Babbitt Essay Research Paper BabbittIf one were free essay sample

Babbitt Essay, Research Paper BabbittIf one were to look at the words of any modern lexicon they would happen amongst them the word Babbitt. If one were to peek, nevertheless at a lexicon from the early portion of this century, the word Babbitt would non look. The word Babbitt means # 8220 ; a ego satisfied individual who conforms readily to conventional in-between category thoughts and ideals, particularly of concern and stuff success # 8221 ; ( Websters New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 106 ) . The word Babbitt, and its subsequent significance, comes from the 1922 novel by Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt. It is a novel which shows a transverse subdivision of American middle category life through the eyes of the ultimate conformist, George F. Babbitt. By turning Babbitt # 8217 ; s name into a noun # 8220 ; a name has been given to that which people recognize as true to their experience of life, but which they hadn # 8217 ; t realized in any tangible manner before # 8221 ; ( Love 12 ) . We will write a custom essay sample on Babbitt Essay Research Paper BabbittIf one were or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Just analysing Babbitt himself nevertheless, is non plenty if one wishes to truly acknowledge the beauty of Lewis # 8217 ; s work. One must dig deeper, under the surface, beyond Babbitt # 8217 ; s personality, to bring out the methods, and the grounds behind Lewis # 8217 ; s # 8220 ; madness # 8221 ; . What must be explored in Lewis # 8217 ; s work is, why was Babbitt created the manner he was, and why has he go such a paradigm of American middle category life? To truthfully, and accurately reply these inquiries one must cognize who George F. Babbitt was, who Sinclair Lewis was, the historical context of the 1920 # 8217 ; s, and most significantly what Lewis wanted out of Babbitt. George F. Babbitt is a adult male without an individuality. His # 8220 ; individualism # 8221 ; has been imposed on him by a universe of other things. # 8220 ; Just as he was an Elk, a Booster, and a member of the chamber of commercialism, merely as the priests of the Presbyterian Church determin ed his every spiritual belief and the Senators who controlled the Republican party decided in small smoky suites in Washington what he should believe about disarming, duty, and Germany, so did the big national advertizers fix the surface of his life, repair what he believed to be his individualism # 8221 ; ( 30 ) . Babbitt is a adult male who does everything based on how it will look to others. He urgently wants his boy, Theodore Roosevelt Babbitt, to go to a existent university, even though he himself confesses to hold learned nil utile at college. Babbitt wants his boy to travel to college for all the incorrect grounds, he wants to be given the prestigiousness of holding a boy in a all right State establishment ( Love 53 ) . He will make anything for his boy, every bit long as he is given proper recognition ( 219 ) . Babbitt lends much of his clip and energy to the Sunday school at the Church. This, nevertheless does non come about because of Babbitt # 8217 ; s selfless nature, instead he wants the # 8220 ; congratulations and good reputation # 8221 ; that comes with being involved in the church ( 219 ) . Babbitt # 8217 ; s main features are # 8220 ; shouting backslapping and self witting maleness # 8221 ; ( Light 77 ) . Babbitt feels that he must prosecute in such infantile manoeuvres so that everyone is assured of his # 8220 ; ginger, clout, vision, hearty Americanism # 8221 ; ( Schorer 327 ) . Babbitt # 8217 ; s chief end is power, anyhow he can acquire to it. He does non desire to be the mean in-between category adult male, he wants to be like the bank president ( and his close friend ) William Washington Eathorne. He wants to be # 8220 ; pleasurably, strictly, in cold blood powerful # 8221 ; ( 218 ) . For Babbitt concern represents the exclusive intent of life. # 8220 ; At his in-between category degree concern non merely thrives but it is the main cultural characteristic # 8221 ; ( Schorer 327 ) . Babbitt sees his life as the new moving r idge of America. To Babbitt the in-between category man of affairs is taking over the state. He sees himself as something of a romantic