DropBox it just works

I was searching for a new opportunity that was more Drop client software to a Windows, Mac, or Linux PC or to an phone, pad, Blackberry, or Android mobile device, the software created a local Drop folder for accessing files of any size or type via an encrypted Internet connection from other Drop-enabled devices or from any web browser. The client software tracked changes in real-time to any file in the user's local Drop folder, then instantly synchronized a copy of the file on Dropsy's servers, updating only the portions of he file that had changed, in order to save bandwidth and time.Likewise, within milliseconds, copies of the file were synchronized in local Drop folders on all other devices connected through the user's account. â€Å"We engineered Drop so it just worked, all of the time,† Drew explained, â€Å"We supported all the major operating systems and handled all kinds of obstacles, from flaky wireless connections to corporate firewalls, which was not an easy task. † The company adopted a fermium business model, that is, it offered both free and premium accounts.Users got 2 gigabytes of storage for free and had the option to ay $10 per month for 50 gigabytes or $20 per month for 100 gigabytes. Industry observers estimated that 2% to 3% of Dropsy's users were paying customers, which implied a $10 million to $15 million annual revenue run rate in mid 2010. 1 At that time, the company had 25 employees, most of whom worked in engineering or support functions. Drop had raised $7. 2 million in two rounds of venture capital funding from Sequoia Capital and Cell Partners.Market Overview Drop was a late entrant to the fiercely competitive online backup and storage services space. The first firms in the space, which had small companies as customers, ere launched in the late asses by startups offering outsourced storage at remote decanters. As costs declined, services also became available for consumers seeking to backup their data online. Most ear ly users were technically adept, for example, college students downloading music from peer-to-peer file sharing services.Few firms in this first wave of services survived the dot. Com crash, but by late 2006 the market was crowded again with new competitors. In July 2007, the tech blob Amassable published a list of more than 80 online backup and storage services. 2 Market research vendors like DC fueled the hype by predicting that the worldwide market for online backup services would grow to $71 5 million by 2011. 3 Investor interest in online storage surged when Muzzy was acquired by EMCEE for $76 million in late 2007.Houston was confident that Drop could succeed in the face of intense competition. He reasoned that Drop would be able to collect revenue from some users, because consumers generally understood that storage cost money, whether it came in the form of a physical drive or an online service. When challenged by endure capitalists to explain why the world needed another clou d backup company, Houston asked them, â€Å"How many of those services do you personally use? † The answer from Vs. was almost invariably, â€Å"None of them. 4 Houston asserted that direct experience with rival services, which often failed to transfer data across firewalls and sometimes balked with big files or large numbers of files, was helpful in innovations that contributed to these advantages: 2 The first generation of cloud storage services was based on a simplistic model, where file accesses were redirected over the Internet instead of to your computer's hard rive. Your operating system and all your applications assume that accessing your hard drive is cheap and fast, but when these requests are instead routed to a server thousands of miles away, they can take an order of magnitude longer.This subtle but critical distinction explains why when working remotely, even simple actions like browsing a directory can freeze your computer for seconds at a time. We needed to t ake a completely different approach by storing files locally and updating the cloud copy in the background using a number of time- and vindications optimizations. Launching Drop It's hard to imagine Tom Cruise in Minority Report sending himself files via Gamma or lugging around a USB thumbprint. Ђ? Drew Houston After his frustrating experience on the bus, Houston started working on Drop full time in late 2006. He said: I needed it badly. I worked on multiple desktops and a laptop and could never remember to keep my USB drive with me. I was drowning in email attachments trying to share files for my previous startup. My home desktops power supply literally exploded one day, killing one of my hard drives, and I had no backups. I tried everything I could find but each product inevitably suffered problems with Internet latency, large files, bugs, or Just made me think too much. To help with the project, Houston recruited Rash Overdose, who dropped out of MIT and later became Dropsy's co-founder and chief technology officer. The pair spent the next four months coding a prototype in a tiny Cambridge apartment. With a working prototype in hand, Houston came up with an innovative approach for testing demand for a minimum viable product. He had produced various recruiting videos for his college fraternity; with this know-how he created a three-minute crassest of a product demo and uploaded it to Hacker News, a popular forum for developers. â€Å"l did this out of necessity.There was no way I could ask for people's files before we were 100% sure our code was reliable. But I had a prototype that showed off the product's best features. â€Å"7 Houston used the screens to recruit beta testers and to solicit feedback on features that Drop might include. He added, â€Å"Not launching is painful, but not learning can be fatal. We got a lot of feedback through that video, so we were learning while we were building. † Houston had another reason for posting the video on Hacker News: he hoped to ND selective Y Combinatory seed fund and incubator program.He recalled, â€Å"l had Just submitted my application to Y Combinatory and as a gambit to get their attention, I submitted the video to Hacker News. I hoped it would work. â€Å"8 It did: in April 2007, Drop received $15,000 in funding from Y Combinatory (see Exhibit 1 for excerpts from Dropsy's Y Combinatory application). In exchange for a small percentage of a startup's common equity-?usually 2% to 10%-?Y Combinatory provided up to $20,000 of seed capital as well as mentoring, workspace, and introductions to other advisors ND investors over a three-month period.Many startups applied to Y Combination's program, which had a track record for matching strong technical teams with elite venture capital firms. 3 Upon conclusion of the Y Combinatory program in September 2007, Drop raised $1. 2 million of convertible debt from Sequoia Capital. â€Å"We fit into Sequoia's sweet spot: we were two youn g technical founders, working out of an apartment, targeting a big market. It helped that we were ranked at the top of our Y Combinatory cohort,† Houston recalled.He and Overdose moved to San Francisco to continue building the many, but despite the capital infusion, they continued to run lean. Drop delivered its service through Amazon's SO cloud storage platform, avoiding the need for infrastructure investments and positioning the company to scale rapidly. The co- founders created a private beta program for a limited group of users who registered through a simple landing page. The page contained a short description of Drop and requested an email address from visitors interested in participating in the beta test (Exhibit 2).Houston commented: There's a spectrum of well-informed opinions about when to launch your product. At one end, Paul Graham tells entrepreneurs, â€Å"Launch early and often† to accelerate learning. At the other end, [respected software guru] Joel Spoo ky says, â€Å"Launch when your product doesn't completely suck. † We were managing people's files, and it's a big deal if you lose or ruin them. That meant moving toward Spooky end of the spectrum and keeping our beta test small. Next, Houston devised ways to generate demand for the beta service.In a guerilla marketing move, he produced another short demo video and posted it in March 2008 on Dig, a site that showcased web content deemed popular by Digs users. Houston felt it was essential to communicate in an authentic manner with the tech enthusiasts who frequented Dig. He sprinkled â€Å"Easter eggs† into the video, for example, references to Chocolate Rain (a Youth phenomenon), TIPS reports used in the movie Office Space, Mitt's Gillian Hall, and the 09 IF key for decrypting Blurry disks (dissemination of which, in the face of movie studio legal threats, was a hacker crusade).With this tongue-in- cheek nod to its tech-sway audience, the Drop video soared to the top of Dig, few days. Overnight, the list for Dropsy's private beta Jumped from 5,000 to 75,000 Ames, far exceeding the team's expectations. Building the Company Make something people want. -? Y Combinatory motto Based on consumer response to the second video, it appeared that the promise behind Drop-? â€Å"It Just works†-?resonated with potential early adopters, especially those who were familiar with the performance limitations of existing online backup/ storage services. Houston shifted his focus to product development.The Drop team was comprised almost entirely of engineers during the first two years of the firm's existence. Early on, board members tasked Houston with hiring a reduce manager to help coordinate engineering efforts and prioritize features. Houston reflected: If you ask ten people what a product manager is, you'll get ten different answers. They tend to fall on a continuum with the end points being â€Å"poet† and â€Å"librarian. † A librarian i s focused on blocking and tackling, coordination, and facilitating communication. This type of PM is inherently organized and follows up relentlessly.A poet PM listens to the voice of the customer during usability tests and focus groups and based on that insight formulates an aesthetic vision, a grand strategy, and a product roadman. Our first product manager was 4 more of a librarian than a poet, because we needed a librarian's discipline: even today we don't have enough of that DNA in the company. But he Just drove people nuts. It was painful, but we had to let him go after six months. For the next year, until Drop hired another product manager, the company relied on Houston and Overdose to drive the product roadman.Development proceeded more slowly than Houston had originally expected. In his April 2007 Y Combinatory application, Houston had projected availability of a version that he could charge for thin 8 weeks, but launching Drop to the public actually took 18 months. Houston said, â€Å"As a result of doing a few things well, we left a lot of other things behind. We had no business people, we were terrible at getting mainstream PR, and running fast and loose didn't make for the most predictable engineering organization. 9 Public Launch Drop opened its beta to the public in September 2008 at Outstretched, an annual competition showcasing high-potential startups. Drop was one of 50 startups selected to present at the event from a pool of over 1,000 applicants. ND also provide a product development deadline for the team. Houston mused that since Drop was following a tried-and-true blueprint for launching a consumer Internet service, his next step would have to be devising a marketing plan. Drop retained an online marketing consultant to help with this task.Houston said, â€Å"What do most web companies do? Apply to Outstretched, check. Buy Towards, check. Get real marketing people, check. â€Å"10 Early on, Drop attempted to acquire new customers throu gh paid search advertising. However, incumbents had bid up the cost per click for obvious search keywords. As a result, it cost Drop more than $300 to acquire a paying customer (Exhibit 3). This was not sustainable, since an annual subscription for 50 KGB service was priced at $99. Drop had tweaked its sign-up process to increase the conversation rate from free user to paying customer.The company also experimented with hiding the free service option for visitors who arrived via search ads. Houston recalled, â€Å"Our average acquisition cost per paying customer went from thousands of dollars to hundreds, but we still had a problem with our economics. And we didn't feel good about doing sneaky things to our users to get them to pay. 11 Sequoia Capital and Cell Partners subsequently led a $6 million Series A round of financing in October 2008, but even with additional capital in the bank, relying on paid search would not be a viable long- term option.In addition, the team had experim ented with display ads and affiliate programs, but these efforts also yielded unacceptably high acquisition costs per paying customer. Houston realized that with a fermium strategy, optimization of marketing messages and pricing would be critical to Dropsy's success; consistent with this priority, the company hired an analytics engineer as its eighth employee. Inspired by the Backbone â€Å"growth† team dedicated to user acquisition and engagement, Houston later assigned 30% of engineering resources to optimizing customer acquisition efforts.This team closely tracked metrics across Dropsy's conversion funnel by cohort,a for example: the percent of landing page visitors who registered as free users; the percent of registrants who still were active free users after X months; and the percent of free users who upgraded to paid subscribers after Y months. Houston said, â€Å"We run our business based on the ‘Startup Metrics for Pirates' framework developed by investor Dave McClure. He says firms should a A cohort was a set of prospects or users acquired at the same time and/or via the same marketing method. Closely track metrics around the acquisition of landing page visitors; activation of those visitors into users; retention of users; referral of new visitors by satisfied users; and revenue earned from users. † The team used A/B testing to fine tune page layouts free storage given to users. Analytics showed that gigabytes were not necessarily the best measure of value for Drop users. â€Å"We had all kinds of people paying us for Drop but not even bumping against their quota,† Houston said. Analytics likewise revealed that few users were accessing past versions of their files, all of which-?including deleted files-?were being permanently stored by Drop at a significant and rapidly growing cost. The company modified its policy, offering 30 days of undo history free of charge and making unlimited undo history a premium option. Houston sai d, â€Å"Just a tenth of a percent improvement in conversion rates, or a small decrease in the cost of serving a customer can have a huge impact on profitability. Premium is a spreadsheet game-?one you win with lots and lots of little moves . â€Å"13 Fourteen Months to the EpiphanyDespite improvements through analytics, Houston and his colleagues struggled to make the company marketing programs profitable. Nevertheless, the service grew rapidly, reaching 200,000 users ten days after launch and 1 million users seven months later. The vast majority of these users were acquired through word-of-mouth referrals and viral marketing efforts, rather than paid advertising. A relentless focus on ease of use and reliability had paid dividends in the form of loyal users who encouraged friends, family, and co-workers to try Drop. Houston commented, â€Å"The power of focus can't be understated.If you look at a feature matrix of Drop versus everyone else, we would never come in first. We woul d rather do a few things well rather than present Drop in a confusing way. â€Å"14 To identify ways to improve ease of use, the Drop team tracked support forums closely. Houston said, â€Å"We get feature requests for things we already have. These are particularly bad because it means that even though we've implemented something, our users can't find it. We pay close attention when that happens. â€Å"1 5 The company also maintained a â€Å"Vote† on its site, allowing users to vote and comment on treasures they would like to see added.Since the team gained insight on users' preferences through support forums and the Vote, the company did not conduct regular consumer surveys, but it did conduct occasional usability tests. In one instance, the entire team watched as not one of five typical consumers recruited from Scraggliest could successfully install and interact with the application. Houston recalled: Watching them fail was excruciating. Imagine if your coffee maker Just spit coffee all over the counter every third time you used it or your car stopped in the middle of the road. That's the computer experience for a normal person.The PC is always conspiring against you to lose your stuff or break in some weird way. You have no idea what happened or what you did wrong. Watching those five consumers struggle to try to figure out how to use our product was probably the most painful day we ever had as a team, but afterward, we created a list of 70 things to fix. B A/B tests divided a set of similar individuals into a control group that experienced a status quo product and a test group that experienced a product with one modified element, to determine if the modification yielded a statistically significant DropBox it just works I was searching for a new opportunity that was more Drop client software to a Windows, Mac, or Linux PC or to an phone, pad, Blackberry, or Android mobile device, the software created a local Drop folder for accessing files of any size or type via an encrypted Internet connection from other Drop-enabled devices or from any web browser. The client software tracked changes in real-time to any file in the user's local Drop folder, then instantly synchronized a copy of the file on Dropsy's servers, updating only the portions of he file that had changed, in order to save bandwidth and time.Likewise, within milliseconds, copies of the file were synchronized in local Drop folders on all other devices connected through the user's account. â€Å"We engineered Drop so it just worked, all of the time,† Drew explained, â€Å"We supported all the major operating systems and handled all kinds of obstacles, from flaky wireless connections to corporate firewalls, which was not an easy task. † The company adopted a fermium business model, that is, it offered both free and premium accounts.Users got 2 gigabytes of storage for free and had the option to ay $10 per month for 50 gigabytes or $20 per month for 100 gigabytes. Industry observers estimated that 2% to 3% of Dropsy's users were paying customers, which implied a $10 million to $15 million annual revenue run rate in mid 2010. 