models, which were all assembled in the Jobs famous garage, were delivered in a wooden box. Apple II The company received 300 orders for Apple, twice as much as the total number of Apple Is sold. By January of 1978, Apple was valued $3,000,000. The first disk drive for the Apple II became available in early 1978. This allowed armature programmers and amateur hackers to write, increasing the number of programs available quickly. Since there were no personal computers on the market other than the Apple II, Apple became the company of personal computers. Lisa In early 1979, Steve decided he would launch his own distinctive project, a computer whose success, unlike the Apple II, could not be attributed to Wozs great talent. He decided to call it LISA. LISA was the first personal computer involved with the mouse feature making it user-friendly. LISAs price ran at $10,000. Macintosh Steve wanted to be involved in the development of Apples future products. And he was worried that the Lisa would not be as great a computer as he had envisioned. Apple III came with an introduction that took place with great fanfare in the summer of 1980 at Disneyland. The computer turned out to have major design flaws and the first 14,000 models had to be returned to the company. NeXT Inc. Jobs tried began again with a new company called NextStep. He was to build a next generation of PCs incomparable to Apple, but it didnt happen. After struggling for eight years, NextStep had closed its hardware division. Jobs realized he needed to turn his attention to the software side of the computer industry. NextStep had to revolutionize the industry with its new operating system software which incorporates object-oriented programming allowing big complex programs to be assembled smaller. NextStep introduced its first machine, the Cube. NextStep made it easier for in-house programmers to modify software to handle significant parts in their companies. Figure 6 Toy Story released on November 22 In the 1970s, a shared a dream of making animated movies with computers caught the attention of Steve. Steves other company; Pixar was working on a graphical workstation dedicated only to processing visual data. Disney decided to sign a deal with Pixar for a full feature film which was made completely with computers. When Toy Story was released on November 22, it surpassed every hope that Pixar and Disney had. Success after success was released from the animation studio. A Bugs Life in 1998 and Toy Story 2 in 1999 and Monsters Inc. released in 2001. The company had stretched out and was ready to release a fresh movie every two years. Mac OS X The iPod revolution The iPod is an important element of Apples vision of the digital way of life. The unique iPod distinguished itself from rivals for several reasons. Its look, its click wheel and user interface that made browsing music albums easy and fast. It also had a hard drive which stored 5GB. The iTunes Music Store Steve Jobs launched the iTunes Store in 2003. It was the beginning of a revolution. Since iPod was already a triumph, but it was now becoming so successful that it personified the digital music era all in one brand. iPhone The iPhone project happened in 2003. He had made a agreement with Cingular who knew that the only way to boost its earnings was by charging users for their rising use of data online. Its most innovative element was its touch-screen display. iPad Steve Jobs finally introduced iPad, a much-anticipated touch screen tablet. In the beginning of 2010, Steve Jobs finally unveiled iPad to the world. Personal Reasons for Success There are many reasons for success. One was that he allowed individuals to have abilities that they could have never before imagined. He had an enormous vision, but always kept in mind the precise detail of every step. This made him a real perfectionist. One of the traits that made him stand out among everyone else was his attention to minimalism. His success is attributed to the relentless pursuit of user-friendly gadgets. His perspective always focused on what the users experience will be. He believed on consumer testing and showing his customers his products so they can test drive them. He has always been famous for his decisions on stunning designs and for recruiting the best people for the job. The introduction of Apples latest operating system, Mac OS X, was the product of three years of hard work. Mac OS X began in 2001 and became the foundation of Apples resurgence and current success. Another reason for his success is the increasing habit of writing emails to customers just as he has been known to do so for years. Usually, he has used them to openly answer questions about Apple or to spread gossip himself. The last reason would be his implication on charity issues. With large donations to charities, he was able to speak openly about organ donations in 2010 and played a significant role in creating the nations first organ donor registry. Conclusions Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy at one point and is now one of the most influential and leading high-tech company in the world. It is a leader in the music and telephone companies, and a likely powerhouse for future decades. Pixar is the most thriving movie studio in Hollywood and it has defined the future of animation. The founder of these companies, Steve Jobs, is now regularly nominated one of the worlds most significant business leaders. He has made many lives much simpler by creating technology that is seamless, exciting, intuitive and beautiful, instead of dull and complicated. With his current success, he is surely to continue to build his brand as years pass.

