Women are better parents than men Essay

Today , with the development of society, people’s living styles have changed a lot. A common phenomenon is that more and more men play a fundamental part in our daily life, they stay at home doing housework and taking care of children. However, women work outside the home. Although this trend becomes more and more popular, the importance of women dealing with educating and taking care of children can’t be replaced. That is to say: women are better parents than men. Supporters of men are better parents argue that men have enough energy to do many things such as sending children to school or keeping track of the children’s doctor and dentist appointments, etc. But are these enough for bringing up a child? Of course ,the answer is No. In traditional belief: women who are not good at domestic duties will have difficulty in their family life sooner or later, so they have to get accustomed to cooking and taking care of children. Since they are teenage girls, they start to learn household tasks and raise children, so that they can become a good mother in the future. Besides, when the man are young, their mothers do everything for them, they do not need to do any housework if they don’t like. Generally, most men are not good at cooking and they are careless, which results in their children’s unwilling to be along with them. Also, women are more circumspective than men, this is women’s nature that counts as an advantage in being better parents. Women have a sharp insight, they can know what their children are thinking through careful observation. Are they happy or sad, hungry or thirsty, want to sleep or want to listen to music? And then women will try to meet their demands by appropriate methods. Mother is the person who understand her child best. Contrarily, there is always an unbridgeable gap between the father and children in a family, for father is a strict and serious men that children dare not to express their emotions, even sometimes the kid behave abnormal, the father can’t find out anything wrong. Last but not least, women are gentler and more tolerant than men, this contributes to women have more chances to contact with their kids. From very first day of pregnancy, there is a close and sacred relationship between mothers and their little babies. The belief that women’s sole responsibility is to raise their children has been deeply tooted in our society for a long time, hence, children may have a tendency to listen and confide their personal problems to them. And mothers will give them  suggestions on how to solve these problems correctly. And men are sole financial providers and have to work very hard to support family, which makes them have little chance to talk to their children and know them better. In consequence, women are considered not only better mothers but also close friends by their kids. Having said these, although men are trying their best to be a good househusband, women still outweigh them in terms of taking on child rearing.

How to Register Primary Cooperative

Once you have organized your cooperative, your work does not end there. The cooperative now needs a legal personality so that is can do all the acts that a cooperative is supposed to perform. With a legal personality, the cooperative can borrow money, sell its goods and services, deliver goods and enter into all sorts of business transactions. So that your cooperative can do all these, you must register your cooperative.Here is how to do it. WHERE DO YOU REGISTER YOUR COOPERATIVE? The Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) is the only government agency mandated to register all types of cooperatives. Its main office is located at 827 Aurora Boulevard, Service Road, Barangay Immaculate Concepcion, Quezon City . To facilitate the flow of its services, extension offices have been set up.These are located in (a) Dagupan City; (b) Tuguegarao; (c) Baguio City; (d) San Fernando, Pampanga; (e) NCR-Quezon City; (f) Calamba, Laguna; (g) Naga City; (h) Iloilo City; (i) Cebu City (j) Tacloban Ci ty; (k) Zamboanga City; (l) Cagayan de Oro City; (m) Davao City; (n) Kidapawan City; (o) Butuan City; and (p) Cotabato City. WHAT ARE THE GENERAL REQUIREMENTS FOR REGISTERING A COOPERATIVE? Organizing a cooperative can be complex and simple. It requires an understanding of the basic needs of the prospective cooperative members.It demands patience from the organizer who must make the cooperative’s long-term goals and objectives, and its visions a real part of the members’ lives. But it can be too easy because the Cooperative Code of the Philippines (RA 6938) has devised very clear-cut steps for the cooperative organizer and members. The following are the basic information that the prospective members should understand before organizing a cooperative. a. There are nine (9) steps suggested in setting up a cooperative. FIRST. Get organized. You must have at least 15 members to do that.At once determine the common problems you would want solved and the basic needs you would want provided for through a cooperative. You may want to include increasing your production, marketing your produce, credit assistance, power generation, banking or insurance and other similar needs. Determining your problems and needs will also help you classify the kind of cooperative you will be organizing. Even before a cooperative is set up, a dedicated core group people who will do all the organizational and paper works is a must.From this core group, working communities may be formed to set things moving. These committees may include membership, finance, executive, secretariat to name a few. SECOND. Reserved your proposed cooperative name. Secure and fill up Cooperative Name Reservation Request Form (CNRRF). This must be submitted to CDA Central Office or any of its Extension Office. A reservation fee shall apply. THIRD. Prepare a general statement called an economic survey. Economic Survey is a general statement describing, among others, the structure and purposes of the pr oposed cooperative.The structure and actual staffing pattern shall include a bookkeeper. This should indicate the area of operation, the size of membership and other pertinent data in a format provided by the Authority. FOURTH. Prepare the cooperative’s by-laws. The by-laws contain the rules and regulations governing the operation of the cooperative. FIFTH. Prepare the articles of cooperation. Mandatory contents of the articles of cooperation are the following: (a) the name of the cooperative, which must include the word â€Å"cooperative†; b) the purpose or purposes and scope of business for which the cooperative is to be registered; (c) the term of existence of cooperative; (d) the area of operation and the postal address of its principal office; (e) the names, nationality and the postal addresses of the registrants; (f) the common bond of membership; (g) The list of names of the directors who shall manage the cooperative; and (h) The amount of its share capital, the names and residences of its contributors, and a statement of whether the cooperative is primary, secondary or tertiary.The articles of cooperation shall be signed by each of the organizers and acknowledged by them if natural persons, and by the chairpersons or secretaries, if juridical persons, before a notary public. . (i) Arbitral Clause SIXTH. Secure bond of accountable officer(s). A surety bond should be secured from a duly registered insurance or bonding company. Every director, officer and employee handling funds, securities or property on behalf of the cooperative shall be covered by this.The board of directors shall determine the adequacy of such bonds. SEVENTH. Execute Treasurers Affidavit. A sworn statement of the treasurer elected by the subscribers showing that at least twenty-five per centum (25%) of the authorized share capital has been subscribed, and at least twenty-five per centum (25%) of the total subscription has been paid should be executed and to be attached t o the articles of cooperation. The paid-up share capital shall not be less than Fifteen thousand pesos (P15,000. 0).. EIGHTH. Complete the Pre-Membership Education Seminar (PMES). A prospective member of a primary cooperative must have completed a Pre-Membership Education Seminar (PMES). A Certificate of PMES must be secured from the training provider. NINTH. Register your cooperative with the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA). Submit the following required documents in four (4) copies: Four (4) copies each of the Economic Survey, Articles of Cooperation and By-Laws duly notarized; 1. Economic Survey; 2.Articles of Cooperation and By-Laws; 3. Surety bond of accountable officers; 4. Treasurer's Affidavit; 5. Approved Cooperative Name Reservation Slip; 6. Certificate of PMES; The Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) is the sole government agency mandated to register all types of cooperatives. Its main office is located at 827 Aurora Blvd. , Immaculate Conception, Quezon City. Prospective cooperatives must submit their application to the CDA Extension Office where the principal office of the cooperative is located.The following are the amount of fees to be paid for the registration of cooperatives per CDA per Memorandum Circular 2004-07, Series of 2004: The initial registration fee to be imposed shall be 1/10 of 1% of the authorized share capital or the basic fee below whichever You will need four copies each of the Economic Survey, By-laws and Articles of Cooperation. The article of Cooperative should be duly notarized and accompanied by the following: a. Bonds of the accountable officers (any director, officer and employee) handling funds, securities or properties on behalf of the cooperative.The board of directors determine the amount of bonds required based on the initial net worth which shall include the paid-up capital, membership fees and other assets of the cooperative at the time of registration; and b. Sworn statement of the treasurer duly nota rized showing that at least 25% of the authorized share capital has been subscribed, and at least 25% of the total subscription has been paid. The paid-up capital must not be less than PhP2,000. 00 It must be noted that no member may own more than 20% of the subscribed share capital; and each share must not be less than PhP1. 00. TYPES AND CATEGORIES OF COOPERATIVES 1) Types of Cooperatives. Cooperative may fall under any of the following types: a. Credit Cooperative is one that promotes and undertakes savings and lending services among its members. It generates a common pool of funds in order to provide financial assistance and other related financial services to its members for productive and provident purposes; b. Consumer Cooperative is one the primary purpose which is to procure and distribute commodities to members for productive and provident purposes; c. Producers Cooperative is one that undertakes joint production whether agricultural or industrial.It is formed and operated by its members to undertake the production and processing of raw materials or goods produced by its members into finished or processed products for sale by the cooperative to its members and non-members. Any end product or its derivative arising from the raw materials produced by its members, sold in the name and for the account of the cooperative, shall be deemed a product of the cooperative and its members; d. Marketing Cooperative engages in the supply of production inputs to members and markets their products; e.Service Cooperative is one which engages in medical and dental care, hospitalization, transportation, insurance, housing, labor, electric light and power, communication, professional and other services ; f. Multipurpose Cooperative is one which combines two(2) or more of the business activities of these different types of cooperatives ; g. Advocacy Cooperative is a primary cooperative which promotes and advocates cooperativism among its members and the public through so cially-oriented project, education and training, research and communication, and other similar activities to reach out to its intended beneficiaries; h.Agrarian Reform Cooperative is one organized by marginal farmers majority of which are agrarian reform beneficiaries for the purpose of developing an appropriate system of land tenure, land development, land consolidation or land management in areas covered by agrarian reform; i. Cooperative Bank is one organized for the primary purpose of providing a wide range of financial services to cooperatives and their members; j. Dairy Cooperative is one whose members are engaged in the production of fresh milk which may b processed and/or marketed as dairy products; k.Education Cooperative in one organized for the primary purpose of owning and operating licensed educational institutions, notwithstanding the provisions of Republic Act No. 9155, otherwise known as the Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001; l. Electric Cooperative is one or ganized for the primary purpose of undertaking power generation, utilizing renewable energy sources, including hybrid systems, acquisition and operation of sub transmission or distribution to its household members; m.Financial Service Cooperative is one organized for the primary purpose of engaging in savings credit services and other financial services; n. Fishermen Cooperative is one organized by marginalized fishermen in localities whose products are marketed either as fresh or processed products are marketed either as fresh or processed products; o. Health Services Cooperative is one organized for the primary purpose of providing medical, dental and other health services; p.Housing Cooperative is one organized to assist or provide access to housing for the benefit of its regular members who actively participate in the saving program for housing. It is co-owned and controlled by its members; q. Insurance Cooperative is one engaged in the business f insuring life and property of c ooperatives and their members; r. Transport Cooperative is one which includes land and sea transportation, limited to small vessels, as defined or classified under the Philippine maritime laws, organized under the provisions of this Code; s.Water Service Cooperative is one organized to own, operate and manage water systems for the provision and distribution of portable water for its members and their households; t. Workers Cooperative is one organized by workers, including the self-employed, who are at the same time the members and owners of the enterprise. Its principal purpose is to provide employment and business opportunities to its members and manage it in accordance with cooperative principles; and u. Other types of cooperative as may be determined by the Authority. (2) Categories of Cooperatives.Cooperative shall be categorized according to membership and territorial considerations as follows: (a) In term of membership, cooperative shall be categorized into: (i) Primary. The members of which are natural persons; (ii) Secondary. The members of which are primaries; and (iii) Tertiary. The members of which are secondary cooperatives; and (b) In terms of territory, cooperatives shall be categorized according to areas of operations which may or not coincide with the political subdivisions of the country. HOW MUCH IS THE REGISTRATION FEE?Prospective cooperatives must submit their application to the CDA Extension Office where the principal office of the cooperative is located. The following are the amount of fees to be paid for the registration of cooperatives per CDA per Memorandum Circular 2004-07, Series of 2004:. The initial registration fee to be imposed shall be 1/10 of 1% of the authorized share capital or the basic fee below whichever is higher:. BASIC FEES Primary Cooperatives Php 500. 00 Secondary Cooperatives Php 2,000. 00 Tertiary Cooperatives Php 3,000. 00 Laboratory Cooperatives Php 50. 00 .

