The Culture And Cricket Media Essay

The Culture And Cricket Media Essay Sports play an important role in the life of millions across the globe. Not only are the social and political identities shaped through them, but it also mobilizes the emotions and channels the conflicts rooted in the society. Just like the soccer world cup can unite a divided Spanish society, a cricket match can rouse the passions of the thousands of Indian fans thus uniting them across religions. Sports form a part of the worldwide entertainment industry. The corporates have millions riding on the different tournaments and cups in the games and to increase their marketability they hire sports stars to be the brand ambassadors of their products, investing in the saleability of the game and its icon. Distinct social meanings can be constructed and deconstructed through the sports and their interplay with the society. A few sports have now developed into social forces of unprecedented importance. Andrei Markovits has talked about the evolution of the hegemonic sports culture in which only a few sports become a part of the popular culture. It is defined by watching, following, worrying, debating, living, and speaking a sport rather than merely playing it. This is demonstrated in the following that the sports nowdays have huge following, fans live, eat and breathe their favourite sports. Cricket is one of the sports that have been elevated to being a part of the popular culture and it influences the cultural and social milieu and the life of people. Cricket has acquired an unimaginable power over the daily habits of people and as a sport has crossed the immediate consumer-producer relationship. The game of cricket has evolved over a period of time and our focus will be on its development from a gentlemans game to the game of sledging and to the game of gamesmanship behaviour. Cricket has its cultura l and historical roots in Victorian England. The Victorian tradition of the sport defines it as a predominantly male game and its image as a gentlemans game is drawn from it. Cricket was the game associated with aristocracy while soccer has been the game associated with masses. The mark of the game has been the fairplay and the sportsmanship. The values of courtesy and chivalry were seeked to be imbibed in the game. Rules were to be followed on-field and decorum was to be maintained both on and off-field. There are not rules in cricket but laws which have to be followed keeping in spirit with the nature of the game. Britains imperialism and its bourgeoisie capitalistic culture, codified the language of the game and the rules and regulations were universally accepted. As Steve Readhead had put it that it was time to take law and cricket seriously and there is nothing as important as Cricket. A strict application of laws was expected and a spirit of chivalry inundated the game. The 18 th century was important in the spread of the game due to English imperialism. The game was transported to the colonies of the British Commonwealth and the tradition of the game was fully adhered to. Sanskritization was a theory propounded by M.N. Srinivas which postulates that the lower strata of the society seeks upward mobility in the social ladder by emulating the habits and practices of the upper strata. But what followed in cricket was its reverse sanskritization. Initially cricket in the Indian subcontinent was an elitist game patronized by the royalty and played by the upper strata of the society who appreciated the elitist culture of the game. The doyens of cricket included Maharajas of Jamnagar, Maharaja Viji of Vijaynagar, Maharaja of Patiala who belonged to the royal families while the prominent players like Lala Amarnath, Vijay Merchant belonged to the upper social class. Till the 1930s Cricket remained the gentlemans game and fairplay was of paramount importance. But slowly changes could be observed in the way the game was played. In the era following the first world war chauvinistic sentiments were on the rise. Feelings of nationalism increased in the people which were visible in every domain of life including the sports culture. To win the game became the number one priority of the sportsperson and this change was visible in the game of cricket too. Now winning involved the nations prestige. Cricket is a game worth taking trouble over and playing well, wrote Douglas Jardine, the former England cricket captain, in Cricket: How to Succeed (1936), but like all other games there is a right and a wrong way of playing it (Jardine 1936: 3). The changing times reflected the changing sentiments in the way cricket was played. In 1930 Australia had scored an easy victory over England with the emergence of the legendary batsman Donald Bradman. His brilliant performance in the test series had made the English fearful. In the 1932 test series between England and Australia, the priority of the English bowlers was to contain Bradmans score. Under captain Douglas Jardine, and employed by the England fast bowlers Harold Larwood and Bill Voce a new technique of bowling was developed whereby a batsman could be contained by limiting the range of his strokes and by encouraging error. This was called the bodyline or fast-leg theory. The bowlers targeted the body of the Australian batsman. The deliveries used to be led provoked the batsman which would then end in a catch to one of the six or more fielders stationed on the leg side. Thus the Australian Board of Cricket lodged a formally protested against the unsportsmanlike behavior by the English players. This test series was controversial as it engendered ill-feeling between the two countries and it also raised among the English and the Australians, questions about the interpretations that codes of cricket mean and could mean. Questions were also raised about the right and wrong way to play and these included the cultural and social interface and their relation with the game. Systems of meanings were explored in the game by both sides that had previously been left implicit. Post the Bodyline series The Australian journalist and cricketer Arthur Mailey pointed that something modern was happening to cricket. Argus newspaper explained bodyline as a portrayal of a new set of values which was a result of the modern age (Mailey 1933: 12; Stoddart 1979: 136). C. L. R. James also read the series in these terms, though he saw Jardines strategy as an escalation of cricketing tendencies already established by Bradman himself. It was the violence and ferocity of our age expressing itself in cricket, he writes in Beyond a Boundary (James 1963: 186). The reverse sanskritization of cricket was palpable, the upper strata of society had adopted the social mores of the lower strata. Aggression became a part of the play and victory became the aim of the players which was to be attained at all costs. As Jardine had put it the right and the wrong way of playing described the ambiguity between the moral and the technical semantics, which defined the aftermath of victories in Australia. Jardine resigned as the English captain after the series, but the game lost its sense of fairplay and sportsmanship. The elitist culture was giving way to mass culture. Sportsmanship slowly gave way to gamesmanship. The spirit of the cricket laws was replaced by the letters. Vinoo Mankad Mankaded Bill Brown. It occurred during Indias tour of Australia on 13 December 1947 in the second test match at Sydney. Mankading is a method of dismissal in which the bowler runs a batsman out in his delivery stride. While it is a statistically rare occurrence in cricket in general, and even rarer in Test cricket, it is the clearest and starkest example of the conflict between legal formalism in cricket and an ideal of the game based on higher or more important ethical norms. Sledging has become a part of contemporary cricket added by the problems of match fixing. The game shifted from being an elitist culture to a game of the masses. The commercialization resulted in the real essence of cricket being lost. Due to commercialization there has been an increase in level of competition between the teams. Though big bucks are being made by people involved yet the quality of the game is being compromised. The gentlemans game became the game of the masses. It is evident that there are two dominant trains of thought, one that believes in the higher order of the game, which was practised in the days gone by. Fairplay was the code of the game and the laws which were to be applied to the game reinforced the higher and truer order of the game. The hegemonic sports culture represents frozen spaces. These spaces are like the ones presented by political parties and political systems which are resistant to any innovation in the system. Changes are resisted by the social and cultural forces. Sports spaces create emotional attachments and collective identifications. Tradition defines these spaces at local, national and regional level. Globalization exerts pressures on the localized sports cultures which they resist. Sports like