Futuristic Design in Public Safety and Housing for an Ideal Imaginary Essay

Futuristic Design in Public Safety and Housing for an Ideal Imaginary City - Essay Example People can now live above the earth, and do not need to rely on it for any further for living, beside as a base for recourses. This also leads to a new mode of transportation, the closest thing we have seen so far would be shuttles and crafts seen in Star Wars movies. Using these floating vehicles, we are able to nimbly and swiftly commute from advanced city to advanced city. The new standard of living has also opened up new advancements in the living and safety of all people. All houses are now simple domes in the sky, and can only be entered by strict security clearance. A person must enter a chamber, where the person's retina is scanned, as well as their handprints analyzed. This offers maximum household security and has brought robbery rates down to practically zero. Many other household advancements have helped make life easier and more comfortable for many people. New climate control meters are installed in every home, which allows for complete control of the temperature, and even the weather inside the house dome. If a person wants it to rain for example, they must simply press a button on the weather control mechanism, which will make it rain. The same can be done for all weather and temperatures. This advancement lead to people not having to live in a certain location to benefit from the climate they wanted. New advancements in how policing systems work have led to a huge increase in pub

A good neighbour Essay Example for Free

A good neighbour Essay A good neighbour is a blessing while a bad neighbour is a curse. The city-bred people are generally lacking in sympathy. They are mostly cold in their manners; they are more selfish than the villagers who are large hearted. I live in a thickly populated part of the town. I like to cultivate good relations with the people around me. I believe that no man, however rich or strong, can live in self-sufficiency. My next door neighbour to the right is Mr. Tara Singh. We are on the best of terms. We are deeply attached to each other. He is a gentleman par-excellence. He has a completely non-communal outlook on life. We share each others joys and sorrows. He has a jolly temperament. His robust optimism and his constant high spirits have always cheered me. Whenever some anxiety weighs upon me, I immediately seek his company and draw comfort from his ever-smiling face and carefree looks. He makes light of an illness, a financial loss, a near and dear ones death, even an insult, whereas anyone of these things is sufficient to rob me of my peace of mind and impose a severe strain on me. His companionship dispels all my fears, doubts and worries. We daily go for a walk together. We are both fond of boating and go to the river for boating every Sunday. We both have a passion for chess and never miss a game or two every evening. He is also a cinema fan like me. We differ in our preferences for film stars but that does not prevent us from enjoying a picture together. He cannot tolerate my smoking. His hatred is not based on any religious sentiment. He just feels a natural aversion for it. He is very stingy. I have often tried to set before him an example of liberality but he continues to be close-fisted. He is very much interested in sports. He does not miss any sporting event. We like each other immensely and I can call him a good neighbour who is very accommodating. Just opposite me there is the palatial house of Seth Karori Mai. He is some rare specimen of humanity. He is a millionaire. He is issueless but he is so miserly that he would not spend a penny. He is a thin and lean fellow. He is putting on the same weather-beaten suit which he purchased of a second -hand dealer twenty years back. He never brushes it lest it should wear out sooner. He never takes milk or fruit. He lives on a few biscuits, a rotten banana or an orange and a cup of tea without milk. He has more than half a dozen buildings but he himself lives in a small, dark, dingy room. His room is electric fitted but he never makes use of electric light. He lights a small candle when he stands in need of light. If some drops of wax are split over, he would go on collecting them and remould them into candles. To buy a banana or an orange, he would trot all the way to the fruit market and would buy a few rotten bananas or oranges after a lot of higgling, haggling. He trusts nobody. He hates social contacts. He is a big banker. He lends money at usurious rates of interest. Money is his God. He loves hoarding. He never gives a penny in charity. He is selfish and greedy. He fleeces his tenants but seldom looks to their needs. He seldom wears shoes and never goes to the movies. He is always serious and business-like. He never presents a smiling face to anybody. He is quite illiterate but very quick at figures. He is a psychologist and can easily read your mind. He is very shrewd. He has a very strong instinct. He is too clever to be ever taken in by anybody. He is a past master in the art of exacting money from others. You will be surprised to know that his bank balance runs into eight figures. From his general appearance, one will be led to think that he is a very poor miserable fellow who is penniless. I have failed in my efforts to draw him into conversation or establish any social contact with him. He is a man of few words. People avoid his ominons looks in the morning. Small children are terribly afraid of him. My neighbour on the left-hand side is a college lecturer. He has married quite recently. His wife is also a college lecturer. They form a happy couple. They are a well-matched pair. They live in perfect harmony. They have refined tastes. They are always dressed according to the latest fashion. Their rooms are artistically decorated. The modern paintings, curtains and curios in the rooms, all make you envy them. They have cultured friends and I love to hear their fine jokes and laughter. There are some other people also in my street. But there is nothing about them worth mentioning. They just lead their lives like machines and attract no notice of their neighbours.

