Rhetoric Of Protest Songs Essays - Counterculture Of The 1960s

Rhetoric Of Protest Songs Rhetoric of the protest songs has a very extensive history. The oldest protest song on record is The Cutty Wren from the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 against feudal oppression, nearly six hundred years ago (Songs of Work and Protest 9). Protest music has developed over the years and has made its presence in history. The protest music of Vietnam War is the concentration of this paper. The two main artists of focus are Bob Dylan and John Lennon. Their songs will be analyzed and criticized naritively. Bob Dylan was one of the most influential musicians of the time. Dylan was born in the fine town of Duluth, Minnesota on May 24, 1941. He grew up in Hibbing, My life in a stolen minute, Dylan wrote, Hibbing's a good ol' town. I ran away from it when I was ten, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, fifteen and a half, seventeen an' eighteen. I been caught an' brought back all but once.(Dylan Songs 12). He taught himself how to play the guitar, piano, autoharp, and harmonica. Throughout his experiences he absorbed many different styles of music. Open up your eyes an' ears an' yer influenced an' there's nothing you can do about it . . . I just seem to draw into myself whatever comes my way and it comes out me.(12) He graduated from high school in Hibbing and attended the University of Minnesota for about six months than left for New York and began writing comical-satirical talking blues songs. Next, he moved into a deeper view, of the world through his protest music. Later in his career he entered the integration movement with the song Blowin in the Wind. His biography can be told through his songs, they have always reflected his thoughts, emotions, and life. Dylan's lyrics not only express his personal thoughts, they also relate to the people in the country, mostly the youths in the sixties, and to the soldiers that fought in the war. One of the main songs that rallies against Vietnam is A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall. The song is depicting the atmosphere and experiences of the soldier in Vietnam. My blue-eyed son symbolizes the United States soldiers in Vietnam. Each verse appears to contain a correlation to events over seas. I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken, this coincides with the numerous failed peace talks. I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children, most of the men fighting were very young, sixty-one percent of the men killed were twenty-one or younger (War Information and Statistics). I heard the sound of thunder, it roared out a warnin' This directly refers to the massive amount of bombs being dropped. During the entire war, the United States dropped nearly eight million tons of bombs, four tim es the tonnage dropped during all of World War II. It is the largest display of firepower in the history of warfare (War Information and Statistics). The section of the song in which he sings of who did you meet covers the different plights the troops faced. The young innocent children that died, the racial tension between soldiers, missing their families and being consumed by hatred because of the death they were surrounded by. Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters vividly images the use of Napalm, a petroleum based anti-personnel bomb that showers hundreds of explosive pellets upon impact (War Information and Statistics). The chorus of the song, And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall is interpreted by the many men that fell to the war and lost their lives. A total of 58,202 men lost their lives in Vietnam. The most significant metaphorical phrase in this piece of rhetoric is contained in the last two verses of the song. Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinki n', But I'll know my song well before I start singin' He is telling the story of all the soldiers who understand they were going to loose their lives. Dylan formed the song into the time sequence of the war. First he questions where they could be, Oh, where have you been, my darling young one? The question of family and friends where

Free UK Essay Sample

Free UK Essay SampleThe UK Essay Sample is an organization which helps students and young adults to express their thoughts and ideas in the form of essays. They want to get feedback from students so that they can improve the quality of their work.The UK Essay Sample provides free help for students as well as the students who want to express their opinions. In fact, it is a place where students can write about anything they want. They can even select from any topic as long as they find a good subject. You can find the online application form for your homework assignment there.When you submit your assignment, you can just fill up the form with the required information and the course will automatically add the entries into the program. You can also provide the links of your papers to any school personnel or teachers. However, you must remember that your assignment must be appropriate and above reproach.The free online essay assignment form is designed for students as well as teachers to be used for an easy and quick grading process. Students can work independently and come up with great essays on various topics. The essays must be well thought out and complete and the essay must include all the required details.All the essays and reviews are based on the regular lectures and the course contains many readings and assignments. The assignments are so extensive that the students will be put to a test on the subject. There are no exclusions for the essays either.The course itself has hundreds of learning materials and many of them can be accessed by the students from the website. You can find lots of videos to make your essay better and one of the videos will guide you as well as show the correct way of expression. Moreover, the videos teach you about the appropriate grammar and also its rules.Before starting to work on your essay, you must decide on the subject and write the essay that includes the necessary information that you need to make your composition complete. If you are having problems in writing, you can always seek assistance from the UK Essay Sample. These Essay Tips and techniques to help students to improve their writing skills in no time at all.

