Writing a Personal Narrative :: Personal Reflection

A narrative is a story. In writing a narrative essay, you share with the reader some personal experience of your own in order to make a point or convey a message. You may choose to tell how your grandfather influenced your desire to become an orthodontist, or perhaps you’ll relate the story of the time you didn’t make the cut for the basketball team. Whatever story you tell, your purpose is to share with others some experience that has taught you something or changed you somehow. Remember that narration is more than just description. Your essay should be descriptive, but it should also emphasize the significance of a particular event, object, or person. There are several components of an effective narrative. The following are some things to keep in mind when writing your essay: Focus Narrative effect is the main point of your story—the moral, the message, the insight you offer. Without a specific narrative effect, your essay is merely a series of unconnected events. If you are unsure what your main point is, you might ask yourself, â€Å"Why am I telling this story? Why should someone else be interested in reading about my experience?† In addition, you must decide whether to reveal your point explicitly (stated directly) or implicitly (suggested but not stated). Development Details add depth and color to your narrative. If your essay consists merely of dry facts, readers quickly grow uninterested. You can describe things through the methods of scene and summary. In the scene method, use very detailed, evocative description to immerse the reader in the situation or place you describe. Your goal is to make the scene come alive for the reader. Usually narratives are based on one or two key scenes. Reserve in-depth detail for these key scenes, and fill in the rest of the story using the method of summary (giving a brief synopsis of events). Organization and Coherence The narrative consists of three basic parts: The orientation, at the beginning of the essay, establishes the setting, characters, and other essential elements of the story. The complication involves rising conflict that leads up to the climax (the point of highest action in the story). Then, in the resolution, the conflict is resolved and the narrative effect is revealed or suggested. Your narrative also needs a time structure. You must decide whether chronological time or psychological time best suits your story. In chronological time, events are described in the order in which they

Marketing Strategy of Best Buy

Syed Raheem Dr. Sonja Pollard-Mitchell MKT 301: Principles of Marketing 3 March 2010 Marketing Strategy at a Big Box Electronics Store: BEST BUY Consumer behavior is defined in a variety of ways such as â€Å"the dynamic interaction of affect and cognition, behavior and environmental events by which human beings conduct the exchange aspects of their lives. † by the American Marketing Association. (2008). In a simpler form, consumer behavior can be explained as the actions of consumers and the different approaches a person may take to decide what to buy and the decision making process. The decision making process can be effected by many factors all related to a person or persons lifestyle. Determining that behavior can be confusing and marketers need to use research techniques to understand the consumer. Understanding the intent to buy, buying process and post purchase issues from a marketing perspective raises many questions and is an in-depth process. â€Å"The basic marketing concept hold’s that firms exist to satisfy consumers’ needs. † (2004, Solomon). Once that basic concept is understood, an organization can focus on key goals to achieve a competitive advantage. Marketing strategies are used to gain better understanding of the market, consumers, environment, supply and demand and competition. The behaviors of consumers such as personality, emotions, attitudes, learning style, and perception of the consumer helps companies design their marketing techniques. External influences are also need to be studied and factors such as culture and sub-culture, demographics, social status, and family structure helps understand the decision making process of the consumer’s behavior. For marketing strategy to succeed, the insight to the consumer’s decision-making process is a good starting point. One of the many tools used for knowing consumer behavior are the four P’s of marketing, the product, place, price and promotion. By knowing the concepts of the four P’s marketers, build a strategy that can be used to achieve objectives necessary to meet companies marketing goals. Through awareness, a consumer can be more knowledgeable in buying behavior if an understanding of the four P’s of marketing are considered. [pic] Such strategies are very common in big box electronics stores such as BEST BUY. Best Buy is a specialty retailer of consumer electronics, home-office products, entertainment software, appliances and related services. Best Buy operates retail stores in many parts of the US and through their web sites