Consumer Motivations for Online Shopping

Consumer Motivations for Online Shopping CHAPTER 1 1 INTRODUCTION At the end of the last century, online shopping was already starting to catch peoples attention, and was slowly attracting consumers to use it as a channel, primarily because of its ease in completing purchases (i.e. not needing to step out of the home) and also in providing information as, even then, some sites already provided extensive information (Gay 1999, Gehrt et al 2007). But we are well into the first decade of the 21st century, and since then times have changed and certainly, consumers motivations, as evidenced in this literature review and the results of the research project, have changed. The use of the online channel for shopping varies greatly by country with the UK and the US ranking high up in the list with greatest ratio of online shoppers among Internet users, in addition to also having a large penetration of users for Internet access (Bhatti 2006). In the UK, Internet access among households has increased from 34% in 2000 to 54% in 2004, while Internet access for adults increased from 40% in 2000 to 64% in 2005 (Datamonitor 2006). 1.1 Research aims and objectives The project had two key questions to focus on and this acted as a guide to the research design and methodology. The two key research questions in my project were: What are the key consumer motivations for online shopping and how are these impacting the development of the online channel? This question focused on the key drivers acting as impetus for consumers to pursue online shopping, and how these drivers were impacting the online channel as an alternative channel for making purchases. What are the emerging trends for online shopping, and how will the online shopping channel develop? As online shopping continues to increase, both organisations and consumers are expected to be better-placed with having a good understanding of where online shopping trends seem to be directed at. 1.2 Consumer motivations The project sought to understand the consumer motivations for choosing online shopping as an alternative channel or, for some consumers, their main channel for shopping particular items. This part of the project was based on determining what consumers have stated as their key motivation factors through secondary research. This was supported by primary research by surveying and interviewing consumers on their motivational factors. The objective was to list out the key motivational factors consumers have for online shopping. 1.3 Emerging trends for online shopping In addition to understanding consumer motivation, this project also sought, as an objective, to understand the emerging trends in online shopping, and establish a viewpoint on where the online channel was expected to move to. Similar for consumer motivations, this part of the project was based on a combination of primary and secondary research. 1.4 Rationale for research project There was a strong rationale for pursuing this project as it aimed to provide a greater understanding of the consumer and the motivations behind online shopping. As the importance of the online channel becomes increasingly greater for organisations, there is greater need for determining the consumers key drivers in choosing this as an alternative channel for shopping. The project results impact both consumers and organisations. For consumers, this gave them a venue for stating their preferences and key requirements to continue using the online channel which could lead to improvements on the online shopping experience. For organisations, this project provided an understanding of the current situation and also the emerging trends based on competitive dynamics, in order to be able to provide the consumers their requirements. This project was also important for me as the student as it gave me an opportunity to develop the knowledge and pursue the analysis of a critical management issue which was becoming a greater value add channel for a large number of organisations. The project, I believe, has led to new insights and a confirmation of consumers key motivations to online shopping. I believe this contributes to the growing knowledge on the online shopping experience of consumers 1.5 Overview of the study Chapter 1 is the introduction chapter where the background, research question and rational, objective and the structure of the research are stated. Chapter 2 contains a brief literature review on online shopping and provided basic understanding about consumer motivations and emerging trends for online shopping which is related to the research question. Chapter 3 is brief about the case study on online shopping. Chapter 4 contains research methodology which includes research frame work the design of the research, sampling and questionnaire. Chapter 5 describes the critical review of the findings. Chapter 6 discusses on recommendation and conclusions. CHAPTER 2 2. LITERATURE REVIEW The study attempts to analyze research works relating to consumer motivations for online shopping and related issues are critically evaluated. This research project was pursued with a ‘qualitative research approach as the focus was on consumer motivations, which, while it could have been developed with quantitative metrics, seemed to translate better into a qualitative focus. The objective was more focused on going in greater depth across the key consumer motivations instead of tallying figures in terms of which factors consumers felt were their key motivations. The qualitative aspect of the research project was pursued through surveys and in-depth questionnaires. 2.1 Consumer motivations Childers et al (2001) defines ‘‘consumer motivations for online retail shopping conducted a few years ago, some of the consumer motivations cited were interest in use of a new technology, ease of navigation and use, and convenience of online shopping. While the research mentioned looked at consumer motivations, the research was only a subset of what could be learned from consumer behaviour as the study focused on only a few possible factors of online shopping activity. Linked to the increase of online shopping is the increase in access and usage of the Internet. Rodgers and Sheldon (2002) researched ‘‘the increasing use of the Internet and highlighted shopping as one of the key motivations for increased consumer use. In this work, the authors looked at shopping as a consumer motivation for increased consumer use. (Ko et al 2005, Tamimi et al 2005, Dadzie et al 2005) discussed that ‘‘it should be noted that there has been considerable growth in Internet access and usage, and this has created a significant market in marketing and communications of organisations. Online shopping has been growing and organisations have been focusing more on developing the online channel to capture a greater share of the wallet of the consumer. Online shopping Hult et al (2007) defines that ‘‘online shopping can relate to any offering of service quality, product quality, or e-Business quality where the objective is the customer-based value creation for organisations. Based on this definition, we can see that the number of online shoppers has indeed increased significantly in the UK, with the percentage of UK Internet users shopping online (including ordering tickets of buying goods and services) grew from 36% in 2000 to 61% in 2005 (Datamonitor 2006). For this research project, the broad definition is reasonable as the key focus of the research is in understanding consumer motivations for online shopping in general, with no specific product or service in mind. Undoubtedly, there are a large number of ways in which to cut the issue and there would be differences in the consumer motivations for specific products in specific markets. The works cited in this section provided a good starting point in the consumer motivations to be considered. The research works also provided an indication of the increasing use of the Internet and online shopping as an activity. From the limitations cited in the research works, further research needs to be conducted on a general understanding of consumer motivations which are not limited to a few factors. The rest of this section discusses some motivating factors cited by consumers as driving their online shopping activity. 24-hour access Bramall et al (2004) reported that ‘‘motivation by consumers is the 24-hour access provided or allowed by most online shopping channels. Thus, the online channel is utilised by consumers as it provides them with 24-hour access for information, customer service, and purchase opportunity. This essentially gives the consumer the opportunity to browse products and purchase at the consumers own leisure. While the research of the authors states this factor as a motivation, the focus of the research work was actually on potential trust issues in online shopping. This specific motivating factor was not analysed in comparison to other motivating factors for consumers. + Shopping convenience One oft-mentioned reason and an early consumer motivating factor, for shopping online is the convenience of doing so as consumers wont need to go to the retail stores and experience the ‘hassle of buying products in the stores (NBC News 2007). According to one study Furnham (2007) ‘‘not only highlight the convenience of shopping online but also states that shopping only also helps decision-making as a large part of the information requirements a consumer may need to make the decision are found online. Clearly, shopping convenience is expected to rank high among the consumers in terms of their motivations for pursuing online shopping. Gehrt et al (2007) reported that ‘‘Shopping convenience is a large factor for the US and UK consumers but this is not limited to the US or the UK markets only as even in Japan, online shopping has seen increasing growth rates, with shopping convenience as the greatest factor motivating consumers to do online shopping. The shopping convenience factor has been recognised across a number of research works, but these only tend to highlight that consumers have different meanings attached to the terminology, and may actually be referring to different sub-factors under the general term of convenience. In understanding this factor further, specific meanings were attached to and discussed in the surveys and interviews for the research. Greater bargains Craver (2006) reported that ‘‘not only consumers are expected to continue increasing their online purchases but only if they receive greater bargains from sellers in their online sites versus their retail stores. Thus, consumers are already building the expectations that prices online will be less that prices in retail stores. Hajewski (2006) pointed out that ‘‘If only to hammer the point of increasing consumer expectations, two factors mentioned by consumers in their increased interest in doing online shopping were free shipping of their products purchased and also everyday low pricing particularly relative to the retail stores of the sellers. The key limitation in the citations for ‘greater bargains is that these are from press articles and the approaches were not based on proper research conducted to determine the consumer motivations for online shopping. Nevertheless, this should still be accepted as a consumer motivation as this has been mentioned to be a factor based on the articles cited. Overall online shopping site experience Elliott Speck (2005) discussed that ‘‘touches on the overall online shopping site experience which in a way, relates to the overall customer experience in online shopping. This factor is quite specific to online shopping sites which consumers may visit but this nevertheless provides a motivation for some specific consumers and it relates to the overall online shopping site experience and having a positive satisfaction to the experience. Specifically, the authors argued that the following factors impacted on the consumer motivation to complete their online shopping transactions: ease of use of online shopping site, product information available, trust in the brand and the online shopping site, customer support, and entertainment experienced while in the site. The focus of the research conducted by the authors was not on online shopping specifically but rather on the attitude towards retail web sites but using the online shopping experience as an example, with an analysis of the resulting impact on the consumers. Similar to some of the other published research cited in this section, the key limitation is the set of respondents considered for the research which, in this case, consisted of undergraduate marketing students. The results are interesting and provide a good preview of what the results could be if the research is expanded to capture a greater sample of the population. 2.2 Emerging trends for online shopping In reviewing the related literature touching on online shopping and also consumer motivations, a number of emerging trends were clearly seen. These include the following: * Increased efforts in improving online security * Potential for an expanded product range and ancillary businesses * Usability of an online site as an increasing differentiator * Management of Internet product returns * Increasingly demanding consumers * Increasing opportunity for organisations to develop consumer relationships * Increasingly older market * Greater share of ad market Each of these trends is discussed in greater detail in this section. Increased efforts in improving online security (Bramall et al 2004, Arnold et al 2007, OConnell 2005, Cullen 2005) explained that ‘‘online shopping has shown strong growth and yet the belief is that online shopping growth rates could actually be much higher if not for security-related concerns by some consumers. Biswas et al (2006) described ‘‘there are two trends to be noted in relation to the security concerns of consumers. The first, as mentioned, is that there are greater efforts placed by organisations in improving online security as breaches to their security could have considerable consequences. The second trend is that a complementary approach to improving reputation for managing online security risks is paramount. In support of this, where there are great concerns for risk, it has been established that utilising expert endorsers, as opposed to celebrity endorsers or even non-celebrity non-expert endorsers, can actually help in bringing consumers over their risk concerns. Potential for an expanded product range and ancillary businesses Another trend is that organisations are increasingly seeing potential for an expanded product range and ancillary businesses. For example, in recent months, Kohls, a US department store chain, has offered products online which were not normally found in their department stores and these included higher-priced items such as leather chairs, high-end home entertainment centres, and flat screen televisions (Hajewski 2007). This trend is not without its implications for organisation. In the Kohls example, one problem with the expanded product range as done by Kohls was that Kohls did not offer everything they had online in their retail stores. This is a concern as some consumers utilise the online site for their ‘window shopping before moving to the retail stores to try on and purchase the items (Dodes 2006). The article states that more than 80% of online shoppers research products online first before sometimes going to the stores to see the products firsthand. Given that not all products are available in the stores, it would be prudent for online sites to be clear about which products are available in the stores and which