Foundation’s Edge CHAPTER SIXTEEN CONVERGENCE

CONVERGENCE When Stor Gendibal finally made out Compor's ship on his viewscreen, it seemed like the end of an incredibly long journey. Yet, of course, it was not the end, but merely the beginning. The journey from Trantor to Sayshell had been nothing but prologue. Novi looked awed. â€Å"Is that another ship of space, Master?† â€Å"Spaceship, Novi. It is. It's the one we have been striving to reach. It is a larger ship than this one – and a better one. It can move through space so quickly that if it fled from us, this ship could not possibly catch it – or even follow it.† â€Å"Faster than a ship of the masters?† Sura Novi seemed appalled by the thought. Gendibal shrugged. â€Å"I may be, as you say, a master, but I am not a master in all things. We scholars do not have ships like these, nor do we have many of the material devices that the owners of those ships have.† â€Å"But how can scholars lack such things, Master?† â€Å"Because we are masters in what is important. The material advances that these others have are trifles.† Novi's brows bent together in thought. â€Å"It seems to me that to go so quickly that a master cannot follow is no trifle. Who are these people who are wonder – having – who have such things?† Gendibal was amused. â€Å"They call themselves the Foundation. Have you ever heard of the Foundation?† (He caught himself wondering what the Hamish knew or did not know of the Galaxy and why it never occurred to the Speakers to wonder about such things. – Or was it only he who had never wondered about such things – only he who assumed that the Hamish cared for nothing more than grubbing in the soil.) Novi shook her head thoughtfully. â€Å"I have never heard of it, Master. When the schoolmaster taught me letter-lore – how to read, I mean – he told me there were many other worlds and told me the names of some. He said our Hamish world had the proper name of Trantor and that it once ruled all the worlds. He said Trantor was covered with gleaming iron and had an Emperor who was an allmaster.† Her eyes looked up at Gendibal with a shy merriment. â€Å"I unbelieve most of it, though. There are many stories the wordspinners tell in the meeting-halls in the time of longer nights. When I was a small girl, I believed them all, but as I grew older, I found that many of them were not true. I believe very few now; perhaps none. Even schoolmasters tell unbelievables.† â€Å"Just the same, Novi, that particular story of the schoolmaster is true – but it was long ago. Trantor was indeed covered by metal and had indeed an Emperor who ruled all the Galaxy. Now, however, it is the people of the Foundation who will someday rule all the worlds. They grow stronger all the time.† â€Å"They will rule all, Master?† â€Å"Not immediately. In five hundred years.† â€Å"And they will master the masters as well?† â€Å"No, no. They will rule the worlds. We will rule them – for their safety and the safety of all the worlds.† Novi was frowning again. She said, â€Å"Master, do these people of the Foundation have many of these remarkable ships?† â€Å"I imagine so, Novi.† â€Å"And other things that are very-astonishing?† â€Å"They have powerful weapons of all kinds.† â€Å"Then, Master, can they not take all the worlds now?† â€Å"No, they cannot. It is not yet time.† â€Å"But why can they not? Would the masters stop them?† â€Å"We wouldn't have to, Novi. Even if we did nothing, they could not take all the worlds.† â€Å"But what would stop them?† â€Å"You see,† began Gendibal, â€Å"there is a plan that a wise man once devised†¦Ã¢â‚¬  He stopped, smiled slightly, and shook his head. â€Å"It is hard to explain, Novi. Another time, perhaps. In fact, when you see what will happen before we ever see Trantor again, you may even understand without my explaining.† â€Å"What will happen, Master?† â€Å"I am not sure, Novi. But all will happen well.† He turned away and prepared to make contact with Compor. And, as he did so, he could not quite keep an inner thought from saying: At least I hope so. He was instantly angry with himself, for he knew the source of that foolish and weakening drift of thought. It was the picture of the elaborate and enormous Foundation might in the shape of Compor's ship and it was his chagrin at Novi's open admiration of it. Stupid! How could he let himself compare the possession of mere strength and power with the possession of the ability to guide events? It was what generations of Speakers had called â€Å"the fallacy of the hand at the throat.† To think that he was not yet immune to its allures. Munn Li Compor was not in the least sure as to how he ought to comport himself. For most of his life, he had had the vision of allpowerful Speakers existing just beyond his circle of experience, Speakers, with whom he was occasionally in contact and who had, in their mysterious grip, the whole of humanity. Of them all, it had been Stor Gendibal to whom, in recent years, he had turned for direction. It was not even a voice he had encountered most times, but a mere presence in his mind-hyperspeech without a hyper-relay. In this respect, the Second Foundation had gone far beyond the Foundation. Without material device, but just by the educated and advanced power of the mind alone, they could reach across the par. sees in a manner that could not be tapped, could not be infringed upon. It was an invisible, indetectable network that held all the worlds fast through the mediation of a relatively few dedicated individuals. Compor had, more than once, experienced a kind of uplifting at the thought of his role. How small the band of which he was one; how enormous an influence they exerted. – And how secret it all was. Even his wife knew nothing of his hidden life. And it was the Speakers who held the strings – and this one Speaker, this Gendibal, who might (Compor thought) be the next First Speaker, the more-than-Emperor of a more-than-Empire. Now Gendibal was here, in a ship of Trantor, and Compor fought to stifle his disappointment at not having such a meeting take place on Trantor itself. Could that be a ship of Trantor? Any of the early Traders who had carried the Foundation's wares through a hostile Galaxy would have had a better ship than that. No wonder it had taken the Speaker so long to cover the distance from Trantor to Sayshell. It was not even equipped with a unidock mechanism that would have welded the two ships into one when the crosstransfer of personnel was desired. Even the contemptible Sayshellian fleet was equipped with it. Instead, the Speaker had to match velocities and then cast a tether across the gap and swing along it, as in Imperial days. That was it, thought Compor gloomily, unable to repress the feeling. The ship was no more than an old-fashioned Imperial vessel and a small one at that. Two figures were moving across the tether – one of them so clumsily that it was clear it had never attempted to maneuver through space before. – Finally they were on board and removed their space suits. Speaker Stor Gendibal was of moderate height and of unimpressive appearance; he was not large and powerful, nor did he exude an air of learning. His dark, deep-set eyes were the only indication of his wisdom. But now the Speaker looked about with a clear indication of being in awe himself. The other was a woman as tall as Gendibal, plain in appearance. Her mouth was open in astonishment as she looked about. Moving across the tether had not been an entirely unpleasant experience for Gendibal. He was not a spaceman – no Second Foundationer was – but neither was he a complete surface worm, for no Second Foundationer was allowed to be that. The possible need for space flight was, after all, always looming above them, though every Second Foundationer hoped the need would arise only infrequently. (Preem Palver – the extent of whose space travels was legendary – had once said, ruefully, that the measure of the success of a Speaker was the fewness of the times he was compelled to move through space in order to assure the success of the Plan.) Gendibal had had to use a tether three times before. This was his fourth use and even if he had felt tension over the matter, it would have disappeared in his concern for Sura Novi. He needed no mentalics to see that stepping into nothingness had totally upset her. â€Å"I be afeared, Master,† she said when he explained what would have to be done. â€Å"It be naughtness into which I will make footstep.† If nothing else, her sudden descent into thick Hamish dialect showed the extent of her disturbance. Gendibal said gently, â€Å"I cannot leave you on board this ship, Novi, for I will be going into the other and I must have you with me. There is no danger, for your space suit will protect you from all harm and there is no place for you to fall to. Even if you lose your grip on the tether, you will remain nearly where you are and I will be within arm's reach so that I can gather you in. Come, Novi, show me that you are brave enough – as well as bright enough – to become a scholar.† She made no further objection and Gendibal, unwilling to do anything that might disturb the smoothness of her mind-set, nevertheless managed to inject a soothing touch upon the surface of her mind. â€Å"You can still speak to me,† he said, after they were each enclosed in a space suit. â€Å"I can hear you if you think hard. Think the words hard and clearly, one by one. You can hear me now, can't you?† â€Å"Yes, Master,† she said. He could see her lips move through the transparent faceplate and he said, â€Å"Say it without moving your lips, Novi. There is no radio in the kind of suits that scholars have. it is all done with the mind.† Her lips did not move and her look grew more anxious: Can you hear me, Master? Perfectly well, thought Gendibal – and his lips did not move either: Do you hear me? I do, Master. Then come with me and do as I do. They moved across. Gendibal knew the theory of it, even if he could handle the practice only moderately well. The trick was to keep one's legs extended and together and to swing them from the hips alone. That kept the center of gravity moving in a straight line as the arms swung forward in steady alternation. He had explained this to Sura Novi and, without turning to look at her, he studied the stance of her body from the set of the motor areas of her brain. For a first-timer, she did very well, almost as well as Gendibal was managing to do. She repressed her own tensions and she followed directions. Gendibal found himself, once again, very pleased with her. She was, however, clearly glad to be on board ship again – and so was Gendibal. He looked about as he removed his space suit and was rather dumbfounded at the luxury and style of the equipment. He recognized almost nothing and his heart sank at the thought that he might have very little time to learn how to handle it all. He might have to transfer expertise directly from the man already on board, something that was never quite as satisfactory as true learning. Then he concentrated on Compor. Compor was tall and lean, a few years older than himself, rather handsome in a slightly weak way, with tightly waved hair of a startling buttery yellow. And it was clear to Gendibal that this person was disappointed in, and even contemptuous of, the Speaker he was now meeting for the first time. What was more, he was entirely unsuccessful in hiding the fact. Gendibal did not mind such things, on the whole. Compor was not a Trantorian – nor a full Second Foundationer – and he clearly had his illusions. Even the most superficial scan of his mind showed that. Among these was the illusion that true power was necessarily related to the appearance of power. He might, of course, keep his illusions as long as they did not interfere with what Gendibal needed, but at the present moment, this particular illusion did so interfere. What Gendibal did was the mentalic equivalent of a snap of the fingers. Compor staggered slightly under the impress of a sharp but fleeting pain. There was an impress of enforced concentration that puckered the skin of his thought and left the man with the awareness of a casual but awesome power that could be utilized if the Speaker chose. Compor was left with a vast respect for Gendibal. Gendibal said pleasantly, â€Å"I am merely attracting your attention, Compor, my friend. Please let me know the present whereabouts of your friend, Golan Trevize, and his friend, Janov Pelorat.† Compor said hesitantly, â€Å"Shall I speak in the presence of the woman, Speaker?† â€Å"The woman, Compor, is an extension of myself. There is no reason, therefore, why you should not speak openly.† â€Å"As you say, Speaker. Trevize and Pelorat are now approaching a planet known as Gaia.† â€Å"So you said in your last communication the other day. Surely they have already landed on Gaia and perhaps left again. They did not stay long on Sayshell Planet.† â€Å"They had not yet landed during the time I followed them, Speaker. They were approaching the planet with great caution, pausing substantial periods between micro-Jumps. it is clear to me they have no information about the planet they are approaching and therefore hesitate.† â€Å"Do you have information, Compor?† â€Å"I have none, Speaker,† said Compor, â€Å"or at least my ship's computer has none.† â€Å"This computer?† Gendibal's eyes fell upon the control panel and he asked in sudden hope, â€Å"Can it aid usefully in running the ship?† â€Å"It can run the ship completely, Speaker. One need merely think into it.† Gendibal felt suddenly uneasy. â€Å"The Foundation has gone that far?† â€Å"Yes, but clumsily. The computer does not work well. I must repeat my thoughts several times and even then I get but minimal information.† Gendibal said, â€Å"I may be able to do better than that.† â€Å"I am sure of it, Speaker,† said Compor respectfully. â€Å"But never mind that for the moment. Why does it have no information on Gaia?† â€Å"I do not know, Speaker. It claims to have – as far as a computer may be said to be able to claim – records on every human – inhabited planet in the Galaxy.† â€Å"It cannot have more information than has been fed into it and if those who did the feeding thought they had records of all such planets when, in actual fact, they had not, then the computer would labor under the same misapprehension. Correct?† â€Å"Certainly, Speaker.† â€Å"Did you inquire at Sayshell?† â€Å"Speaker,† said Compor uneasily, â€Å"there are people who speak of Gaia on Sayshell, but what they say is valueless. Clearly superstition. The tale they tell is that Gaia is a powerful world that held off even the Mule.† â€Å"Is that what they say, indeed?† said Gendibal, suppressing excitement. â€Å"Were you so sure that this was superstition that you asked for no details?† â€Å"No, Speaker. I asked a great deal, but what I have just told you is all that anyone can say. They can speak on the subject at great length, but when they have done so, all that it boils down to is what I have just said.† â€Å"Apparently,† said Gendibal, â€Å"that is what Trevize has heard, too, and he goes to Gaia for some reason connected with that – to tap this great power, perhaps. And he does so cautiously, for perhaps he also fears this great power.† â€Å"That is certainly possible, Speaker.† â€Å"And yet you did not follow?† â€Å"I did follow, Speaker, long enough to make sure he was indeed making for Gaia. I then returned here to the outskirts of the Gaian system.† â€Å"Why?