The Dark Room :: essays research papers

The Book: Name: The Dark Room Author: R. K. Narayan Number of Pages: 214 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Date of Publication: January 1981 Classification: Fiction Summary: In the quiet town of Malgudi, in the 1930's, there lived Savitri and her husband, Ramani. They lived with their three children, Babu, Kamala, and Sumati. Savitri was raised with certain traditional values that came into internal conflict when she took Ramani, a modern executive, as her husband. Savitri has endured a lot of humiliations from her temperamental husband and she always puts up with his many tantrums. To find solace and escapism, she takes refuge in 'the dark room', a musty, unlit, storeroom in the house. But when Ramani takes on a beautiful new employer, Savitri finds out that her husband has more than a professional interest in the woman. So, at first, she tries to retreat to her dark room. But she realises that hiding in there won't help. So she tries to leave the house. She stayed with a friend in another village. But after staying there for some time, she can't help but think of her husband and their children. What would happen to them? After doing a lot of t hinking, she finally decides to go back home. In the end, Ramani has finally stopped seeing Shanta Bai, the other woman, and I guess you could say it's a happy ending. It's now up to you to go and guess the rest. Savitri is very much real. She is basically quite like most people. They treat problems like that. They find ways to escape it. Like booze, drugs, suicide, etc. In Servitor ¡Ã‚ ¯s case, she stays in the dark room, and finally, leaves her family. As I was reading "The Dark Room ¡Ã‚ ±, I felt compassion towards Savitri. I can clearly see that she was a confused woman. It was depicted through the first part of the story wherein her son was ill and she told Babu, her son, not to go to school that day. But Ramani intruded upon them and said that Babu has to go to school and that his illness is merely a headache. Savitri didn't know what to do then. She was concerned for Babu ¡Ã‚ ¯s health, but at the same time, she didn't want to argue with Ramani. In the end, Babu ha d gone off to school. As for Ramani, I felt like shouting at him while reading the novel because of his bullying.

Advertising Essay

Every day, whether watching tv, listening to the radio, or driving in the car, people encounter all sorts of advertisements. For as long as most can remember, advertising has been all over the place, and over time it has weaved its way into the day to day lives of society. The use of advertising is to grab one’s attention and to persuade them of something, usually to buy a service or a product. And whether we realize it or not, negatively or positively, advertisements affect people psychologically. Some of them use bright colors, others use statistics, and some use humor to grab one’s attention. One such advertisements comes from the gym, Planet Fitness. Planet Fitness attracts members by use of humor and by appealing to the physical and financial needs of the ‘average joe’ in their advertisements. In this commercial, there are young, fit women walking around the locker room talking about how hot they are and how hot they think each other are, all the while a normal woman of a little older age sits in her towel and witnesses their conversation. You can tell that she’s clearly uncomfortable with being in the situation. She then goes on to tell the fitness instructor â€Å"†¦ And that’s why I don’t like gyms† and the instructor responds with â€Å"Well, we’re not a gym. We’re Planet Fitness†. So they understand that not everybody that goes to the gym is a big muscled hunk, and that sometimes it can be a little uncomfortable being around people that are like that. The way that Planet Fitness is built and the way in which they carry themselves, is that they make the customer feel that they are what’s most important to the company. They care about making you feel comfortable while being able to exercise in a public gym. Planet Fitness also understands that not everybody is made up of extra money. This is taken from the Planet Fitness website, â€Å"We don’t have any salespeople, and we don’t bother with all the extras like juice bars and childcare that drive up costs and can make a gym membership seem more like a car payment. Instead, we’ve boiled our business down to the things that you really want in a health club – clean, stylish, hassle-free facilities that are filled with tons of brand-name cardio and strength equipment, and a lot of happy people. If you’re looking for a comfortable, friendly place to exercise, and like a great deal, then you’ll love Planet Fitness. † (http://www. planetfitness. com/About-Planet-Fitness-Gym). They offer memberships for just ten dollars a month, which is an amazing bargain compared to other big name gyms such as the YMCA or 24 Hour Fitness. By offering cheap rates, it creates a great incentive for somebody to exercise at Planet Fitness. Lastly, Planet Fitness seems to appeal to women in this advertisement. It’s socially acceptable to say that women are looked at as being more sensitive than men when it comes to their appearance and body image. So in this particular ad, they show that the â€Å"normal† woman is very very uncomfortable in the locker room and it’s actually a deal breaker for her when it comes to going to the gym. So by showing this advertisement, Planet Fitness can attract more female customers just by letting them know that they won’t be judged at the gym and they can exercise with a peace of mind. With all this being said, it can be concluded that the advertisement by Planet Fitness is a successful one. By appealing to people’s wallets and through their understanding of the â€Å"comfort zone†, and having humorous commercials, they’ve established credibility with the public as being a welcoming, friendly gym all at a low cost.