products are not. In terms of ancillary businesses, the increase in online usage and online shopping has even spawned related business such as businesses which monitor traffic into organisations websites with the objective of increasing an organisations online sales (Newman 2007). Another ancillary business opportunity is from online shopping sites is as a social shopping space, such as Jellyfish.com which was recently acquired by Microsoft as it saw the growing opportunity in the business (Gallagher 2007). However, these new business are still untested as these are fairly new and would need some time before potentially growing into profitable businesses. As online shopping continues to grow, organisations will continue to seek out other opportunities that could help build the rationale for investments in establishing a highly competitive online shopping site. Usability of online site is an increasing differentiator Massey et al (2007) reported that ‘‘while the extent of technological readiness of the consumer plays a part in determining the level of comfort in navigating through an online shopping site, the general usability of an online shopping site is an increasing differentiator and distinguishes between the different sites that consumers will utilize in online shopping. The goal with these sites is to have it easily navigated through by consumers such that any potential barriers to keep consumers from purchasing products and services are effectively taken out of the equation. An example of an initiative moving into the direction of overall ease of usability is the recent transaction involving Abazias.com and Google wherein Abzias.com partnered with Google for their shopping checkout process which is considered fast and very convenient (M2 Presswire 2007). The challenge for organisations is to continue making their online shopping sites easier to use. And to support the point, some online shopping sites now provide potential live help from customer service if particular requirements are needed in order to limit the number of lost purchases resulting from consumers abandoning their purchases (Prince 2005). Overall, the design of the website and the ease of use have a large impact on the online shopping sites performance (Auger 2005). Management of Internet product returns Mollenkopf et al (2007) explained that emerging trend is the establishment of clear guidelines in the management of Internet product returns, which then addresses a key concern or questions by some consumers. Internet product returns has been one of the key factors limiting part of the online shopping growth as the uncertainty surrounding how returns of defective or unwanted products impacted on the overall cost and inconvenience for the consumer. Organisations which are able to state clearly their policies on Internet product returns, and which provide a seamless process for allowing consumers to make returns for products bought online are at an advantage versus other organisations which have a perception of ‘being difficult to coordinate with in processing Internet product returns. Increasingly demanding consumers As the development of the online shopping channel continues, we are now seeing increasingly demanding consumers. This is shown in the UK supermarket sector. In this sector, online shopping is still considered a poor offering by the UK supermarkets as none of the top five supermarket chains passed a service test conducted by a consumer affairs staff of a newspaper (Prunn 2006). Their failures were from their product offering to the product substitutes provided. The key good news for the UK supermarkets though was that the websites were generally easy to use for online shopping. Also, the delivery drivers were helpful and friendly. In contrast, in the US, online shopping offering for the supermarkets is a competitive offering with various supermarkets increasingly providing greater online shopping offerings for their consumers including chef-prepared, fresh-food delivery service (Food Institute Report 2006). Thus, the US supermarkets are able to provide the US consumers with their ‘demands from US supermarkets. UK supermarkets will need to focus on improving their offering in order to capture the consumer wallet for shopping deliveries. Increasing opportunity for organisations to develop consumer relationships (Kennedy 2006) pointed out that the online shopping channel provides organisations with an additional channel to develop consumer relationships. Organisations which are able to effectively capture value from their online shopping offering are the organisations which are able to â€Å"collect and analyze data on consumer patterns, interpret customer behaviour, respond with timely and effective customised communications, and deliver product and service value to consumers†. The game is not new to most organisations. The only difference is that there is a new channel to consider for the consumer relationships. In order to be competitive, organisations should be able to learn from their interactions with the consumers, and develop the channel into one that consumers will find value from. With the growth of the online shopping channel, more organisations will invest in ensuring that consumer information is managed properly to be leveraged by the organisation in capturing value from the interactions. Increasingly older market Iyer Eastman (2006) has noted that the â€Å"older internet users market comprises the fastest-growing demographic group in the Internet market† and are, aside from large and growing, generally financially secure. This potential trend has large implications on various organisations that can benefit from this research work. Thus, a greater understanding of the key trends is important in order to allow the organisations to plan and invest properly in their online shopping channels. Greater share of ad market Finally, another trend worth noting is the increasing share of the ad market by the online channel. With the growth of the online shopping consumer market, the ad share of this channel is expected to grow as well from about 5-8% to up to one-fifth of total ad budgets over the next three years (Ong 2005). The greater share of the ad market by the online channel has implications for organisations across two key points. First is that there needs to be a decision on the amount of the ad budget that will be allotted to the online channel. After deciding on the first point, the second key point is that it is imperative for organisations to understand the business model of the online channel, and that the organisations have a plan in ensuring their investments will eventually generate good returns. CHAPTER 3 3. CASE STUDY 3.1 History of online shopping Shopping online is the process for the customer to buy products or services via the Internet. In other words, consumers can buy it from the comfort of a holiday home of their own products from a store online. The concepts of this show before the first World Wide Web that are used with real-time transactions are processed from the domestic television! The technology used is called Videotext and shows the first time in 1979 by M. Aldrick, designed and installed the system in the UK. T. 1990 by Berners-Lee created the first WWW server and browser, and in 1995 by expanding the Amazon online shopping experience. History of Online Shopping is amazing. Gone are the days of waiting in traffic and work our way through the store is too full. All we need is a computer, bank account, credit or debit card and freedom voila! From books, to cosmetics, clothes and accessories to name a few, online shopping is the best in the century to 21 Simply find a site that offers things you want, price and delivery terms and in a matter of a few days of your purchase is at your door. Benefits and the ease of clear predictable as we offer a wider selection, competitive prices and greater access to information in regards to our purchase. Online stores are usually available 24 hours a day, and allow consumers to shop in their spare time and without travelling outside normal working hours. Another to consider is the first time the Internet was not well prepared that they will change the way we shop. On the web is created as a tool for communication, which in time to let the ease of virtual shopping. History of online shopping by itself represents a change by the people and now has become a service used by the ordinary business and shopping in the world. (Online blog, http://roomen-online.blogspot.com/2009/08/history-of-online-shopping.html) 3.2 Growth of online shopping The ability to shop online has transformed the way many consumers go about purchasing a product or service, giving the power to the individual consumer to access information, allowing easy and convenient research and comparison of various factors prior to making a purchase. The growth rate of online commerce is unparalleled in any other industry, growing twenty times faster than the overall UK retail market in 2005. Furthermore, the number of online shoppers grew by 25.5% to 14.6 million; with the number over the age of 55 doubling to 2.7 million. Forrester Research predict that UK shoppers will drive UK e-commerce from â‚ ¬43bn in 2006 to â‚ ¬76bn in 2011, accounting for 29% of total European internet retail. As such, we see the market study as a good opportunity to ‘take stock of online shopping in the UK, looking at what it has done for UK plc as a whole since its growth through the internet boom of the late nineties to the stable yet competitive market we see today. I t is worth noting many of the businesses that lived through the dot-com crash were internet retail sites, a clear indication of the valuable role they play for consumers. ( OFT Market Study on Online Shopping, http://207.45.116.138/ndbs/positiondoc.nsf/1f08ec61711f29768025672a0055f7a8/6174E87FE56AFC3F8025735300568DBA/$file/oftonlineshopping250706.pdf ) 3.3 Current trend As far as online shopping in UK is concerned, there is clear trend that those who resort to this new system of shopping will increase by 30 to 40 per cent in a period of 4 years. Remember, there was a delay of 2 to 6 years for people to shift to online shopping after getting acquainted to the internet. But the online system is gaining momentum in an unprecedented market reaction. In the early years only younger generation was using the online shopping services, but then came a remarkable change in the pattern of users. More and more people from older generation are getting attracted to the online shopping system. According to reliable projections, by 2050 the retail marketing scene will undergo a thorough change in its form and magnitude, and the shopping in UK will evolve beyond recognition with high street dominating the field. Everyone will be online, every hour every day! It will become an automatic process and convert the high street to something like a gallery style showroom! If the prediction becomes a reality, the Britons will be spending nearly 63 billion pounds for the online shopping. 860 million parcels will be shipped to the United Kingdom to serve 26 million internet shoppers. Each shopper will spend  £ 2400 each on an average. The number of people using online shopping will exceed the predictions and projections, if the present trend is an indication to that. At present, 10 per cent of the total retail selling is through internet. It will go up to 20 percent in 3 years. There will be a remarkable change in the composition of customers, patronizing online shopping. Men and women of all ages and professions will adopt the new system for the advantages inherent in the online shopping. The older generation, will increasingly use the online shopping, to avoid the ordeals of travelling, searching and bargaining involved in the conventional shopping. It is easier, faster, safer and valuable, according to those who have changed over to the system. No doubt the online shopping will gain popularity and momentum in the coming years. Globalization of trade has given a new impetus to this new market initiative. The political borders are disappearing as far as trade and commerce are concerned. The online trading and international postal services are giving new thrust to economy. Cross border shopping is flourishing. The internet has helped to widen the area of information much to the benefits of the customers. More accurate information is available now, about the companies, their products and services. The consumers are able to browse online catalogues and acquire vital information about a variety of goods displayed by several companies in their websites. Regarding prices there is a distinctively clear advantage for the consumer. The absence of middle men in the online shopping system will permit the dealers to trim their profit margins in favour of the customer. There are many price comparison service providers who serve the consumer by providing product information and price advantages. Retailers also publish their price ranges in such websites. The shopping web portals are more than the online version of yellow pages. The price comparison services search and retrieve data directly from retailers and feed them to the consumers through the internet. A comprehensive list of retailers and detailed list of prices are available with regular updating. (Future of ONLINE SHOPPING in UK, http://www.edealsuk.com/articles/online-shopping-trend-uk.html) CHAPTER 4 4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY . This research project was conducted with an explanatory research approach as the focus was in discovering ideas and insights into consumer motivations and emerging trends on online shopping (Mariampolski 2001). The research methodology also followed the framework of analysis defined in the previous section which resulted from the literature review. As the research work was largely qualitative, the exploratory approach and the analysis and results from the primary research provides a good understanding of the consumer motivations for online shopping, and also provides a framework for further analysis if needed by other researchers focusing on greater depth in some areas or expansion of issues not covered in this research project. The focus of the research project is on consumer motivations on online shopping and will not touch on specific online sites unless these are discussed in the context of increasing online shopping activities and consumer motivations. 4.1 Primary research The key primary research activities for this project included surveys and in-depth interviews to understand the key consumer motivations for online shopping. 4.1.1 Surveys The surveys gave a preview of the various factors which were impacting on online shopping. An open-ended survey was conducted to give consumers the opportunity to give factors which they truly feel were their key motivating considerations. The survey was divided into two main sections: * Open-ended and unprompted This section was designed to allow the respondents to give answers freely without any prompts. This was to ensure that the consumers thoughts were captured properly, and that their ideas and key motivations were the ones that were included in their responses. * Prompted with specific factors After the unprompted section, the survey had a section which had some of the preliminary findings from the literature review. This was designed to test the literature review findings, and also provide the respondents an opportunity to highlight some factors which may be important but were not mentioned by the respondent during the first part of the survey. 