under the brand name BestBuy. com and BestBuyCanada. ca. The company is always proposing new ways to increase revenue and provide the best customer service to their customers. Bob Willett, former executive president of operations for Best Buy had said, â€Å"Our goal is to create a flexible, high-velocity supply chain operating with better product availability for customers at a lower total cost for the company. Best Buy constantly lowers their prices by beating out all their competitors’ prices and maintaining quality customer service. The best way Best Buy uses price elasticity of demand to decrease prices and increase revenue is by making sure that they are offering competitor pricing, and making sure that every week prices are updated by updating what the ir competitors are currently selling their items for. According to the management, the only way to get customers to come into Best Buy is by word of mouth and the only way that is going to happen is by making sure that relationships are being built between consumers and employees. Best Buy has a strong belief that relationships between energized employees and satisfied customers will lead to profits and growth. Best Buy has been able to maintain its large scale of operations by increasing its bargaining power with consumer electronic vendors and offer more competitive prices. Best Buy has expanded its installation and repair services to consumers through several venues–both on a stand alone basis as well as mixing these offerings in its retail outlets, through Geek Squad. Best Buy Company is also socially committed and believes in educating people about technology. They are socially responsible company. This kind of behavior gives them good publicity, which is also a good marketable tool these days. The company spent $13 million in teach Awards for the school to aware them from the new technologies about the classrooms. They also gave scholarships to the students all over the world. â€Å"Best Buy stores have awarded over $13 million in scholarships to nearly 11,000 students nationwide†. In this modern world, where every day new technologies are coming up and frequently they are becoming outdated. Under this scenario, the Best buy company has to eep itself up to date and must have to keep watch out for the new technologies. In this way the company can survive under intense competition. The biggest competitors of Best Buy Company are Dell, Wal-Mart, HH Gregg and all those retailers which are supplying those products on reasonable prices. The company has also brought some changes in their business to stay in the top line. Like, they also o ffers their products online as other companies are doing to help overcome online competitors, Best Buy allows consumers to purchase their items online. Consumers then have an option of having the product shipped to their home or picking it up at a local Best Buy store. Best Buy has recently established several new partnerships bringing new products to their stores. Apple, Dell, and Napster are some of the new partnerships. Best Buy became the first retailer in the US to be able to sell the Apple iPhone. Apple sent trainers to each store in order to make each employee more knowledgeable on the iPhone. They became the only retailer able to sell Dell computers. They also recently bought in to Napster in order to try to increase their subscribers and expand the capabilities in the digital downloading business. Best Buy also bought 50% of a company called Carphone Warehouse in Europe, which was done to expand Best Buy stores into European countries. These very strategic decisions by Best Buy were another successful marketing tool. They became an exclusive place for some of the products like Dell computers and Apple iPhone. Their strategy bought in many new customers as well as increased their repeated customer’s sales. Best Buy has a certain way of targeting their customers by separating them into several different lifestyle groups. The four groups include Urban Trendsetters, Upscale Suburban, Middle America and Empty Nesters. The first lifestyle group is the Urban Trendsetters; this group makes up about 26% of their customers and about a quarter of their revenue. They are between the ages of 23-30 who is typically single. Their second lifestyle group is Upscale Suburban; they make up about 22% of their customers and about 25% of their revenue. The third lifestyle group is Middle America; they are made up of 31. % of their customers, and around 32. 