The Bauhaus †A Modernist School in Germany

The Bauhaus – A Modernist School in Germany Free Online Research Papers The Bauhaus was a modernist school in Germany that played an instrumental role early in the twentieth century in shaping today’s modern tastes and art education. At a time when industrial society was in the grip of a crisis, the Bauhaus questioned the ideas of traditional design and asked themself how the modernisation process could be mastered through design and architecture. It was founded in1919 and headed by Walter Gropuis, with a faculty including Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky and Marcel Breuer. The Bauhaus began with a Utopian definition: â€Å"The building of the future†, trying to combine all arts in ideal unity. The Bauhaus was a reaction to social changes that captured the spirit of change in a young generation willing to rebuild a bankrupt post-world war 1 Germany. The influence of the end of world war 1 had and impact on the Bauhaus and there approach, ideas and art making. After world war 1 industrial art was no longer and individualistic phenomenon. It was here in 1919 that a new revolution of art took place that dealt with life with an aesthetic approach. In 1923, the Bauhaus reacted with a changed program, with a major exhibition which was to mark it’s future image under the motto: â€Å"art and technology a new unity†. This exhibition provided a glimpse of a residential building of the future. The Bauhaus educated, by developing workshops and courses that all who entered the school must attend. The characteristics of different materials, their form, texture and suitability for art were discussed during worships. Structure, composition, colour and use of light became ob jects of study. Three-dimensional objects that were seen as functional were often created and primary colours were used. The Bauhaus style was characterised by a serve geometrical form, and by design that took into account the nature of the materials being used. Bauhaus designs and buildings were functional, with a clean, geometry style line. In 1925 the Bauhaus moved to Dessau, Germany. On the basis of his experiences gained at the Weimar Bauhaus, Gropius talked about the aims he had for the Bauhaus in 1925 and what they were trying to achieve. He said â€Å" Bauhaus wishes to serve the actual development of the housing, from simple utensils to the complete dwelling house. Bauhaus tries to find the form of every object in it’s natural functions and presuppositions by systematically experimenting in theory and practice. The result are forms that differing from the common ones often feel strange and startling†. During this year and around the 1927 many things were going on in Germany that influenced the way the Bauhaus sort to interpreted the world. The greatest advances in research took place in Germany, the country began to grow in technology, science and wealth launching the first liquid-fuelled rocket. On the 1st of April 1928 Walter Gropius resigned as Director of the Bauhaus and return to private architectural practice, as a result of the constant struggle and pressure for the Bauhaus’ survival. His successor was the Swiss architect Hannes Meyer who was replaced in 1930 as he failed as a leader due to political disagreements within the Bauhaus. German architect Ludwig Van der Rohe was invited as director and the Bauhaus approached a type of ‘ vocational university†. It began to loose the support from Dessau so the school was then moved to Berlin where it became hated by the Nazis for it’s ideas and different approaches taken. With the Great Depression beginning in 1930 and spreading across the world most of Europe was in political and economic shambles. However during this time the Nazis’ rose in Germany with it’s own dreams of conquest and a superior race, at this stage the Bauhaus became stronger expressing ideas and new forms of art. As a result of Germany being dictated by Adolf Hitler and the degeneration of culture, the Bauhaus under pressure from the Nazis was closed by police on the 11th of April, 1933. The Bauhaus was a very influential group of artists that changed the way of traditional art forms and sought to interpret the world in new ways. The significance and influence of the Bauhaus is still being carried on today, this can be seen in many cities, with their geometrical buildings and the use of glass windows. This group of artists and school interpreted the world in new ways through their unusual aims and goals. The school had three main aims that stayed basically the same throughout the life of the Bauhaus even though the direction of the school changed significantly and repeatedly. the first aim of the school was to â€Å"rescue all of the arts from the isolation in which each then found itself†, to encourage the individual artists and craftsmen to work co-operatively and combine all of their skills. Secondly, the school set out to promote crafts, chairs, lamps, teapots, to the same level enjoyed by fine arts, painting and sculpting. the third aim was to renew architecture and unify all of the creative arts in architecture. Above all the intention with Bauhaus was to develop creative minds for architecture and thus influence them so they would be able to produce artistically, technically and practically balanced utensils. These aims and intentions were the basis of the Bauhaus that began to influence our lives i mmensely in ways that most people probably take for granted. 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