politics remains local, the love that people have for their sport and their institutions associated with it like the myths, legends, colours and the pubs and bars. Thus change is always resisted due to the fear of losing t hese attachments and the sense of identity. But the post industrial globalization is exerting unprecedented pressure on the sports spaces. The cultural and social spaces are being challenged by the globalization. The identities and allegiances which constitute the differences in the landscape of sports and politics began to blur round the edges. Hegemonic sports cultures are becoming prolific across the globe, at pace with the development of media and pop culture which are interdependent. An example here can be given of the IPL 20-20 which in origin is Indian but has a universal following. The foreign and the Indian players are given equal respect and are admired by all. In the present age sports like cricket present a cosmopolitan culture which cannot be found in the society which is deeply divided on basis of borders and religion. Cricket provides attachments and allegiances and a new form of cosmopolitan identity. This cosmopolitan nature of the sport facilitates an acknowledgeme nt of the best talents and it transforms the collective identities. Like Ronaldinho and Zidane, the greatest and the best known of the soccer players, Sachin Tendulkar too is adored and worshipped by millions of cricket fans across the globe. He too has attained a celebrity status and is a cultural icon. He is a superstar in his own right and is a truly global player. He has a cultural production beyond the playing field. Cricket is my religion and Sachin is my God. Is one of the sayings which can describe the mania associated with Tendulkar. Youth not only adore and worship a Tendulkar or a Lara, they try to adopt their aggression, composure, warmth into their personality. Cricketers shape and mould the youth behaviour. They follow their slangs, dress, hairstyle and attitude. Players are globally admired and they are representatives of cultural understandings of the worlds diverse societies. Often the sports spaces are the first through which migrants gain social acceptance and recognition. Hence cricket in a way is a medium of cultural exchange. An other example that can be given is of the infamous Monkeygate Scandal involving the Autralian cricketer Andrew Symonds and Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh. Singh was accused to racially abusing Symonds. This had led to rigorous protests by the Indian fans and there was resentment against Symonds in the Indian cricket followers. But he was accepted and adored by the fans nce he joined the IPL as a member of the Mumbai Indians. Maarten Van Bottenburg and Johan Heilbron have shown in their research on Ultimate fighting and other No Holds Barred Events that these sports had developed in opposition to the overly cosmopolitan and sportized venues. Men wanted a fight without rules without being overly regulated. They wanted to find out who the best was and who would be the last man standing without being hassled any authority and bureaucratic system. They were not there to find out who the best wrestler or the best boxer was, but they wanted to know who the best fighter was. This transformation was visible in cricket too. Cricket has always had a strong male bias among its followers and the masculine idea of the patriarchal Victorian England formed the opinions about cricket being essentially a male game. The effeminate and technical Test cricket slowly lost its sheen to limited 50 over cricket and finally to 20-20. The shorter form of game were considered virile, no hold barred power display and excited the mas ses. From the leisurely gentlemans game cricket became an aggressive sport whose priority was to please the spectators. The contests used to be localized earlier but due to the quick channels of communication, these attained global dimensions by acquiring rules and regulations and television contracts. When Bill Shankly had been asked to explain the importance of soccer, the Liverpool manager had exclaimed: Some people think football is a matter of life or death. I dont like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more important than that. Cricket can easily be substituted for soccer in the context of the Indian subcontinent. The games can vary from country to country yet the social and cultural phenomena associated with each game are the same everywhere.

The mystic drum

Lyrics† (2011). African Studies Faculty Publication Series. Paper 12. Http://schoolwork. Numb. Deed/African_faculty_pubs/1 2 This Article Is brought to you for free and open access by the African Studies at Schoolwork at Amass Boston. It has been accepted for inclusion in African Studies Faculty Publication Series by an authorized administrator of Schoolwork at Amass Boston. For more information, please contact library. [email  protected] Deed. ‘The Mystic Drum': Critical Commentary on Gabriel Okra's Love Lyrics: Checksum Ozone, PhD Professor of African & African Diaspora LiteraturesIntroduction In the course of reading a chapter entitled â€Å"Empty and Marvelous† In Alan Watts fascinating book, The Way of Zen (1 957), a serendipitous key was provided, by the following statement from the teachings of Chinese Zen master,l Aching Yuan Weighing (1067-1120), to the structure and meaning of the experience traumatized in Gabriel Okra's most famous love poem, â€Å"Th e Mystic Drum†: 2 Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains and waters as waters.When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw the mountains are not at rest. For it's Just now that I see mountains once again as mountains and waters once again as waters. What is so readily striking to anyone who has read â€Å"The Mystic Drum† is the near perfect dynamic equivalence between the words of Aching Yen and the phraseology of Okra's lyric.In line with Aching Yuan's statement, the lyric falls into three clearly defined parts?an initial phase of â€Å"conventional knowledge,† when men are men and fishes are fishes (lines 1-15); a median phase of â€Å"more intimate knowledge,† when men are no longer men and fishes are no longer fishes (lines 16-26); and a final hash of â€Å"substantial knowledge,† when men are once again men and fishes are once again fishes, with the difference that at this phase, the beloved lady of the lyric is depicted as â€Å"standing behind a tree† with â€Å"her lips parted in her smile,† now â€Å"turned cavity belching darkness† (lines 27-41).The significance of this closing phrase will be discussed in the appropriate slot in the final section of the paper, below. But because of the complexity of the imagery and symbolism by means of which progression of the lover's understanding of the nature of reality is developed, it seems necessary to visit the lyric in its entirety before proceeding to a phase-bypass analysis of its structure: The mystic drum beat in my inside and fishes danced in the rivers and men and women danced on land to the rhythm of my drum But standing behind a tree with leaves around her waist she only smiled with a shake of her head. One of the major schools of Buddhism that originated in 12th-century China with current strongholds in India and Japan, Zen strongly emphasizes enlightenment through meditation and vehemently denies the value of conventional thinking in favor of an attempt to understand the paradoxes of reality by â€Å"direct pointing† unfettered by what it sees as arbitrary customary compartmentalizing of phenomena.Since the middle of the twentieth-century, the exciting and fresh insights provided by Zen masters have been a source of inspiration for many non- Asian writers, artists and intellectuals throughout the world, especially in North America. 2 The present commentary is a revised and updated version of a paper originally entitled â€Å"Zen in African Poetry: Gabriel Okra's ‘The Mystic Drum† and shared privately with several of my students and academic colleagues at Abidjan, Lagos and Nausea (Nigeria) and Boston (Massachusetts), USA.Checksum Ozone / The Mystic Drum: Critical Commentary angora's Love Poetry: 2 rippling the air with quickened tempo compelling the quick and the dead to dance and sing with their shadows? Then the drum beat with the rhyt hm of the things of the ground and invoked the eye of the sky the sun and the moon and the river gods and the trees began to dance, the fishes turned men and men turned fishes and things stopped to grow? 10 15 20 25 And then the mystic drum in my inside stopped to beat? and men became men, fishes became fishes and trees, the sun and the moon found their places, and the dead .NET to the ground and things began to grow.And behind the tree she stood with roots sprouting from her feet and leaves growing on her head and smoke issuing from her nose and her lips parted in her smile Then, then I packed my mystic drum and turned away; never to beat so loud any more. 35 Aching Yuan's Zen experience is epistemological?pertaining to a step-by-step initiation of the passionate lover into an understanding of the nature of reality, in particular â€Å"the foundations, scope, and validity of knowledge† (Online Enchant).It can thus be surmised that â€Å"The Mystic Drum† is not Just a conventional amatory lyric, revoked by the storm and stress of Okra's passionate love for his adored and adorable second wife (an African-American with Caribbean roots, Diamond Carmichael, who died in Port Harcourt in 1983). 