Data Sources For Sociological Research

Data Sources For Sociological Research In conducting research, sociologists draw upon data from a variety of sources on different subjects: economy, finance, demography, health, education, crime, culture, environment, agriculture, etc. This data is gathered and made available by governments, social science scholars, and students from various disciplines. When the data are available electronically for analysis, they are typically called data sets. Many sociological research studies do not require the gathering of original data for analysis, especially since there are so many agencies and researchers gathering, publishing, or otherwise distributing data all the time. Sociologists may explore, analyze, and illuminate this data in new ways for different purposes. Below are a few of the many options for accessing data, depending on the topic you are studying. U.S. Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census and serves as a leading source of data about Americas people and economy. It also gathers other national and economic data, many of which are available online. The U.S. Census Bureau website includes data from the Economic Census, the American Community Survey, the 1990 Census, the 2000 Census, and current population estimates. Also available are interactive internet tools that include mapping tools and data at the national, state, county, and city level. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics The Bureau Of Labor Statistics is a branch of the United States Department of Labor and is the government agency that is responsible for collecting data about employment, unemployment, pay and benefits, consumer spending, work productivity, workplace injuries, employment projections, international labor comparisons, and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Data can be accessed online in a variety of formats. The National Center for Health Statistics The National Center For Health Statistics (NCHS) is a part of the Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC) and is responsible for collecting data from birth and death records, medical records, interview surveys, and through direct physical exams and laboratory testing in order to provide important surveillance information that helps identify and address critical health problems in the United States. Data available on the website include Healthy People 2010 data, Injury data, National Death Index data, and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. TheDataWeb Data Web: Data Ferrett is a network of online data libraries based on datasets provided by several U.S. government agencies including the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Center for Disease Control. Data topics include census data, economic data, health data, income, and unemployment data, population data, labor data, cancer data, crime and transportation data, family dynamics, and vital statistics data. Users need to download the DataFerret application (available from that site) in order to access and use the datasets. The National Survey of Families and Households National Survey Of Families And Households (NSFH) was designed to provide a broad range of information on family life to serve as a resource for research across disciplinary perspectives. A considerable amount of life-history information was collected, including the respondents family living arrangements in childhood, departures and returns to the parental home, and histories of marriage, cohabitation, education, fertility, and employment. The design permits the detailed description of past and current living arrangements and other characteristics and experiences, as well as the analysis of the consequences of earlier patterns on current states, marital and parenting relationships, kin contact, and economic and psychological well-being. Interviews were conducted in 1987-88, 1992-94, and 2001-2003. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) is a longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of adolescents in grades 7 to 12 in the United States during the 1994/1995 school year. The Add Health cohort has been followed into young adulthood with four in-home interviews, the most recent in 2008 when the sample was aged 24 to 32. Add Health combines longitudinal survey data on respondents social, economic, psychological and physical well-being with contextual data on the family, neighborhood, community, school, friendships, peer groups, and romantic relationships, providing unique opportunities to study how social environments and behaviors in adolescence are linked to health and achievement outcomes in young adulthood. The fourth wave of interviews expanded the collection of biological data in Add Health to understand the social, behavioral, and biological linkages in health trajectories as the Add Health cohort ages through adulthood. Sources Carolina Population Center. (2011). Add Health. cpc.unc.edu/projects/addhealthCenter for Demography, University of Wisconsin. (2008). National Survey of Families and Households. ssc.wisc.edu/nsfh/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2011). cdc.gov/nchs/about.htm