hero ( Light 74 ) . # 8220 ; The romantic hero was no longer the knight, the roving poet, the cowboy, the aeronaut, nor the brave immature territory lawyer, but instead the great gross revenues director # 8221 ; ( 143 ) . Babbitt, nevertheless is neither a hero, nor a sentimentalist. He lives in a closed universe, like his ain small snake pit ( Schorer 333 ) . His house is everything a house in the in-between category Floral Heights should be. # 8221 ; The sleeping room a modest and pleasant colour strategy, after one of the best criterions designs of the interior designer who did the insides for most of the bad builders # 8217 ; houses in Zenith [ Babbitt s darling town ] # 8230 ; there was a dressing tabular array of solid Ag and a standard bedside book with coloured illustrations-what peculiar book it was can non be ascertained, since no 1 h ad of all time opened it. The Mattresses were exultant modern mattresses which had cost a great trade of money. It was a chef-doeuvre among sleeping rooms, right out of the Cheerful Modern Houses for Medium Incomes. Merely it had nil to make with the Babbitt # 8217 ; s nor with any one else. If people had of all time lived and loved here, read thrillers at midnight, and lain in beautiful laziness on a Sunday forenoon there were no marks of it. It had the air of being a really good room in a really good hotel. Every 2nd house in Floral Heights had a sleeping room exactly like this one # 8221 ; ( 16 ) . Babbitt is a simple conformist. Platitudes needfully come along with a conformist, and Babbitt # 8217 ; s pick of words is no exclusion. # 8221 ; Clich s are the lone words a Babbitt type daring to utilize to show their emotions. Their misinterpretation of emotion is what makes them amusing, monstrous and unsafe # 8221 ; ( Light 78 ) . He can non even cover with his girl # 8217 ; s wish to make societal philanthropic work, without ptyalizing out clich after clich from the # 8220 ; cuneuss of socialism # 8221 ; , to # 8220 ; Now look you here! # 8221 ; ( Light 17 ) . Babbitt is ever looking for the failings of his friends ( Love 20 ) . This comes from his demand to be the best of his clump, before he moves on to a more sophisticated crowd. Babbitt really evaluates people # 8220 ; by tabling their ownerships # 8221 ; ( Light 76 ) . When Babbitt is able to blend with the upper category it becomes his compulsion, and as he retells the narratives of his jaunts his relationships with the rich become more profound. For illustration, when Sir Gerald Doake of Manchester was in Zenith he barely noticed Babbitt # 8217 ; s being. On a alone concern trip to Chicago, nevertheless Doake opted to interrupt the humdrum, and he got intoxicated with Babbitt, one could name it a one dark base. To Babbitt, nevertheless a life long friendly relationship had begun. Babbitt pictured himself, by opportunity, knocking into the Mcelvey, his college buddy who had moved up in the universe. Babbitt fantasized of stating Mcelvey. # 8221 ; I had a just clip in Chicago, ran around with Sir Gerald Doake a batch # 8230 ; Jerry # 8217 ; s an old friend of mine-the married woman and I are believing of running over to England to remain with Jerry in his palace, following twelvemonth # 8221 ; ( 248 ) . Babbitt lived for such brushs where he could demo up his friends, particularly comfortable 1s like Mcelvey. # 8220 ; Babbitt was virtuous the manner society said he should be # 8221 ; ( Love 48 ) . # 8220 ; He advocated, though he did non pattern, the prohibition of intoxicant ; he praised, though he did non obey, the Torahs against motor hurrying ; he paid his debts ; he contributed to the church the Red Cross and the YMCA ; he followed the usage of his kin and cheated merely as it was sanctified by case in point # 8221 ; ( 41 ) . Along these same lines Babbi tt was non unreasonably honest. In one subdivision he gives a joging address on the virtuousnesss of honestness, throwing out clich after clich. Yet in the following breath he swindles a hapless tradesman out of 1000s of dollars. His moral codification is derived from The Puritan concern ethic # 8220 ; which encourages matter-of-fact determinations which so fatigue the scruples # 8221 ; ( Light 82 ) . long wth the tensenesss Babbitt feels to do big amounts of money, he besides feels the tensenesss of societal mounting. Babbitt