1 At that time, the company had 25 employees, most of whom worked in engineering or support functions. Drop had raised $7. 2 million in two rounds of venture capital funding from Sequoia Capital and Cell Partners.Market Overview Drop was a late entrant to the fiercely competitive online backup and storage services space. The first firms in the space, which had small companies as customers, ere launched in the late asses by startups offering outsourced storage at remote decanters. As costs declined, services also became available for consumers seeking to backup their data online. Most ear ly users were technically adept, for example, college students downloading music from peer-to-peer file sharing services.Few firms in this first wave of services survived the dot. Com crash, but by late 2006 the market was crowded again with new competitors. In July 2007, the tech blob Amassable published a list of more than 80 online backup and storage services. 2 Market research vendors like DC fueled the hype by predicting that the worldwide market for online backup services would grow to $71 5 million by 2011. 3 Investor interest in online storage surged when Muzzy was acquired by EMCEE for $76 million in late 2007.Houston was confident that Drop could succeed in the face of intense competition. He reasoned that Drop would be able to collect revenue from some users, because consumers generally understood that storage cost money, whether it came in the form of a physical drive or an online service. When challenged by endure capitalists to explain why the world needed another clou d backup company, Houston asked them, â€Å"How many of those services do you personally use? † The answer from Vs. was almost invariably, â€Å"None of them. 4 Houston asserted that direct experience with rival services, which often failed to transfer data across firewalls and sometimes balked with big files or large numbers of files, was helpful in innovations that contributed to these advantages: 2 The first generation of cloud storage services was based on a simplistic model, where file accesses were redirected over the Internet instead of to your computer's hard rive. Your operating system and all your applications assume that accessing your hard drive is cheap and fast, but when these requests are instead routed to a server thousands of miles away, they can take an order of magnitude longer.This subtle but critical distinction explains why when working remotely, even simple actions like browsing a directory can freeze your computer for seconds at a time. We needed to t ake a completely different approach by storing files locally and updating the cloud copy in the background using a number of time- and vindications optimizations. Launching Drop It's hard to imagine Tom Cruise in Minority Report sending himself files via Gamma or lugging around a USB thumbprint. Ђ? Drew Houston After his frustrating experience on the bus, Houston started working on Drop full time in late 2006. He said: I needed it badly. I worked on multiple desktops and a laptop and could never remember to keep my USB drive with me. I was drowning in email attachments trying to share files for my previous startup. My home desktops power supply literally exploded one day, killing one of my hard drives, and I had no backups. I tried everything I could find but each product inevitably suffered problems with Internet latency, large files, bugs, or Just made me think too much. To help with the project, Houston recruited Rash Overdose, who dropped out of MIT and later became Dropsy's co-founder and chief technology officer. The pair spent the next four months coding a prototype in a tiny Cambridge apartment. With a working prototype in hand, Houston came up with an innovative approach for testing demand for a minimum viable product. He had produced various recruiting videos for his college fraternity; with this know-how he created a three-minute crassest of a product demo and uploaded it to Hacker News, a popular forum for developers. â€Å"l did this out of necessity.There was no way I could ask for people's files before we were 100% sure our code was reliable. But I had a prototype that showed off the product's best features. â€Å"7 Houston used the screens to recruit beta testers and to solicit feedback on features that Drop might include. He added, â€Å"Not launching is painful, but not learning can be fatal. We got a lot of feedback through that video, so we were learning while we were building. † Houston had another reason for posting the video on Hacker News: he hoped to ND selective Y Combinatory seed fund and incubator program.He recalled, â€Å"l had Just submitted my application to Y Combinatory and as a gambit to get their attention, I submitted the video to Hacker News. I hoped it would work. â€Å"8 It did: in April 2007, Drop received $15,000 in funding from Y Combinatory (see Exhibit 1 for excerpts from Dropsy's Y Combinatory application). In exchange for a small percentage of a startup's common equity-?usually 2% to 10%-?Y Combinatory provided up to $20,000 of seed capital as well as mentoring, workspace, and introductions to other advisors ND investors over a three-month period.Many startups applied to Y Combination's program, which had a track record for matching strong technical teams with elite venture capital firms. 3 Upon conclusion of the Y Combinatory program in September 2007, Drop raised $1. 2 million of convertible debt from Sequoia Capital. â€Å"We fit into Sequoia's sweet spot: we were two youn g technical founders, working out of an apartment, targeting a big market. It helped that we were ranked at the top of our Y Combinatory cohort,† Houston recalled.He and Overdose moved to San Francisco to continue building the many, but despite the capital infusion, they continued to run lean. Drop delivered its service through Amazon's SO cloud storage platform, avoiding the need for infrastructure investments and positioning the company to scale rapidly. The co- founders created a private beta program for a limited group of users who registered through a simple landing page. The page contained a short description of Drop and requested an email address from visitors interested in participating in the beta test (Exhibit 2).Houston commented: There's a spectrum of well-informed opinions about when to launch your product. At one end, Paul Graham tells entrepreneurs, â€Å"Launch early and often† to accelerate learning. At the other end, [respected software guru] Joel Spoo ky says, â€Å"Launch when your product doesn't completely suck. † We were managing people's files, and it's a big deal if you lose or ruin them. That meant moving toward Spooky end of the spectrum and keeping our beta test small. Next, Houston devised ways to generate demand for the beta service.In a guerilla marketing move, he produced another short demo video and posted it in March 2008 on Dig, a site that showcased web content deemed popular by Digs users. Houston felt it was essential to communicate in an authentic manner with the tech enthusiasts who frequented Dig. He sprinkled â€Å"Easter eggs† into the video, for example, references to Chocolate Rain (a Youth phenomenon), TIPS reports used in the movie Office Space, Mitt's Gillian Hall, and the 09 IF key for decrypting Blurry disks (dissemination of which, in the face of movie studio legal threats, was a hacker crusade).With this tongue-in- cheek nod to its tech-sway audience, the Drop video soared to the top of Dig, few days. Overnight, the list for Dropsy's private beta Jumped from 5,000 to 75,000 Ames, far exceeding the team's expectations. Building the Company Make something people want. -? Y Combinatory motto Based on consumer response to the second video, it appeared that the promise behind Drop-? â€Å"It Just works†-?resonated with potential early adopters, especially those who were familiar with the performance limitations of existing online backup/ storage services. Houston shifted his focus to product development.The Drop team was comprised almost entirely of engineers during the first two years of the firm's existence. Early on, board members tasked Houston with hiring a reduce manager to help coordinate engineering efforts and prioritize features. Houston reflected: If you ask ten people what a product manager is, you'll get ten different answers. They tend to fall on a continuum with the end points being â€Å"poet† and â€Å"librarian. † A librarian i s focused on blocking and tackling, coordination, and facilitating communication. This type of PM is inherently organized and follows up relentlessly.A poet PM listens to the voice of the customer during usability tests and focus groups and based on that insight formulates an aesthetic vision, a grand strategy, and a product roadman. Our first product manager was 4 more of a librarian than a poet, because we needed a librarian's discipline: even today we don't have enough of that DNA in the company. But he Just drove people nuts. It was painful, but we had to let him go after six months. For the next year, until Drop hired another product manager, the company relied on Houston and Overdose to drive the product roadman.Development proceeded more slowly than Houston had originally expected. In his April 2007 Y Combinatory application, Houston had projected availability of a version that he could charge for thin 8 weeks, but launching Drop to the public actually took 18 months. Houston said, â€Å"As a result of doing a few things well, we left a lot of other things behind. We had no business people, we were terrible at getting mainstream PR, and running fast and loose didn't make for the most predictable engineering organization. 9 Public Launch Drop opened its beta to the public in September 2008 at Outstretched, an annual competition showcasing high-potential startups. Drop was one of 50 startups selected to present at the event from a pool of over 1,000 applicants. ND also provide a product development deadline for the team. Houston mused that since Drop was following a tried-and-true blueprint for launching a consumer Internet service, his next step would have to be devising a marketing plan. Drop retained an online marketing consultant to help with this task.Houston said, â€Å"What do most web companies do? Apply to Outstretched, check. Buy Towards, check. Get real marketing people, check. â€Å"10 Early on, Drop attempted to acquire new customers throu gh paid search advertising. However, incumbents had bid up the cost per click for obvious search keywords. As a result, it cost Drop more than $300 to acquire a paying customer (Exhibit 3). This was not sustainable, since an annual subscription for 50 KGB service was priced at $99. Drop had tweaked its sign-up process to increase the conversation rate from free user to paying customer.The company also experimented with hiding the free service option for visitors who arrived via search ads. Houston recalled, â€Å"Our average acquisition cost per paying customer went from thousands of dollars to hundreds, but we still had a problem with our economics. And we didn't feel good about doing sneaky things to our users to get them to pay. 11 Sequoia Capital and Cell Partners subsequently led a $6 million Series A round of financing in October 2008, but even with additional capital in the bank, relying on paid search would not be a viable long- term option.In addition, the team had experim ented with display ads and affiliate programs, but these efforts also yielded unacceptably high acquisition costs per paying customer. Houston realized that with a fermium strategy, optimization of marketing messages and pricing would be critical to Dropsy's success; consistent with this priority, the company hired an analytics engineer as its eighth employee. Inspired by the Backbone â€Å"growth† team dedicated to user acquisition and engagement, Houston later assigned 30% of engineering resources to optimizing customer acquisition efforts.This team closely tracked metrics across Dropsy's conversion funnel by cohort,a for example: the percent of landing page visitors who registered as free users; the percent of registrants who still were active free users after X months; and the percent of free users who upgraded to paid subscribers after Y months. Houston said, â€Å"We run our business based on the ‘Startup Metrics for Pirates' framework developed by investor Dave McClure. He says firms should a A cohort was a set of prospects or users acquired at the same time and/or via the same marketing method. Closely track metrics around the acquisition of landing page visitors; activation of those visitors into users; retention of users; referral of new visitors by satisfied users; and revenue earned from users. † The team used A/B testing to fine tune page layouts free storage given to users. Analytics showed that gigabytes were not necessarily the best measure of value for Drop users. â€Å"We had all kinds of people paying us for Drop but not even bumping against their quota,† Houston said. Analytics likewise revealed that few users were accessing past versions of their files, all of which-?including deleted files-?were being permanently stored by Drop at a significant and rapidly growing cost. The company modified its policy, offering 30 days of undo history free of charge and making unlimited undo history a premium option. Houston sai d, â€Å"Just a tenth of a percent improvement in conversion rates, or a small decrease in the cost of serving a customer can have a huge impact on profitability. Premium is a spreadsheet game-?one you win with lots and lots of little moves . â€Å"13 Fourteen Months to the EpiphanyDespite improvements through analytics, Houston and his colleagues struggled to make the company marketing programs profitable. Nevertheless, the service grew rapidly, reaching 200,000 users ten days after launch and 1 million users seven months later. The vast majority of these users were acquired through word-of-mouth referrals and viral marketing efforts, rather than paid advertising. A relentless focus on ease of use and reliability had paid dividends in the form of loyal users who encouraged friends, family, and co-workers to try Drop. Houston commented, â€Å"The power of focus can't be understated.If you look at a feature matrix of Drop versus everyone else, we would never come in first. We woul d rather do a few things well rather than present Drop in a confusing way. â€Å"14 To identify ways to improve ease of use, the Drop team tracked support forums closely. Houston said, â€Å"We get feature requests for things we already have. These are particularly bad because it means that even though we've implemented something, our users can't find it. We pay close attention when that happens. â€Å"1 5 The company also maintained a â€Å"Vote† on its site, allowing users to vote and comment on treasures they would like to see added.Since the team gained insight on users' preferences through support forums and the Vote, the company did not conduct regular consumer surveys, but it did conduct occasional usability tests. In one instance, the entire team watched as not one of five typical consumers recruited from Scraggliest could successfully install and interact with the application. Houston recalled: Watching them fail was excruciating. Imagine if your coffee maker Just spit coffee all over the counter every third time you used it or your car stopped in the middle of the road. That's the computer experience for a normal person.The PC is always conspiring against you to lose your stuff or break in some weird way. You have no idea what happened or what you did wrong. Watching those five consumers struggle to try to figure out how to use our product was probably the most painful day we ever had as a team, but afterward, we created a list of 70 things to fix. B A/B tests divided a set of similar individuals into a control group that experienced a status quo product and a test group that experienced a product with one modified element, to determine if the modification yielded a statistically significant