4.1.2 In-depth Interviews The in-depth interviews were Consumer Motivations for Online Shopping Consumer Motivations for Online Shopping CHAPTER 1 1 INTRODUCTION At the end of the last century, online shopping was already starting to catch peoples attention, and was slowly attracting consumers to use it as a channel, primarily because of its ease in completing purchases (i.e. not needing to step out of the home) and also in providing information as, even then, some sites already provided extensive information (Gay 1999, Gehrt et al 2007). But we are well into the first decade of the 21st century, and since then times have changed and certainly, consumers motivations, as evidenced in this literature review and the results of the research project, have changed. The use of the online channel for shopping varies greatly by country with the UK and the US ranking high up in the list with greatest ratio of online shoppers among Internet users, in addition to also having a large penetration of users for Internet access (Bhatti 2006). In the UK, Internet access among households has increased from 34% in 2000 to 54% in 2004, while Internet access for adults increased from 40% in 2000 to 64% in 2005 (Datamonitor 2006). 1.1 Research aims and objectives The project had two key questions to focus on and this acted as a guide to the research design and methodology. The two key research questions in my project were: What are the key consumer motivations for online shopping and how are these impacting the development of the online channel? This question focused on the key drivers acting as impetus for consumers to pursue online shopping, and how these drivers were impacting the online channel as an alternative channel for making purchases. What are the emerging trends for online shopping, and how will the online shopping channel develop? As online shopping continues to increase, both organisations and consumers are expected to be better-placed with having a good understanding of where online shopping trends seem to be directed at. 1.2 Consumer motivations The project sought to understand the consumer motivations for choosing online shopping as an alternative channel or, for some consumers, their main channel for shopping particular items. This part of the project was based on determining what consumers have stated as their key motivation factors through secondary research. This was supported by primary research by surveying and interviewing consumers on their motivational factors. The objective was to list out the key motivational factors consumers have for online shopping. 1.3 Emerging trends for online shopping In addition to understanding consumer motivation, this project also sought, as an objective, to understand the emerging trends in online shopping, and establish a viewpoint on where the online channel was expected to move to. Similar for consumer motivations, this part of the project was based on a combination of primary and secondary research. 1.4 Rationale for research project There was a strong rationale for pursuing this project as it aimed to provide a greater understanding of the consumer and the motivations behind online shopping. As the importance of the online channel becomes increasingly greater for organisations, there is greater need for determining the consumers key drivers in choosing this as an alternative channel for shopping. The project results impact both consumers and organisations. For consumers, this gave them a venue for stating their preferences and key requirements to continue using the online channel which could lead to improvements on the online shopping experience. For organisations, this project provided an understanding of the current situation and also the emerging trends based on competitive dynamics, in order to be able to provide the consumers their requirements. This project was also important for me as the student as it gave me an opportunity to develop the knowledge and pursue the analysis of a critical management issue which was becoming a greater value add channel for a large number of organisations. The project, I believe, has led to new insights and a confirmation of consumers key motivations to online shopping. I believe this contributes to the growing knowledge on the online shopping experience of consumers 1.5 Overview of the study Chapter 1 is the introduction chapter where the background, research question and rational, objective and the structure of the research are stated. Chapter 2 contains a brief literature review on online shopping and provided basic understanding about consumer motivations and emerging trends for online shopping which is related to the research question. Chapter 3 is brief about the case study on online shopping. Chapter 4 contains research methodology which includes research frame work the design of the research, sampling and questionnaire. Chapter 5 describes the critical review of the findings. Chapter 6 discusses on recommendation and conclusions. CHAPTER 2 2. LITERATURE REVIEW The study attempts to analyze research works relating to consumer motivations for online shopping and related issues are critically evaluated. This research project was pursued with a ‘qualitative research approach as the focus was on consumer motivations, which, while it could have been developed with quantitative metrics, seemed to translate better into a qualitative focus. The objective was more focused on going in greater depth across the key consumer motivations instead of tallying figures in terms of which factors consumers felt were their key motivations. The qualitative aspect of the research project was pursued through surveys and in-depth questionnaires. 2.1 Consumer motivations Childers et al (2001) defines ‘‘consumer motivations for online retail shopping conducted a few years ago, some of the consumer motivations cited were interest in use of a new technology, ease of navigation and use, and convenience of online shopping. While the research mentioned looked at consumer motivations, the research was only a subset of what could be learned from consumer behaviour as the study focused on only a few possible factors of online shopping activity. Linked to the increase of online shopping is the increase in access and usage of the Internet. Rodgers and Sheldon (2002) researched ‘‘the increasing use of the Internet and highlighted shopping as one of the key motivations for increased consumer use. In this work, the authors looked at shopping as a consumer motivation for increased consumer use. (Ko et al 2005, Tamimi et al 2005, Dadzie et al 2005) discussed that ‘‘it should be noted that there has been considerable growth in Internet access and usage, and this has created a significant market in marketing and communications of organisations. Online shopping has been growing and organisations have been focusing more on developing the online channel to capture a greater share of the wallet of the consumer. Online shopping Hult et al (2007) defines that ‘‘online shopping can relate to any offering of service quality, product quality, or e-Business quality where the objective is the customer-based value creation for organisations. Based on this definition, we can see that the number of online shoppers has indeed increased significantly in the UK, with the percentage of UK Internet users shopping online (including ordering tickets of buying goods and services) grew from 36% in 2000 to 61% in 2005 (Datamonitor 2006). For this research project, the broad definition is reasonable as the key focus of the research is in understanding consumer motivations for online shopping in general, with no specific product or service in mind. Undoubtedly, there are a large number of ways in which to cut the issue and there would be differences in the consumer motivations for specific products in specific markets. The works cited in this section provided a good starting point in the consumer motivations to be considered. The research works also provided an indication of the increasing use of the Internet and online shopping as an activity. From the limitations cited in the research works, further research needs to be conducted on a general understanding of consumer motivations which are not limited to a few factors. The rest of this section discusses some motivating factors cited by consumers as driving their online shopping activity. 24-hour access Bramall et al (2004) reported that ‘‘motivation by consumers is the 24-hour access provided or allowed by most online shopping channels. Thus, the online channel is utilised by consumers as it provides them with 24-hour access for information, customer service, and purchase opportunity. This essentially gives the consumer the opportunity to browse products and purchase at the consumers own leisure. While the research of the authors states this factor as a motivation, the focus of the research work was actually on potential trust issues in online shopping. This specific motivating factor was not analysed in comparison to other motivating factors for consumers. + Shopping convenience One oft-mentioned reason and an early consumer motivating factor, for shopping online is the convenience of doing so as consumers wont need to go to the retail stores and experience the ‘hassle of buying products in the stores (NBC News 2007). According to one study Furnham (2007) ‘‘not only highlight the convenience of shopping online but also states that shopping only also helps decision-making as a large part of the information requirements a consumer may need to make the decision are found online. Clearly, shopping convenience is expected to rank high among the consumers in terms of their motivations for pursuing online shopping. Gehrt et al (2007) reported that ‘‘Shopping convenience is a large factor for the US and UK consumers but this is not limited to the US or the UK markets only as even in Japan, online shopping has seen increasing growth rates, with shopping convenience as the greatest factor motivating consumers to do online shopping. The shopping convenience factor has been recognised across a number of research works, but these only tend to highlight that consumers have different meanings attached to the terminology, and may actually be referring to different sub-factors under the general term of convenience. In understanding this factor further, specific meanings were attached to and discussed in the surveys and interviews for the research. Greater bargains Craver (2006) reported that ‘‘not only consumers are expected to continue increasing their online purchases but only if they receive greater bargains from sellers in their online sites versus their retail stores. Thus, consumers are already building the expectations that prices online will be less that prices in retail stores. Hajewski (2006) pointed out that ‘‘If only to hammer the point of increasing consumer expectations, two factors mentioned by consumers in their increased interest in doing online shopping were free shipping of their products purchased and also everyday low pricing particularly relative to the retail stores of the sellers. The key limitation in the citations for ‘greater bargains is that these are from press articles and the approaches were not based on proper research conducted to determine the consumer motivations for online shopping. Nevertheless, this should still be accepted as a consumer motivation as this has been mentioned to be a factor based on the articles cited. Overall online shopping site experience Elliott Speck (2005) discussed that ‘‘touches on the overall online shopping site experience which in a way, relates to the overall customer experience in online shopping. This factor is quite specific to online shopping sites which consumers may visit but this nevertheless provides a motivation for some specific consumers and it relates to the overall online shopping site experience and having a positive satisfaction to the experience. Specifically, the authors argued that the following factors impacted on the consumer motivation to complete their online shopping transactions: ease of use of online shopping site, product information available, trust in the brand and the online shopping site, customer support, and entertainment experienced while in the site. The focus of the research conducted by the authors was not on online shopping specifically but rather on the attitude towards retail web sites but using the online shopping experience as an example, with an analysis of the resulting impact on the consumers. Similar to some of the other published research cited in this section, the key limitation is the set of respondents considered for the research which, in this case, consisted of undergraduate marketing students. The results are interesting and provide a good preview of what the results could be if the research is expanded to capture a greater sample of the population. 2.2 Emerging trends for online shopping In reviewing the related literature touching on online shopping and also consumer motivations, a number of emerging trends were clearly seen. These include the following: * Increased efforts in improving online security * Potential for an expanded product range and ancillary businesses * Usability of an online site as an increasing differentiator * Management of Internet product returns * Increasingly demanding consumers * Increasing opportunity for organisations to develop consumer relationships * Increasingly older market * Greater share of ad market Each of these trends is discussed in greater detail in this section. Increased efforts in improving online security (Bramall et al 2004, Arnold et al 2007, OConnell 2005, Cullen 2005) explained that ‘‘online shopping has shown strong growth and yet the belief is that online shopping growth rates could actually be much higher if not for security-related concerns by some consumers. Biswas et al (2006) described ‘‘there are two trends to be noted in relation to the security concerns of consumers. The first, as mentioned, is that there are greater efforts placed by organisations in improving online security as breaches to their security could have considerable consequences. The second trend is that a complementary approach to improving reputation for managing online security risks is paramount. In support of this, where there are great concerns for risk, it has been established that utilising expert endorsers, as opposed to celebrity endorsers or even non-celebrity non-expert endorsers, can actually help in bringing consumers over their risk concerns. Potential for an expanded product range and ancillary businesses Another trend is that organisations are increasingly seeing potential for an expanded product range and ancillary businesses. For example, in recent months, Kohls, a US department store chain, has offered products online which were not normally found in their department stores and these included higher-priced items such as leather chairs, high-end home entertainment centres, and flat screen televisions (Hajewski 2007). This trend is not without its implications for organisation. In the Kohls example, one problem with the expanded product range as done by Kohls was that Kohls did not offer everything they had online in their retail stores. This is a concern as some consumers utilise the online site for their ‘window shopping before moving to the retail stores to try on and purchase the items (Dodes 2006). The article states that more than 80% of online shoppers research products online first before sometimes going to the stores to see the products firsthand. Given that not all products are available in the stores, it would be prudent for online sites to be clear about which products are available in the stores and which