along with his other metropolitan in-between category friends would wish to come in the societal category of the rich ( Light 82 ) . Babbitt besides feels matrimonial tensenesss as he desires many other adult females, yet he could neer # 8221 ; hazard reputability # 8221 ; by rip offing on Myra. This prospective loss of reputability is the exclusive ground for his continued fidelity to his married woman ( Light 82 ) . This is a perfect illustration of how Babbitt # 8217 ; s ethical motives work. He does non make up ones mind for himself whether things are right, or incorrect, instead he acts based on what society expects from him. Bbbitt speaks of ruddy blooded household oriented America. A topographic point where the # 8220 ; ideal citizen is busier than a bird Canis familiaris at his profession # 8230 ; so he lights up a good cigar and shoots out place to be with the household # 8230 ; Then he goes merrily to bed his scruples clear, holding contributed his touch to the prosperity of the metropolis and to his ain bank history # 8221 ; ( 181-2 ) . # 8220 ; Yet in world Babbitt sleeps fitfully and dreams of flight and rebellion # 8221 ; ( Light 83 ) . Babbitt has neer done anything to do himself, instead than society, happy ( Schorer 329 ) . # 8221 ; He is comfortable but disquieted desiring passionately to prehend something more than motor autos and a house before it is excessively late # 8221 ; ( Light 77 ) . Babbitt can no n further a true temperament because he does non cognize what individualism is. He dreams ever of a faery kid, # 8220 ; a life with a small commotion of love affair and hazard # 8221 ; ( Love 48 ) . The faery kid is neer described nevertheless, because he does non cognize what this commotion of love affair, and peril mean. The faery kid is non needfully a adult female, although Babbitt originally assumes that it is. Babbitt # 8217 ; s discontentedness with life shows us his interior motives and desires. A simple glimpse at Babbitt # 8217 ; s forenoon modus operandi shows merely how fast his defeat is mounting. His forenoon begins with his # 8220 ; crossness about the moisture towels in the bathroom, and the small balls of toast, and the socialist menace and his rebellious and bickering kids. Soon so early in the twenty-four hours we hear the great explosion of weariness: Oh Godhead sometimes I # 8217 ; vitamin Ds like to discontinue the hole game. And the office concern and it em merely as bad. And I act so damn cranky and I don # 8217 ; t intend to, but I get so darned tired ( Light 81 ) . Conformity can be really palling. Even through the morass of conformance, which Babbitt represents there is a surprise. Babbitt is able to interrupt away from the standardised being, merely a small, when the clip comes ( Light 77 ) . # 8220 ; What Babbitt feels and thinks is what it is presently proper to experience and believe. Merely one time during the two old ages that we have him under position, does he venture upon an thought that is even remotely original # 8211 ; and that clip [ Babbitt s effort to liberalise himself ] the unorthodoxy about ruins him. The lesson you may be certain is non lost upon him. No idea will of all time acquire a lodgement in his head, even in the wildest crazes following moonshine gin, that will offer discourtesy to the primnesss of Vergil Gunch, President of the Boosters nine, or to those of old Mr. Eathorne, president of the First State Bank # 8230 ; Babbitt has been rolled through the factory. He emerges the really theoretical account and form of a forward looking, right believing Americano # 8221 ; ( Mencken 22 ) . The immoralities of society, with all of its equal force per unit areas did non let Babbitt to alter his ways. Babbitt # 8217 ; s destiny seems to state that under present conditions nil will of all time be achieved. Babbitt did trail the faery kid. He tried to hold a stable loving relationship with another adult female and, on the other extreme, he went wild and slept with as many adult females as he perchance could. However, # 8220 ; it is Babbitt # 8217 ; s destine itself, an dry acknowledgment that all his longings and aspirations and efforts to get away hold gone for naught # 8221 ; , which shows us who Babbitt truly became. Babbitt # 8217 ; s destiny is # 8220 ; a decision in which nil is concluded # 8221 ; ( Love 