† â€Å"Three reasons, Speaker. First, you were about to arrive and I wanted to meet you at least partway and bring you aboard at the earliest moment, as you had directed. Since my ship has a hyperrelay on board, I could not move too far away from Trevize and Pelorat without rousing suspicion on Terminus, but I judged I could risk moving this far. Second, when it was clear that Trevize was approaching Gaia Planet very slowly, I judged there would be time enough for me to move toward you and hasten our meeting without being overtaken by events, especially since you would be more competent than I to follow him to the planet itself and to handle any emergency that might arise.† â€Å"Quite true. And the third reason?† â€Å"Since our last communication, Speaker, something has happened that I did not expect and do not understand. I felt that – for that reason, too – I had better hasten our meeting as soon as I dared.† â€Å"And this event that you did not expect and do not understand?† â€Å"Ships of the Foundation fleet are approaching the Sayshellian frontier. My computer has picked up this information from Sayshellian news broadcasts. At least five advanced ships are in the flotilla and these have enough power to overwhelm Sayshell.† Gendibal did not answer at once, for it would not do to show that he had not expected such a move – or that he didn't understand it. So, after a moment, he said negligently, â€Å"Do you suppose that this has something to do with Trevize's movement toward Gaia?† â€Å"It certainly came immediately afterward – and if B follows A, then there is at least a possibility that A caused B,† said Compor. â€Å"Well then, it seems we all converge upon Gaia – Trevize, and I, and the First Foundation. – Come, you acted well, Compor,† said Gendibal, â€Å"and here is what we will now do. First, you will show me how this computer works and, through that, how the ship may be handled. I am sure that will not take long. â€Å"After that, you will get into my ship, since by then I will have impressed on your mind how to handle it. You will have no trouble maneuvering it, although I must tell you (as you have no doubt guessed from its appearance) that you will find it primitive indeed. Once you are in control of the ship, you will keep it here and wait for me.† â€Å"How long, Speaker?† â€Å"Until I come for you. I do not expect to be gone long enough for you to be in danger of running out of supplies, but if I am unduly delayed, you may find your way to some inhabited planet of the Sayshell Union and wait there. Wherever you are, I will find you.† â€Å"As you say, Speaker.† â€Å"And do not be alarmed. I can handle this mysterious Gaia and, if need be, the five ships of the Foundation as well.† Littoral Thoobing had been the Foundation's Ambassador to Sayshell for seven years. He rather liked the position. Tall and rather stout, he wore a thick brown mustache at a time when the predominant fashion, both in the Foundation and in Sayshell, was smooth-shaven. He had a strongly lined countenance, though he was only fifty-four – and was much given to a schooled indifference. His attitude toward his work was not easily seen. Still, he rather liked the position. It kept him away from the hurly-burly of polities on Terminus – something he appreciated and it gave him the chance to live the life of a Sayshellian sybarite and to support his wife and daughter in the style to which they had become addicted. He didn't want his life disturbed. On the other hand, he rather disliked Liono Kodell, perhaps because Kodell also sported a mustache, though one which was smaller, shorter, and grayish-white. In the old days, they had been the only two people in prominent public life who had worn one and there had been rather a competition between them over the matter. Now (thought Thoobing) there was none; Kodell's was contemptible. Kodell had been Director of Security when Thoobing was still on Terminus, dreaming of opposing Harla Branno in the race for Mayor, until he had been bought off with the ambassadorship. Branno had done it for her own sake, of course, but he had ended up owing her goodwill for that. But not to Kodell, somehow. Perhaps it was because of Kodell's determined cheerfulness – the manner in which he was always such a friendly person – even after he had decided on just exactly the manner in which your throat was to be cut. Now he sat there in hyperspatial image, cheerful as ever, brimming over with bonhomie. His actual body was, of course, back on Terminus, which spared Thoobing the necessity of offering him any physical sign of hospitality. â€Å"Kodell,† he said. â€Å"I want those ships withdrawn.† Kodell smiled sunnily. â€Å"Why, so do I, but the old lady has made up her mind.† â€Å"You've been known to persuade her out of this or that.† â€Å"On occasion. Perhaps. When she wanted to be persuaded. This time she doesn't want to be. – Thoobing, do your job. Keep Sayshell calm.† â€Å"I'm not thinking about Sayshell, Kodell. I'm thinking about the Foundation.† â€Å"So are we all.† â€Å"Kodell, don't fence. I want you to listen to me.† â€Å"Gladly, but these are hectic times on Terminus and I will not listen to you forever.† â€Å"I will be as brief as I can be – when discussing the possibility of the Foundation's destruction. If this hyperspatial line is not being tapped, I will speak openly.† â€Å"It is not being tapped.† â€Å"Then let me go on. I have received a message some days ago from one Golan Trevize. I recall a Trevize in my own political days, a Commissioner of Transportation.† â€Å"The young man's uncle,† Kodell said. â€Å"Ah, then you know the Trevize who sent the message to me. According to the information I have since gathered, he was a Councilman who, after the recent successful resolution of a Seldon Crisis, was arrested and sent into exile.† â€Å"Exactly.† â€Å"I don't believe it.† â€Å"What is it that you don't believe?† â€Å"That he was sent into exile.† â€Å"Why not?† â€Å"When in history has any citizen of the Foundation been sent into exile?† demanded Thoobing. â€Å"He is arrested or not arrested. If he is arrested, he is tried or not tried. If he is tried, he is convicted or not convicted. If he is convicted, he is fined, demoted, disgraced, imprisoned, or executed. No one is sent into exile.† â€Å"There is always a first time.† â€Å"Nonsense. In an advanced naval vessel? What fool can fail to see that he is on a special mission for your old woman? Whom can she possibly expect to deceive?† â€Å"What would the mission be?† â€Å"Supposedly to find the planet Gaia.† Some of the cheerfulness left Kodell's face. An unaccustomed hardness entered his eyes. He said, â€Å"I know that you feel no overwhelming impulse to believe my statements, Mr. Ambassador, but I make a special plea that you believe me in this one case. Neither the Mayor nor I had ever heard of Gaia at the time that Trevize was sent into exile. We have heard of Gaia, for the first time, just the other day. If you believe that, this conversation may continue.† â€Å"I will suspend my tendency toward skepticism long enough to accept that, Director, though it is difficult to do so.† â€Å"it is quite true, Mr. Ambassador, and if I have suddenly adopted a formal note to my statements it is because when this is done, you will find that you have questions to answer and that you will not find the occasion joyful. You speak as though Gaia is a world familiar to you. How is it that you know something we did not know? Is it not your duty to see to it that we know everything that you know about the political unit to which you are assigned?† Thoobing said softly, â€Å"Gaia is not part of the Sayshell Union. It, in fact, probably does not exist. Am I to transmit to Terminus all the fairy tales that the superstitious lower orders of Sayshell tell of Gaia? Some of them say that Gaia is located in hyperspace. According to others, it is a world that supernaturally protects Sayshell. According to still others, it sent forth the Mule to prey on the Galaxy. If you are planning to tell the Sayshellian government that Trevize has been sent out to find Gaia and that five advanced ships of the Foundation Navy have been sent out to back him in this search, they will never believe you. The people may believe fairy tales about Gaia, but the government does not – and they will not be convinced that the Foundation does. They will feel that you intend to force Sayshell into the Foundation Federation.† â€Å"And what if we do plan that?† â€Å"It would be fatal. Come, Kodell, in the five-century history of the Foundation, when have we fought a war of conquest? We have fought wars to prevent our own conquest – and failed once – but no war has ended with an extension of our territory. Accessions to the Federation have been through peaceful agreements. We have been joined by those who saw benefits in joining.† â€Å"Isn't it possible that Sayshell may see benefits in joining?† â€Å"They will never do so while our ships remain on their borders. Withdraw them.† â€Å"It can't be done.† â€Å"Kodell, Sayshell is a marvelous advertisement for the benevolence of the Foundation Federation. It is nearly enclosed by our territory, it is in an utterly vulnerable position, and yet until now it has been safe, has gone its own way, has even been able to maintain an anti-Foundation foreign policy freely. How better can we show the Galaxy that we force no one, that we come in friendship to all? – If we take over Sayshell, we take that which, in essence, we already have. After all, we dominate it economically – if quietly. But if we take it over by military force, we advertise to all the Galaxy that we have become expansionist.† â€Å"And if I tell you that we are really interested only in Gaia?† â€Å"Then I will believe it no more than the Sayshell Union will. This man, Trevize, sends me a message that he is on his way to Gaia and asks me to transmit it to Terminus. Against my better judgment, I do so because I must and, almost before the hyperspatial line is cool, the Foundation Navy is in motion. How will you get to Gaia, without penetrating Sayshellian space?† â€Å"My dear Thoobing, surely you are not listening to yourself. Did you not tell me just a few minutes ago that Gaia, if it exists at all, is not part of the Sayshell Union? And I presume you know that hyperspace is free to all and is part of no world's territory. How then can Sayshell complain if we move from Foundation territory (where our ships stand right now), through hyperspace, into Gaian territory, and never in the process occupy a single cubic centimeter of Sayshellian territory?† â€Å"Sayshell will not interpret events like that, Kodell. Gaia, if it exists at all, is totally enclosed by the Sayshell Union, even if it is not a political part of it, and there are precedents that make such enclaves virtual parts of the enclosing territory, as far as enemy warships are concerned.† â€Å"Ours are not enemy warships. We are at peace with Sayshell.† â€Å"I tell you that Sayshell may declare war. They won't expect to win such a war through military superiority, but the fact is, war will set off a wave of anti-Foundation activity throughout the Galaxy. The new expansionist policies of the Foundation will encourage the growth of alliances against us. Some of the members of the Federation will begin to rethink their ties to us. We may well lose the war through internal disarray and we will then certainly reverse the process of growth that has served the Foundation so well for five hundred years.† â€Å"Come, come, Thoobing,† said Kodell indifferently, â€Å"You speak as though five hundred years is nothing, as though we are still the Foundation of Salvor Hardin's time, fighting the pocket-kingdom of Anacreon. We are far stronger now than the Galactic Empire ever was at its very height. A squadron of our ships could defeat the entire Galactic Navy, occupy any Galactic sector, and never know it had been in a fight.† â€Å"We are not fighting the Galactic Empire. We fight planets and sectors of our own time.† â€Å"Who have not advanced as we have. We could gather in all the Galaxy now.† â€Å"According to the Seldon Plan, we can't do that for another five hundred years.† â€Å"The Seldon Plan underestimates the speed of technological advance. We can do it now! – Understand me, I don't say we will do it now or even should do it now. I merely say we can do it now.† â€Å"Kodell, you have lived all your life on Terminus. You don't know the Galaxy. Our Navy and our technology can beat down the Armed Forces of other worlds, but we cannot yet govern an entire rebellions, hate-ridden Galaxy – and that is what it will be if we take it by force. Withdraw the ships!† â€Å"It can't be done, Thoobing. Consider. What if Gaia is not a myth?† Thoobing paused, scanning the other's face as though anxious to read his mind. â€Å"A world in hyperspace not a myth?† â€Å"A world in hyperspace is superstition, but even superstitions may be built around kernels of truth. This man, Trevize, who was exiled, speaks of it as though it were a real world in real space. What if he is right?† â€Å"Nonsense. I don't believe it.† â€Å"No? Believe it for just a moment. A real world that has lent Sayshell safety against the Mule and against the Foundation!† â€Å"But you refute yourself. How is Gaia keeping the Sayshellians safe from the Foundation? Are we not sending ships against it?† â€Å"Not against it, but against Gaia, which is so mysteriously unknown – which is so careful to avoid notice that while it is in real space it somehow convinces its neighbor worlds that it is in hyperspace – and which even manages to remain outside the computerized data of the best and most unabridged of Galactic maps.† â€Å"It must be a most unusual world, then, for it must be able to manipulate minds.† â€Å"And did you not say a moment ago that one Sayshellian tale is that Gaia sent forth the Mule to prey upon the Galaxy? And could not the Mule manipulate minds?† â€Å"And is Gaia a world of Mules, then?† â€Å"Are you sure it might not be?† â€Å"Why not a world of a reborn Second Foundation, in that case.† â€Å"Why not indeed? Should it not be investigated?† Thoobing grew sober. He had been smiling scornfully during the last exchanges, but now he lowered his head and stared up from under his eyebrows. â€Å"If you are serious, is such an investigation not dangerous?† â€Å"Is it?† â€Å"You answer my questions with other questions because you have no reasonable answers. Of what use will ships be against Mules or Second Foundationers? Is it not likely, in fact, that if they exist they are luring you into destruction? See here, you tell me that the Foundation can establish its Empire now, even though the Seldon Plan has reached only its midway point, and I have warned you that you would be racing too far ahead and that the intricacies of the Plan would slow you down by force. Perhaps, if Gaia exists and is what you say it is, all this is a device to bring about that slowdown. Do voluntarily now what you may soon be constrained to do. Do peacefully and without bloodshed now what you may be forced to do by woeful disaster. Withdraw the ships.† â€Å"It can't be done. In fact, Thoobing, Mayor Branno herself plans to join the ships, and scoutships have already flitted through hyperspace to what is supposedly Gaian territory.† Thoobing's eyes bulged. â€Å"There will surely be war, I tell you.† â€Å"You are our ambassador. Prevent that. Give the Sayshellians whatever assurances they need. Deny any ill will on our part. Tell them, if you have to, that it will pay them to sit quietly and wait for Gaia to destroy us. Say anything you want to, but keep them quiet.