WASP - Women Pilots of World War II

WASP - Women Pilots of World War II In the United States, women pilots were trained to fly non-combat missions in order to free male pilots for combat missions. They ferried planes from the manufacturing plants to military bases, and ended up doing much more - including flying new aircraft such as the B-29, to prove to male pilots that these were not as difficult to fly as the men thought! Well before World War II became imminent, women had made their mark as pilots. Amelia Earhart, Jacqueline Cochran, Nancy Harkness Love, Bessie Coleman and Harriet Quimby were only a few of the women record-holders in aviation. In 1939, women were allowed to be part of the Civilian Pilot Training Program, a program designed to train college students to fly, with an eye to national defense. But women were limited by quota to one woman for every ten men in the program. Jackie Cochran and Nancy Harkness Love separately proposed the use by the military of women. Cochran lobbied Eleanor Roosevelt, writing a 1940 letter urging that a womens division of the Air Force be established especially to ferry planes from manufacturing plants to military bases. With no such American program supporting the Allies in their war effort, Cochran and 25 other American women pilots joined the British Air Transportation Auxiliary. Shortly after, Nancy Harkness Love was successful in getting the Womens Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) established, and a few women were hired. Jackie Cochran returned to establish the Womens Flying Training Detachment (WFTD). On August 5, 1943, these two efforts - WAFS and WFTD - merged to become the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), with Cochran as director. More than 25,000 women applied - with requirements including a pilots license and many hours experience. The first class graduated on December 17, 1943. The women had to pay their own way to the training program in Texas. A total of 1830 were accepted into training and 1074 women graduated from WASP training during its existence, plus 28 WAFS. The women were trained the Army way and their graduation rate was similar to that for male military pilots. The WASP was never militarized, and those who served as WASP were considered civil service employees. There was considerable opposition to the WASP program in the press and in Congress. General Henry Hap Arnold, US Army Air Force commander, first supported the program, then disbanded it. The WASP was deactivated December 20, 1944, having flown about 60 million miles in operations. Thirty-eight WASP were killed, including some during training. Records of WASP were classified and sealed, so historians minimized or ignored the women pilots. In 1977 - the same year the Air Force graduated its first post-WASP women pilots - Congress granted veteran status to those who had served as WASP, and in 1979 issued official honorable discharges. Wings Across America is a project to tape memories of WASP. Note: WASP is the correct use even in the plural for the program. WASPs is incorrect, because the P stands for Pilots so its already plural.

Context of professional practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Context of professional practice - Essay Example Hence, as a clinician, I usually ensure that I am up to date with advancing improvised legislation subject to all laws and guidelines laid down by my professional body. In UK, certain principles have been enshrined in good medical practices that ensure every health worker must follow regarding patient treatment. Notably, these legal principles bound me to numerous principles of care for my patients. Personally, I consider treating patients as a significant practice; nonetheless, I usually relate all the requirements as suggested by the General Medical Council in the UK. For instance, dignity and total respect for patients are my greatest importance in offering medical services. Clinicians are expected to provide care that meets the individual’s expectations despite that it very difficult when face with the need to make efficient use of the available resources. Therefore, it is upon me to put into consideration the public interests and practice within the specified legal bounda ries. According to the UK specifications, all treatments and care should take into account the individual needs and preferences of the patient. Moreover, patients are entitled to the best possible care irrespective of their age, ethnicity, sexuality, religious beliefs, color or politics. Thus, as medical practitioner it is my responsibility to provide total support for the patient regardless of their age, ethnicity, sexuality, religious beliefs, color or politics. On the other hand, as part of offering the best to our patients, there should be efforts in maintaining a good standard of clinical practice. Notably, medicine is changing rapidly. For this reason, we cannot