9% of their revenue. The final lifestyle groups owns more than 80% of the personal savings in the US, controls 70% of the financial assets, and are at the height of their earning power. This breakdown of their customers profile helps Best buy understand their customer needs and their spending habits, which they can use in their marketing strategies. Best Buy delivers their advertisements in a very bright and joyful fashion. Most of the paper advertisements have a blue background with several yellows and reds in order to grab the consumer’s attention. Generally if they have a special for the week they will highlight it in red and put it on the bottom of the cover page. Best Buy is most well known for their yellow tag [pic]. All prices for the products are on a yellow tag whether you are looking at one of their advertisements or a price tag in their stores. This unique way of advertising helps them very much at time of promotions and sales to differ themselves from their competitions. In conclusion one of successful electronics store of our time is utilizing all the marketing strategies it needs to create new customers as well as maintain their regular loyal customers. They use a very competitive pricing policy to give them upper hand with their customers. They offer very exclusive products to their customers, which customers usually cannot find anywhere else. They use all the publicity they can get through their socially good deeds. They have done a very good research on their customers who comes in their stores and shops on their websites. They are one of the pioneers in advertisements as far as creating funny ads to make their point. All this marketing strategies have made them very profitable companies of our time. WORK CITED Solomon, M. R (2004). Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having and Being sixth edition. Upper Saddle River, N. J. : Prentice-Hall. (2008). Marketing Power. Retrieved June 30, 2008, from American Marketing Association Web site: http://www. marketingpower. com/Pages/default. aspx (2007). The Marketing Mix, the four P's of Marketing. Retrieved June 28, 2009, from Net MBA Web site: http://www. netmba. com/marketing/mix Great Ads. (2008) Best Buy Inc. Commercial etc. Retrieved Nov. 29th, 2008. http://great-ads. blogspot. com/2008/11/best-buy-funny-commercial-2008-holiday. html

Jeannette Rankin, First Woman Elected to Congress

Jeannette Rankin was a social reformer, woman suffrage activist, and pacifist who became the first American woman ever elected to Congress on November 7, 1916. In that term, she voted against U.S. entry into World War I. She later served a second term and voted against U.S. entry into World War II, becoming the only person in Congress to vote against both wars. Fast Facts: Jeannette Rankin Full Name: Jeannette Pickering RankinKnown For: Suffragist, pacifist, peace activist, and reformerBorn: June 11, 1880 in Missoula County, MontanaParents: Olive Pickering Rankin and  John RankinDied: May 18, 1973 in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CaliforniaEducation: Montana State University (now University of Montana), New York School of Philanthropy (now Columbia University School of Social Work), University of WashingtonKey Accomplishments: First woman elected to Congress. She represented the state of Montana 1917–1919 and 1941–1943Organizational Affiliations: NAWSA, WILPF, National Consumers League, Georgia Peace Society, Jeanette Rankin BrigadeFamous Quote: If I had my life to live over, I would do it all again, but this time I would be nastier. Early Life Jeannette Pickering Rankin was born on June 11, 1880. Her father John Rankin was a rancher, developer, and lumber merchant in Montana.  Her mother, Olive Pickering, was a former school teacher. She spent her first years on the ranch, then moved with the family to Missoula. She was the oldest of 11 children, seven of whom survived childhood. Education and Social Work Rankin attended Montana State University at Missoula and graduated in 1902 with a degree in biology. She worked as a school teacher and  seamstress and studied furniture design,  looking for some work to which she could commit herself. When her father died in 1902, he left money to Rankin to be paid out over her lifetime. On a long trip to Boston in 1904 to visit her brother at Harvard, she was inspired by slum conditions to take up the new field of social work. She became a resident in a San Francisco Settlement House for four months, then entered the New York School of Philanthropy (which later became the Columbia School of Social Work). She returned to the west to become a social worker in Spokane, Washington, in a childrens home. Social work did not, however, hold her interest long—she only lasted a few weeks at the childrens home. Jeannette Rankin and Womens Rights Next, Rankin studied at the University of Washington in Seattle and became involved in the woman suffrage movement in 1910. Visiting Montana, Rankin became the first woman to speak before the Montana legislature, where she surprised the spectators and legislators alike with her speaking ability. She organized and spoke for the Equal Franchise Society. Rankin then moved to New York and continued her work on behalf of womens rights. During these years, she began her lifelong relationship with Katherine Anthony. Rankin  went to work for the New York Woman Suffrage Party, and in 1912, she became the field secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Rankin and Anthony were among the thousands of suffragists at the 1913 suffrage march in Washington, D.C., before the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson. Rankin returned to Montana to