† He paused, searching Thoobing's stunned expression, and said, â€Å"Really, that's all. As far as I know, no Foundation ship will land on any world of the Sayshell Union or penetrate any point in real space that is part of that Union. However, any Sayshellian ship that attempts to challenge us outside Union territory – and therefore inside Foundation territory – will promptly be reduced to dust. Make that perfectly clear, too, and keep the Sayshellians quiet. You will be held to strict account if you fail. You have had an easy job so far, Thoobing, but hard times are upon you and the next few weeks decide all. Fail us and no place in the Galaxy will be safe for you.† There was neither merriment nor friendliness in Kodell's face as contact was broken and as his image disappeared. Thoobing stared open – mouthed at the place where he had been. Golan Trevize clutched at his hair as though he were trying, by feel, to judge the condition of his thinking. He said to Pelorat abruptly, â€Å"What is your state of mind?† â€Å"State of mind?† said Pelorat blankly. â€Å"Yes. Here we are, trapped – with our ship under outside control and being drawn inexorably to a world we know nothing about. Do you feel panic?† Pelorat's long face registered a certain melancholia. â€Å"No,† he said. â€Å"I don't feel joyful. I do feel a little apprehensive, but I'm not panicky.† â€Å"Neither am I. Isn't that odd? Why aren't we more upset than we are?† â€Å"This is something we expected, Golan. Something like this.† Trevize turned to the screen. It remained firmly focused on the space station. It was larger now, which meant they were closer. It seemed to him that it was not an impressive space station in design. There was nothing to it that bespoke superscience. In fact, it seemed a bit primitive. – Yet it had the ship in its grip. He said, â€Å"I'm being very analytical, Janov. Cool! – I like to think that I am not a coward and that I can behave well under pressure, but I tend to flatter myself. Everyone does. I should be jumping up and down right now and sweating a little. We may have expected something, but that doesn't change the fact that we are helpless and that we may be killed.† Pelorat said, â€Å"I don't think so, Golan. If the Gaians could take over the ship at a distance, couldn't they kill us at a distance? If we're still alive†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"But we're not altogether untouched. We're too calm, I tell you. I think they've tranquilized us.† â€Å"Why?† â€Å"To keep us in good shape mentally, I think. It's possible they wish to question us. After that, they may kill us.† â€Å"If they are rational enough to want to question us, they may be rational enough not to kill us for no good reason.† Trevize leaned back in his chair (it bent back at least – they hadn't deprived the chair of its functioning) and placed his feet on the desk where ordinarily his hands made contact with the computer. He said, â€Å"They may be quite ingenious enough to work up what they consider a good reason. – Still, if they've touched our minds, It hasn't been by much. If it were the Mule, for instance, he would have made us eager to go – exalted, exultant, every fiber of ourselves crying out for arrival there.† He pointed to the space station. â€Å"Do you feel that way, Janov?† â€Å"Certainly not.† â€Å"You see that I'm still in a state where I can indulge in cool, analytical reasoning. Very odd! Or can I tell? Am I in a panic, incoherent, mad – and merely under the illusion that I am indulging in cool, analytical reasoning?† Pelorat shrugged. â€Å"You seem sane to me. Perhaps I am as insane as you and am under the same illusion, but that sort of argument gets us nowhere. All humanity could share a common insanity and be immersed in a common illusion while living in a common chaos. That can't be disproved, but we have no choice but to follow our senses.† And then, abruptly, he said, â€Å"In fact, I've been doing some reasoning myself.† â€Å"Yes?† â€Å"Well, we talk about Gaia as a world of Mules, possibly, or as the Second Foundation reborn. Has it occurred to you that a third alternative exists, one that is more reasonable than either of the first two.† â€Å"What third alternative?† Pelorat's eyes seemed concentrating inward. He did not look at Trevize and his voice was low and thoughtful. â€Å"We have a world – Gaia – that has done its best, over an indefinite period of time, to maintain a strict isolation. It has in no way attempted to establish contact with any other world – not even the nearby worlds of the Sayshell Union. It has an advanced science, in some ways, if the stories of their destruction of fleets is true and certainly their ability to control us right now bespeaks it – and yet they have made no attempt to expand their power. They ask only to be left alone.† Trevize narrowed his eyes. â€Å"So?† â€Å"It's all very inhuman. The more than twenty thousand years of human history in space has been an uninterrupted tale of expansion and attempted expansion. Just about every known world that can be inhabited is inhabited. Nearly every world has been quarreled over in the process and nearly every world has jostled each of its neighbors at one time or another. If Gaia is so inhuman as to be so different in this respect, it may be because it really is – inhuman.† Trevize shook his head. â€Å"Impossible.† â€Å"Why impossible?† said Pelorat warmly. â€Å"I've told you what a puzzle it is that the human race is the only evolved intelligence in the Galaxy. What if it isn't? Might there not be one more – on one planet – that lacked the human expansionist drive? In fact,† Pelorat grew more excited, â€Å"what if there are a million intelligences in the Galaxy, but only one that is expansionist – ourselves? The others would all remain at home, unobtrusive, hidden†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Ridiculous!† said Trevize. â€Å"We'd come across them. We'd land on their worlds. They would come in all types and stages of technology and most of them would be unable to stop us. But we've never come across any of them. Space! We've never even come across the ruins or relies of a nonhuman civilization, have we? You're the historian, so you tell me. Have we?† Pelorat shook his head. â€Å"We haven't. – But Golan, there could be one! This one!† â€Å"I don't believe it. You say the name is Gaia, which is some ancient dialectical version of the name ‘Earth. ‘ How can that be nonhuman?† â€Å"The name ‘Gaia' is given the planet by human beings – and who knows why? The resemblance to an ancient word might be coincidental. – Come to think of it, the very fact that we've been lured to Gaia – as you explained in great detail some time ago – and are now being drawn in against our will is an argument in favor of the nonhumanity of the Gaians.† â€Å"Why? What has that to do with nonhumanity?† â€Å"They're curious about us – about humans.† Trevize said, â€Å"Janov, you're mad. They've been living in a Galaxy surrounded by humans for thousands of years. Why should they be curious right now? Why not long before? And if right now, why us? If they want to study human beings and human culture, why not the Sayshell worlds? Why would they reach all the way to Terminus for us?† â€Å"They may be interested in the Foundation.† â€Å"Nonsense,† said Trevize violently. â€Å"Janov, you want a nonhuman intelligence and you will have one. Right now, I think that if you thought you were going to encounter nonhumans, you wouldn't worry about having been captured, about being helpless, about being killed even – if they but gave you a little time to sate your curiosity.† Pelorat began to stutter an indignant negative, then stopped, drew a deep breath, and said, â€Å"Well, you may be right, Golan, but I'll hold to my belief for a while just the same. I don't think we'll have to wait very long to see who's right. – Look!† He pointed to the screen. Trevize – who had, in his excitement, ceased watching – now looked back. â€Å"What is it?† he said. â€Å"Isn't that a ship taking off from the station?† â€Å"It's something,† admitted Trevize reluctantly. â€Å"I can't make out the details yet and I can't magnify the view any further. It's at maximum magnification.† After awhile he said, â€Å"It seems to be approaching us and I suppose it's a ship. Shall we make a bet?† â€Å"What sort of bet?† Trevize said sardonically, â€Å"If we ever get back to Terminus, let's have a big dinner for ourselves and any guests we each care to invite, up to, say, four – and it will be on me if that ship approaching us carries nonhumans and on you if it carries humans.† â€Å"I'm willing,† said Pelorat. â€Å"Done, then,† and Trevize peered at the screen, trying to make out details and wondering if any details could reasonably be expected to give away, beyond question, the nonhumanity (or humanity) of the beings on board. Branno's iron-gray hair lay immaculately in place and she might have been in the Mayoral Palace, considering her equanimity. She showed no sign that she was deep in space for only the second time in her life. (And the first time – when she accompanied her parents on a holiday tour to Kalgan – could scarcely count. She had been only three at the time.) She said to Kodell with a certain weary heaviness, â€Å"It is Thoobing's job, after all, to express his opinion and to warn me. Very well, he has warned me. I don't hold it against him.† Kodell, who had boarded the Mayor's ship in order to speak to her without the psychological difficulty of imaging, said, â€Å"He's been at his post too long. He's beginning to think like a Sayshellian.† â€Å"That's the occupational hazard of an ambassadorship, Liono. Let us wait till this is over and we'll give him a long sabbatical and then send him on to another assignment elsewhere. He's a capable man. – After all, he did have the wit to forward Trevize's message without delay.† Kodell smiled briefly. â€Å"Yes, he told me he did it against his better judgment. ‘I do so because I must' he said. You see, Madam Mayor, he had to, even against his better judgment, because as soon as Trevize entered the space of the Sayshell Union, I informed Ambassador Thoobing to forward, at once, any and all information concerning him?' â€Å"Oh?† Mayor Branno turned in her seat to see his face more clearly. â€Å"And what made you do that?† â€Å"Elementary considerations, actually. Trevize was using a latemodel Foundation naval vessel and the Sayshellians would be bound to notice that. He's an undiplomatic young jackass and they would be bound to notice that. Therefore, he might get into trouble – and if there's one thing a Foundationer knows, it is that if he gets into trouble anywhere in the Galaxy, he can cry out for the nearest Foundation representative. Personally I wouldn't mind seeing Trevize in trouble – it might help him grow up and that would do him a great deal of good – but you've sent him out as your lightning rod and I wanted you to be able to estimate the nature of any lightning that might strike, so I made sure that the nearest Foundation representative would keep watch over him, that's all.† â€Å"I see! Well, I understand now why Thoobing reacted so strenuously. I had sent him a similar warning. Since he heard from us both independently, one can scarcely blame him for thinking that the approach of a few Foundation vessels might mean a great deal more than it actually does. – How is it, Liono, you did not consult me on the matter before sending the warning?† Kodell said coolly, â€Å"If I involved you in everything I do, you would have no time to be Mayor. How is it that you did not inform me of your intention?† Branno said sourly, â€Å"If I informed you of all my intentions, Liono, you would know far too much. – But it is a small matter, and so is Thoobing's alarm, and, for that matter, so is any fit that the Sayshellians throw. I am more interested in Trevize.† â€Å"Our scouts have located Compor. He is following Trevize and both are moving very cautiously toward Gaia.† â€Å"I have the full reports of those scouts, Liono. Apparently both Trevize and Compor are taking Gaia seriously.† â€Å"Everyone sneers at the superstitions concerning Gaia, Madam Mayor, but everyone thinks, ‘Yet what if – † Even Ambassador Thoobing manages to be a little uneasy about it. It could be a very shrewd policy on the part of the Sayshellians. A kind of protective coloration. If one spreads stories of a mysterious and invincible world, people will shy away not only from the world, but from any other worlds close by – such as the Sayshell Union.† â€Å"You think that is why the Mule turned away from Sayshell?† â€Å"Possibly.† â€Å"Surely you don't think the Foundation has held its hand from Sayshell because of Gaia, when there is no record that we have ever heard of the world?† â€Å"I admit there's no mention of Gaia in our archives, but neither is there any other reasonable explanation for our moderation with respect to the Sayshell Union.† â€Å"Let us hope, then, that the Sayshellian government, despite Thoobing's opinion to the contrary, has convinced itself – even just a little bit – of Gaia's might and of its deadly nature.† â€Å"Why so?† â€Å"Because then the Sayshell Union will raise no objections to our moving toward Gaia. The more they resent that movement, the more they will persuade themselves that it should be permitted so that Gaia will swallow us. The lesson, they will imagine, will be a salutary one and will not be lost on future invaders.† â€Å"Yet what if they should be right in such a belief, Mayor? What if Gaia is deadly?† Branno smiled. â€Å"You raise the ‘Yet what if – † yourself, do you, Liono?† â€Å"I must raise all possibilities, Mayor. It is my job.† â€Å"If Gaia is deadly, Trevize will be taken by them. That is his job as my lightning rod. And so may Compor, I hope.† â€Å"You hope? Why?† â€Å"Because it will make them overconfident, which should be useful to us. They will underestimate our power and be the easier to handle.† â€Å"But what if it is we who are overconfident?† â€Å"We are not,† said Branno flatly. â€Å"These Gaians – whatever they are – may be something we have no concept of and cannot properly estimate the danger of. I merely suggest that, Mayor, because even that possibility should be weighed.† â€Å"Indeed? Why does such a notion fall into your head, Liono?† â€Å"Because I think you feel that, at the worst, Gaia is the Second Foundation. I suspect you think they are the Second Foundation. However, Sayshell has an interesting history, even under the Empire. Sayshell alone had a measure of self-rule. Sayshell alone was spared some of the worst taxations under the so-called ‘Bad Emperors. ‘ In short, Sayshell seems to have had the protection of Gaia, even in Imperial times.† â€Å"Well then?† â€Å"But the Second Foundation was brought into existence by Hari Seldon at the same time our Foundation was. The Second Foundation did not exist in Imperial times – and Gaia did. Gaia, therefore, is not the Second Foundation. It is something else – and, just possibly, something worse.† â€Å"I don't propose to be terrified by the unknown, Liono. There are only two possible sources of danger – physical weapons and mental weapons – and we are fully prepared for both. – You get back to your ship and keep the units on the Sayshellian outskirts. This ship will move toward Gaia alone, but will stay in contact with you at all times and will expect you to come to us in one Jump, if necessary. – Go, Liono, and get that perturbed look off your face.† â€Å"One last question? Are you sure you know what you're doing?† â€Å"I do,† she said grimly. â€Å"I, too, have studied the history of Sayshell and have seen that Gaia cannot be the Second Foundation, but, as I told you, I have the full report of the scouts and from that†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Yes?† â€Å"Well, I know where the Second Foundation is located and we will take care of both, Liono. We will take care of Gaia first and then Trantor.†