Feminine Power in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Essay

Whether young or middle-aged, the female characters in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn played vital roles. They were more a part of the novel’s scenic backdrop, but their function served in shaping the main character(s). The women and girls of the book were stereotypical, teachers, and â€Å"worse† than the males. The female characters were given stereotypical qualities, being depicted from an American man’s point of view. They were perceived as virtuous, innocent, helpless women, needing aid from the male characters. Women’s vulnerability can be made out in chapter eleven of the novel, where Judith Loftus confesses to wanting the assistance of Huck, â€Å"she told me to try for the next one† (Twain 59). Females occupy the back of the novel, seen as â€Å"nagging, providing inspiration, often weeping or hysterical† (Walker 139-153). You can witness this in chapter twenty-eight of the novel, where Huck stumbles upon Mary Jane Wilks, â€Å"she had stopped now, with a folded gown in her lap, and had her face in her hands, crying† (Twain 187). They possessed many assets, including: honesty, compassion, a sense of duty, innocence, and limitation; making them look powerless, as they were in the society of those days. Women were also the teachers of those days. Not only is Huck taught his education by women, but learns the ways of humanity from them as well. Some women, such as the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, are â€Å"principal female mentors† (Walker 139-153). Huck Finn begins developing more and more traits from the females you see him interacting with. Often he â€Å"tries to run from the civilizing presence of women† (Walker 139-153). This is shown in the final chapter of the novel, â€Å"Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it† (Twain 293). He is educated in school books, societal etiquette, and the Christian faith. You can find these teachings from Miss Watson in chapter one of the novel, â€Å"†¦took a set at me now, with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Twain 3). Lastly, the female characters were of far less import to Twain than the male characters, just as you would’ve seen in the typical culture of his day. Morally, they were better off than men, but they were powerless to society. â€Å"Both the men and the women in the novel illustrate the values of a society that has little regard for human dignity, but the female characters also embody virtues that could redeem that society if the women were empowered to do so† (Walker 139-153). The men tend to be unruly characters, while the women demonstrate high merit. My scrutiny, like Nancy Walker’s, is that the women, though supposed to have been unimportant to the novel, held essential roles. They were stereotyped teachers who had better ethics than the male characters. The book wouldn’t have been complete without them, seeing as they were a large part of Huckleberry Finn’s growth. Works Cited Walker, Nancy. â€Å"Reformers and Young Maidens: Women and Virtue in Huckleberry Finn. † Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (1990): 139-153. Print. Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Print.