3 It is more decidedly a philosophical poem in which the dynamics, directions and management of â€Å"the mystic drum† of passion that beats in the poet's â€Å"inside† are dramatically reenacted, in a tripartite ritual and initiatory pattern reminiscent of Aching Yen.From a conventional phase, at which the lover's understanding 3 Okra's first wife, a fellow ‘Jog from the Niger Delta and the mother of his son, Dry. Ebb Okra?a clinical psychologist in Randolph, Massachusetts, who lives in Canton, Massachusetts?was divorced when Ebb was only two years old. There is hardly an reference to her in either Okra's lyrics or interviews. Nor do we have any information about the cause of her separation from Okra. Of the nature of knowledge conforms to s ocially accepted customs of behavior or style (lines 1-15), the lover's progresses through a more intimate phase, at which this knowledge matures from a close, thoroughgoing, personal relationship (lines 16-26), to an ultimate substantial phase, situated in the optimum zone of epistemological perception, at which what the lover has come know about the nature of reality is not only solidly built but considerable in amount or importance (lines 27-41), culminating in the lover's self-imposed decision not to allow his â€Å"mystic drum† ever â€Å"to beat so loud so loud any more† (line 41).The poem concludes, in other words, with a firm decision by the lover to put strong reins on the unbridled flights of his amatory imagination, having become wizened by the knowledge and experience he has acquired. Because the tropes (â€Å"mystic,† â€Å"drum,† and â€Å"inside†), two of which appear in he title of the present paper, are recurrent in all of Okra's l ove lyrics (â€Å"Diamond,† â€Å"To Pave,† and â€Å"The Mystic Drum†), it seems necessary to pause awhile to reflect on their meaning and significance.For Okra, the word â€Å"mystic† is indeed connotative of the spiritual, the numinous, the magical, the supernatural, and the shamanistic. But it is more meaningful as a poetic code for the supervisory powers that enable the human personality to tap into hidden strengths buried in the innermost recesses of the psyche. In addition to any other signification carried over by the poet from his he theories of Swiss psychiatrist and founder of Analytical Psychology, Carl Gustavo Jung (1875-1961), as comprising the collective unconscious?the innermost recesses of the psyche, populated by archaic or primordial images which Jung calls archetypes and which, as he posits, are shared in common by all humankind. See Ozone (1981), for a more detailed discussion of the collective unconscious and its archetypes, with ref erence to the poetry of Okra's transnational, modernist, contemporary, Christopher Skibob (193()-1967).This innermost level of the psyche is operated from the outermost level?the conscious mind (the seat of our everyday thoughts and emotions) ?by the personal unconscious (the seat of repressed traumatic personal experiences or complexes which may be re-lived by the individual if and whenever memories of the original trauma that gave birth to the complex are awakened by new trauma of the same kind). In its relation to â€Å"mystic† and â€Å"inside,† the word â€Å"drum,† in Okra, generally refers to the vibes felt by an individual when there is an intense surge of subconscious promptings from any of the two levels of his â€Å"inside. Further research is needed to ascertain the consistency f all these with the idea of â€Å"the inside† in Okra's native ‘Jog language and traditional system of thought. In â€Å"The Mystic Drum† as well as in à ¢â‚¬Å"Diamond† (a lyric also provoked by Okra's love for Ms. Carmichael) and in â€Å"To Pave† (a lyric provoked by the â€Å"fire† and â€Å"flame† of an unrequited love for a mysterious paramour about whom Okra is most reticent to say anything in interviews with him), the intensity of these subconscious psychic pulsations often reaches fever pitch.The three lyrics are thus not only of enormous interest as conventional love lyrics, fusing the commonalities of oral-wide traditions of love poetry and the peculiarities of indigenous African love songs performed as part of moonlight dances; they are also worthy of critical analysis as a windows into Okra's struggle for rapprochement with the presiding lady of his poetic inspiration, his muse.The muse has been described as the source of inspiration that stimulates the art of a poet. In postcolonial discourse, it has been studied as an archetypal female figure (watermark, great mother, earth goddess, water godd ess, and dancer) embodying cultural nationalist affections and idealizations of the colonized earth of the poet's Malden (see Thomas, 1968, and Ozone, in Nonnumeric, 2011).As I have stated in the later citation, 4 For the purposes of the present paper, I retain my earlier understanding of psyche (Ozone, 1981 : 30) as â€Å"the totality of the non-physical components of the human personality' (extrapolated from Jung, 1959). 5 In this paper, I use the terms traumatic and trauma to refer to â€Å"emotional shock† or â€Å"an extremely distressing experience that causes severe emotional shock and may have long-lasting psychological effects† (online Enchant). Jung defines complexes as â€Å"psychic entities that have escaped from the control of unconsciousness and split from it, to lead a separate existence in the dark sphere of the psyche, whence they may at any time hinder or help the conscious performance† (see 7 see Ozone (2006 and 2011). 4 The idea of the muse is often invoked in the scholarship on modern Nigerian literature; but it is often shrouded with a mystique that tends to reduce it to something abstract or far-fetched, or, at any rate, to a kind of African imitation of the classical muses of Garage-Roman antiquity.But our renascent muse was not only concrete and manifest in our postcolonial practical engagement with our indigenous ultras; she was also an embodiment of the highest cultural ideals of our ancestral traditions as we perceived them in the heyday of colonialism. She appeared to each and every one of us in multifarious guises. But whatever her emanation was, she was unmistakably a personification of the earth of our ancestors?the earth goddess, Ala, the supreme light (chi) that nurtures all creation, an embodiment of the eternal bond that unites the living and the dead.When our early devotional poems to this great spirit and those of our predecessors and successors are collected and published, traders will be better able to understand the ramifications of the power of this great goddess who appeared to us, as to our predecessors in the early sass's (Skibob, Window, And, Egged, Insanely, Majoring, Okapi, Kook, etc), as a dancer, spirit maiden, water maid, and other exciting feminine figures?in all cases as embodiments of our communal and individual apperception of the superiority of our indigenous cultural heritage to every single superimposition of the postcolonial order.Like Skibob and other members of the Nausea school of modern Nigerian poetry (see Thomas, 1968 and 1972; Cherub, in Landforms, 1973 and 1974; and Modulator, 1980), Okra is a votary of the watermark or mermaid, whose inspirational â€Å"songs† we hear in â€Å"The Fisherman's Invocation† (Part II and Ill) as the voice of a presiding lady (or ladies) of poesy whose presence and participation are repeatedly invoked to mediate the claims of the what is passing (the Back), is passing (the Present) and to come (the Front).I n Part II (The Invocation), the â€Å"water song† of an â€Å"assembly of mermaid† in linked with the â€Å"midwifes† that would officiate in the delivery of the Child-Front the brave new world beyond colonialism)?rubbing â€Å"gently down/the back† of the great mother past (â€Å"Back), symbolizing age-old traditions: O midwifes rub gently down the back of your Back while the sun play his play and the Back dance its dance and assembly of mermaids sing their bubbling water song beneath the river waves.And in Part Ill (The Child-Front), â€Å"the mermaids† are invoked to participate in the shaping of the future as cleansing agencies that must â€Å"carry†¦ On their songs† and embarrassing negatives of the pre-colonial past) rearing up its ugly head from a anatomically cherished past, in a situational irony reminiscent of Whole Saying's early ritual drama, Dance of the Forests (1960): Where are your Gods now Gods of the Back that have br ought forth this monster? Throw it away, throw it into the river and let the mermaids carry it on their songs.Throw it away to the Back and let the Back swallow it in its abyss And let the Gods