City of God(Meirelles, 2002) Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

City of God(Meirelles, 2002) - Research Paper Example City of God by Fernando Meirelles is a sweeping tale that shows how crime negatively affects Rio de Janeiro’s poor population. It was screened at Cannes Film Festival 2002, but it is set in a Brazilian slum, City of God. He is a young boy who manages, in a way, to stay out of the gang, and yet he follows and knows everything that is happening in the gang. The main focus of this narrative is on Cabeleira, the founder of Tender Trio gang. Together with his best friend, (Philippe Haagensen) Bene, they become the lords of crime for over a decade. The death of Bene before his retirement makes Lil’Ze attempt to take his arc enemy, (Matheus Nachtergaele) Sandro Cenoura, for an outing. However, Sandro and another youngster called mane make an alliance, where they start fighting Lil’ Ze, in yet another gang war. Amateur photographer, (Aleixandre Rodrigues) Buscape, takes the brutal crime war pictures, making their story very popular (Meirelles 14). This narrative can be l ikened to slum dog who becomes a millionaire (Smith 21). In this narrative, a slum orphan faces brutal accusations after winning 20 million rupees, since people could not believe that a slum dweller could ever become a millionaire. Accused of being desperate and cheating in an attempt to prove that he was innocent, an orphan, eighteen years old, from Mumbai slums, he recalls his tumulus life when he was competing in India in an attempt to win twenty million rupees, in the movie, who wants to be a millionaire competition in Boyle’s Danny inspirational drama. ... Li’l Ze prospers and becomes the lord of the city. He causes fear and violence as he mercilessly wipes out gangs that are rivals. Bene, his best friend keeps him on sanity’s good side. Rocket has seen them get power for years but he does not want to engage himself in any part of it. However, he is constantly swept up by this madness and therefore takes all the pictures. Things are beyond control in the 1980s, between the only two remaining gangs. Two boys grow together in the same neighborhood but decide to take different life paths (Anonymous 2). The tale is told via Buscape’s eyes, young son of a poor fisherman who aspires to be a photographer in the future. The story tells about corruption and violence in the slum, and ups and downs of Li’l Ze. With increased street wars, Buscape tries to find a way to get out of this violent life by exposing the world’s brutality through his pictures. Movie Analysis/ Review Meirelles had the best intentions in m ind when making his famous movie, City of God. Smith (36) says that there are two relevant things in a cinema that each film maker should serious focus on. These are other peoples’ reaction to the film and his intentions. The City of God is a masterpiece that brings the makers intentions (Salis 37). The director’s intentions should affect the audience at first sight, by trying to picture out what the director wants to achieve, and what the film will actually achieve at last. There is doubt that Meirelles’ had very positive intentions in this movie and the efforts and passion he puts into this movie is highly recommendable. Unfortunately, cinemas only judge the final results, which is of course when considering films’ lost fragments, and cut of greed among others. City of God is a full

Depression Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Depression - Research Paper Example If there was one word that could be used as an umbrella term to cover all the feelings resulting from depression that would be â€Å"hopelessness†. Depression is a serious disorder but can be treated if adequate measures are taken in time without delay. Learning about the potential causes, signs and symptoms of depression is indeed, the very first step in the way towards its resolution, treatment and prevention. What is depression? Depression is essentially an illness which affects and takes control of an individual’s mood, thoughts and the whole body. Under the influence of depression, an individual becomes pessimistic in his/her approach towards himself/herself and his/her eating and sleeping habits are particularly affected. Many people suffering from depression take eating as a means to escape depression. In their attempt to relieve their tension, they seek refuge in the taste of food. The resulting overeating makes them gain weight and many end up becoming obese. W here food intake is increased, there is a significant decrease in the amount of sleep. People suffering from depression either can not sleep or have nightmares when they sleep. They are haunted by ferocious dreams which interrupt the sleep. It is not possible for an individual that has a depressive disease to â€Å"pull himself/herself together† and start feeling better. ... There are four major kinds of depression, namely major depression, atypical depression, dysthemia, and seasonal affective disorder. They are explained below: 1. Major depression Thus type of depression is largely characterized by an individual’s lack of tendency to feel pleasure in life. The lack of enjoyment is persistent and uninterrupted. This makes the depression aggravate with the passage of time. However, even if no treatment is taken, major depression usually occupies the patient for 6 months. Most of the people experience a single episode of depression in their whole life. The disorder is generally recurring but there are medicines and treatment to minimize the recurrence. In the West, major depression is the No. 1 psychological disorder in the contemporary age (clinical-depression.co.uk, 2011) which is increasing among all communities and age groups, particularly among the youth. It is estimated that by 2020, major depression will be the second most disabling disorder in addition to the heart disease. In order to fight major depression, most patients resort to the use of antidepressants. They are undoubtedly effective in providing an individual with immediate relief, though they do little to guarantee the individual depression free life. 2. Atypical depression It is essentially a subtype of the major depression. Atypical depression is characterized by a particular symptom pattern that is inclusive of a temporal shift in mood as a result of positive events. An individual suffering from atypical depression feels good when he/she hears good news or when he/she hangs out with peers or friends. Nonetheless, the temporary emotional boost is ephemeral. The potential symptoms of atypical depression include but are not limited to increase of

China Fragile State Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

China Fragile State Analysis - Essay Example Lack of a continuous economic growth in China poses a big threat worldwide as many observers point out. A Chinese specialist Susan Shirk asserts that China’s internal fragility status presents a big danger more than the economy and the strength of its military. China exists as a sovereign country located in East Asia. A recent report compiled by World Bank (2014) shows a rapid increase in China’s population. The survey shows that the population is currently at 1,369,811,000. The Chinese government recognizes 56 ethnic groups (CIA, 2010). A survey conducted by Central Intelligence Agency US (2010) shows that the Han Chinese is the largest ethnic group in china occupying 91.6 percent of the total population. The second largest ethnic group is Zhuang occupying 1.3 percent. Other ethnicity groups that occupy the rest 1.7% include the Hui, Miiao, Yi, Tujia, Tibetan, Manchu, Mongol, Buyei, Bai, Kazakh, Yao and other small ethnic groups. China has been experiencing increased growth in economy in the past two decades. In the year 2012, China overtook Japan which was the world second largest economy making it the state with the second largest economy globally. However, after several research conducted by World Bank in 2013 China’s annual per capita GDP is at 7.7%. Such per capita indicates that the country remains as a developing country. China’s share in the world trade has increased rapidly in the recent years but the growth is moderately low compared to that of the US. According to a report by IMF (2009), the GDP in China at the current exchange rate is a fifth of that of the US and that of private consumption is an eighth of that of the US. Additionally, China accounts for only 3% of global imports of consumer goods and 4% of world import growth. This makes US the ‘global consumer’ in the short run (International Monetary Fund, 2009). The rise of China’s economy is the factor that has been raising its foreign