products are not. In terms of ancillary businesses, the increase in online usage and online shopping has even spawned related business such as businesses which monitor traffic into organisations websites with the objective of increasing an organisations online sales (Newman 2007). Another ancillary business opportunity is from online shopping sites is as a social shopping space, such as Jellyfish.com which was recently acquired by Microsoft as it saw the growing opportunity in the business (Gallagher 2007). However, these new business are still untested as these are fairly new and would need some time before potentially growing into profitable businesses. As online shopping continues to grow, organisations will continue to seek out other opportunities that could help build the rationale for investments in establishing a highly competitive online shopping site. Usability of online site is an increasing differentiator Massey et al (2007) reported that ‘‘while the extent of technological readiness of the consumer plays a part in determining the level of comfort in navigating through an online shopping site, the general usability of an online shopping site is an increasing differentiator and distinguishes between the different sites that consumers will utilize in online shopping. The goal with these sites is to have it easily navigated through by consumers such that any potential barriers to keep consumers from purchasing products and services are effectively taken out of the equation. An example of an initiative moving into the direction of overall ease of usability is the recent transaction involving Abazias.com and Google wherein Abzias.com partnered with Google for their shopping checkout process which is considered fast and very convenient (M2 Presswire 2007). The challenge for organisations is to continue making their online shopping sites easier to use. And to support the point, some online shopping sites now provide potential live help from customer service if particular requirements are needed in order to limit the number of lost purchases resulting from consumers abandoning their purchases (Prince 2005). Overall, the design of the website and the ease of use have a large impact on the online shopping sites performance (Auger 2005). Management of Internet product returns Mollenkopf et al (2007) explained that emerging trend is the establishment of clear guidelines in the management of Internet product returns, which then addresses a key concern or questions by some consumers. Internet product returns has been one of the key factors limiting part of the online shopping growth as the uncertainty surrounding how returns of defective or unwanted products impacted on the overall cost and inconvenience for the consumer. Organisations which are able to state clearly their policies on Internet product returns, and which provide a seamless process for allowing consumers to make returns for products bought online are at an advantage versus other organisations which have a perception of ‘being difficult to coordinate with in processing Internet product returns. Increasingly demanding consumers As the development of the online shopping channel continues, we are now seeing increasingly demanding consumers. This is shown in the UK supermarket sector. In this sector, online shopping is still considered a poor offering by the UK supermarkets as none of the top five supermarket chains passed a service test conducted by a consumer affairs staff of a newspaper (Prunn 2006). Their failures were from their product offering to the product substitutes provided. The key good news for the UK supermarkets though was that the websites were generally easy to use for online shopping. Also, the delivery drivers were helpful and friendly. In contrast, in the US, online shopping offering for the supermarkets is a competitive offering with various supermarkets increasingly providing greater online shopping offerings for their consumers including chef-prepared, fresh-food delivery service (Food Institute Report 2006). Thus, the US supermarkets are able to provide the US consumers with their ‘demands from US supermarkets. UK supermarkets will need to focus on improving their offering in order to capture the consumer wallet for shopping deliveries. Increasing opportunity for organisations to develop consumer relationships (Kennedy 2006) pointed out that the online shopping channel provides organisations with an additional channel to develop consumer relationships. Organisations which are able to effectively capture value from their online shopping offering are the organisations which are able to â€Å"collect and analyze data on consumer patterns, interpret customer behaviour, respond with timely and effective customised communications, and deliver product and service value to consumers†. The game is not new to most organisations. The only difference is that there is a new channel to consider for the consumer relationships. In order to be competitive, organisations should be able to learn from their interactions with the consumers, and develop the channel into one that consumers will find value from. With the growth of the online shopping channel, more organisations will invest in ensuring that consumer information is managed properly to be leveraged by the organisation in capturing value from the interactions. Increasingly older market Iyer Eastman (2006) has noted that the â€Å"older internet users market comprises the fastest-growing demographic group in the Internet market† and are, aside from large and growing, generally financially secure. This potential trend has large implications on various organisations that can benefit from this research work. Thus, a greater understanding of the key trends is important in order to allow the organisations to plan and invest properly in their online shopping channels. Greater share of ad market Finally, another trend worth noting is the increasing share of the ad market by the online channel. With the growth of the online shopping consumer market, the ad share of this channel is expected to grow as well from about 5-8% to up to one-fifth of total ad budgets over the next three years (Ong 2005). The greater share of the ad market by the online channel has implications for organisations across two key points. First is that there needs to be a decision on the amount of the ad budget that will be allotted to the online channel. After deciding on the first point, the second key point is that it is imperative for organisations to understand the business model of the online channel, and that the organisations have a plan in ensuring their investments will eventually generate good returns. CHAPTER 3 3. CASE STUDY 3.1 History of online shopping Shopping online is the process for the customer to buy products or services via the Internet. In other words, consumers can buy it from the comfort of a holiday home of their own products from a store online. The concepts of this show before the first World Wide Web that are used with real-time transactions are processed from the domestic television! The technology used is called Videotext and shows the first time in 1979 by M. Aldrick, designed and installed the system in the UK. T. 1990 by Berners-Lee created the first WWW server and browser, and in 1995 by expanding the Amazon online shopping experience. History of Online Shopping is amazing. Gone are the days of waiting in traffic and work our way through the store is too full. All we need is a computer, bank account, credit or debit card and freedom voila! From books, to cosmetics, clothes and accessories to name a few, online shopping is the best in the century to 21 Simply find a site that offers things you want, price and delivery terms and in a matter of a few days of your purchase is at your door. Benefits and the ease of clear predictable as we offer a wider selection, competitive prices and greater access to information in regards to our purchase. Online stores are usually available 24 hours a day, and allow consumers to shop in their spare time and without travelling outside normal working hours. Another to consider is the first time the Internet was not well prepared that they will change the way we shop. On the web is created as a tool for communication, which in time to let the ease of virtual shopping. History of online shopping by itself represents a change by the people and now has become a service used by the ordinary business and shopping in the world. (Online blog, http://roomen-online.blogspot.com/2009/08/history-of-online-shopping.html) 3.2 Growth of online shopping The ability to shop online has transformed the way many consumers go about purchasing a product or service, giving the power to the individual consumer to access information, allowing easy and convenient research and comparison of various factors prior to making a purchase. The growth rate of online commerce is unparalleled in any other industry, growing twenty times faster than the overall UK retail market in 2005. Furthermore, the number of online shoppers grew by 25.5% to 14.6 million; with the number over the age of 55 doubling to 2.7 million. Forrester Research predict that UK shoppers will drive UK e-commerce from â‚ ¬43bn in 2006 to â‚ ¬76bn in 2011, accounting for 29% of total European internet retail. As such, we see the market study as a good opportunity to ‘take stock of online shopping in the UK, looking at what it has done for UK plc as a whole since its growth through the internet boom of the late nineties to the stable yet competitive market we see today. I t is worth noting many of the businesses that lived through the dot-com crash were internet retail sites, a clear indication of the valuable role they play for consumers. ( OFT Market Study on Online Shopping, http://207.45.116.138/ndbs/positiondoc.nsf/1f08ec61711f29768025672a0055f7a8/6174E87FE56AFC3F8025735300568DBA/$file/oftonlineshopping250706.pdf ) 3.3 Current trend As far as online shopping in UK is concerned, there is clear trend that those who resort to this new system of shopping will increase by 30 to 40 per cent in a period of 4 years. Remember, there was a delay of 2 to 6 years for people to shift to online shopping after getting acquainted to the internet. But the online system is gaining momentum in an unprecedented market reaction. In the early years only younger generation was using the online shopping services, but then came a remarkable change in the pattern of users. More and more people from older generation are getting attracted to the online shopping system. According to reliable projections, by 2050 the retail marketing scene will undergo a thorough change in its form and magnitude, and the shopping in UK will evolve beyond recognition with high street dominating the field. Everyone will be online, every hour every day! It will become an automatic process and convert the high street to something like a gallery style showroom! If the prediction becomes a reality, the Britons will be spending nearly 63 billion pounds for the online shopping. 860 million parcels will be shipped to the United Kingdom to serve 26 million internet shoppers. Each shopper will spend  £ 2400 each on an average. The number of people using online shopping will exceed the predictions and projections, if the present trend is an indication to that. At present, 10 per cent of the total retail selling is through internet. It will go up to 20 percent in 3 years. There will be a remarkable change in the composition of customers, patronizing online shopping. Men and women of all ages and professions will adopt the new system for the advantages inherent in the online shopping. The older generation, will increasingly use the online shopping, to avoid the ordeals of travelling, searching and bargaining involved in the conventional shopping. It is easier, faster, safer and valuable, according to those who have changed over to the system. No doubt the online shopping will gain popularity and momentum in the coming years. Globalization of trade has given a new impetus to this new market initiative. The political borders are disappearing as far as trade and commerce are concerned. The online trading and international postal services are giving new thrust to economy. Cross border shopping is flourishing. The internet has helped to widen the area of information much to the benefits of the customers. More accurate information is available now, about the companies, their products and services. The consumers are able to browse online catalogues and acquire vital information about a variety of goods displayed by several companies in their websites. Regarding prices there is a distinctively clear advantage for the consumer. The absence of middle men in the online shopping system will permit the dealers to trim their profit margins in favour of the customer. There are many price comparison service providers who serve the consumer by providing product information and price advantages. Retailers also publish their price ranges in such websites. The shopping web portals are more than the online version of yellow pages. The price comparison services search and retrieve data directly from retailers and feed them to the consumers through the internet. A comprehensive list of retailers and detailed list of prices are available with regular updating. (Future of ONLINE SHOPPING in UK, http://www.edealsuk.com/articles/online-shopping-trend-uk.html) CHAPTER 4 4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY . This research project was conducted with an explanatory research approach as the focus was in discovering ideas and insights into consumer motivations and emerging trends on online shopping (Mariampolski 2001). The research methodology also followed the framework of analysis defined in the previous section which resulted from the literature review. As the research work was largely qualitative, the exploratory approach and the analysis and results from the primary research provides a good understanding of the consumer motivations for online shopping, and also provides a framework for further analysis if needed by other researchers focusing on greater depth in some areas or expansion of issues not covered in this research project. The focus of the research project is on consumer motivations on online shopping and will not touch on specific online sites unless these are discussed in the context of increasing online shopping activities and consumer motivations. 4.1 Primary research The key primary research activities for this project included surveys and in-depth interviews to understand the key consumer motivations for online shopping. 4.1.1 Surveys The surveys gave a preview of the various factors which were impacting on online shopping. An open-ended survey was conducted to give consumers the opportunity to give factors which they truly feel were their key motivating considerations. The survey was divided into two main sections: * Open-ended and unprompted This section was designed to allow the respondents to give answers freely without any prompts. This was to ensure that the consumers thoughts were captured properly, and that their ideas and key motivations were the ones that were included in their responses. * Prompted with specific factors After the unprompted section, the survey had a section which had some of the preliminary findings from the literature review. This was designed to test the literature review findings, and also provide the respondents an opportunity to highlight some factors which may be important but were not mentioned by the respondent during the first part of the survey. 4.1.2 In-depth Interviews The in-depth interviews were