maintain the good standards of clinical practice unless we keep our knowledge and skills updated. This has been made a fundamental requirement and is no longer an extra. In ensuring the best clinical practice, we must have an individual development plan. Therefore, we should allocate sufficient time to offer medical se rvices to patients in a strategized manner. Good clinical practice entails being conscientious and ensuring that enough time is devoted to providing safe and effective support and care (Hendrick et al., 2013; Pg. 25). Therefore, as an individual within the practice, I usually read medical book regarding my practice and all the entailed requirements. Confidentiality is also a vital element in offering medical services to patients both in the hospital and at home. This element is protected in the Hippocratic Oath. The legislation that governs the process of private information is contained in the data protection act. The act requires medical practitioners to respect and keep in secret all personal information regarding the patient. Moreover, the act requires that information concerning the patient’s sickness should only be disclosed upon the patient’s permission. All clinicians are subject to the confidentiality legislation. Notably, breach of confidentiality may have st rict consequences for the clinician/patient relationship as well as the clinician’s reputation. However, in some occasions, one’s obligations to the people’s safety and public good override the confidentiality duty to the patient. Nonetheless, as a clinician I may be forced to disclose patient’s information in case of a serious crime; however, I am obligated to keep such information confidential. Other occasions where the confidentiali

Review of Technical Journal Article Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Review of Technical Journal Article - Essay Example isputed the claims of the Young-Earth Model that the Mesozoic Rock Layers were â€Å"late-flood rocks† (Neyman, â€Å"Dinosaur Evidence for an Old Earth†). This is the famous Flood during the time of Noah when it rained for forty days which, according to the Bible, had killed all creeping, walking, breathing, etc. living creatures. Neyman did not believe this by predicating that if this is true, it would leave this claim contradictory to the evidences recovered by geologist pointing towards the existence and even activities of Mesozoic creatures – creatures like dinosaurs – during and after the flood took place and even during the water-receding period. According to him, says of the Young-Earth scientist that the distribution of fossils around the globe, as well as their varying formations in the sedimentary rock is caused by the strong cyclonic force that scattered chopped bodies of creatures at random locations around the globe contain insurmountable obstacles. He further expressed in his thesis statement that â€Å"the distribution of animals in the rock layers does not lend itself to an easy fit with the Flood model† (Neyman, â€Å"Dinosaur Evidence for an old Earth†). On the whole, the article was prepared for those who bear the same belief with the Young-Earth Creationism believers who affirmed that The Flood did not leave a single creature alive. The article strongly suggests that, in contrary with the assertions of the Young-Earth Science, even after the water started to recede during which the flood was completed, there were traced of fossils, poops, bones and even track-ways of creeping and walking animals, thereby inferring that creatures, particularly dinosaurs, still existed or were still alive even after the flood. The article was quite difficult to decipher considering that it was trying to interrelate two topics that essentially should not have been linked together by the writer. Both beliefs, the Old-Earth Creationism and the Young-Earth

Amazons Business Model: A Case Study

Amazons Business Model: A Case Study Discussion of Amazon’s business model, and the impact of information technology for the internal organisation of work. What is their business model? Many academics believe that Amazon’s outstanding success as an Internet retailer compared with many of its rivals has been due largely to its ideal business model and swift response to the changing market since its inception. (Global Market Information Database, 2003) To begin with, Amazon chose the perfect product lines for e-commerce, with products that consumers did not need to handle in person before making a purchase: initially books, but then spreading to DVDs, music and other media. Furthermore, consumers in the book and music categories tend to desire information when they shop online, which Amazon was able to provide on its sites through reviews and recommendations. Amazon consumers appeared willing to pay a little extra for this convenience, although the recent competitiveness of the market has forced the company to cut prices or use other promotional techniques, and shift the focus of its business model from pure quality driven back towards price driven. Amazon