International Business Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 2

International Business Management - Essay Example It would use it to provide insight into how the concept can be used and a critical example of how the theory can be invoked. In his book, Competitive Strategy, Porter identifies some important elements that are necessary for the attainment of competitive advantage. Porter stated that competitive advantage arises when a firm provides the highest level of value to consumers, and hence attract the highest prices from them. Porter argues that this can only be internalised if a firm identifies some external elements in the business environment and internalize them in order to form a strategy based on them. In order to attain competitive advantage, a business needs to examine the unique positions and capabilities of competitors and players in an industry. When this is done, a firm can identify a business strategy and after that, designs its functional systems. Industry analysis involves the examination of the key players and the key threats to a given firms quest to attain competitive advantage. This is done by examining five main forces of the industry. These elements are: Every industry exists to produce some kind of value to the wider society. The industry would always exist and there is some kind of balance and stability that comes up naturally as the industry thrives and grows. The risk of entry of potential competitors refers to the situation whereby some third party businesses can enter the industry and produce services that can change the dynamics. The risk of potential competitors entering a given industry is strongly related to the presence or absence of barriers in a given industry. If there are no barriers in the industry and new entrants can easily enter, and this would make the sector extremely problematic. This is because a firms competitive advantage can be easily threatened. However, if there are high barriers like high capital requirement and other regulations, then an

Should Marketers Test Advertising Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Should Marketers Test Advertising - Essay Example The company is even interested in obtaining the path of outsourcing to go for extensive video ad tests. We can mention the name of Wall Street Journal among the companies which are featuring video ads for Google. (McKee, 2007; Mills, 2008)It is also said that one advertisement pre-test is not enough for understanding the future of a product. This is because of the fact that a single test cannot cover all the aspects which are to be looked after by an advertisement. Therefore testing of an advertisement must be taken as an ongoing process. So there is no question of refuting ad pre-tests for saving money by the marketers. A huge amount of money will be lost if the real advertisement does not work and this will lead to a total failure of the product. The company will not get any way out of the situation. Testing of an ad clears up all the confusions regarding the future. If one testing fails and the results are not that clear, the marketers should go for a second time. To achieve succe ss one should not be impatient. We can take a look at the Facebook advertisement tests which the company ran for a long time before launching a more attractive website throughout the world. (â€Å"Facebook’s ‘Engagement Ads’ tests the waters†, 2008)When ad pre-tests are concerned telemarketing is said to be the best point to start. This is a medium where the marketers do not need to expend a huge amount of money and still they can get a clear response from the side of the common mass. It has been observed that telephonic conversations.

Humor Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Humor - Essay Example Every time the gray unicorn Charlie is misled and faces some loss or the other including his kidney, horn and TV. The video uses mainly three elements of humor to amuse its audience. Firstly, each of the videos in this series contains funny starts, for instance, a silly song, which is nice to hear despite its meaninglessness to the rational mind, comments with self-irony and funny names. (Medgyes, 8-9) In the first video as the three unicorns approach the Candy Mountain, the five letters of the word ‘CANDY’ begins to sing a song in order to invite Charlie inside the cave – â€Å"Its the mecca of love in the candy cave. They got jellybeans and coconuts with little hats† (Charlie the Unicorn). Coconuts and jellybeans normally do not have hats. In the second video, the Santa Claus type creature (known as Frogus) begins to sing a song asking Charlie to put a banana in his ear whenever he is sad – â€Å"Put a ripe banana right into your favourite ear! Its true† (Charlie the Unicorn 2). No one has perhaps ever done such a thing with a rational mind. The third video includes a silly song sung by the strange creature looking like a hybrid form of a goal and seal. The song is trying to convince Charlie how loved he is by all the creatures of the sea. The way they are sung is funny and their meaningless stems from the choice of words. Other examples of funny starts include self-irony - â€Å"What the-Oh, sleeping gas! Of course. Why did I expect any different?† (Charlie The Unicorn 3) Charlie gets carried away for a second but soon realizes that he has repeated the same mistake of following his friends’ advice and expresses it aloud, therefore striking the humor. Medgyes shows through examples â€Å"the fun of being self-critical† (Medgyes, 21). Funny names have been used frequently in the second video of Charlie where the giant sneaker is referred as the train and called the â€Å"choo choo shoe†. The pinka nd blue unicorn sings aloud – â€Å"Chugga

PESTEL Analysis Indonesia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

PESTEL Analysis Indonesia - Essay Example 40% of these forests lies within protected areas (FAO 2010). Forest clearing within areas zoned for timber, logging, oil palm, and mining accounted for nearly 45 percent of deforestation in Indonesia between 2000 and 2010, (finds a new study that examined forest loss within industrial concessions). Analyzing the greenhouse gas emissions in the Indonesia, currently, paper plantations are the largest source of carbon emissions during the period, accounting for more than a third of total industrial emissions. Oil palm follows up with 28 %, logging with 22%. Nevertheless, the percentages vary from island to island. In Sumatra, fiber plantations amounted to nearly 60 percent of emissions, while the palm oil industry in Kalimantan accounted for about 40 percent. Logging concessions were the biggest source of industrial land use emissions in Papua, Sulawesi, and the Moluccas. In the future according to the study: Relative contributions of the logging, fiber, oil palm and mining industries t o forest loss in Indonesia, it is expected that forest concessions continue to grow, due to political treaties and economic investment in logging. In response to the general idea that the process of logging is illegal, corrupt in Indonesia, the new Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya Bakar imposed a moratorium (suspension) on the issuance of all new logging, by allowing issuances to be fair, accurate, clear and accountable. The moratorium is likely to last between four and six months.