Why Are People Migrating To Colorado :: essays research papers

Why people are migrating to Colorado   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Migration and population growth is on the rise in Colorado especially in the center of the state as well as one of the four of the nation's fastest-growing counties in the 1990's due to many factors. Why is Colorado so popular to migrate to? Many people see the versatility the state is attributed with and how convenient it is for employment. People can live in the lifestyle associated with mountains and wildernesses while at the same time have access to a city filled with jobs with a minimal commute. Some also believe that people are drawn to Colorado and attracted to the state because of the typical image of the west, open space, and the old frontier vision that also creates an inviting atmosphere. Californians surprisingly lead the way in migration to Colorado averaging one in every seven residents moving to Colorado. Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Illinois were the following states after California in migration to Colorado in 1997. Although people are migrating to Colorado in large numbers recently, the population growth has taken its toll on the state affecting traffic, schools with overcrowding, and real estate prices. So what are people doing when they migrate to Colorado? Obviously people are becoming attracted to the state for various reasons including most importantly the family type setting in a small city lifestyle. The family setting that has lured people to migrate to Colorado contributes greatly to birthrates that have sky rocketed resulting in a tremendous increase in the state's population . With the increasing population growth Colorado experiences, the creation of jobs becomes a result and a cycle begins to form.

A critical analysis of the role of popular culture in creating and maintaining learning across British society