then turned to diversification, and extending its product offer in order to widen its customer base and improve margins, with the result being that the company has focused strongly on building up its product portfolio to offer customers more choice. In 2001, Amazon increased its range of electronics and tripled its kitchen selection, as well as launching computer and magazine subscriptions stores, and set up strategic partnerships with retailers such as Target and Circuit City. In November 2002 Amazon.com announced the launch of a new online apparel store with items from retailers including The Gap, Old Navy, Lands End, Nordstroms, Cole Hahn, Osh Kosh, Spiegel, Eddie Bauer, and Foot Locker, amongst others. This diverse business model has enabled Amazon to grow both its market capitalisation and profitability, and become largely accepted as the world’s leading online retailer (Global Market Information Database, 2003) The company also concentrates on improving convenience with new features, such as the recently launched ‘Instant Order Update’, which warns customers if they are about to buy the same item twice. Marketing itself as offering Earth’s Biggest Selection, the company aims to be the world’s â€Å"most customer-centric company†, operating through its three basic businesses: Online Retail; Marketplace and Other; and Third-party Sellers. Amazon also recently began to target the institutional market as well as consumers expanding its business model in order to drive a new source of revenue: renting out its site-building services to other companies. It owes much of its relative financial well-being, compared with other pure Internet retailers to the site-building and hosting services it has sold to clients such as Borders and Toys â€Å"R† Us. (Global Market Information Database, 2003) Indeed, a recent article by Sutton (2005) focuses on Sears Canada Inc., which has recently stated that it will turn over the technology component of its online retail presence to Amazon to capitalize on Amazon’s years of expertise in customer-facing Web sites. â€Å"Sears.ca will remain very much a Sears brand,† according to spokesperson Vincent Power, (Sutton, 2005) with little to indicate Amazons involvement from a customers perspective, and Sears will continue to host the site, using the same internal fulfilment house that handles customer orders from the site and from the Sears catalogues. Amazon Services Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon.com Inc., will handle the arrangement which is only the latest in a series that Amazon has struck with other retailers recently. The idea of retailers, both huge and small, outsourcing their Web sites has gathered momentum in recent years, said retail analyst Jim Okamura with Chicago-based J.C. Williams Group (Sutton, 2005), and Amazonà ¢â‚¬â„¢s business model is now aligning itself to take full advantage of this fact. Strategic alliances are another integral part of Amazon’s business model, and the company has entered into a number of agreements to expand its range of products and services by allowing selected strategic partners to sell products and services under co-branded sections on the Amazon.com website. These alliances have generally consisted of Amazon making, or having the future right to make, a minority investment in the companies, and the entry into commercial agreements, which vary in scope, from customer advertising activities and links, to recently announced deals involving the sale of products and services on co-branded sections of the Amazon.com website. These alliances have developed from the successful alliances the company forged in 2001, with such companies as America Online and Target in the US, and Virgin Wines in the UK. Amazon also expanded its product offering under its Toysrus.com strategic alliance to include Babiesrus.com and Imaginarium.com co-branded stores at www.amazon.com. In addition, the company entered into strategic alliances with Expedia, Hotwire and National Leisure Group to create its travel store, further fulfilling its diversification aims. Amazon’s marketing strategy is one of the most typical parts of its business model, being focused on strengthening and broadening the Amazon brand name, increasing customer traffic to its websites, building customer loyalty, encouraging repeat purchases and developing incremental product and service revenue opportunities. However, the unique part of this section of its business is that in order to accomplish this, the company employs tactics such as delivering personalised pages and services and using a variety of other media, business development activities and promotional methods. Amazon also relies on public relations activities, as well as online and traditional advertising, including radio, television and print media, and direct marketing, however one of the primary ways the company directs customers to its websites is through its â€Å"Associates Program†. This enables associated websites to make products available to their customers with fulfilment performed by A