remember their lives are in my hands In these lines, the â€Å"Gods of the Back (past) that have/brought forth this monster† (embarrassing negatives of Africans pre-colonial history) are reminded on he ‘Jog custom known as uremia, in which?as traumatized in â€Å"The Revolt of the Gods†?the fate of the gods, which are traditional in the hands of their worshippers, must be determined by humans in accordance with their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their providential conduct.In concluding, in Part IV (Birth Dance of the Child Front), the â€Å"songs of mermaids† are 5 given pride of place in finale of â€Å"our dance/ of the Front† (of the future), again stressing the primacy of the muse as an agency for shaping the future of a troubled land: Let's leave n our dance of the Front with rhythms of the Back and strengthen he fragile songs of the new with songs of mermaids Much later, in his mature post-war, political poetry set at the heart of the future envisioned in â€Å"The Fisherman's Invocation† and collected under the title The Dreamer, His Vision (2006), the mermaid reappears in â€Å"Mamma Water and Me† as the presiding lady of the poet's anguished cry for succor in the midst of the triumph of disorder (â€Å"embers.. Moldering†, â€Å"in memoriam ashes†, â€Å"flames I cannot temper†, â€Å"whirling vortex, helpless†) in post-civil war Nigeria: The embers are smoldering?once again? They've refused to die into in memoriam ashes. And have burst into flames I cannot temper. They draw into their whirling vortex, helpless? Mamma-water & me. There we stand, hand in hand, Like Starch and company, the faithful, Calmly waiting for the redeeming flames Then we shall step out with solemn steps To silence offended eyebrows and daggered tongues and walk on calm waters?still, serene?Free! Clinched by the refrain (â€Å"Mamma-water and me†), the poet expresses strong optimism that, by keeping faith (standing â€Å"hand in hand†) with his muse, â€Å"redeeming flames† that would effect â€Å"the cleansing† and â€Å"free us of earthly dross† would surely mom in the end.By contrast to â€Å"Mamma-water† (a supernatural being under whose divine shadow the poet appears helpless to offer anything but total devotion), Diamond and Pave are human objects of love to whom Okra, in his love lyrics, projects the archetype of the muse in an unconscious recognition of their place in his â€Å"inside† as his soul mates or psychic alter egos (representing, from the Jungian psychological perspective, his anima). The anima, for Jung, is one of the most powerful archetypes of the collective unconscious that participates in the all-important process of individuation. As med up in my essay on Skibob and Jung (Ozone, 1981: 37), â€Å"the anima is the primordial image of woman in a man, a counterpart of the animus, the primordial image of man engraved on the mind of a woman. The anima appears in dreams, visions and fantasies as in literature and myth in the form of a mother, a loved one, a goddess, a siren, a prostitute and an enchantress, or a femme fetal.The impact of these latent images of woman can be as destructive to the psychic health of the man who projects them as they can be beneficent. They often give rise to an obsessive pursuit of the elusive and the intractable. Because of their appearance in the mind of the poet in forms consistent with the well-established characteristics of the archetype of the anima, Diamond and Pave tend to feature in Okra's lyrics in patterns of relationships reminiscent of the kinds of poet-muse relationships described by Robert Graves in The White Goddess (1959) and exemplified in the life and poetry of Okra's contemporary, Christopher Skibob (1930-1967).As Skibob learned from his reading of Graves, and as parsed by Among (1972), â€Å"one phase in the relationship between the muse-poet and his goddess-woman is that in which the toe becomes more consciously aware of cruelty. † This lesson, also learnt by Okra and 6 embodied in the myth's of â€Å"The Mystic Drum,† â€Å"Diamond,† and â€Å"To Pave,† is writ large in the imagery and symbolism of Skibobs second sequence, Limits, especially Limits IV in which the beloved female figure metamorphoses into a ferocious lioness that gores the over-excited lover to death or, at any rate, tranquilizer him into an unconscious state from which he would awake to complete the writing of the poem at hand with a mature mind truly informed by experience: An image insists From flag pole of the heart;Her image distracts Oblong-headed lioness? No shield is proof against her? Wound me, O sea-weed Face, blinded like a strong-room? Distances of her armpit-fragrance Turn chloroform enough for my patience? When you have finished & done up my stitches, Wake me near the altar, & this poem will be finished†¦ (Limits ‘V, lines 71-84) Thus, as stated in The White Goddess, â€Å"Being in love does not and should not, blind the poet to the cruel side of woman's nature?and many muse-poems are written in helpless attestation of this by men whose love is not longer returned† (Graves, 1959: 91). As stated above, this archetypal pattern is amply reenacted in Okra's â€Å"To Pave,† â€Å"Diamond†, and â€Å"The Mystic Drum. In â€Å"To Pave,† the â€Å"fire† and â€Å"flames† of passion reduce everything between the lover and the beloved into â€Å"ashes†: And as before the fire smolders in water, continually smoldering beneath the ashes with things I dare not tell erupting from the hackneyed lore of the beginning. For they die in the telling. S o let them be. Let them smolder. Let them smolder in the living fire beneath the ashes. Through the infusion of the myth's of â€Å"the hackneyed lore / of the ginning† (evoking the sexual overtones of the relationship between Adam and Eve in â€Å"Den's farm,† as subtly recreated by Michael Cherub in his early lyric, â€Å"Sophia† (see Ozone, 2011) his personal story, Okra's â€Å"To Pave† is transformed into an archetypal tale of poet-muse relationship as predicted in Graves theory of poetry.Not surprisingly, in â€Å"Diamond,† the poet-spouse-and-lover presents itself as one in which the artist is possessed by the divine afflatus, theorized in his treatise, On the Sublime, as the primary source of inspiration for poets, by the Greek teacher f rhetoric and literary critic, Longings (ca. 1st or 3rd century AD). Akin to the notion of â€Å"spirit arrest,† in transatlantic African communities in the Caribbean and the Americas, the idea of the divine afflatus is common among the ‘Jog and elsewhere in Africa where artistic and professional creativity is often attributed to possession by a deity of madness and creativity such as Gaga (the patron of medicine-men), among the Gobo (See Mum, 2009).The speaker in â€Å"Diamond† is not only maddened by his love but clearly possessed by the ‘Jog congener of the Gobo deity of creative madness, Gaga: eke it's said a madman hears; I hear trees talking like it's said a medicine man hears. Like ABA, the hero of Herman Melville Mobs Dick, he is not Just maddened by his monomaniac complex (or neurotic fixation of on a single passion), he is indeed â€Å"madness maddened. † But Okra's wifeless is imbued with the kind of tortuous coyness that has provoked, in global amatory poetry, some of the most sublime evocations of the â€Å"cruelty of the rose† (in other words, the cruelty of the alluring object of love, as depicted in Skibobs Limits ‘V, quoted above). She is singularly unyielding: And I raised my hand? y trembling hand, gripping my heart as handkerchief and waved and waved-and waved but she turned her eyes away.The reader who turns to â€Å"The Mystic Drum† from â€Å"Diamond† and â€Å"To Pave† will immediately recognize the reification of the tension between the lover and the beloved as an extended metaphor for the exploration of something that lies in the pits of epistemology, already defined above as the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, in particular its foundations, scope, and validity. Far beyond the realms of the tremulous stirrings of the love-struck heart, the lyric takes us into he highest cerebral realms of abstruse philosophy. As the poet's muse, the beloved is not only the presiding lady of the poet's art but his link to the ultimate source all knowledge of reality?his link to the world beyond the quotidian, the wellspring of true knowledge of the essence of rea lity.From a deep structure analysis of the meaning of the poem, it seems evident that the epistemological underpinnings of â€Å"The Mystic Drum† go well beyond the culture wars of African postcolonial nationalist search for identity through such ideologies as Negritude, Pan Africans, the search or the African Personality, the African Renascent Movement, and the like. The deft modernist deployment of tropes in the poem is one that cuts across cultural and national boundaries, inviting comparison with systems of thought which Okra himself may not have ever even contemplated, including the statement from the Zen philosopher Aching Yen, with which the present commentary begins. There is, of course, no intention here to suggest that Okra was directly influenced by the oriental philosophy of Zen or that he was schooled under any Zen master.Although I have enjoyed close personal friendship with Okra since 1967 and have elsewhere remarked on the Zen mode of apperception in his poetr y (Ozone, 1991), it never occurred to me to ask him about any contact he may have had with Zen philosophy as I did not think that it was necessarily of any value to establish any such a contact, until my most recent interview with him at the University of Massachusetts, Boston (August, 2011). After listening attentively to my reading of Zen master. Aching Yuan's statement with which the present article begins, Okra readily agreed that it applies very well to his intention and the structure of the experience of the