In the following study I will be examining the way that popular culture has affected British public in relation to learning. I will be first examining previous times and the ways in which popular culture has influenced people over time. I will be concentrating on the effects that music and advertising has had and shaped society over time, and the methods these mediums have used to achieve this. Throughout the last century British culture has been dramatically transformed through popular culture, the development of major corporations, the changing methods of the current governments of the time, and the development of methods that popular culture can reach the public, all contributing to an extreme alteration in the way society as a whole behaves. Before the industrial revolution, popular culture was based on the agricultural year and around religious festivals for example, harvest, plough Monday, Easter, Christmas etc.) There was no division of the classes. Everyone joined together in recreation and entertainment. In the nineteenth century however, there was a considerable change. A sharp rise in urbanisation meant people flocked to the cities away from the agricultural areas to the industrial centres. There was therefore a massive decline in the meaningfulness of the agricultural festivals. In the city there was a physical separation of the classes, the working classes living tightly together in houses built specifically to house workers. There were far fewer public holidays as the agricultural ones were regarded as obsolete. There were fears about the amount of control the rich had over the working classes, as there was in the church. The working classes saw how they were treated by the Church Of England in the city very different to what they were used to. Many theories arose about the church and how it was corrupt. A man called John Leicester believed the Church to be corrupt and began his own church. The Methodist church, derived from the Czech Maravian Church. Methodist churches have no icons, statues, or grand features such as stained glass. Many working class people became Methodist due to the supposed corruption of the Church of England and its discrimination against the poor. This caused worry among the upper classes that the working classes could rise up against them. At this time, Irish Catholics were brought over from island to dig the canals. With them they brought the Irish Catholic faith. The Irish were regarded as extreme underclass and were very poor, therefore Catholicism was regarded as a religion for the poor. Yet another new faith for the working classes. There was increased fear of revolution as the inventions of new non-conformist churches happened. More and more controls and legislation were applied to prevent the uprising of the working classes. The Age of Interference The worries that the upper classes had of a possible revolution caused them to impose many rules on popular pursuits such as cricket and football. There was also a move to open parks and museums and other recreational facilities to distract the working classes not only from drinking and riots, but political movements and uprise. There was also a bought of middle-class pursuits invented such as Thomas Cook Holidays. Advertising Advertising is very easily exposed to the public. Advertising is available in a large variety of mediums, television being a main outlet, radio, posters, billboards, signs, newspapers and more, a more recent method being the internet. All of these things we come into contact with everyday. A very effective medium for advertising is the radio. This reaches people while they are doing other things, like driving or working, unlike television, which people only see when they have specifically sat down to watch it. Roland Barthes (1950-1980) studied semiotics, which is the study of signs and how we interpret them. He said that we receive subliminal messages through adverts without knowing it, this in turn making us want to buy the product/service. Roland Barthes dismantled images, the most known example of this being a picture of a black French Cub Scout saluting, and used his three levels of deconstruction to find hidden meaning to the image. This can be applied to images and advertising we now see today. Phallic symbolism was and still is used today within advertising, especially on television and is found to be extremely effective. The Cadbury's Flake television commercial is a prime example. But of course, a few hundred years ago, television would not have been about and advertising would have been restricted to other mediums. Before the industrial revolution, posters or leaflets would have not worked because there was mass illiteracy at those times because of the lack of education facilities available to the general public. After the revolution though, there was more education available to both children and adults of the working classes. But what is ‘working class.'? Karl Marx was the founding father of communism and is referred back to consistently when definitions of social class are made. Born in Germany in 1818, Marx lived in France, Belgium and London. He was an associate of Engels, with whom he devised the Communist/Economic Determinist Theory. This stated that there are two types of people. The Proletariat (who by efforts produce wealth) and the Bourgeoisie (the owners of factories and profits who exploit the proletariat). In 1847 Marx attended a meeting in London, the groups aim being ‘the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the domination of the proletariat.' In this, Marx was willing the working classes to rise up against the bourgeoisie. Marx had many followers, an important one being Gramsci. Gramsci was born in 1891. A believer in Marxism, joining the Communist party in 1921, he was an avid supporter of all of Marx's proposals, but he thought that his theories were too focused on economics and take into account the other factors enough, with culture being a crucial example. The Gramscian model was called the hegemony model. Through this, Gramsci said that the upper classes use a form of propaganda to suppress revolution of the working classes. He claimed the working classes would begin to resent how much power was had over them and revolt. At that point, the powerful people would stop the revolution by giving the rebels a little of what they demanded to curb them. For example, there was a move to encourage people to read more political literature. Communists used this to provoke revolution through leaflets and articles. The Government automatically put a large tax on all forms of literature, resulting in an underground illegal press. Within time though, the government lifted the tax and promoted the reading and publishing of cheap magazines, which distracted people from the political literature, therefore no one read the communists provocations. So, Marx's ideas had been supported and followed by many, but the revolution they all predicted and encouraged never happened. Why? The working classes never revolted because the industrial revolution meant increased prosperity to all. Marx expected more solidarity among the working classes than there actually was and this stratification meant that revolution was never fully supported. Education at this time was limited. Children would attend Sunday schools and learn to read. There were also ‘Bell Schools' in which educated pupils would teach each other. These children would then go home to their (probably illiterate) parents and read to them, thus the parents learning as well as the children. Better education meant new technology was being developed. The printing press was introduced in the late 1860s, this resulting in many forms of writing being freely available. Not only news, but entertaining stories like ‘Penny Dreadfuls' that became very popular among the working classes. The Education Act of 1870 meant that education was available to all people whatever their class all over the country. Mass literacy ensued and more and more reading materials were being produced to entertain and inform. Literacy has had a massive effect on the way we live and how we learn and the availability of education is so huge compared to those a hundred years ago. Although mass literacy was an extremely important development in our culture and its effects are colossal, there are other ways in which popular culture affects learning in societytoday. Advances in education meant more technology was being invented. Music was becoming more and more inventive as time went on because of the new ways of producing it and publicising it. The advent of music halls was a very important step in social development. Before the industrial revolution, the workers would often drink habitually throughout the days while working the land. When they moved to the cities and worked in the factories, obviously drinking was not tolerated. Urbanisation meant that all had more money to spend because of their pay in the cities, therefore more money to spend on alcohol. This meant that the workers would come home and drink the equal amount they would have over the day while on the farms, in one evening. Drinking created social decline, causing a large spread of violent drunken behaviour, rape, domestic abuse, child negligence etc, prompting the authorities to provide evening entertainment for the working classes, to prevent the boredom and the need to drink. Thus, the music halls were born. Music halls were popular all over Britain, and drew in both the working classes and the upper classes to shows involving many different types of people singing patriotic songs or amusing acts, often by women. A famous example of performer was Vesta Tilley. Tilley would often impersonate men, mainly ‘pencil pushers', the middle-class men who worked in offices and the like. Tilley would dress in drag, and impersonate and ridicule these type of people, much to the amusement of the working class people who often detested these type of people. Tilley's most famous song was ‘Burlington Bertie'. As WW11 began, music changed within society. Patriotic songs like ‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag' and ‘Jerusalem' were very popular as was all uplifting nationalist music at the time. The Frankfurt School This was a group set up in 1923 mainly made up of Jewish intellectuals threatened by the Nazis. With beliefs similar to Gramsci's they believed that the working classes had been ‘pacified' into accepting capitalism by ‘Commodity Fetishism' (the creation of false needs. The most famous three members of the Franfurt school were arguably Adorno (1903-1969), Max Horkheimer (1895-1973) and Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979). Adorno devised many theories concerning popular culture, many of which are still used today. In Dominic Strinati's work An Introduction To Theories Of Popular Culture, features a quote from Adorno giving his view on popular culture and the way in which it is used. ‘In all its branches, products which are tailored for the consumption by masses, and which to a great extent determine the nature of that consumption, are manufactured more or less according to plan†¦ This is made possible by contemporary technical capabilities as well as by economic and administrative concentration. The culture industry intentionally integrates its consumers from above. To the detriment of both it forces together the spheres of high and low art, separated for thousands of years. The seriousness of high art is destroyed in speculation about its efficacy; the seriousness of the lower perishes with the civilisational constraints imposed on the rebellious resistance inherent within it as long as social control was not yet total. Thus, although the culture industry undeniably speculates on the conscious and unconscious state of the millions towards which it is directed, the masses are not primary but secondary, they are an object of calculation, an appendage o f the machinery. The customer is not king, as the culture industry would have us believe, not its subject but its object'. (Adorno. Strinati D. 2004..) This indicates the belief that the authorities within the culture industry shape culture in Britain through the search for profit. Adorno believed that the power lay within the culture industry and its products encouraged compliance and consensus. Adorno was very interested in music. Classically trained, he used is knowledge in the field and compared it with the modern music of the time. Popular music was completely different to the classical style he had be taught. He said that in popular music, ‘the beginning of the chorus is replaceable by the beginning of the innumerable other choruses†¦.. every detail is substitutable; it serves its function only as a cog in a machine.' Adorno maintained that this is different to in classical music where the music provides ‘a musical sense from the totality of the piece and its place within that totality.' Adorno believed that popular music was in no way creative or intuitive, merely ‘to please the masses.' At the time of Adorno, dramatic changes in popular music were happening. The 1950s brought about the uprising of the ‘teenager'. Artists such as Buddy Holly were idolised, American music being a strong upcoming force at this time. Musicians used not only their music to sell their records, but their appearances and attitude also. The rapidly altering types of music were a big worry to the government of the time. Many complaints were filed against many album covers and performances. Elvis for example was filmed from the waist up so his rotating hips were not broadcast! There were calls to ban many songs and particular album covers, like the cover of the Mamas and Papas album ‘If You Can Believe Your Eyes And ears', in which the band are shown in a bath together fully dressed. Record companies were forced to sign less ‘controversial' bands like The Monkees. Music has developed dramatically since. Bands such as The Clash promoted rebellious attitudes towards authority, as did the Sex Pistols, whose song God Save The Queen was banned by Radio One upon its release. A recent band who follow this theme are Anti-Flag who's most famous song ‘Fuck Police Brutality', is a blatant attack at the authorities of the country. Bands such as these are now very popular, their songs and attitudes being imitated by its listeners. These attitudes have spawned a variety of fashions, often involving the wearing of black hoodies, piercings and coloured hair. This is seen as a statement against society, a rebellion against conformity. Artists such as Eminem have come under serious criticism, charged with endorsing drug use and bad language. Emiem alone has been blamed on numerous occasions for behavioural problems children have allegedly developed after to listening to his records. One child committed suicide in the early nineties, his death blamed on Eminem's music. An alternative fashion trend has been born from black music, specifically rap. This involves the wearing of tracksuits, trainers, large gold chains and caps. Although this is merely a way of dressing, this type of outfit is often perceived by the general public as disruptive, indicating the person is a troublemaker, often being turned away from particular institutions for example clubs on account of their dress. Snoop Dogg, an American rap artist at the Live8 concert recently swore repeatedly both during his songs and between them, all at about lunchtime in front of millions of people both at the gig and watching on television around the world. Criticised heavily for this, he received a massive fine from the organisers of the event and forced to publicly apologise. Some claim that music such as his is very damaging to children and should not be released, let alone promoted. The governments of today are more lenient when allowing records from such bands to be released, but parental advisory stickers are put on if there is but one expletive within the record, and this means the record can not be sold to persons under the age of fifteen. With the invention of music videos, there have been many complaints concerning the content. A lot of modern music, especially music of black origin like r'n'b releases videos involving sexual scenes. This has caused outrage and has forced many videos to be scrapped completely, edited or blurred when shown. For example, the punk band Blink 182's video for the song ‘I Miss You' released in 2001 involved scenes of lesbianism and voyeur. These scenes were edited out, then the video was eventually taken off the television because of the amounts of complaints received about it. A very famous and recent example of prohibition by the government involving music videos is the infamous ‘Crazy Frog' song by Axel F. The video showed an animation of a frog dancing. The frog was naked and, although no distinctive genitalia were present, the Advertising Standards Committee received thousands of complaints from parents stating it was too explicit to be shown before watershed. The video was then edited, the aforesaid area blurred and allowed to be broadcast only after watershed (9pm.) The actions of governments when looking at the way they manipulate the music industry can be clarified when looking at Gramsci's hegemony model. The definition of hegemony by Gramsci: ‘A cultural and ideological means whereby the dominant groups in society, including fundamentally but not exclusively the ruling class, maintain their dominance by securing the ‘spontaneous consent' of subordinate groups, including the working class. This is achieved by the negotiated construction of a political and ideological consensus which incorporates both dominant and dominated groups'. (Strinati, D 2004). This definition indicates to us that the authorities according to Gramsci, prohibit the uprising of the lower classes through bowdlerization, restrictions and censorship. This is apparent when looking at popular music, and the radio. Radio Caroline was a pirate radio station set up in the 1960s by a group of people who rebelling against the strict control the government had over the music broadcast on the radio. To stop prosecution, Radio Caroline was broadcast from the sea off the shores of Britain so as to avoid breaking the law. Radio Caroline broadcast rock'n'roll, and music genres that the younger audiences would appreciate, music which was censored and restricted by the government, receiving little airtime. The government retorted by making the listening to Radio Caroline illegal, but this was ineffective, so they produced a new radio station called Radio One. This was obviously still controlled by the government, but played the popular music that Radio Caroline did. This is a strong example of hegemony, showing how the government changes its policies to give the impression that the public have got what they wanted, but still having that underpinning control. I conclude that popular music has had and continues to have massive influence on society today. Music such as ‘Jerusalem' around the time of the world wars was uplifting and gave people hope in the terrible times they lived through while the war was happening. In the 1950s, music changed dramatically and brought about certain fashion trends, some seen as damaging, but overall just another cultural change. Nowadays, music is less regulated, but we are still prevented from listening to particular types of music at certain ages, indicating the continuation of censorship enforced by the government. Hegemony in music is very apparent, a prime example being the banning of Radio Caroline and the censorship involved in the music industry today. I feel society has developed through music, as new music is born; new technology to improve it follows and so on. Music brings joy and entertainment, a medium through which thoughts are expressed and ideas are publicised. I feel that the censorship of music is meaningless, because as we develop as people, we can learn to accept maybe aggressive lyrics or offensive videos and tolerate them as just another part of someone's culture. Through music we learn and to censor our music is to stifle our growth as human beings.