mazon, and is remarkably successful: by 2001, more than 700,000 websites had enrolled in the Associates Program. (Global Market Information Database, 2003) What many consider to be the defining characteristic of Amazon’s business model is that the firm has no physical retailing activities, operating only via the Internet. However, its virtual operation is very much underpinned by administrative and service facilities, and in 2001, these consisted of US fulfilment facilities in New Castle, Delaware; Coffeyville, Kansas; Campbellsville and Lexington, Kentucky; Fernley, Nevada; and Grand Forks, North Dakota; as well as a seasonal fulfilment centre, used as necessary, in Seattle, Washington. The company also leases and operates three European fulfilment centres located in the UK, France and Germany and, in Japan, the courier company Nippon Express provides fulfilment services for orders from www.amazon.co.jp. These fulfilment centres comprise in total around four million sq ft of warehouse space, and in addition, Amazon leases four off-site facilities that fluctuate from 340,000 to 710,000 sq ft of space, which support the storage an d fulfilment functions of the US centres. (Global Market Information Database, 2003) What are the technologies used by the organisation in pursuit of competitive advantage? In Hamid’s (2005) article, he focuses strongly on the fact that Amazon offers many interesting variations on the strategic applications of Internet technology, in order to enhance customer relationship and acquire customer loyalty. Obviously, Amazon’s offerings of personalised services, confirmation of orders in real time and other value added activities substantiated the ability of the Internet as a competitive tool. As the number of internet users is growing rapidly around the world, retailers are under great pressure to take advantage of this huge online market potential. However the challenge is whether online retailers can match up with other, â€Å"bricks and mortar† competitors worldwide in terms of services rendered on the Internet. Hamid investigated the level of Internet technology applied by web sites in view of global electronic marketplace competition, finding that many Internet retailers are still lagging behind in fully utilizing the strategic pote ntial of the Internet particularly in enhancing customer relations. However, Amazon is already way ahead of this, using some of the technologies described above, and plans to cement its lead further in the next five to ten years and, in doing so, revolutionise the book business yet again. Curtis (2005) analyse Amazon’s recent acquisitions of on-demand book printer ‘BookSurge’ and e-book company ‘MobiPocket’, claiming that they may signal a coming transformation of the publishing business, one that includes an end to the industrys biggest problem: that of returns. Since practical ‘print on demand’ (POD) technology became available in 1998, it offered retailers the vision of a book business driven by demand-and-supply, rather than the current consignment model, and Amazon is ideally placed to turn that vision into reality (Curtis, 2005) Given that the retailer owns or leases well over four million square feet of warehouse space, no small portion of which is devoted to books, and employs 9,000 people to process orders, it would benefit immensely if it could forward orders to a printer to drop-ship books directly to customers. Not only would this benefit Amazon itself, but also potentially the publishers, helping Amazon develop strong relationships with yet another stakeholder group. One strategy might be for Amazon to print pre-sold books in its own plant which, aside from shifting printing and shipping costs from publishers to the retailer, would also sharply reduce the guesswork for publishers setting print runs. Given current economies of scale for large print runs of big books, its likely publishers would, at least for the foreseeable future, continue to print books the traditional way for brick-and-mortar accounts. However, Curtis (2005) claims that even a mix of POD and traditional printing makes more sense than the current reasoning that you can make more money by printing a million copies and selling half of them than you can by printing half a million and selling all of them. Though POD manufacturing costs are currently far higher than those of traditional long print runs, longer POD print runs, and lower unit costs, will become more common if the number of pre orders on the site continues to rise, and as the technology continues to improve, especially given Amazon’s access to detailed customer data which it can use to predict future retail trends. Equally, Amazons acquisition of the e-book retailer, ‘MobiPocket’, enables the company to contemplate developing virtual publishing in its purest form: eliminating hard copies and delivering virtual books electronically to customers at a fraction of the current cost. As Amazon masters these technologies and delivery systems in the coming years, perhaps even becoming a publisher in its