Mcdonalds Operating Strategy Essay

Introduction McDonald?  ¦s, first started by Ray Krov, is now one of the most popular fast food restaurants across the world. They proudly serve more than 46 million customers in 59 different countries and have more than 30,000 different locations domestically and internationally (Food Service). The fast food industry is booming at a rapid rate, especially the healthy trend, with this in mind, McDonald?  ¦s has strategically plan to stay on top of their competitors by providing consumers with more options of healthy meals, cheaper prices, and better service. McDonald? ¦s is competitive in many categories; examples are price, quality, management and employee training, other categories will be explained throughout the preceding sections. Consumers trust McDonald?  ¦s products because they use many of the same trusted brands that families buy at local grocery stores. The only difference is that their shopping cart is a whole lot bigger. OPERATIONS COMPETITIVE STRATEGY McDonald?  ¦s Corporation competes in a challenging market segment by providing need-satisfying products to customers. In this segment, ineffective competitors often fail without proper strategies . To sustain its viability, the McDonald?  ¦s corporation employs an effective competitive strategy to make it stand out against competitors such as other fast food restaurants. McDonald?  ¦s competes on several bases, including cost, speed, and nutrition, their strongest priority is ?  §making customers happy (?  §McDonald?  ¦s Worldwide 3). The company recently made drastic changes to its process by introducing the ?  §Made for You system (Chase). Competition Bases Speed McDonald?  ¦s competes on several bases mainly to ?  §make their customers happyby providing speedy, affordable, and nutritious foods. Through extensive market research and survey, the organization discovered that its customers desire speed as one of the restaurants?  ¦ top priorities. Therefore, McDonald?  ¦s vision aims to ?  §provide fast, friendly and accurate service (?  §McDonald?  ¦s Worldwide 5). McDonald?  ¦s realizes that specific targets are necessary to measure the performance of speed, and continuously takes relevant measurements to compare actual performance with desired targets (measurements are detailed later in this report in the ?  §Quality Managementsection). To achieve efficient service times, the company utilizes proven, standardized training processes for its employees and new drive-thru layouts to reduce service times. Along with speed, McDonald?  ¦s also competes by offering prices at a low cost. Cost To offer high quality products at low cost, requires efficient processes throughout the entire McDonald?  ¦s organization. Once again, this goal is built into their vision statement when they claim that ?  §We will be the most efficient provider so that we can be the best value to the most people (?  §McDonald?  ¦s Worldwide 5). McDonald? ¦s incorporates several avenues to provide great value to its customers: ? XOne strategy that the company has employed for many years is the value meal. The value meal allows customers to buy a sandwich, french fries, and beverage at a discount when purchased together. McDonald?  ¦s restaurants offer from seven to twelve value meals, both for their lunch menu and breakfast menu. ?XMore recently, McDonald?  ¦s began offering a value menu, consisting of many individual items costing only $1. 00 each. First tested in southern California, the value menu has proved to be very successful and has been since incorporated to the individual stores .? Some individual franchise owners choose to offer daily specials of special menu items, such as ?  §$0. 39 hamburger Wednesdays, or other similar specials. Big Mac Mondays are a popular regional promotion. Nutrition McDonald?  ¦s third main competitive base is nutrition. The organization understands that health trend is an increasingly popular trend therefore; the organization has recently focused extraordinary efforts to promote their new nutritious choices. Although not specifically built into the organization?  ¦s vision, McDonald?  ¦s has already introduced many options to achieve this goal: ? In the United States, ?  §Go-Active meals have been offered within the last few years. These meals include a salad, bottled water, and a ?  §step-o-meter to help customers keep track of how many steps they take a day. ?XOther countries have seen similar healthy options. The United Kingdom saw fresh fruit bags, containing apples and grapes, as an alternative to french fries (?  §McDonald?  ¦s Worldwide 12). ?XNot only does McDonald?  ¦s care about its customers, but it is also considerate of its employees?  ¦ health. In Europe, the organization worked with external nutritionists to develop an ? Employee Guidebookwhich contains tips and nutrition information for healthy lifestyles (?  §McDonald?  ¦s Worldwide 13). ?XMcDonald?  ¦s has assembled their Global Advisory Council on Balanced Lifestyles. This council consists of exercise & obesity specialists, environmentalists, and other professionals to ensure that McDonald?  ¦s takes appropriate steps in helping its customers achieve optimal health. ?XThe company is also utilizing technology to their advantage. The current McDonald?  ¦s website lets a user select any combination of menu items, place the items in the online bag, and conduct a nutritional analysis on their selections. The user can break down the analysis even further than a menu item, down individual condiments, including ketchup, pickles, etc. (?  §Bag a McMeal ). Not only has the company introduced many steps to ensure nutrition, but it will strive to continue the trend toward nutrition. McDonald?  ¦s plans to: add additional healthy menu options (fruits and vegetables); increase nutrition awareness among McDonald?  ¦s employees; conceive new ways to deliver nutrition information to its customers, and other actions (?  §McDonald?  ¦s Worldwide 13). Strongest Priority ? §At McDonald? ¦s, making customers happy is what our business is all about. And we know it takes a lot to make that happen. We work hard to provide every customer with a choice of meals and an experience that exceeds their expectations. The preceding statement is the quote which introduces McDonald?  ¦s Worldwide Corporate Social Responsibility Report (2004). Although the company strives to compete on several bases, their ambient goal is customer satisfactions. They reach this goal through a variety of efforts. McDonald?  ¦s visionary goal is to continually improve their organization. One example is the manager on duty task of completing a ?  §travel path every thirty minutes of his shift. During a travel path, the manager personally checks every aspect of the restaurant, including: the lobby area where customers eat; the restrooms; the grill area behind the counter; the walk-in refrigerators and freezers; the stock area; as well as the entire perimeter outside the restaurant (Phillips, Eddie). Through completing travel paths, management continuously checks every aspect of the restaurant throughout the day. In addition to short term continual improvement, McDonald?  ¦s organization also thinks ahead for long term improvement. To ensure that they serve 100% safe food, McDonald?  ¦s conducts food safety tests multiple times throughout the day. The corporation changes ?  §Food Safety book used by the managers several times a year, in efforts to think toward the future for the most appropriate variables to measure (food safety will be further illustrated in the ?  §Quality Management section). Along with internal improvement to the organization, McDonald?  ¦s also collects external information from its customers to discover which aspects the company performs well, and which aspects could be improved. The manager is supposed to talk to at least one customer during each travel path and the manager can immediately react to this direct face-to-face communication. On a larger scale, McDonald surveys its customers two times per year. To entice customers to submit feedback, the organization offers a free sandwich in return for a completed survey (Phillips, Kenny). In summary, McDonald?  ¦s strives to reach its goal of ?  §making customers happy through their normal competitive bases of speed, price, and nutrition, and they also ensure customer satisfaction through continual improvement of their operations. Strategy Changes Made for You McDonald?  ¦s organization recently underwent drastic strategy changes to better serve their customers. Under their ?  §old system, the company would make several sandwiches at once, and hold the sandwiches in a warming bin until purchased by a customer. Under this system, management had to precisely predict how much food had to be put on hold. Precise prediction had to be used because if there were not enough food placed on hold, this would create the problem of increase waiting times for customers, and too much food would cause waste of expired items. McDonald?  ¦s dramatically changed their strategy in order to stay competitive with other fast food organizations. In 1999, McDonald?  ¦s spent $181 million to introduce their ?  §Made for You system (Chase). Under this new system, standard food items are not held in a bin until they are sold. In the ?  §Made for You system, modern technology greatly assists McDonald?  ¦s operations. When a customer places an order, the sandwich items are immediately displayed on a computer monitor in the kitchen and a tone sounds to alert the kitchen staff. Upon a new order, an employee in the kitchen will toast the bun, and assemble the sandwich accordingly. Standard items simply list the name of the sandwich, while customized orders list the sandwich name and the desired condiments. Once the sandwich is assembled, it is presented to the food loading area, where a different staff person retrieves the sandwich and completes the order by adding french fries, desserts, etc. The system works the same for front counter orders as well as drive-thru orders (Phillips, Kenny). Unfortunately, the introduction of the ? Made for Yousystem did not come easily. McDonald?  ¦s watched its customer satisfaction drop for the three consecutive years beginning in 1999 (Chase). After further research, they realized that although the new system provided fresher food, it was not as quick as the previous system. Instead of reverting back to the old system, McDonald?  ¦s continues to fine tune ?  §Made for You and add new options to help the system work faster. Revitalization Plan In order to cope with the first ever quarterly loss that resulted from inefficient use of the Made for You system (Chase), McDonald? ¦s has devised a new plan to increase profits. Previously, the corporation emphasized adding more restaurants to increase sales, but the new plan places emphasis on increasing sales at existing restaurants. The new plan will reduce spending, to enable more cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases (Cantalupo). Specific goals of the revitalization plan are to: ? XAttract new customers ?XEncourage existing customers to visit more often ?XBuild brand loyalty ?XCreate enduring profitable growth The main goal is to increase sales by creating an exceptional customer experience. McDonald?  ¦s plans to achieve this goal by focusing on its people, products, places, prices, and promotions. Menu Along with changes in their process strategies, McDonald?  ¦s has flirted with menu changes as well. Last year, they offered a ?  §new taste menu, where they offered a new sandwich for one week. The purpose was to offer customers a variety of options to satisfy peoples?  ¦ desire for variety. However, the new taste menu proved to be ineffective. Some customers would fall in love with an item, but it would only last one week, and they would be frustrated that they couldn? ¦t purchase their new beloved favorite sandwich. More recent changes to the menu have proved effective. McDonald?  ¦s realized that many of today?  ¦s customers seek healthy food options, and the corporation has offered items accordingly. As mentioned under ?  §Competition Bases, McDonald?  ¦s now offers a wider variety of nutritious items and provides information to help its customers as well as employees make informed healthy choices. QUALITY MANAGEMENT McDonald?  ¦s Corporation incorporates many quality management factors in its business process. Some of the most important plans undertaken to ensure quality include speed measurements, the five P?  ¦s (People, Product, Price, Place, and Promotion), employee training, and other factors. Speed One of the major quality management control factors includes minimizing the time that processes are done; this ensures an effective and efficient operations. A lot of these processes are done through the use of the latest information technology, whether it was through calculating the time of the processes or even making a database to value and make improvement to their processes. For example, one measurement is called Total Time in Line (TTL) which calculates the total time customers spend in the McDonald?  ¦s line, from the time the customer begins ordering until the time they get their food. TTL measurements are calculated the same way, the target TTL differs because of the service provided through the drive through or inside the restaurant. McDonald?  ¦s considers the fact that drive through customers usually expects their order faster and therefore, the drive through target TTL is 90 seconds. The target is slightly higher for the in-the-store customers because of the extra time they are willing to spend in the store (Phillips, Eddie). Along with measuring TTLs, other programs are utilized to make the speed of the service more efficient. The ?  §Made For You system uses the Kitchen-Video-System (KVS) to support fulfilling speedy orders. The Made for You system allows the order taker to enter or delete the orders on a touch screen that lists sandwiches, as well as individual condiments, in a way that eases the data entry process for the worker. As soon as any food is ordered, from any register, the necessary food items are displayed on a computer monitor in the kitchen. The kitchen staff immediately begins to prepare the food, and then erases the orders from the screen as the food is finished. Similar to TTLs, the time is measured between when an item is first displayed on the monitor, to the time when it is served. McDonalds continuously monitors these kitchen times in order to ensure that the Made for You system is working as efficiently as planned (Phillips, Eddie). Technology not only measures performance values within the organization, but it also assists in the drive through area. When a drive through worker is taking an order, it is displayed automatically on a screen available to the customer outside, called the Customer Order Display (COD). The customer can review the COD and correct any mistakes, thus making the ordering process more precise. More precise orders eliminate time wasted from correcting mistakes (Phillips, Kenny). Maintaining the speed and accuracy of the processes in McDonald?  ¦s is also done through less technological techniques. McDonald?  ¦s uses different colored packages to help the employee recognize the different types of food; colored wrapped sandwiches makes it easier to distinguish what is wrapped beneath. For example, a cheese burger is wrapped in yellow colored paper and a fish fillet is wrapped in blue, while a hamburger is wrapped in white paper. Special ordered sandwiches without standard condiments come in red and white paper, with a paper receipt attached which details the items on the sandwich (Phillips, Eddie). Quality Inspections Food safety is one of McDonald?  ¦s top priorities. Every restaurant is required to check food temperatures, expiration dates, and other food safety hazards several times throughout each day of operation. The corporation sends a standardized Food Safety book to every store which includes a comprehensive list of every item that needs to be measured. Cooked food temperatures are measured to ensure that all food is cooked properly before served. Refrigerated and frozen foods are also checked to make certain that they do not get too warm and are not spoiled. Expiration dates are checked on foods frequently, if the item is expired than it is discarded. Equipment is also measured to ensure that it is functioning properly. Also included in the safety checks is the water temperature in the restroom sinks, workers must be caution because water that is too hot can burn customers. Food safety checks are performed throughout the day, often during one of the manager?  ¦s many travel paths, which were described earlier in this report under ?  §Competitive Strategy (Phillips, Eddie). Periodic corporate inspections are one of the major quality management controls at McDonald?  ¦s. The McDonald?  ¦s Corporation applies two major inspections on each restaurant per year. One is called Field Operations Review (FOR), and the second is called System Observation Review (SOR). Since the inspections are made periodically, restaurants have two opportunities to pass the test. If the store fails to pass the inspection the second time, corporate takes over the store and brings in better employees to ensure that the proper processes and equipment is being used properly. Both inspections are extraordinarily thorough and they are based on a point system, points can be taken off for many different reasons. For example, points can be reduced if the credit card system is too slow, the store? ¦s walls have cracks, or even if the restaurant performs processes that slows the serving time. Points will also be lost if employees are not dressed according to regulations, this includes wearing name tags (Phillips, Kenny). Mcdonald?  ¦s must also provide a food safety log of recorded entries to ensure that proper food testing is completed properly (Phillips, Eddie). The Five P?  ¦s Even though many of the quality management processes in McDonald?  ¦s are done through the use of information technology, other quality management factors such as maintaining the five P? ¦s forces (People, Product, Price, Place, and Promotion) are essential in any business. Consequently, McDonald?  ¦s Corporation uses these related forces in the sense that each P creates a chain affect on each other. The following is a list of methods using the P forces. The first force is the people working in the McDonald?  ¦s chains, which are represented by service, hospitality, and pride. The staff employed in McDonald?  ¦s are continuously trained and kept in the company to reduce the cost of training short-term inexperienced workers. Moreover, the training process has been improved to include online e-learning tools for the restaurant staff. Maintaining the workers in the company is very important to McDonald?  ¦s and the corporation rewards workers who do outstanding services. This form of incentive is motivational to the workers (Cantalupo 4). The second force is the products which include the quality, taste, and price of the goods sold. McDonald?  ¦s is trying to establish flexibility with the changing tastes and preferences in the market, Moreover, they are also seeing growing interest in premium product and wholesome food choices. The quality and safety of the food is a main entity in maintaining the quality of the food at McDonald?  ¦s (Cantalupo 4). The third force is place which is represented by the clean, relevant, and modern store environments. Whether it was in the main restaurant area, the kitchen, or even the restrooms, the company ensures the safety and comfort for the consumers and staff workers. The company intends on having the gold standards for cleanliness (Cantalupo 5). The fourth factor is price, which is presented in the productivity and value. The value of the product is increased when consumers gets high quality products for lower costs. Therefore, McDonald?  ¦s Corporation ensures that its customers receive the highest value of food for the price they pay (Cantalupo 5). The fifth factor is promotion which is presented in marketing, leadership, and trust. The company has already earned its reputation for good quality food so they just focus on customers cares. They do this through community involvement and their social responsible towards the environment. This process will gain the trust of loyal customers and keep them for life (Cantalupo 5). Training McDonald?  ¦s realizes that its employees must understand their duties in order to fulfill the organization? ¦s goals. To ensure that all employees properly perform their assigned duties, McDonald?  ¦s invests greatly in their training program. The company continues to receive prestigious awards for their leading-edge training, including the ?  §Employer of Choice Award from the Restaurant Business Magazine (?  §Restaurant Management ). New crew members go through a thorough orientation process consisting of several videos, followed by several days of direct one-on-one training by a trainer. After employees feel comfortable with the operations, they may be promoted to Crew Trainers. Crew Trainers undergo further training for specialized processes such as the grill area, front counter, drive-thru, and other areas. Shift supervisors are the next step in the organization, followed by Second Assistant Managers, followed by First Assistant Manager, and the top manager at each McDonald?  ¦s restaurant is the Restaurant Manager (Phillips, Eddie). Training never stops at McDonald?  ¦s, no matter which position an employee holds. Some current employees describe McDonald?  ¦s as the ?  §best training company in the world (Phillips, Kenny). To improve the Made for You system, McDonald? ¦s recently introduced a strategy called ?  §Shift into Overdrive,?  ¦ and this strategy focuses on helping shift managers work more efficiently. All McDonald?  ¦s restaurants are required to send at least one manager to participate in the new training program (Phillips, Kenny). This training mainly focuses on the human aspects of Made for You, this ensures that the system is being used as design. Since the new system requires seamless work from several people, the entire team must work together for the system to work quickly to provide food to customers. Finally, to ensure the quality of the operations, McDonald? ¦s does surveys periodically to get feedbacks from customers (Phillips, Eddie). As shown throughout this section, the McDonald?  ¦s Corporation has been doing a very good job at keeping the quality of its products and services, whether it was through using computerized equipment or to train their human resources. RAW MATERIALS The Arrival & Maintenance Through the intense process of choosing and manufacturing raw materials, McDonald?  ¦s customers can be assured of a quality product. Whether arriving via truck or train, raw materials are delivered fresh and ready to use everyday. To ensure that this freshness is passed onto the customer, each arriving package is personally inspected for damage during its travel. In addition, the condition of delivery trucks are also taken into account to make sure that meat was untainted due to a filthy meat cooler. The meat cooler should always be set at 10 degrees below zero and the meat should remain at a constant temperature of 34 to 38 degrees. While some inspections are known, others are random to ensure that quality is consistent from one delivery to the next. The promise of high quality for McDonald?  ¦s raw materials does not cease to end at the delivery trucks. Inside the restaurant, the temperatures of freezers and refrigerators are recorded twice a day to guarantee the highest grade of ingredient usage. These temperatures are recorded in a book which is required to stay on premise for 60 days. After such time span, the book is moved to a local record storage where all previous data information is held. Grade ?  §A Beef and Other Meats All beef cooked at McDonald?  ¦s is of Grade ?  §A quality and 80%-82% lean. McDonald?  ¦s not only supports humane slaughtering of animals and refuses to purchase dairy cows over 5 year old due to the toughness of their meat. Upon the arrival of meat, received from Otto & Sons, Inc. in Chicago, a two hour supply is taken directly to the grill side freezers which stand at a constant temperature of 0 degrees. Once placed on the grill, the meat is cooked at a specific temperature to assure the meat holds the proper internal temperature to meet the requirements of food safety and yet hot enough to hold its natural juices. Cooked hamburger patties and other meat products are stored in a humidity controlled cabinet until usage to ensure that patties remain hot and moist. The preparation time of a hamburger should not take longer than 90 seconds and only 35 seconds after the hamburger bun itself has been toasted. This allows each customer to receive his/her meal in the timeliest fashion. Produce It is a known fact that agronomists can spend up to two years assisting a farmer grow perfect russet potatoes, 6-inches long, that produces a finished fry which is appealing both in looks and taste. In addition many produce items, lettuce for example, have specifications that are two pages long. With this many guidelines in place, McDonald? ¦s can guarantee that they are delivering to their customer the best ingredients possible. The produce delivered from Condie?  ¦s in Salt Lake City to the Evans and Colorado McDonald?  ¦s restaurant arrives via railroad to ensure that freshness is maintained. Upon inspection, should any produce not meet the correct internal temperature, the refrigerator is either immediately altered or the items are discarded. Restaurant Inspection Since McDonald?  ¦s believes so strongly in high quality products, Licensees are expected to obtain their desired product needs directly from suppliers rather than the McDonald? ¦s Corporation. While this ensures that the best raw materials are purchased at a reasonable price, it often leaves the McDonald?  ¦s Corporation ?  §in the dark concerning the safety precautions and procedures of franchised restaurants. As a result, the McDonald?  ¦s Corporation makes both announced and unannounced visits to international McDonald?  ¦s restaurants to ensure that proper procedures are being followed. With each visit, the restaurant being inspected is graded on their proficiency and performance. Based on this grade, the corporation will determine eligibility for growth of new franchise locations. In addition, the failure to meet requirements can result in a default in your franchise agreement for the following term. FORECASTING Aspects of Forecasting McDonald?  ¦s has a continual means of receiving information from customers, employees, and the industry that effects short, medium, and long term decision making and forecasting. Different kinds of information are received from all levels of the corporation and are used to learn more about the market movement and advertisement structure, to basic everyday processes in production and packaging of goods for the targeted markets. Forecasting is done in large by the corporation, as part of their responsibility to the franchisee?  ¦s and McDonald?  ¦s shareholders. Through our interview with the owner, we learned a lot about the basics of McDonald?  ¦s business and hierarchy; we were not able to get more in-depth information that is used for their budgeting, marketing, advertising, forecasting, and innovations of new products to come because it contains confidential contents. This is due to the scrutiny from people looking for flaws, bad business conduct, and other degrading allocations of McDonald? ¦s. Everything that was recorded was cleared at the corporate level. Forecasts are vital to McDonald?  ¦s organization and significant management decisions. Forecasts provide the basis for budgetary planning, cost control, planning new products, process selection, capacity planning, and facility layout. Typically, McDonald?  ¦s uses a qualitative type of forecasting. The main information used in forecasting the stability and future growth of the corporation is by the number of customers going in and out the door and all voiced opinions. There are different medians of communication for customer to relay there ideas, opinions, concerns, and problems they have with McDonald?  ¦s. At the particular location, a customer has employees, managers, and owners to voice what?  ¦s on their mind and how they like what?  ¦s going on in the restaurant. Often, McDonald?  ¦s managers and owners use open ended questions to allow customers to expand on what they want to talk about. McDonald?  ¦s nationally offers an 800 number for customers to use when the corporation has fallen short of their expectations or when a location makes a mistake with their order. Internationally, McDonald?  ¦s has a website that is not only interactive and informative throughout the 59 nations they supply to, but is a place for customers to voice their opinions and complaints. And as an owner of the McDonald?  ¦s on the intersection of Evans Avenue and Colorado Boulevard, Ronald Lessnau exclaimed, ?  §We listen! At the corporate level, qualitative forecasting can be seen, even with limited information that was given. Market research department takes data from talking with customers to find out how they like or feel about a particular ad campaign or a specific commercial. And product development department uses input on developing a new product or changing how the new product is prepared, priced, or packaged. McDonald?  ¦s has been extremely accurate in forecasting trends or needs the customers want and request. Mr. Lessnau states, ?  §McDonald?  ¦s, in the past has helped customers deal with their changing lifestyles. An example of this is when the Egg McMuffin, the first hand held breakfast sandwich by Herb Peterson, was introduced for the first time. ? §It took 10 years for breakfast to be successful at McDonald?  ¦s and now McDonald?  ¦s cracks more farm fresh, grade ?  §A eggs daily than the largest institution in the United States, the US Military. As consumers, it is known that McDonald?  ¦s has gone through a lot and where not always correct in projections influenced by the greatest number of customers. Even with using a qualitative forecast, the future is not always so clear so see. 12 years ago, due to the strong focus group surveys responses to healthier products put into motion the making of McLean Burger. McDonald developed and marketed the McLean Burger. It had 7% fat and was the best low fat burger on the market, costing 53 cents a pound more then the normal beef. It did not sell! Customers later decided that the product was too expensive and did not taste as good as its?  ¦ fatty brother. And maybe decisions that are based on the idea that the history of occurrences over time can be used to predict the future, time series forecasting, can explain why McDonald?  ¦s is slow to react to the Atkins Diet trends. Ronald Lessnau also gave examples of when qualitative forecasting influences how he fixes errors of the passed business decisions at his establishment. Decisions he has made have been based on estimates and opinion from surveys, interviews, history of products, and questionnaires. That particular McDonald?  ¦s has extended their hours as a result of many comments. Also, years ago they reduced some of the seasoning in the chicken products in a test market, and based on interviews and focus groups they went back to the original product and did not take the change national. He also described that in Denver, Colorado locations went back to the 99-cent double cheese burgers years ago because of feedback they received in focus groups that were conducted as part of their normal market research. As Lessnau explained, ?  §Sometimes you can prevent a good idea from going bad by talking to those closest to the customer, your sales people. The data collected for these long terms and every day business decisions were from employees as well as customers. SUPPLY CHAIN Examination of Supply Chain. Food quality is the key at McDonald’s restaurant. That?  ¦s why they take pride in the foods they serve to their customers. They seek out fresh lettuce and tomatoes, quality buns and potatoes, pure ground beef, select poultry and fish and wholesome dairy products. McDonald?  ¦s ensures that their products are guaranteed to be the best quality before serving to their customers. McDonald?  ¦s has many suppliers in which each supplier plays a vital role in providing McDonald?  ¦s with their products. First, McDonald?  ¦s receives its raw.

My Personal Growth. This Reflection Paper Will Examine

My Personal Growth This reflection paper will examine my personal growth in this class and planned changes for the near future. This paper will be based on some of the topics discussed in class because I found them most helpful, relevant and educational than the others. These topics are Mindfulness, Emerging Adulthood, Communication, Emotional IQ and Your Purpose/Meaning of Life. From this class, I learned the importance of mindfulness, the aspects of effective interpersonal communication, how to improve my personal emotional IQ and how to contribute to find my purpose or meaning in life. â€Å"Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally† (Kabat-Zinn 16). The first time I heard†¦show more content†¦Sometimes I found disorientation and confusion about my career choices, personal life and establishing independence. This happens to me and many other people in their twenties because we have little experience at making crucial life decisions and we need to accept more responsibility than before on deciding what to do, where to go and who to be. I discover that this is a time of trial, error and premature resolutions and it’s fine to make bad decisions because with all the experience gained during this period, I will growth personally and emotionally, be more responsible and have a more advantageous and well-defined plan. With all the information absorbed in this section, I have decided that I will always to keep my goals like crystal clear and know very well my values and beliefs. Als o, I’m planning to keep the uncertainty and instability out of my life in order to be a more firm or strong-minded person and always do something that I enjoy and love. From my previous knowledge, I know that a good communication is very important to make connections with another person, but in this class I have acquired a larger perspective about what are the most important aspects and problems in human communication. Communication consist at least of two persons, the sender and the receiver. It’s very critical to know whether we send the right message to others. I consider myself a poor receiver because sometimes IShow MoreRelatedThe Changes That I Experienced While Being in the University of Phoenix1561 Words   |  6 PagesSenior year Introduction This paper will highlighted my personal beliefs that I had before I started at the University of Phoenix. Hence, the paper will be an evolutionary analysis of the changes that have taken place in my beliefs thus my personality after I joined the university. By the help of compilation of this paper, I will be able to learn and document the changes that have taken place in my personality. 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