Radiography Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Radiography - Essay Example At the same time, missing a menstrual period could trigger an indication that a woman is pregnant. Meanwhile, conception can take place anywhere after the 10th day of pregnancy (Russell JR, et al. 1997), making x-ray and radiography procedure likely to coincide with early conception if taken before the next onset of menstruation, when a missed period could signify pregnancy. Radiation protection remain very important in pregnancy, knowing that when substantial doses of ~10 rem are taken on pregnant women, this can cause birth defects and malformations (Health Physics Society, 2014). The 10 days rule therefore comes in as an important methodology or technique that is used to guarantee the safety of early foetuses against any potential damages. Examinations pertaining to the pelvic and abdominal areas therefore have the 10 days rule applying to but in cases of ankle and hand examinations, the 10 days rule may be exempted given to the fact that there is relatively fewer risk in this are a. In a very modernised system, radiographers have taken to the use of interventional radiological examinations that come with therapeutic applications instead of mainstream operations (Queen Mary Hospital, 2007). The 28 days rule in radiography is another form of protective regulation used in radiography procedures to guarantee the safety of potentially pregnant women from undue exposure. This is a rule that can be said to have come to replace the 10 days rule in radiography as the 10 days rules seemed to have some levels of inconsistencies with the identification of pregnancies (Royal College of Radiologists, 2012). With the 28 days rule, the emphasis is on a menstrual period that is overdue. This means that there is no grace period allowed in this instance. But ahead of the application of the 28 days rule, the radiographer will ask the woman if she has any

Personality of Abraham Lincoln Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Personality of Abraham Lincoln - Essay Example In the last part, the paper will discuss the different methods of assessing personality and the related results. Personality of Abraham Lincoln Introduction Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States and led the country to victory during the American Civil War (Sandburg, 2002). He contributed immensely towards ending slavery in America. He was a lawyer by profession before he was elected as President. He had previously served as Illinois State legislator and a member of the House of Representatives (Sandburg, 2002). His Presidency was marked with abolition of slavery, neutralization of the war in United Kingdom and defeat of secessionists. He is regarded as one of the most remembered Presidents in US history (Sandburg, 2002). Abraham Lincoln was born on 12 February 1809 in Southeast Hardin County. His father was Thomas Lincoln and his mother was Nancy Hanks. Though his parents were not educated, they were respected and affluent citizens of Kentucky back country. The family was forced to move to Indiana in 1816 (Sandburg, 2002). His mother later died from milk sickness when he was nine years. His father remarried Sarah Bush who Lincoln embraced as his mother. Surprisingly, Lincoln did not relate well with his father. Lincoln had only 18 months of formal education but he was a keen reader and writer. He married in 1842 and later had four sons whereby only one survived to adulthood. (Sandburg, 2002). Lincoln started his political career by vying for Illinois General Assembly position in 1832 which he lost and joined the military during the Black Hawk war. In 1834, he was elected a State legislature and was influenced by the England law hence he joined law school. He was admitted to the bar in 1837 and moved to establish start practicing law in Springfield (Sandburg, 2002). He once labeled slavery as inhumanity which was based on bad policies when he was the leader of the Illinois Whig Party. He joined Republican Party in 1860 and was endorsed to r un for the presidency which he won with landslide victory later in the same year. After his win, secessionist’s movements sprung (Sandburg, 2002). His major goal was abolishment of slavery which he accomplished in 1862 by signing â€Å"emancipation proclamation† law. After the war, he initiated reconstruction of America by signing â€Å"homestead Act in 1862† where government land was sold to the poor citizens at low prices (Sandburg, 2002). Legal tender act of 1862 also created the first currency of US while the National banking Act of 1863 and 1865 formed the sound financial system which ensured economic growth and stability. He was assassinated by Confederate spy on 14th April 1965 and was pronounced dead the following day (Sandburg, 2002). Abraham Lincoln was friendly to other people since he trusted them. Lincoln has strong appreciation for the motivation of others. Lincoln was also honest hence this trait my have been influenced by his previous service to the country during the Black Hawk war. He maintained that integrity and truth was the basis of good character. Lincoln was also charitable since he occasionally purchased books for Phi Alpha Society hence this trait may have been influenced by his understanding of the sufferings of Americans during slavery time (Sandburg, 2002). Lincoln was a good listener hence this trait may have been influenced by his love for writing and reading. Each visitor to the White House was welcomed with appreciation and

Heart and Lungs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Heart and Lungs - Essay Example lung is a respiratory organ that carries oxygen into the bloodstream from the atmosphere and frees carbon dioxide from the bloodstream into the atmosphere. It is a vital organ that most breathing animals posses. Each of the lungs is situated in either side of the heart close to the spinal column. This is the case among animals with complex life forms such as mammals. The heart and lungs should operate efficiently to ensure enough oxygen reaches the organs. This forms the vascular and the respiratory systems. The lungs hold the air that is taken from the environment before releasing it into the blood. Thereafter, the heart circulates the blood into the entire body. The oxygenated blood flows to the body from the lungs as the deoxygenated blood flows from the body into the lungs (Scharf, Pinsky, & Madger, 2011). The whole process commences at the heart that has the two atria and ventricles. The veins in the right atrium and ventricle receive blood. Concurrently, the deoxygenated blood flows into the heart through the right atrium. The relaxation of the heart muscle then causes the release of blood into the right ventricle from the atrium. Consequently, right ventricle pushes the blood into the Pulmonary Artery via the Pulmonary Valve (Batzel, Kappel, Schneditz, & Tran, 2007). The pulmonary artery then delivers the blood to the lungs where it undergoes purification. After the purification, the oxygenated blood rescinds to the heart through the Left Atrium (Batzel, Kappel, Schneditz, & Tran, 2007). The heart muscles relax again causing the left atrium to send the blood in to the left ventricle. In the end, the heart pushes the blood out delivering it to the entire body. The lungs are the sites of respiratory gas exchange. These gases are oxygen and carbon dioxide. The bronchioles and alveoli deliver blood into the lungs. The bronchioles split from the trachea extending to the lobes of the lungs. It is fundamental to notice that the alveoli are tiny sacs surrounded

Paintings by vincent van gogh Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Paintings by vincent van gogh - Essay Example The essay "Paintings by vincent van gogh" explores Vincent van Gogh's paintings. . He remained in Belgium to study art, determined to give happiness by creating beauty. In 1886, he joined his brother Theo in Paris, who was a manager in Goupil's gallery. There he had a chance to meet with Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin, a French post-impressionist who brightened his very dark skid and to make him such a great Impressionist. In the year 1888, he decided to leave France to Arles where he hoped that his companions would join him and start a school of art (Meier-Graete, 2001). Nearly the end of the same year Gauguin joined him but an incident led Gauguin to leave Arles. Van Gogh pleaded to Gaugian not to leave him by threatening to kill Gaugian with a razor blade. This led him to be sent in an asylum in St. Remy for treatment. He was dismissed from the hospital in May 1890 and kept under close check of Dr. Gachet. Two months later he shot himself to death. He sold only on e of his paintings in his short but prolific career. One of Vincent van Gogh painting is called ‘the potato eaters' was painted in 1885. It is currently in Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam Having hardly been used to the art of painting. Van Gogh portrayed five people and tried to make them as natural as possible regardless the effect of the lamb light cast by an oil lamb which makes the work more difficulty. He was not ambitious for color, since he put the gloomy interior as bright as he could (Sunwall, 2004). Their heads and hands are ugly earthed and relatively bigger than their body, just as they have been made from the land they dig. They seem to enjoy their meal more than a rich man can  do from his exquisite meal. Van Gogh wanted to convey the idea that the peasant people eat potatoes using an oil lamb with the same hands with which they take potatoes from the plate to serve their land. It was his first attempt to create a work that would establish his reputation. It bring s us into common peasants’ expressions on their home settings. There is a young woman looking presumably her husband  an attracting manner (Sunwall, 2004). The artist shows us there is love in them, and the people are sexually alive.  Ã‚  Ã‚      Above everything, the yellow and reddish flame of the oil lamp depicted the existence of warmth and light, mineral-grey space that represents night, terror and the cold world. The painting depicts these people lives as harsh and miserable. For instance, the man sited on the left is lost deep in his thought while the woman pours coffee. They might be thinking of injustice around them (Sunwall, 2004). Wheat field under threatening skies Another is called ‘wheat field under threatening skies’ painted in 1890 remains one of the most debated work of van Gogh’s painting due to its many interpretation by different people. Some people see it as his ‘suicide note’ placed on canvas, while others go beyond the shallow overview of the subject matter and think of a more positive approach (Klein, 2006). The painting conveys a sense of loneliness in the wheat fields depicting his final year kind of life. The separate paths in wheat field and crow with the path represent the present and the future of Van Gogh’s life. The paths are displayed in three sets one in the middle towards the horizon and the other two in each foreground corner. The