help organize the states successful suffrage campaign in 1914. To do so, she gave up her position with the NAWSA. Working for Peace and Election to Congress As the war in Europe loomed, Rankin turned her attention to work for peace. In 1916, she ran for one of the two seats in Congress from Montana as a Republican. Her brother served as her campaign manager and helped finance the campaign. Jeannette Rankin won, though the papers first reported that she lost the election. Thus, Jeannette Rankin became the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress and the first woman elected to a national legislature in any western democracy. Rankin used her fame and notoriety in this famous first position to work for peace and womens rights. She was also an activist against child labor and wrote a weekly newspaper column. Only four days after taking office, Jeannette Rankin made history in yet another way: she voted against U.S. entry into World War I. She violated protocol by speaking during the roll call before casting her vote, announcing I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war. Some of her colleagues in NAWSA—notably Carrie Chapman Catt—criticized her vote, saying Rankin was opening the suffrage cause to criticism and it was impractical and sentimental. Rankin did vote later in her term for several pro-war measures, as well as working for political reforms including civil liberties, suffrage, birth control, equal pay, and child welfare. In 1917, she opened the congressional debate on the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, which passed the House in 1917 and the Senate in 1918. It became the 19th Amendment after it was ratified. But Rankins first anti-war vote sealed her political fate. When she was gerrymandered out of her district, she ran for the Senate, lost the primary, launched a third-party race, and lost overwhelmingly. After World War I After the war ended, Rankin continued to work for peace through the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom and also began working for the National Consumers League. At the same time, she worked on the staff of the American Civil Liberties Union. After a brief return to Montana to help her brother run—unsuccessfully—for the Senate, she moved to a farm in Georgia. She returned to Montana every summer, her legal residence. From her base in Georgia, Jeannette Rankin became Field Secretary of the WILPF and lobbied for peace. When she left the WILPF, she formed the Georgia Peace Society. She lobbied for the Womens Peace Union, working for an antiwar constitutional amendment. She left the Peace Union and began working with the National Council for the Prevention of War. She also lobbied for American cooperation with the World Court, for labor reforms, and for an end to child labor. In addition, she worked to pass the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921, a bill she had originally introduced into Congress.  Her work for a constitutional amendment to end child labor was less successful. In 1935, when a college in Georgia offered her the position of Peace Chair, she was accused of being a Communist and ended up filing a libel suit against the Macon newspaper that had spread the accusation. The court eventually declared her, as she said, a nice lady. In the first half of 1937, she spoke in 10 states, giving 93 speeches for peace. She supported the America First Committee but decided that lobbying was not the most effective way to work for peace. By 1939, she had returned to Montana and was running for Congress again, supporting a strong but neutral America in yet another time of impending war.  Her brother once again contributed financial support for her candidacy. Elected to Congress, Again Elected with a small plurality, Jeannette Rankin arrived in Washington in January as one of six women in the House. At the time, there were two women in the Senate. When, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Congress voted to declare war against Japan, Jeannette Rankin once again voted no to war. She also, once again, violated long tradition and spoke before her roll call vote, this time saying As a woman, I cant go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else. She voted alone against the war resolution. She was denounced by the press and her colleagues, and barely escaped an angry mob. She believed that Roosevelt had deliberately provoked the attack on Pearl Harbor. After Second Term in Congress In 1943, Rankin went back to Montana rather than run for Congress again (and surely be defeated). She took care of her ailing mother and traveled worldwide, including to India and Turkey, promoting peace, and tried to found a womans commune on her Georgia farm. In 1968, she led more than five thousand women in a protest in Washington, DC, demanding the U.S. withdraw from Vietnam. She headed up the group calling itself the Jeannette Rankin Brigade. She was active in the antiwar movement and often invited to speak or be honored by the young antiwar activists and feminists. Jeannette Rankin died in 1973 in California.