RR communications Essay Example for Free

RR communications Essay At RR communications, it is obvious there is a problem that needs to be handled if they are to avoid losing customers. The problem lies with the decentralized operations where each business unit has a mandate to operate independently. The business units have the power to make and implement new projects and make decisions without having to involve the whole firm. This has led to many problems such as customers complaining of having receipts for each of the four products offered by the company and would prefer having one receipt for all their transactions. Due to the division among departments, the company has been unable to meet reporting requirements for the Sarbanes Oxley Act. It has proved obvious that a shared IT service, which is standardized among all the units, is needed to ensure everything goes well. The first problem we see at RR Communications is that there is a definite lack of centralized and concise IT governance. Currently all of the separate functions of the company have their own individual leadership with no central leadership. For this reason, each of the sections takes actions and makes decisions based only on how it affects their own particular departments. There is no coordination to ensure that the act of one area does not negatively affect the rest of the firm. This in turn has led to a significant lack of uniformity across the organization, which is hurting customer relations. There are unified databases and each section maintains their own set of records; this is causing great frustration among their customers who continually have issues when dealing with more than one area. Much of the division of departments has been caused by a lack of central leadership. The CEO of the firm has failed to unify the department or assert any control over the individual IT vice presidents. Even though they reported to him, each had acted entirely independently. This continuous failure of leadership has caused the department heads to develop a sense of isolation and self-survival. Even though a new executive VP of IT has been appointed to bring unity to the firm, there has been severe resistance as each department feels it will suffer. The lack of centralized management for so long has caused significant discord between the departments that will take considerable effort to overcome. In addition, this company attitude has filtered down from the VPs to the middle and lower management creating an overall atmosphere that is dangerously disjointed. Even the suggestion of bringing together the database systems and management has caused a near  mutinous uprising and rejection of leadership. The current managerial atmosphere has been around so long, the attitude of individualism has been deeply imbedded in the corporate culture. While, individual thinking is useful to foster innovation and creativity, when the entire organization acts to satisfy only its individual requirements, the firm overall will suffer. Unless this attitude can be overcome, any attempt at bringing unity to the company will fail. From the technical standpoint, RR Communications is suffering from a severely fractured information management system. Every section of the company maintains its own individual customer databases, which are in incompatible formats. If a customer maintains relationships with more then one division, they get bills from each individual area. Customer issues often fail to get resolved because the departments do not communicate or share information. This is causing problems with diminished customer satisfaction. In addition, without a centralized database, full customer information and statistics are impractical to collect. In addition to suffering by not being able to collect detailed records, the company is facing regulatory issues by not being able to provide complete information on the company’s activities, and significant resources are being wasted to assemble simple reports. Currently management and associates at RR Communications believe that a collective solution is impossible, and any attempt to do so will cause them to suffer. While it may be true that the initial implementation of such a system will require a significant collective effort, the end result will be well worth it. It is also clear that much of the perspective of management is extremely short sided; projects are selected only based on a very narrow and limited benefit view with no regard for their long-term viability. As more and more systems have been patched together to fulfill immediate gaps, the overall collection of programs has become a cumbersome, inefficient, and unmanageable mess. A truly efficient system would be one that is all-encompassing and communicates across all facets of the organization to deliver a unified and fully integrated information system that can add real value to the firm. One other major issue at RR Communications is the proliferation of rouge projects completed without oversight or regard for how they will affect the firm. In a large company every project should be examined to determine how it could provide value to the organization before being launched. At RR  Communication projects are being launched that benefit only select areas and may in fact be causing a significant negative impact to the rest of the firm. The company currently does not have a steering or operating committee to oversee and exert control over these projects. Without any form of centralized control and governance, these rouge projects will continue to sabotage the effectiveness of the organization. Lack of common information and enterprise IT strategy has caused several problems for the business and the IT departments of RR communications. Customer service has suffered and customer dissatisfaction has grown. Lack of common information has made it difficult for management to monitor the businesses as a whole. Business units are unable to exchange information and remain unaware of the other divisions’ work. There is little sense of how the divisions work together to meet the company’s overall goals. The accounting problems make it difficult to present shareholders with accurate financial information, and the system is not cost-effective in any case. Furthermore, each division working at individual level to attain its success makes them rigid and unable to adapt to changing requirements; under these circumstances even the implementation of new technology will be extremely difficult. The organization cannot operate efficiently as a whole or at division levels, and the costs are bound to keep increasing. Analysis: As many annoyed customers can probably agree, being transferred from one department of the company to another over and over again to resolve a simple issue is one of the main reasons many companies lose customers. This is certainly an issue at RR Communications. The main cause of the problem seems to be the division of the different business units. This lack of unity is caused by a faulty commission system that rewards individual performance over company profit. The fact that the four CIOs refuse to work together and resort to sabotaging the efforts of the others, serves to show that they are more interested in their own selfish financial goals. While the president of the company may have been a visionary and brilliant entrepreneur, he lacked the managerial skills to recognize the need to have a unified commission system which would foster participation in a common goal, and thus a common  commission which is interdependent on all four business units would be most beneficial to the company. Unifying IT Resources The most important problem for RR Communications to correct is a significant deficiency of successful information management, reflected by the confused state of their customer information databases. Currently customer data is disbursed in separate databases for each section of the company, so that data from one department is not available to another. Thus, customers are forced to maintain relationships with multiple departments and receive billing from each. This separation means that valuable information resources are not being effectively utilized, hurting the firm’s productivity and efficiency. To improve the state of information capital at RR Communications, a complete overhaul of the current systems will be necessary, from both an IT and business standpoint. Information represents a vital asset to any company. This can be in the form of customer accounts, sales records, research development, financial statements, etc. However, in order to realize full benefits, the same information must be readily accessible by all individual units, so that the company can leverage it in the most efficient manner. The first step to correct the issues at RR Communications is to create a unified data architecture that combines all information resources into a central database that is accessible to all sections of the firm. By providing a centralized database clients will be better served by allowing complete access to customer records throughout the company. This will also improve reporting abilities, lower administrative costs, and greatly increase the value of information resources. To achieve the greatest benefit to the company, RR Communications could consolidate its data from multiple silos into a unified enterprise data warehouse (EDW) (Smaltz, 2011). This architecture provides multiple benefits including a single location for all information storage reducing the amount of duplicated efforts. This also greatly improves the integrity of data by providing a ‘single version of the truth’ (Smaltz, 2011). When data is spread throughout multiple databases, invariable some of it will differ. For example, a customer’s address may have been changed in one department but not another. These differences can prove costly to a company. A centralized EDW means that only one record should exist for each customer and reduce  data discrepancies. Having such a centralized system would also satisfy customer needs in a more efficient manner and would help to cross-sell products, which in turn would result in higher profits and more profit for the company. By allowing customers to have a single point of contact, and sharing information by standardizing software and databases across the organization, information will flow more freely and readily available thus giving the employees the ability to communicate in real time with accurate data and maximizing customer contact to increase profits. Having a decentralized IT function is not conductive to achieve an enterprise vision because by keeping the separate business units separated, it keeps pertinent information out of reach of other business units, and thus allows missed opportunities to maximize profit. Also, the lack of communication among the units creates chaos and disorganization in the organization and gives precedence to individual goals above company goals, which in turn will end up hurting the overall enterprise vision and may even spell the end of the enterprise altogether. Finally, having a decentralized IT function creates customer frustration such as in the case of getting several bills for different products. This frustration may cause the company lost customers and lost profits. Information Stewardship Information Management Policy The difficulty in implementing this solution is the current state of the databases scattered about the firm; many are in incompatible formats, so that significant effort will need to be invested to bring together all of this data into a single, shared IT service system accessible to all. In addition, not all data is equally valuable to each unit. Efficiency necessitates allowing employees access to the information that is most pertinent without inundating the various departments with extraneous details. For this reason, whatever IT solution is implemented must be able to adapt dynamically to the storage and retrieval needs of each department. Another challenge to creating a centralized system is the role of information stewardship. Information stewardship involves the ownership and control of information to reduce discrepancies and redundancies. To maintain the consistency and accuracy of data, information stewards need to be appointed. â€Å"Information stewards are businesspeople. They should be responsible for determining the meaning of information ‘chunks’ and their  business rules and contextual use. They should be responsible for the accuracy, timeliness, consistency, validity, completeness, and redundancy of information† (McKeen Smith, 2009, p. 76). A serious challenge to the consolidation of data at RR Communication will be consolidating all of the disparate information from around the firm into a single enterprise data warehouse. It is very likely that there will be duplicate information, conflicting records, incompatible data formats, and other inconsistencies that will not lend themselves to easy integration. However, the reduction in duplicate and conflicting information will be vital to the success of RR Communication. Duplicate data means an increase in administrative work and overhead, a nd conflicting and inconsistent information means the company is not performing at optimum levels. The reduction of duplicate data, or data deduplication â€Å"can improve the performance of virtual systems, reduce network traffic and cut the costs associated with data protection. In addition, deduplication allows backup data to be replicated more efficiently to other sites for disaster recovery† (Symantec, 2011). Duplication increases the amount of data a corporate network must process, reducing efficiency and increasing costs. Storage costs increase as the same information may be stored and backed up across multiple databases, again wasting resources. Finally, duplication of data significantly increases the amount of labor required to utilize it in any useful manner. Clearly, RR Communication will need a significant amount of data deduplication to create a useful, consolidated enterprise data warehouse. To facilitate the proper stewardship of information, an information management policy needs to be created that addresses these issues in a way that prevents such confusion and disarray. An information management policy will dictate the rules and guidelines for how information is handled, who is responsible for maintaining and updating it, and outline the policies and practices to do so (McKeen Smith, 2009). To begin to unravel the data mess at RR Communications they should define an encompassing information management policy that will effectively address the issues of what information is retained, who is responsible for updating it, how it is to be maintained, and who should have access to it. Critical to the success of this policy will be the involvement of management from all functional areas of the company. Each should be given the opportunity to contribute to the policy,  and each individual needs should be addressed. In addition, the problem with this solution will be gaining acceptance from the different functional areas of the business. There will obviously be conflicts of ideas and differences of opinion in how the policy should be created and enforced. To improve the effectiveness of the policy it needs to be thoroughly enforced from top management down. This means to gain compliance, RR Communications’ CEO needs to set the example and pressure all levels of management below to do the same. Another strategy to encourage the support of the divisional presidents for the shared customer service is by creating awareness that the free information flow would be beneficial for all and would simplify business processes, thus allowing then to increase their bottom line, and thus their bonuses. Finding opportunities to demonstrate small success would help show the support being given to the divisions. To aid in compliance, a large corporate training program should be initiated to ensure the policy is well known by all associates. Gaining compliance by all of the business areas will be the most difficult part of this solution; the ingrained attitude of self-preservation that exists at RR Communication will be difficult to overcome. However, change is not impossible, but only by dedication of management. The initial implementation period will be the most difficult, and if enforcement waivers the policy may fail. Creating Useful Information from Raw Data One characteristic of an enterprise system is ensuring seamless integration of a company’s information among all divisions, including financial and accounting Markus, M.L., Tanis, C. (n.d.). Hence, to achieve a successful enterprise system, a company must have its IT systems centralized to ensure information runs smoothly and is relevant among all divisions, especially the financial and accounting information. Considering the accounting problems brought up at the final meeting, the company obviously needs to implement a centralized IT function. Moreover, it will be far more expensive to have an enterprise system with a decentralized IT function, which is contrary to the aim of achieving an enterprise system. While a centralized information management system will indeed offer benefits at RR Communication, if there is no way to utilize and interpret that data, it is useless; this is analogous to being data rich and information poor. Just  because a company has loads of data does not mean that is fully informed. A company such as RR Communication collects vast quantities of data, but having the resources to convert that into useful information can be an extreme challenge. At RR Communication, they are facing a double-sided problem; they have neither a collective data warehouse, nor do they have any effective information management. Once the problem of centralization has been addressed, information management can be. One potential way to improve the use of massive amounts of data is using a metadata repository. A metadata repository functions much like the card catalog of a library; while it does not specifically contain the information, it provides an index of what is available, including the relevant points on what it contains, as well as a pointer to locate the information (Moss Brodie, 2002). This index provides an extremely valuable resource tool to quickly locate pertinent information. In addition, the metadata repository should be designed with the ability to hook into other systems that are developed to provide information to mother systems as necessary. Establishing this framework now will offer increased benefits as more systems are built off the central repository. Addressing Corporate Culture As seen in RR Communications, lack of common information and enterprise IM strategy can cause several problems to the business and the IT department. RR Communications has encountered serious customer service problems, due to lack of common information and enterprise strategy. In addition, lack of common information makes it hard for the overall management to monitor the businesses. Business units are unable to exchange information, and none is aware of the other divisions’ work. The company is not in a position to strengthen its brand since no divisions work together. To remedy this, a unification of the firm needs to take place from more than just an IT standpoint. The disjointed nature of the firm’s information assets reflects a deeper separation of the personnel at RR Communications. Departments work for their own ends with naught but passing concern for their effects on the company as a whole. This lack of cohesion manifests itself in the behavior of the CIOs, divi sional managers, and even the employees, and has resulted in the severe fragmentation of corporate culture. The fragmented IT systems are only a symptom of a much larger problem. Before addressing the IT  problems at RR Communications, the underlying culture of the business needs to be transformed. This begins at the very top, with the president of the company and the highest leaders; they need to be the first to set the example, and it is clear their current attitudes have set the company on the disastrous course it is on. Removing the CIO team which has hampered the company’s efforts at unification up until now was a good step, but serious considerations now need to be taken to prevent things from getting worse. Other associates could easily see firing the CIOs as a usurping of departmental sovereignty; however, they need to use this as an opportunity to show that the company can be brought together without sacrificing any of their needs. To capitalize on this opportunity the president and vice president should bring together the next level of management into a council of members to set the direction and culture of the firm in a way that promotes unity and mutual respect. This council should be responsible for creating and fostering an atmosphere that shows the benefits of the firm functioning as one. They need to prove to the management and associates that their departments will have a say in decisions, and their needs will not be overlooked. To improve the odds of acceptance, the council should be selected from leaders that have proven themselves as examples of good leadership and who are respected in the firm. Key to the success of this council will be keeping everyone on equal footing and ensuring that no one area is given preference over another, especially in the beginning. It is obvious that certain departments will have greater needs then others, and sometimes priority will need to be given to one area; however, if this behavior is present from the outset they will receive much resistance from the firm, as this will reinforce existing fears. Once a unity of the firm has been established, people will be more flexible to accept changes after they see the benefits. It will be up to the president and vice president as leaders to maintain these policies and be the example. As demonstrated in previous cases, the president has been lax in demonstrating himself as a leader and this could prove damaging to any such plans to unify the firm. Leadership must begin at the top, and the success or failure of a company often reflects the abilities of its leadership. Implementation Challenges The advantages of a shared IT system eliminate some of the above-mentioned  problems. A single centralized and standardized IT operating system will enhance quick decisions across all the departments, since all units will be looking at the same data. Furthermore, with a shared service, customers will not have to visit different databases for the same company; rather, all their queries and purchases can be done from one site that will serve them with all that they need from the company. Another advantage will be easy monitoring of the divisional units—their individual performances as well as their contributions to the whole company. Another advantage for the company will be the ability to monitor financial operations, since all operations will be reflected on one database centrally (Amces, 2010). To implement the shared service strategy, it will be important to seek support of the divisional presidents, considering they will be in charge of the units, which are the moneymaking branches. Their willingness to participate in the