The 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles - History

The 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles - History The 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, United States For a while, ​it seemed as if no one was going to attend the 1932 Olympic Games. Six months before the Games were to begin, not a single country had responded to the official invitations. Then they started to trickle in. The world was mired in the Great Depression which made the expense of traveling to California seem nearly as insurmountable as the distance. Neither had many of the spectator tickets been sold and it seemed that the Memorial Coliseum, which had been expanded to 105,000 seats for the occasion, would be relatively empty. Then, a few Hollywood stars (including Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, and Mary Pickford) offered to entertain the crowd and ticket sales picked up. Los Angeles had constructed the very first Olympic Village for the Games. The Olympic Village consisted of 321 acres in Baldwin Hills and offered 550 two-bedroom portable bungalows for the male athletes, a hospital, post office, library, and a large number of eating establishments to feed the athletes. The female athletes were housed in the Chapman Park Hotel downtown, which offered more luxuries than the bungalows. The 1932 Olympic Games also debuted the first photo-finish cameras as well as the victory platform. There were two minor incidents worth reporting. Finnish Paavo Nurmi, who had been one of the Olympic heroes in the past several Olympic Games, was considered to have turned professional, thus was not allowed to compete. While mounted on the victory platform, Italian Luigi Beccali, winner of the gold medal in the 1,500-meter race, gave the Fascist salute. Mildred Babe Didrikson made history at the 1932 Olympic Games. Babe won the gold medal for both the 80-meter hurdles (new world record) and the javelin (new world record)  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹and won silver in the high jump. Babe later became a very successful professional golfer. Approximately 1,300 athletes participated, representing 37 countries. For More Information: History of the OlympicsList of the Olympic GamesInteresting Olympic Facts

Have vs Having in Certain Expressions

Have vs Having in Certain Expressions Have vs Having in Certain Expressions Have vs Having in Certain Expressions By Maeve Maddox Paul Russell poses an interesting question about the use of have and having. He points out the common ESL error of saying I am having a headache and asks: Why can I say Im having my lunch but not Im having a headache? Some explanations Ive read indicate its all to do with possession. Â  But every time I think I have it figured, I have to wonder why I must say I have a cold when I cant say I have a heart attack. Im sure youll be having a good explanation for me:-) Heres the usual rule given to ESL students concerning the use of have to show possession or to describe medical conditions: Have should always be in the simple present tense for the meaning to own, or to describe medical problems. For example: They have a new car. I have a bad cold. It is incorrect to say I am having a cold or I am having a new car. Im having a heart attack does seem to contradict this rule. I think that the difference between I have a headache and Im having a heart attack may have more to do with duration than with either a medical condition or possession. One can have a heart condition, but a heart attack is a singular event, usually over in a few seconds or minutes. One may say I hope I wont have a heart attack, but in the event that one has oneand is capable of telling someoneam having is the only possibility. A headache is generally of longer duration than a heart attack. It may last an hour, several hours, or days. The same applies to a cold. Both are events of indeterminate duration. You have them for a while. If youre seated at a table having your lunch, youre engaged in an activity with a predictable end. Youll stop having lunch when youve finished eating. Thats my theory, anyway. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:"Because Of" and "Due To" 36 Poetry Terms10 Terms for the Common People

Sports Writing as a Form of Creative Nonfiction

Sports Writing as a Form of Creative Nonfiction Sports writing is a form of journalism or creative nonfiction  in which a sporting event, individual athlete, or sports-related issue serves as the dominant subject. A journalist who reports on sports is a sportswriter (or sports writer). In his foreword to  The Best American Sports Writing 2015, series editor Glenn Stout says that a really good sports story provides an experience that approaches the book experience- it takes you from one place youve never been before and by the end leaves you in another place, changed. Examples and Observations: The best sports stories are based not on interviews but on conversations- conversations with people who are sometimes reluctant, sometimes in the orneriest mood, often not the most glib or polished conversationalists.(Michael Wilbon, Introduction to The Best American Sports Writing 2012. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012)W.C. Heinz on Bummy DavisIts a funny thing about people. People will hate a guy all his life for what he is, but the minute he dies for it they make him out a hero and they go around saying that maybe he wasnt such a bad guy after all because he sure was willing to go the distance for whatever he believed or whatever he was.Thats the way it was with Bummy Davis. The night Bummy fought Fritzie Zivic in the Garden and Zivic started giving him the business and Bummy hit Zivic low maybe 30 times and kicked the referee, they wanted to hang him for it. The night those four guys came into Dudys bar and tried the same thing, only with rods, Bummy went nuts again. He flattened the first one and then they shot him, and when everybody read about it, and how Bummy fought guns with only his left hook and died lying in the rain in front of the place, they all said he was really something and you sure had to give him credit at that. ...(W.C. Heinz, Brownsville Bum. True, 1951. Rpt. in What A Time It Was: The Best of W.C. Heinz on Sports. Da Capo Press, 2001) Gary Smith on Muhammad AliAround Muhammad Ali, all was decay. Mildewed tongues of insulation poked through gaps in the ceiling; flaking cankers pocked the painted walls. On the floor lay rotting scraps of carpet.He was cloaked in black. Black street shoes, black socks, black pants, black short-sleeved shirt. He threw a punch, and in the small towns abandoned boxing gym, the rusting chain between the heavy bag and the ceiling rocked and creaked.Slowly, at first, his feet began to dance around the bag. His left hand flicked a pair of jabs, and then a right cross and a left hook, too, recalled the ritual of butterfly and bee. The dance quickened. Black sunglasses flew from his pocket as he gathered speed, black shirttail flapped free, black heavy bag rocked and creaked. Black street shoes scuffed faster and faster across black moldering tiles: Yeah, Lawd, champ can still float, champ can still sting! He whirled, jabbed, feinted, let his feet fly into a shuffle. Hows that for a sick man? he shouted. ...(Gary Smith, Ali and His Entourage. Sports Illustrated, April 25, 1988) Roger Angell on the Business of CaringI am not enough of a social geographer to know if the faith of the Red Sox fan is deeper or hardier than that of a Reds rooter (although I secretly believe that it may be, because of his longer and more bitter disappointments down the years). What I do know is that this belonging and caring is what our games are all about; this is what we come for. It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring- caring deeply and passionately, really caring- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a t ime when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naà ¯vetà ©- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball- seems a small price to pay for such a gift.(Roger Angell, Agincourt and After. Five Seasons: A Baseball Companion. Fireside, 1988) Rick Reilly on the Pace of Play in BaseballThings that nobody reads in America today:The online legal mumbo jumbo before you check the little I Agree box.Kate Uptons resume.Major League Baseballs Pace of Play Procedures.Not that baseball games dont have a pace. They do: Snails escaping a freezer.Its clear no MLB player or umpire has ever read the procedures or else how do you explain what I witnessed Sunday, when I sat down to do something really stupid- watch an entire televised MLB game without the aid of a DVR?Cincinnati at San Francisco was a three-hour-and-14-minute can-somebody-please-stick-two-forks-in-my-eyes snore-a-palooza. Like a Swedish movie, it might have been decent if somebody had cut 90 minutes out of it. Id rather have watched eyebrows grow. And I should have known better.Consider: There were 280 pitches thrown and, after 170 of them, the hitter got out of the batters box and did ... absolutely nothing.Mostly, hitters delayed the proceedings to kick imaginary dirt o ff their cleats, meditate, and un-Velcro and re-Velcro their batting gloves, despite the fact that most of the time, they hadnt even swung. ...(Rick Reilly, Play Ball! Really, Play Ball! ESPN.com, July 11, 2012) Research and Sports WritingAthletes will tell you that games are won or lost in practice. Sports writers will tell you the same thing about stories- the key work is doing research before a game. The reporter tries to find out all she can about the teams, the coaches, and the issues hell be covering. Sports writer Steve Sipple comments, Background is the one time I dont have to worry about asking the right questions. Its the one time when Im able to relax and have fun while I familiarize myself with an athlete or issue.(Kathryn T. Stofer, James R. Schaffer, and Brian A. Rosenthal, Sports Journalism: An Introduction to Reporting and Writing. Rowman Littlefield, 2010)