Mining and use of Natural resouces Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Mining and use of Natural resouces - Essay Example olcanoes; the awareness of these hazards has made the modern man life safe through the modification of the houses and other infrastructures (Husain, 2008). The possibility of an earthquake occurring is 100 percent and that means an earthquake can occur anytime and somewhere on the earth. Asserting that an earthquake will occur does not really mean that earthquake has been predicted (U.S. Geological Survey, 2009). Presently, earthquake cannot be predicted but the statement may be true due to the fact that a number of earthquakes (in millions) occur each year, thus, their occurrence daily is in thousands (they are too minute to be located). Earthquake prediction is a possibility in the future. There is an ongoing research done by USGC and other state and federal agencies, private institutions and universities. The reality of earthquake prediction is possible some day in the future but this is only when the mechanisms of earthquake are fully exploited (U.S. Geological Survey, 2009). Industrialization and urbanization are responsible for different types of surface/subsurface water pollution and wastes and it has become mandatory for the schools in the developing countries to offer geoscience education. The neglect of the subject at some level of education (especially at the junior level) has caused the lack of awareness about energy conservation, environmental protection, and the conservation of other geological raw materials (Husain, 2008). With the help of the geology-based assessment methodology, it is estimated that there are about 53 (TCFG) trillion cubic feet of nonassociated natural gas in undiscovered and conventional accumulations and mean volumes of 896 million barrels of oil in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and the adjacent State waters; this is according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The volume of undiscovered oil estimated by U.S. Geological Survey is lower than the one estimated in 2002 and this is due to the recent exploration drilling

A Critique on Project Stage-Gating Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

A Critique on Project Stage-Gating - Essay Example The article strongly suggested that project stage-gating which continuously evaluates the viability, usefulness, and gains from a project through different development and implementation stages is required to efficiently "stop a project which should not continue." Vanderslius also put forward useful guidelines which should not be overlooked in a stage-gating project such as clear definitions of phases, documented set of deliverables, gates staffed with an odd numbered committee rather than an individual, and "setting 'out of bounds.'" My choice of this article is simple enough. The project stage-gating article must be read because I believe that the article is very useful in the decision-making process handled by every project manager. Project stage-gating is interesting as it tackles some issues which are often taken for granted when starting an innovative project. Over the past years, a large number of IT projects initialized had failed. Somebody can just imagine the total amount of time, labor, materials, and expenditures wasted for all these projects. I believe that Vanderslius' main point in endorsing stage-gating is to save on resources which can be channeled to other more profitable ventures. I agree with him that project stage-gating can be an option in order to allocate company resources more efficiently. The "gates" needed to be passed by any project serves as a screening procedure that eliminates less viable and unprofitable projects.

Justification for an Internal Control System Essay - 1

Justification for an Internal Control System - Essay Example have become crucial risks factors that have resulted in huge economic loss for its shareholders as well adversely affecting its credibility in the market. Another factor is that the increasing dynamic business environment and the volatility in the market have greatly increased the risks to the interests of the stakeholders. Risks have been defined as ‘the possibility of loss as a result of the combination of uncertainty and exposure flowing from an investment decision or a commitment’ (Boritz, 1990). All the factors and element of governance, that adversely affect and dilute the rights of the shareholders and other stakeholders of the organization, are risks that need to be addressed urgently. Hence, effective internal control system has become the need of the hour. The current approach is valid because the insurance and portfolio approach is partially equity linked and relies on the dynamic allocation of portfolio such that the stakeholders are protected by guarantee of minimum wealth at a specified time period (Basak, 2002). Though the current approach helps safeguard assets, the highly competitive nature of emerging new models of global business has increased the risks and responsibilities of the organizations. The existing system also lacks transparency that not only corrodes the trust of the investors but it also has long term repercussion on market credibility and performance outcome. The global financial crisis and recessive trends require more control mechanisms to meet the challenges of the changing paradigms of the global business that have considerable impact on the confidence building processes of the capital market. The new system of internal control is designed to boost the confidence of the investors and improve market credibility and performance outcome. The internal controls of the company are various inter-related processes within its different departments which facilitate smooth operation, conforming to the

Eadership style and skills using relevant theories and examples Essay

Eadership style and skills using relevant theories and examples - Essay Example This essay discusses that along with the emergence of the new global economy, the need for effective management and leadership has become all the more important and crucial. Global business organizations have increasingly realized the need for effective leadership and its capacities to leverage the collective knowledge in the organization and which consequently depends largely on the quality and effectiveness of the leaders. Known for its ability to influence the minds of people and directing their activities and actions towards a required desired direction, leaders have emerged as one of the most crucial components in the management of organizations. In fact the future and fate of organizations significantly depends on the presence of leaders. Some of the most famous multinational organizations in the world, such as Microsoft and General Electric has successfully attained fast pace of growth because of the initiative and efforts taken by their leaders. Extensive researches have been conducted to identify the traits of leaders. It is seen that leadership traits or styles can vary significantly between individuals and this greatly depends on the personality that he is born with or the situations under which he emerges as the leaders. However, certain theorists are of the opinion that leaders are not made, they are born with leadership qualities. Thus it is important to make a thorough understanding of the leadership style that an individual should adopt depending on his character, personality, traits or the situation in which he adopts leadership styles. In the context of a large organization, it must understand which style of leadership would be suitable for it to take it towards success and growth (Gitlow, 2004, p.1-2). This project seeks to make an analysis of one’s leadership style and skills using relevant theories and examples. The views of researchers and authors are provided to make a critical analysis of the subject. Following with the identifica tion of the style of leadership suggestions are made with regards to the ways in which it can be enhanced in order to find usage in different situations (Okafor, 2009, p.81). Analysis of own leadership skills using leadership theories Leadership theories primarily focus on the differences in attributes between the leaders and the followers. However, recently there has been a shift in emphasis in this regard and subsequent theories have emerged which considers variables like situational factors, skill levels etc. Trait theory of leadership The trait theory of leadership provides a list of qualities or traits which are associated with leadership. The theory identifies some of the key characteristics which are associated with the great and successful leaders. The general belief was that people having such key characteristics would make great leaders and so therefore they were recruited for the leadership positions in the organization (Bolden, Gosling, Marturano & Dennison, 2003, p.6). However, the trait theory is not free from criticisms. After the identification of the traits several researches were conducted, however, the subsequent researches revealed that no such consistent traits could be identified. Although certain traits were found in many of the studies, most of the research results remained inconclusive. Researchers have claimed that although certain traits have been identified as being typical of the leaders, their mere absence does not necessarily mean that these people would not make good leaders (Bolden, Gosling,

A Digital Proof Write-up Essay Example for Free

A Digital Proof Write-up Essay The problem in A Digital Proof has two parts. The first is to fill in five boxes with numbers that fit the criteria: each box has a number, and the digit that is placed in each box must be the amount of times that number appears in the whole five digit number formed by the boxes. The second part of the problem is to prove that there is only one solution. How I went about solving this problem was somewhat simple; at least, it was at first. I started from the ‘four’ box (the fifth box, labeled with a four). I realized that four wouldn’t work in that box, because that would mean that there were four fours, and that wouldn’t work. I couldn’t put three in the box, either, because that would require there to be three fours, and that wouldn’t work out either. Two didn’t work for the same reasons as four and three, and even one wasn’t a possibility. This left me with one option: zero. One box down, four to go. Easy, right? That’s what I thought as I filled in the ‘three’ box, again with a zero for the same reasons that I’d put a zero in the ‘four’ box. Four wouldn’t work because that would require three to be in four boxes, and then that wouldn’t leave room for any other numbers. Again, this was the reason that three, two, and one didn’t work. For three, too, the only possibility was zero. Up until now, things had been fairly straightforward. Then, once I hit the ‘two’ box, things began to get more complicated. Here, I couldn’t put four or three because two of the boxes had already been filled, and I couldn’t change that. Then, I tried two. This could work, but only if there was a two elsewhere. I couldn’t put a two in the ‘one’ box, but I could put it in the zero box, because of the ‘four’ and ‘three’ boxes. Good thing I didn’t change those. That left me with the ‘one’ box. There was really only one option for that box, and that was putting a one in it. That was my process for solving the seemingly daunting, but surprisingly easy problem. I know that 21200 is the only solution to this problem, because after working it through logically, it becomes apparent that no other set of numbers would work in this problem. While I found the problem a lot less difficult than I had anticipated, that isn’t to say that it was an easy assignment. It really forced me to think, which was useful because a lot of the time I try to avoid things where I need to think too deeply. Doing this problem forces you to be disciplined and stick with the problem until it’s finished, and makes you actually think about the problem carefully, from every angle. I think that if I could change the problem, I would provide more of a guideline as to how to go about solving the problem, because I was completely stumped at the beginning. Even this, though, I’m not entirely sure about. I believe that having to figure out a way to go at this problem was beneficial to me, and helped me get into the right mindset to do the problem right. I wouldn’t really say that I enjoyed working on this problem, but it wasn’t horrendous like I’d been expecting it to be. And the problem was definitely hard. No t too hard, but not easy by any means. If I had to give myself a grade on this, I’d give myself an A- or B+. My process wasn’t the most unique or interesting, because I just went at it from back to front. I didn’t write anything particularly new or different in my write-up, but I did put effort in and I did manage to get the problem done, and provide sound reasoning to back up my claims. Overall, I think that this write-up is solid A- material