construction of the shared service will benefit the whole company. The first step to the implementation of this strategy will require assurances that it will benefit the whole company far more than the current system that is facing opposition from not only the customers but also other stakeholders such as the suppliers. In turn, since employees’ remuneration is awarded on performance, improved performance for the whole firm will be an added advantage. Since the divisional heads are used to being in control, it is important to remind them that having a shared service will not mean the imposition of decisions from above. Rather, the shared service will make the operations of the whole organization work in harmony for the purpose of easy monitoring customer convenience. They should be included as part of the implementation team, so they can offer input on what they may not want to change. For instance, many are worried they will have to do away with specific projects. Ensuring them that these projects will continue after implementation of the shared service would increase their support, as would helping them understand that the new, shared system will enhance the harmony and efficiency of whole organization; eventually they will come to see that their roles will remain mostly the same. Another way to improve the odds of success to a centralized data structure is by appointing a team to oversee the maintenance of the data warehouse fr om an enterprise level. Ideally the members of this team should be comprised of analysts from the important functional areas of the company. This can help gain buy-in from the company  due to the fact that the members of this team have already proven themselves to be knowledgeable and capable in their previous environments (Smaltz, 2011). In addition the benefit of incorporating these individuals is that individual departments will feel that they have representation in the new system, and that their interests are protected. This will increase the potential for global acceptance in the program. Another way to increase compliance with the new systems is to implement an incentive program that would drive associates to achieve the best results. Incentive programs drive people to reach specific targets by offering them tangible rewards beyond their current compensation. At RR Communications, an incentive program could be implemented to increase compliance and adoption of a new centralized system. For example, the company could offer monetary bonuses to departments that lower their operating costs using the new system the most. Another more abstract idea would be to have a small bonus program for departments that offer ideas to enhance the productivity of the system. Many of the departments have complained that a shared system would cause them to be overlooked; however, offering this type of inventive would both encourage them to make enhancements of the system while simultaneously demonstrating that their opinions count. Positive reinforcement, such as an inventive program, help gain the compliance of the workforce in a much more efficient way then punishment or negative reinforcement. There are governance mechanisms and metrics that can be used to encourage the implementation and use of a shared enterprise data system. The governance that needs to be put in place is the alignment of divisional units with the IT department. The metrics must be aligned with transparency to ensure that IT is in congruence with business operations. The governance mechanism should involve all departments focusing on regulatory issues, risk alleviation and opportunity enhancement. The metrics used should be concerned with making divisional data fit into an enterprise system. These metrics will identify areas of weakness and avenues of improvement. To quote an analogy, â€Å"Rome wasn’t built in a day;† and it will take significant time and effort to remedy all the problems at RR Communications. Close governance and metrics will aid in any improvement plan. Recommendation: It is evident that RR Communications need an intervention in its customer  service center. The lack of a centralized customer care center is making it hard to provide unified services to customers. More so, a lot of time is wasted by customers who have to be referred to different department for billing. Customers are forced to have several accounts with the company for each division since each division is held with its independent operations including billing (Smith McKeen, 2007). This makes it hard for customer care provision. Considering consumer service is very crucial for any business, RR Communications need a centralized customer service center. A centralized service center will have many benefits to the whole organization such as cost reduction, time saving, good management of customers’ data or information, and customer satisfaction. I recommend a centralized customer service center for RR communications for its advantages as predetermined below. The divisional IT service means having separate audits for every division. Having each division with an individual audit is expensive for the company since several auditors will be needed. Eliminating the divisions will save some costs that would otherwise be used for the services of the auditors at every division. With a single it department, data can be fed there and only one audit team will be required for the whole company. This also means reduced time for audits since with divisions audits have to be put together after each department has completed its audit (Smith McKeen, 2007). Coordination among the auditors will be efficient since information is collected from one point where all information concerning company accounts is stored. Therefore, having a centralized service center will enhance such operations across the whole organization. In addition, with a centralized customer service center as well as IT, it will ensure information is collected at one point making it easy to access information concerning any department from any point within the company without having to refer to the division in charge. Hence, for the auditors, complying with the set Sarbanes Oxley act will be easy since information about customer billing and accounts of the whole firm will be centralized ensuring accuracy. Having the customer service centralized enhances business operations and processes, ensuring best practices such as timely audits are realized. With data consolidated in one central place, information can be exploited to breed new opportunities for the company. When data is at one place for all the divisions, it is easier to have a broader picture  concerning how the divisions can create a new opportunities. Exploiting these opportunities jointly among the divisions is better than going individually. Moreover, security can be more enhanced with a shared service center since monitoring will be done by one entity. This will further reduce costs associated with having each division taking responsibility of storing and maintaining its own data. Considering that RR communications is currently having several softwares, consolidating information together for the whole company is hard. Smooth flow of information across departments to ensure easy sharing is vital; not only for the whole com pany, but for divisions too, considering information consolidation is a fundamental instrument for doing business. Consolidating the IT services to one centralized structure will require removing of service center hardware from each division to one central department that will mitigate risks and have a common structural design as well as policies that are easily reviewable for updating. A common security procedure will reduce risks associated with information breech. Through the same procedures and practices, the company can reduce file systems redundancy within the organization and enhance efficient document retention as well as reduce costs. Another reason to have one service center is to match the technical capacity of the company with its vision. At the current divisional independence, the divisions exploit their own visions that are not in congruence with the organization’s vision and mission. Considering the company’s vision is to have a consistent brand across all the divisions, it is necessary to have cross-shared services across all divisions to achieve this vision. The vision can be achieved through cross- sales of all the company services to its customers, as opposed to each department having its selling strategy. Having a shared sales service will serve to reduce the costs incurred when divisions do it individually hence creating a better chance for profit across all departments. Having a central service center will ensure that the overall vision of the company is followed since the central service center will be inclined towards the vision of the whole company. This way, each division can have a chance of benefiting form other divisions, hence the company as a whole (Smith McKeen, 2007). Having a single service center will allow easy outsourcing for the organization. Currently, businesses are outsourcing majority of their operations to other professional companies for reductions  of costs. With independent divisions and IT strategies for each individual division, outsourcing will be quite complicated. Having a central service center to oversee all requests will enhance efficiency as well as value. More so, through the consolidation of IT services and information at one common place will reduce security risks associated with outsourcing services. This will further ensure reliability and security of information. A consolidation of information and IT services will enhance cross-services for customers such as billing (McKeen Smith, 2011). The company divisions at current circumstance hold their information secret from each other, making it a competition within the divisions that raise the problem of billing where customers have to be referred to other divisions for other services. With the consolidated information, customers will only need to visit one department from which other information concerning other divisions can be met. This will improve the perception of their whole company as a brand and the standing of the company can be improved as well as customer satisfaction. There is need for the company to realize that in the current world information is one of the drivers of businesses, which all businesses need to survive. Having each division with its own information center reduces the chances of the company improving in the future since the harmonious climate needed among the divisions for this achievement is minimal. Having stipulated the advantages bound to arise or reasons why a central service center should be achieved, it is important to consider how RR can be able to implement this recommendation with ease and least resistance from the divisions. This is the first most likely problem to arise during implementation. Hence, the first step should be generating support form all divisions, which has been quite hard up to now especially from the managers who are self centered and concerned with their earnings that depend on their performance. The managers also have a negative attitude towards merging of information and data among the divisions through one central service. A three-point strategy can be used to gain their support. It includes financial strategy, mitigation of risks associated and compliance to regulation. Financial point can emphasize the advantages the shared service is bound to raise, which will for the benefit of all the divisions and organization as a whole. Risk mitigation will arise from security of information through monitoring by one entity in a standardized  way, while regulatory will be concerned with abiding to set accounting rules of the Sarbanes Oxley act which the company has been having problems with (Schwartz, 2007). The next step would be to lay out the vision of the company and show why it cannot be achieved with division of operations among the divisions. This will impart some reasoning among the leaders, and support fore all divisions should be ensured. The main aim is to make everybody in the divisions aware of the role they will play and their stake to ensure thee is compliance and acceptance of the strategy to build a one services center (McKeen Smith, 2011). One of the problems that could arise after implementation of a shared service center is ease of adoption. Some employees who have been used to the old system will require to be trained how to work harmoniously with a single service center. Many will be required to handle more information concerning not only their divisions, but also other divisions. Hence, there will be need to have them trained to provide a central service to the customers. Another problem would arise for the culture set by the independent divisions prior to the implementation of a single service center. The current culture is of rivalry among the divisions considering they have been competing among themselves. Killing the culture will be a little hard. To deal with the problem the company will have to sta rt early through brining people together and coming up with tasks that can be incorporated in all divisions that allows all members to interact. The shared tasks will enhance cooperation among the different divisions. Conclusion RR is having problems because of lack of a common service center. All divisions are held with their own operations that aim at achieving divisional goals at the expense of corporate goals. The company is lacking a strong unified brand to sell to customers since all divisions are accounted for independently. This has made it obvious that a shared service will be the best for solving these issues. RR needs to put in place an alignment of their IT services with the business units. Transparency must be encouraged and joint responsibilities of IT ad businesses to achieve shared service center (smith McKeen, 2007). The company should also have a common enterprise vision for their systems. All the departments should be included with emphasis on joint business opportunities and risk mitigation. The top  management should be in forefront to creating an atmosphere of improvement continuously with a key focus on customer service to ensure the shared service center is successful. References McKeen, J. D., Smith, H. A. (2009). IT Strategy; Issues and Practices (2nd Edition ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. McKeen, J. D., Smith, H. A. (2011). IT Strategy; International edition (2nd Edition ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. Moss, L., Brodie, M. (2002, July). Data Rich, but Information Poor? Retrieved October 26, 2011, from Information Management: http://www.information-management.com/issues/20020701/5341-1.html Schwartz, K/D. (2007). IT Governance Definition and Solutions. Retrieved from http://www.cio.com/article/111700/IT_Governance_Definition_and_Solutions#what Smaltz, D. H. (2011, July/August). Are You Leveraging Your Data or Is Your Data Leveraging You? HIT Exchange , pp. 8-9. Smith, H. A., McKeen, J. D. (2007). Shared Services at RR Communications. Queens School of Business. Symantec. (2011, May 2). Deduplication and Efficient Data Storage. Retrieved October 26, 2011, from PR Newswire 1. List the advantages A single customer service center will yield both financial and human resource savings for RR Communications by eliminating the allocation of duplicated resources to the multiple divisional and regional customer service centers. With valuable resources freed from these multiple customer service centers, the company will be able to allocate more resources to its value added activities and improve operational efficiency. RR Communications run four divisions, each with a distinct but a complimentary product. They are internet, mobile, landline, and cable TV service. There is a deregulation in the telecommunications industry and its becoming a norm for competitors to offer multiple services like RR Communications. RR Communications’ customers  have been complaining about double billing because the four divisions have no working collaboration and thus, no way of knowing when the other division may already have sent the bill. A single customer service center will consolidate the da ta of the customers of all divisions and by addressing the problem of inaccurate billing, it will potential save the loss of dissatisfied customers to the competitors. A single service center will also yield growth opportunities by marketing the company’s other services to customers that they may not already have and offer discount incentives on the purchase of multiple products. A single customer service center will allow comparison among the company’s divisions in terms of product quality, customer satisfaction, and retention rates so that more resources could be allocated to troubled areas. A single customer service center will also make it easy to gather data about the company’s divisions and store them in standard formats for management analysis. By having access to all the relevant information about the customers, the customer service center will be better able to address customers’ questions and market company’s products which would not have been possible with separate customer service centers. It will also be convenient for the customers to call only one place for all their questions and thus, will increas e goodwill for RR Communications. 1. Is it possible to achieve an enterprise vision with a decentralized IT function? The answer to this question really depends on what the meaning or intention is behind the idea of an enterprise vision. If this simply means of having certain departments existing and able to complete their tasks and accomplish their goals, basically that the enterprise is functioning, than the answer is certainly. As demonstrated in the case study, there were multiple divisions for IT that were each doing their own thing, and while it wasnt pretty, compatible or optimal, everything did, technically, work allowing each department to function. As soon as the vision of an enterprise expands to a desire to work more efficiently, unify tools and platforms, have stronger compatibility or be one company a decentralized IT function becomes a massive hindrance. Turning to the case study again, each department was replicating the efforts of the other departments by finding their own software/data vendors, creating unique database systems and having their own support staff. This not only made it difficult for clients who  needed assistance, but meant there was excessive spending, and an inability for multiple departments to come together to function as a a single entity within the enterprise. 2. What business and IT problems can be caused by lack of common information and an enterprise IM strategy? There are numerous business and IT problems that can arise from the lack of common strategy. In terms of IT there can be duplication of efforts, systems and tools leading to not only multiple expenditures to yield the same results, but this may mean there is no strong outline of how systems are set up or designed, there may be no map detailing the hardware and software in place, which makes it far more difficult to not only run inventory, but ensure that new expenditures are needed and not (again) duplicating tools that have already been purchased or implemented. When different software and hardware solutions are used across departments, this also leads to difficulties in compatibility. When the organization wants to implement something new, it would be difficult if not impossible to determine if it can be integrated into the existing tools, or this may result in unanticipated technical errors arising from compatibility issues. Business problems stem primarily from an inability of data to be effectively shared across groups, thus limiting the ability of various departments to work together. Not only could this cause rifts to form between various groups, but it also means that there could be issues with data consistency. This is especially troubling for client data, as a change in one department may not be updated elsewhere due to data being stored in different databases, the inability for data to be updated across databases, and even opens up the potential for technical errors causing data that is normally consistent to suddenly become dispar ate from similar data elsewhere. Additionally, when the business requires technical assistance it is likely to be difficult to find the correct person with the knowledge needed to resolve a particular issue if that department is using specialized systems that are not consistent across the organization. 3. What governance mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure common customer data and a shared customer service center? What metrics might be useful (think service level agreements, etc.)? Common customer data will require a standardized database, as well as regular auditing procedures to ensure that data is only being modified/updated by those individuals who are supposed to have access, as well as verifying  accuracy for these modifications. Customer service really depends on the objectives of the company. I worked on an inbound phone line at a call center for 3 years while this was technically brokerage service, arguably it was a cutomer service center. Training had to be farily comprehensive so we could assist clients with almost any issues they had, and on top of that reps have to know what departments specialize in certain topics in case they need help figuring out what happened or resolving a complicated problem. On top of that, there is regular review and QA of random c alls to ensure representatives are giving correct informaton and assisting the client based on the standards and expectations set by the organization. Call reviews are measured on a scale where there are certain objective actions that are required on every call, then measured more subjective terms such as professionalism. I work with a tremendous amount of shared customer data, and everything is monitored, recorded and subject to audit procedures. There is always the abilty to find out who did what, when, and every phone call is recorded and maintained for a period of time. This of course protects the client as much as it helps protect the firm. As far as data is concerned, I dont know if there are specific service level agreements in place, but I do know that there is regular testing of what is referred to as host fallback where all the primary systems are taken down for a period of time, then brought back up. While this is frustrating for reps and clients who need access to the data, the very small number of times I experienced an unscheduled outage the backup systems performed well, all reps knew how best to work within the confines of the backup system, and the discussion with clients about why certain things could not be done went far more smoothly than if regular testing was not performed. The case study this week describes the classic example of an organization which is heavily decentralized into distinct lines of business (each with its own IT group) that realizes their need for a flexible and responsible IT function, a common view of the customer, and the elimination of redundant systems