own right, it will be harder and harder for traditional publishers to support the outdated consignment model, and potentially giving Amazon its highest ever level of competitive advantage. Indeed, trade publish ers may find themselves shifting to a system in which most books are pre-sold, regardless of the channel, further increasing Amazon’s advantage over the traditional stores. Curtis, R. (2005) What are the implications of this technology on the internal organisation of work? One of the key implications of the importance of technology to Amazon is that the company has to maintain its edge in technology: an edge that is more critical than ever as Amazon increasingly squares off against sophisticated e-commerce survivors like eBay, whilst controlling the potentially massive costs of said technology. Just two and a half years ago, Amazon spent 11 cents on tech for every $1 in sales, but now the company spends only about 6 cents. All told, Amazons tech spending has fallen 25 percent from its September 2000 peak, even as the company added nine new categories to its retail lineup and signed on dozens of new corporate partners. However, despite the need to slash unnecessary costs, at other times, its much better to invest your way to efficiency and, as Amazon’s head of technological development claims: â€Å"You cant be cheap for the wrong reasons.† (Thomas, 2003) As such, Amazon’s internal staff have embraced open-source coding, replacing Sun servers with Linux boxes from Hewlett-Packard, and necessitating a whole new organisational structure for the technological development staff. For every $1 spent on the new hardware, the company saved $10 in license fees, maintenance, and expected hardware upgrades, but also has to learn and adapt to the new processes and systems. The company has also been willing to spend to save, maintaining its own warehouse-management software, which has to be built and maintained by internal staff, even though ready-made alternatives like Logility might cost as little as $375,000. However, with its own software, Amazon can tweak inventory algorithms whenever it wants so that, for example, a book isnt shipped to New York from a Nevada warehouse when it could be sent faster and cheaper from Delaware, and managers can have greater control over their own warehouse staff. (Thomas, 2003) Equally, although Amazon’s partners are primarily intended to generate revenue, they are also used to help control internal costs: the company has recently began to invest in Web services and tools that make it easy for partners to hook into applications Amazon had developed for its own use. Now retailers like Nordstrom and Gap can feed their inventory into Amazons new apparel store without a lot of custom coding, and freelance programmers can build their own online stores using Amazons payment, fulfilment, and customer services, meaning that Amazon’s internal staff only need track these stores and ensure they are using the services correctly, rather than have to handle all the marketing and coding themselves. For example, a Romanian coder created www.simplest-shop.com, which uses Amazons Web services tools to extract product data from Amazon and then fashions side by side comparison tables, which is a feature not available on Amazon.com, essentially doing Amazonâ€℠¢s marketing and retailing for it. (Thomas, 2003) Amazon’s recent shift towards cutting costs has also has an effect on its internal organisation of work: in 2001, Amazon embarked on a restructuring plan which would lead to a reduction in its personnel numbers by some 1,300, or 15% of its workforce. This also involved: the consolidation of Amazon’s corporate office locations in Seattle; the closure of its fulfilment centre in McDonough, Georgia; the operation of its Seattle fulfilment centre on a seasonal basis; the closure of its customer service centres in Seattle, Washington and the Netherlands; and the migration of a large portion of its technology infrastructure to a new hardware and software platform. The company estimated that the restructuring would result in costs during the first half of 2001 exceeding US$150 million relating primarily to severance, fixed asset impairments, continuing lease obligations and other exit costs related to the restructuring. The restructuring has also lead to fundamental changes in the roles of its staff, and the organisational structures within which they work, with many staff taking over greater responsibilities and a greater scope of work. (Global Market Information Database, 2003) References: Curtis, R. (2005) Gone Today, Gone Tomorrow? Publishers Weekly; Vol. 252, Issue 30, p. 74. Global Market Information Database (2003) Amazon.Com, Inc. Euromonitor International. Hamid, N. R. A. (2005) E-CRM: Are we there yet? Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge; Vol. 6, Issue 1, p. 51. Sutton, N. (2005) Sears Canada turns over Web management to Amazon. Computing Canada; Vol. 31, Issue 7, p. 11. Thomas, O. (2003) Amazon’s Tightwad of Tech. Business 2.0; Vol. 4, Issue 1, p. 104.