Tunisias Medical Tourism Sector

Tunisias Medical Tourism Sector The map of the world is in phase of being redrawn, according to the surgical specialties and the fields of intervention: plastic surgery, eyes and dental in Tunisia, treatment of the skin diseases in Turkey, organ transplant, in particular renal and transplant of the liver in Thailand, surgery of eyelids in the Panama, the in vitro fertilization in Spain à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ The competition begins to rage among destinations which invest in infrastructures, regulations and communication. All demand a part of a very juicy cake. Professionals of health and tourism, as well as all the strategic studies agree with considering the potential of this new crenel as enormous. Tourism, the transverse character of which in all other activities be it economic, ecological, agricultural, cultural, social etc, cannot make any more the dead end on the principles governing its own development and has to show in the next years of innovation and imagination to answer a request which has become increasing. For Africa generally and Tunisia in particular, tourism constitutes a crucial control lever to contribute to impulse the development. In Tunisia the quality of training in health and in tourism as well as its adjacent broadcasting countries can establish a competitive advantage at the level of medical tourism. Being a growing niche these last years, medical tourism in Tunisia is widely becoming within the reach of potential applicants. Strong of its entry to the zone of the free exchange with Europe at the beginning of this year, Tunisia is positioned as a partner of choice. A wide program is established to make of the country a pole of quality and future in terms of export of health services. However this commitment is conditioned by the integration and the raising awareness of the various stakeholders in such adequate steps.It is of this fact that most of the persons in charge and the actors operating in the tourist sector have to meet around a real consensus on the concept of medical tourism, and launch the challenge in front of an open to criticism present and a more or less desirable and optimistic future. The various stakeholders of the Tunisian tourist system establish then a relevant space of reflections and exchanges towards the development of medical tourism, these are main thin gs of concern by the optimal management, the health, the integration of the population, the promotion, the competitiveness, the quality and the durability and this can raise only decisions and fixed approaches collectively on the basis of the forward-looking reflections generating the best scenarios which can lead to improve medical tourism in Tunisia. Even if the concept of medical tourism was not as well important as it is it today, the current situation allowed to report the necessity of better promoting it and of organizing it to reach the objectives assigned by the project of development of the tourist sector and that of the health, and so we are engaged in this research work which concerns at the same time, the present and the future to explain and understand the realities which allow to support the potential evolutions to reach a sustainable development. This work tries to emphasize a solution of the dilemma to maintain the development and the decision-making support by analyzing the change of the attitudes of the stakeholders implied in the tourist system and that of the health in Tunisia. 1. Current status of tourism sector in Tunisia and Methodology 1.1. Tourism in Tunisia: inventories of fixtures The tourist sector plays a leading role in the economic development of Tunisia, considering its important contribution for the growth of the Gross domestic product (In 2009 it contributed to 7 % of the GDP  [1]  (Gross Domestic Product) and 20 % of receipts in currencies, in the equilibrium of the balance of payments, in the polarization of any kinds of the investments, besides the job creation and the energization of the economic activity generally. This sector knows a continuous development and carried out a qualitative jump at every level, thanks to the multiple assets which the Tunisian tourist product has and which make of Tunisia a privileged tourist destination. The geographical setting of Tunisia, which opens on two banks of the Mediterranean Sea, the wealth and the variety of its cultural and natural heritage and its profound acquired experience on tourism, have made of our country a general-purpose tourist destination. The development which the tourist sector has known in Tunisia is reflected through the increasing rise of the number of the tourists who reached approximately 7 million tourists in 2008, (+ 4.4 % with regard to 2007)  [2]  . Within the framework of the IXth plan, the strategic orientations turned around four axes: The diversification and the enrichment of the tourist product and the location on the promising markets; The improvement of the quality of the services; The upgrade of the infrastructure and the maintenance of the tourist environment; The consolidation of the role of the private sector in the tourism. 1.2. Medical tourism in Tunisia: Tunisia made a commitment in the continuous improvement and development of the strategic sectors to be known; the education, the health and the tourism. Indeed the health and the services which are connected to it are considered as a promising crenel and an important engine of the economic and social development. For some years Tunisia lives a dynamics of growth in this domain which smoothed it among leader countries on an international scale. So much so, it occupies the second position in the field of the tourism of health after South Africa according to the African scale and the second world destination in thalassotherapy after France. In the light of the study carried out by the French Agency of development (AFD) in 2005 on the exports of health services of developing countries, we notice that Tunisia is very competitive on the subject. The study has henceforth highlighted a strong potential in the field of medical tourism which can have more questionable performances in the future. The recent study of the World Bank on the world integration of Tunisia: a new generation of reforms for boosting growth and employment on 2008, confirms this performance by identifying medical tourism as one of the emergent crenellations. In fact not enough reliable and detailed statistics exist on the subject. The statistics which exist show that in 2007 more than 100000 foreign patients of diverse nationalities visit Tunisia for health care against 42000 in 2003 number of well-kept Tunisians abroad is crossed the 1.152 in 1987 to reach 180 persons in 2006. 24 % of the turnover of the private hospitals deprived results from the export of health services with foreign patients. The Libyan clientele is dominant, that is 80 % of the well-kept foreign patients, whereas the European patients constitute 11 % as well in number as in turnover. This European demand can be the object of a remarkable development in the years which come with the ageing of the population in Europe and the mobilization of the tourists with the aim of treatment, care or other similar services. The most mobile of them are the Italians (68 %) and the Germans (63 %). The exploration of the market of medical tourism brings to light four big demands for Tunisia, as such: The inter-Arabic and the mediterrean market: the importance and the regularity of the flows of Arabic patients coming from nearby countries particularly Libya drove numerous clinical Tunisian to organize an offer of services specialized for this clientele. The qualitative advantage of Tunisia could be widened in the other local markets, in particular Algeria, which constitutes approximately 3 % in foreign number of patients and in figure of business exported of private hospitals deprived. Also, the other adjacent African markets present a potential which begins to be exploited. Henceforth, some private hospitals of Tunisia signed agreements with Mauritanian institutions. The presence of the African Development Bank also contributes to improve the fame of the private hospitals Tunisians and to attract a new African clientele. A niche to develop the tourists and the European expatriates: the market of the care to the European tourists is difficult to estimate. Indeed, the number of patients in private hospitals seems very low compared with the flow of 2,8 million European tourists. Nevertheless, the medical tourism of the European represents a strategic stake for the improvement of the medical and technical level and for the fame and the reputation on the international plan. It also constitutes an important factor for the development of the paramedical tourism and the well-being, such as thalassotherapy, massages, etc. This method implies that the researcher case-studies his data. The work of analysis is made as one goes along, important parts of this analysis matching the data collection (HOURS Becker, 1958 quoted by [Aktouf1992], p197). Now, it is not the approach which we followed because we became a researcher on a well-determined subject (the project of development of the medical tourism in Tunisia). Nevertheless, we shall use the techniques of the participating observation namely: the daily observation accompanied with notes taking, with collection of archives and with retrieval systems (Fortin1988). The participation entails inevitably relations of nearness, even an intimacy with the actors of a given ground. The observation constitutes in its part a natural activity of every participant. But in its most rigorous academic meaning of a word, it is supposed to lean on a remote stake objectivized by these same human relations. 3.2. The active and semi-directive with no leading questions interview: This technique could be interesting for the implication of the researcher which it proposes. According to Alex Mucchielli  [3]  : the maintenance is opened and centered, it rests not on the reactions of the interviewee to precise questions but on the expression free of its ideas on a given subject (à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦) .In this technique, the interviewer does not ask questions but contents with following the progress of the thought of his interlocutor. He presents syntheses regularly, but he is active at most. 3.3. The Mactor Method: crucial control lever of the strategic prospective. The theory of actors games supplies a set of tools of rather vast analysis but to the applications limited by the mathematical constraints and the often restrictive hypotheses. The method MACTOR (Method of Actors, Tactics Objectives and Recommendations) propose an approach of analysis of the game set of the actors and some simple tools which allow to take into account the wealth and the complexity of the information to be treated, by supplying the analyst with the intermediate results which enlighten him on certain dimensions of the problem.

The Differences Between Taoism And Buddhism Philosophy Essay

The Differences Between Taoism And Buddhism Philosophy Essay Taoism is originated in China and many believe that it is started in the sixth century B.C. whereas Buddhism is said originated in the 500s B.C. in India. Both Taoism and Buddhism are great philosophical traditions and religions that have long histories and had strongly influenced and shaped the Chinese culture and values. These two religions have some similarities, they even considered as one kind in Malaysias culture. Both Taoism and Buddhism belief in reincarnation which means the life after death and both have similar ultimate goals. However, they are very different in their beliefs, practices and perspectives about individual life, society, values, culture, the environment and even the universe. Taoism and Buddhism have different objective principles, different views and beliefs about the life after death which is widely known as reincarnation, different ways and solutions to cooperate and solve the problems in life, and different perspectives and practices about marriage. The word Tao of Taoism in Chinese means the way or the path. In Taoism, its objective is to achieve Tao which means to attain the right path in life and by doing so; we will be able to become immortal. Besides that, Tao is sometimes also considered as the origin of everything which already existed and guiding the whole world and everything to work on their roles before the universe was being formed (Wow Essays, 2004). In Taoism, it is more focusing on personal or individual philosophy, because it is more focusing on how to achieve Tao, harmony and balancing of one-self and it do not motivate people to find ways and solutions to help and improve the community or society as in every individual should do it by herself or himself (EduBook, 2008). It is also said that everything in the world is simple, correct and good, life becomes complex is because human being choose to live a complex life (Wow Essays, 2004). On the other hand, in Buddhism beliefs live is suffering which is different by comparing with Taoism that believes that life is all about goodness, Buddhist believes that having illness or suffering is the nature of life which we cannot escape from (Difference Between, 2010). Birth, get old, get sick or ill, and death are the nature cycle of life. According to Buddhism, the only way to put suffering in life to an end is to understand the four noble truths of life and practice the noble eightfold path which are the right knowledge or understanding, right intention, right speech, right behavior or action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration (Buddhist Temples). The first noble eightfold path is right knowledge that refers to the correct understanding of what is life about or the understanding about the four noble truths of life (Wow Essays, 2004). The second path is right intention means the right wills aspect which is to abstain from lusts, to gai n immunity of negative emotions such as hate and anger, and to be innocuous which is not to be violent or aggressive (Knierim T., 2010). The third path is right speech which brings the meaning of not to talk bad or harmful words and to be aware of what we are saying by choosing the right words and right tone. The forth path is right behavior or right actions which is to act in a correct way and the reasons of action or behavior, and this consists of the five main rules of Buddhism which are not to kill, pilfer, consume alcoholic drinks, commit in sex crimes, and also to be honest (Wow Essays, 2004). The fifth path is right livelihood which is to gain or earn money and wealth in the legal and moral way (Knierim T., 2010). The sixth path is right effort involves practicing the right will and control self-serving devotion and thirst (Wow Essays, 2004). The seventh path is right mindfulness which is to be aware and have the ability of see things without affected by the other people or e nvironment. The eighth path is right concentration refers to the mental force of focusing on the ultimate goal of Buddhism, and this involves practicing the meditation which is to clear your mind and develop the right concentration (Knierim T., 2010). Both Taoism and Buddhism believe in the life after death which is known as reincarnation (Wow Essays, 2004). They believe that life cycle does not have a beginning or an ending which simply means that life, death and rebirth are perceived as a continuous cycle; they think that death is not the end of the life (Valea E., n.d.). But both of them have different explanations and perspectives on reincarnation. According to Taoism, soul or spirit never die, it will be shift to the other body which is to reborn to be another person and this will be repeated until it attain the Tao. It is said that everyone has a inner light of oneself which can guide us back to clean and clear mind and pull away from distractions and lusts, Tao can only be obtained by following this inner light of oneself (Wow Essays, 2004). Taoism also believes that soul has the ability to travel through space and time and becomes immortal when Tao is achieved (Difference Between, 2010). Whereas in Buddhism beliefs, samsara, the wheel of rebirth and the sufferings of life will only come to an end when ones achieve Nirvana which is the highest or final state of the life cycle and become immortal (Religion Facts, 2010). The other belief of reincarnation in Buddhism that is different from the belief in Taoism is that Taoism believes that reborn is a transformation of soul from one human body to another, but according to the Buddhism belief, the cycle of birth, death and rebirth consist of good and evil behavior which divides the transmigration into three different stages and this lead to the transformation of souls into different forms respectively. The ones who act totally different way from the rules and practices of Buddhism will be send to the hell and this is the first stage of the transmigration. In the second stage, those who did something which is considered quite bad or evil will be transmigrating into animal forms, yet spirits will become more alike to human o r rebirth as a human again after turns of transmigration. The following stage which is the third stage, involves the spirit becomes chaste by putting down self egos and lusts which is change from aesthesis to non-aesthesis, and it also consist of going through many phases of spiritual transformation and rebirth; finally reach the Nirvana which is the ultimate goal of Buddhism. The stages of reincarnation is determined by ones action, it is said that the past action decide the current life, and present action decides the future life, because Buddhist believes that ones behavior is according to the mind and thoughts but not fate, therefore one shall deserve what it takes from the result of what he or she did (Wow Essays, 2004). Besides than the perspectives and beliefs, the difference between Buddhism and Taoism is the ways of handling and solving the problems in life such as health problems. According to Taoism, everything in this world has its own natural order, and the way to handle problems first is to understand the nature; the Yin-yang concept is the core concept of this particular principle. Yin-yang concept state that reality are binary which consist of the combination of two opposite elements to form the entirety by balancing these two totally opposite elements. In addition, by conquering the defectiveness of soul by attaining the balance of oneself, then lead to conducting the mental or cosmic energy that is known as Chi in one selfs body is believed that can help to heal illness or sickness of body (EduBook, 2008). The creation of the Tai Chi exercise is based on the Yin-yang concept which can help to circulate and balance the Chi in the body and maintain body health because Taoist believe that i llness are cause by the imbalance or jamming of Chi in the circulation of body (Robinson B.A., 2010) Meanwhile, in Buddhisms beliefs, problems in life like illness and sickness are a part of life; hence they should be accepted as the nature of life. Buddhism requires the finding of problems source; meditation is the practice of Buddhist that guide people to find focus, peace and calm in one self, and the presence of focus, peace and calm will help to identify the origin of problems and guidance to take good actions to overcome the problems (Knierim T., 2010). At the same time, unlike Taoists healing illness by balancing the opposite elements and conducting the Chi, Buddhists seek for medications (EduBook, 2008). However, because Buddhists believe in the nature of life, so herbal medications which are extracted and purified from the plants is the only medication that is used by Buddhists. Buddhism and Taoism are also different in how they look at relationships and marriage. According to Buddhism beliefs, marriage is not a necessary event ones life, so there is no special type of ceremony or practices for getting married. Besides that, sexual activity is only accepted socially and ethically when it takes place in marriage, and it is not accepted when there is not within a marriage relationship. Buddhism beliefs that in a marriage, both husband and wife will need to possess four important qualities to become a well-matched and maintain a good marriage, the four qualities are faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom. Faith requires the understanding between the husband and wife, it is through understanding each another helps to build up trust, honor and faith, and faith is the main key which will lead to the development of virtue, generosity and wisdom. According to Buddhism beliefs, satisfactions of the five senses and reproduction are the two main purposes of marriage beca use it is said that not a single figure, sound, smell, savor and touch can attract a man more than a woman and this same goes to a woman. Besides that, reproduction is important to the society because of the obligations of the family which means children will be the one who are responsible to take care and support the parents and protect and continue the unique customs of the family (Gamage C., 1998). On the other hand, Taoism believes that woman represents Yin and man represents Yang, and the Tao means the path to harmony will be achieved when a woman and a man get into a relationship and commit together as one, the Yin chi will be accepted by the man and Yang chi will be received by the woman, then both Yin and Yang will combined into one and balanced. Some people relate the word Tao with marriage by saying that marriage is the Tao to future means the way or path towards the future because the life after marriage is like a new life and through marriage babies are born: babies are the hope and creation for the future. At the same time, since Taoism emphasize on balancing and harmony of nature, it also laid stress on the harmony of the relationships between people especially for husband and wife. Thus, husband and wife should avoid confrontations and serious conflicts. Prevention of confrontations or even conflicts can be made by calm, love, caring, respect, acceptance, humility, communication, emotional control, self-awareness, self reflections, sacrifice, and support and understanding of each another. On the whole, both Taoism and Buddhism are religions that guide people how to live a good life and teach the important values of life. These two religions have some similarities and sometimes these similarities may even cause people to mistaken that both of them are the same religion or some may mistaken the beliefs and practices of Buddhism and the beliefs and practices of Taoism. There are similar beliefs between these two religions such as both of them believe in the life after death and life cycle never end and also both have similar ultimate goal, but their objective principles, their understanding, beliefs and interpretation about the life after death, their perspectives and methods to deal with the problems especially health problems in life, and their point of view and practices in relationships and marriage are very different. Both have their unique and different way of thinking and interpretation of life. References List Buddhism Temples (n.d.). Buddhist Belief. The Noble Eightfold Path. Retrieved on October 27, 2010 from http://www.buddhist-temples.com/buddhism-facts/buddhist-belief.html Difference Between (2010). Difference Between Taoism and Buddhism. Taoism vs Buddhism. Retrieved on October 27, 2010 from http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/ difference-betweentaoism-and-buddhism/ EduBook (2008). Buddhism vs. Taoism. Retrieved on October 27, 2010 from http://www.edubook.com/buddhism-vs-taoism/22661/ Gamage, C. (1998). Buddhism Sensuality. Colombo: Karunaratne Sons Ltd. Knierim, T. (2010). The Noble Eightfold Path. Retrieved on October 27, 2010 from http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/eightfoldpath.html ReligionFacts (2010). Buddhist Beliefs about the Afterlife. Nirvana. Retrieved on October 25, 2010 from http://www.religionfacts.com/buddhism/beliefs/afterlife.htm Robinson, B.A. (2010). Taoism (a.k.a. Daoism). Retrieved on October 27, 2010 from http://www.religioustolerance.org/taoism2.htm Valea, E. (n.d.). Reincarnation. Its meaning and consequences. Retrieved on October 26, 2010 from http://www.comparativereligion.com/reincarnation.html Wow Essays (2010). Buddhism and Taoism. Retrieved on October 27, 2010 from http://www.wowessays.com/dbase/af1/nyv94.shtml

Personal Narrative- My Near Drowning Experience Essay -- Personal Narr

Personal Narrative- My Near Drowning Experience Have you ever had a moment in time that seems like minutes or hours even though it was only a few seconds? Have you ever seen everything before you play out in slow motion, where you are aware of everything around you, yet not knowing what was going on? I have, and as I look back on it, I feel very blessed and protected. On March 21, 1987, I decided to take a little swim in our swimming pool and almost drowned. On that fateful day in March, I was a couple months shy of my third birthday. My family and I lived in New Mexico at the time and were renting a house with an outdoor in-ground pool. The day was beautiful. I was outside with my oldest sister Rachel and my father. Rachel was diligently reading curled up on a bench that sat against the house, and my father was mowing the backyard. My mother and my other sister were in the house. Off to one side of the house there was a group of large bushes. I was playing over there with one of her large cooking pots, off in my own little world. At one point while amusing and en... Personal Narrative- My Near Drowning Experience Essay -- Personal Narr Personal Narrative- My Near Drowning Experience Have you ever had a moment in time that seems like minutes or hours even though it was only a few seconds? Have you ever seen everything before you play out in slow motion, where you are aware of everything around you, yet not knowing what was going on? I have, and as I look back on it, I feel very blessed and protected. On March 21, 1987, I decided to take a little swim in our swimming pool and almost drowned. On that fateful day in March, I was a couple months shy of my third birthday. My family and I lived in New Mexico at the time and were renting a house with an outdoor in-ground pool. The day was beautiful. I was outside with my oldest sister Rachel and my father. Rachel was diligently reading curled up on a bench that sat against the house, and my father was mowing the backyard. My mother and my other sister were in the house. Off to one side of the house there was a group of large bushes. I was playing over there with one of her large cooking pots, off in my own little world. At one point while amusing and en...

Gandhi and Comparative Religion Essays -- God Spirituality Papers

Gandhi and Comparative Religion Mahatma Gandhi was deeply interested in the comparative study of religions since the days of his youth. His interest in religious matters was due to the background of India, which was saturated with religious ideas and spirituality. Religion, to Gandhi, was not a matter of individual experience: Gandhi found God within creation. The meaning of the word 'Dharma' is 'religion' in India. This is a comprehensive term which embraces all of humanity. Gandhi referred to "God" as "Truth," which has great significance. His mission was not only to humanize religion, but also to moralize it. Gandhi's interpretation of Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity made his religion a federation of different religious faiths. His views on proselytization are also included in the paper. The comparative study of religions has never been merely an academic concern for Mahatma Gandhi, the great Hindu spiritualist and leader. Since the days of his youth he has been existentially in the search of such studies as has been evident from his famous book "The story of my experiments with truth." India is a country where people are predominantly religious. Religion and spirituality are firmly rooted in the minds of the Indian people. Some countries are well known for their political institutions, others for their economic prosperity while some others for their social advancement. India is well known for her philosophy and religion. According to Max Muller the study of religion is incomplete unless it is studied with reference to India. To quote him, "Take religion and where can you study its true origin, its natural growth, and its inevitable decay better than in India, the home of Brahmanism, the birth place of Buddhism and... ...cipate in transforming the human society on its journey towards the Divine Being. Gandhi has been killed. Physically he is no more with us. But his spirit lives amidst us and within us, with all its glory than ever before. Notes (1) Prof Max Muller, 'India what can it teach us.' P.13. (2) H.G. Wells : 'A short history of the world. P.154. (3) M.K. Gandhi, 'Young India', 5.3.1925. (4) M.K. Gandhi, 'Harijan' , December 1936. (5) Bhagavadgita Chap (vi). 30. (6) M.K. Gandhi, 'Young India' 6.10.1931. (7) M.K. Gandhi, 'Young India,' 1.10.1935. (8) A.K. Ahluwalia 'Facts of Gandhi.' P.133. (9) M.K. Gandhi, 'Young India,' 10.7.1924. (10) M.K. Gandhi, 'Young India,' 10.7.1924. (11) M.K. Gandhi, 'Young India,' 13.12.1931. (12) M.K. Gandhi, 'In search of the Supreme' Vol III P.83. (13) Complete works of Swami Vivekananda Vol I. P.24. Gandhi and Comparative Religion Essays -- God Spirituality Papers Gandhi and Comparative Religion Mahatma Gandhi was deeply interested in the comparative study of religions since the days of his youth. His interest in religious matters was due to the background of India, which was saturated with religious ideas and spirituality. Religion, to Gandhi, was not a matter of individual experience: Gandhi found God within creation. The meaning of the word 'Dharma' is 'religion' in India. This is a comprehensive term which embraces all of humanity. Gandhi referred to "God" as "Truth," which has great significance. His mission was not only to humanize religion, but also to moralize it. Gandhi's interpretation of Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity made his religion a federation of different religious faiths. His views on proselytization are also included in the paper. The comparative study of religions has never been merely an academic concern for Mahatma Gandhi, the great Hindu spiritualist and leader. Since the days of his youth he has been existentially in the search of such studies as has been evident from his famous book "The story of my experiments with truth." India is a country where people are predominantly religious. Religion and spirituality are firmly rooted in the minds of the Indian people. Some countries are well known for their political institutions, others for their economic prosperity while some others for their social advancement. India is well known for her philosophy and religion. According to Max Muller the study of religion is incomplete unless it is studied with reference to India. To quote him, "Take religion and where can you study its true origin, its natural growth, and its inevitable decay better than in India, the home of Brahmanism, the birth place of Buddhism and... ...cipate in transforming the human society on its journey towards the Divine Being. Gandhi has been killed. Physically he is no more with us. But his spirit lives amidst us and within us, with all its glory than ever before. Notes (1) Prof Max Muller, 'India what can it teach us.' P.13. (2) H.G. Wells : 'A short history of the world. P.154. (3) M.K. Gandhi, 'Young India', 5.3.1925. (4) M.K. Gandhi, 'Harijan' , December 1936. (5) Bhagavadgita Chap (vi). 30. (6) M.K. Gandhi, 'Young India' 6.10.1931. (7) M.K. Gandhi, 'Young India,' 1.10.1935. (8) A.K. Ahluwalia 'Facts of Gandhi.' P.133. (9) M.K. Gandhi, 'Young India,' 10.7.1924. (10) M.K. Gandhi, 'Young India,' 10.7.1924. (11) M.K. Gandhi, 'Young India,' 13.12.1931. (12) M.K. Gandhi, 'In search of the Supreme' Vol III P.83. (13) Complete works of Swami Vivekananda Vol I. P.24.

Its Time to Regulate and Reform Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide :: Euthanasia Physician Assisted Suicide

It's Time to Regulate and Reform Euthanasia One of the landmark cases that involve euthanasia is that of Karen Ann Quinlan. Quinlan, a twenty-one year old New Jersey resident, overdosed on pills and alcohol in 1975. She was rushed to the hospital where her physical condition gradually deteriorated to a vegetative state. The doctors determined she had no chance of recovery. Before the coma Karen said that if anything ever happened that would leave her physically and mentally incompetent, without any chance of recovery, she would not want to be kept alive by "extraordinary medical procedures," notes Derek Humphry. Karen's parents sought religious counsel from their priest. They were told that the Catholic religion allows the removal of extraordinary care if the patient was in a terminal condition. Karen's parents requested she be removed from the respirator. The hospital denied their request. The Quinlans then directed their request to the court. The superior court denied their request. They took their request to the New Jersey Supreme court where the decision was reversed. Karen was removed from the respirator. To everyone's surprise, Karen began breathing on her own and lived another ten years (Humphry 107). The Quinlan case brought to the forefront patients' desire to die a proud, quiet death. It also brought to the forefront the complications caused by the advancement of medical technology ("Euthanasia"27). Euthanasia has been practiced in Eastern and Western culture since the beginning of civilization. The capability of medical technology to extend life (as demonstrated by the Quinlan case) has made the issue of euthanasia more complicated. Individuals should be allowed to "die with dignity" in the event of terminal illness if he or she wants it. Terminating a patient's life is much more merciful than allowing him or her to die a slow painful death from illness. Those who oppose legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide say that this could lead to involuntary killing of the aged and infirm. I agree that there may be danger of abuse and that the vulnerable need to be protected; therefore, I support passing legislation that monitors and regulates physician assisted suicide. The demand for legislation in support of legalized euthanasia for the terminally ill has been an issue since the beginning of the century.

Political compromise Essay

Evaluate the extent to which political compromise contributed to maintaining continuity as well as fostering change concerning sectional tntions in the period of 1820-1861. Sectional tensions had always existed in America, however during the period of 1820-1861 differences in the North and South became so serious that the nation was on the verge of division. There were many attempts at compromise, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, but to no affect. Disunion and division could not be avoided and the Civil War began in 1861. There were many issues dividing the North and the South, the most controversial of which was slavery. Slavery was seen as a moral abomination in the North and revered as a way of life in the South. Northern reformers and others wanted slavery to end, while Southerners were devoted to its preservation. When Missouri applied for admission to the union as a slave state in 1819, the balance between non-slave states and slave states in the nation was threatened. There was violent debate until the Missouri Compromise was submitted by Henry Clay. Under this compromise, Maine was admitted as a free state, Missouri was admitted as slave state. However the compromise was later thrown away after the Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Stanford. Scott decided to sue for his freedom after his master had held him in a slave free state on multiple occasions. The Chief of Justice at the time, Roger Taney, disagreed with Dred Scott and even argued he had no right to sue for his freedom because he wasn’t technically a citizen. This lead to the court rule that congress had no right to ban slavery in any area in particular and the Missouri compromise was overturned. Northern fears of Southern Slave power grew, which further divided the nation. Another ultimately unsuccessful attempt at negotiation was the Compromise of 1850. California had experienced a huge population increase and was ready to apply for statehood as a free state. Southerners objected because the balance of Slave states vs. Free states would be tipped to the Free states. Once again, Henry Clay had a solution. He proposed compromise admitting California as a free state and banned the sale of slaves in Washington D.C., but strengthened the Fugitive Slave law to keep the South happy. Overall, sectional tensions were hardly decreased by any compromise. The divisions were too deep, and no political compromise could bridge them. The country was left with no solution and the tensions  exploded into the Civil War.