50 ) . At the terminal of the novel the world of his married woman # 8217 ; s appendectomy breaks his phantasy, but non all is lost. Babbitt knows that he will ever be a conformist, but he now knows that he has a opportunity to interrupt the rhythm with his boy. He can give his boy a opportunity to catch the # 8220 ; fairy child # 8221 ; . It seems as if the anti # 8211 ; Babbitt is talking in the last lines of the novel when he says to his boy # 8221 ; Take your mill occupation if you want to. Don # 8217 ; t be scared of the household. No, nor all of Zenith. Nor of yourself, the manner I # 8217 ; ve been. Go in front, old adult male! The universe is yours! # 8221 ; ( 326 ) . Babbitt is so wondrous alive that you can # 8217 ; t maintain your eyes off him ( Love 18 ) . To seek and understand how, and why Sinclair Lewis created a character the likes of Babbitt 1 must understand Sinclair Lewis himself, with all his elaboratenesss. Lewis lived in the metropolis but yearned for the simplenesss of the countryside, much like Babbitt ( Love 11 ) . Lewis was ever fighting for the natural rights of adult male to be bestowed on everyone, a rareness in the large metropolis. In some of Lewis # 8217 ; s old plants, before Babbitt, he championed these rights before the American populace. For illustration in The Job Lewis portrayed a female character, Una Goldin, seeking to happen an classless profession. In Main Street Carol Kennicot spends her life seeking for the rights which she feels that she, as a human being, deserves ( Love 8 ) . There are certain inalienable rights, which apply to all people, which Lewis felt society was non allowing. Lewis was a adult male of many passions. Among them # 8220 ; were wit, and workmanship, but above all a poetic passion for his state # 8221 ; ( West 23 ) . Lewis was a adult male who as a popular ironist defied his times. # 8220 ; while our greatest amusing author, Mark Twain, was capable of shriveling sarcasm, he was neer loved for it in his ain times, nor in ours for that affair. Much of Twain # 8217 ; s most annihilating sarcasm was either suppressed by him or ignored by his readers. It is as a humourist that he is best remembered. Similarly great ironists like H.L. Mencken # 8217 ; s satire were deemed to erudite by society. Lewis on the other manus gave Americans acetum and made them like it # 8221 ; ( Love 14 ) . The illustriousness of Lewis # 8217 ; s effort is admired by many as a discovery in American literature, every bit good as something of an mystery. # 8221 ; Lewis is a paradox. He gets off with stating America their mistakes even though Americans are self witting of all unfavorable judgment. Everything is right because we did it. Lewis cryings of the goons of our Klu-Klux-Klan to demo the cruel faces beneath the masks. Yet he is able to boom # 8221 ; ( Lovett 32 ) . Lewis holds his audiences by the importance of his message instead than wit. Lewis in fact writes his sarcasm out of his letdown in his darling state. He is composing in denouncement o f ugliness, in simple black and white ( West 23 ) . A direct consequence of Lewis # 8217 ; letdown with his state was his inability to perpetrate himself or his characters to the new America. Lewis was influenced by the nine -teenth century # 8217 ; s progressive heritage of E. Bellamy in Looking Backwards. # 8220 ; Lewis and his characters project the hope that America could subsume the metropolis and machine civilisation into the traditional democratic model, without giving pastoral values # 8221 ; ( Love 10-11 ) . Sinclair Lewis was a adult male on a mission. Previous to Babbitt he had written sarcasms on everything from the organisation of God, or the Church, to the medical field. By 1921. nevertheless Lewis was sensitive of unfavorable judgment that he was reiterating himself, so he launched himself on a trade name new enterprise ( Light 77 ) . Lewis delved into himself to make a chef-doeuvre for the ages. Lewis # 8217 ; s nature was to compose sarcasm on American values, and the recognized thoughts of his epoch. Although there may be some over-lap to modern-day times, Lewis lived and was composing about the sensational decennary of the mid-twentiess. The coevals in which Lewis was composing, nevertheless, was non his. Lewis was someway able to accomplish celebrity in a coevals which wanted to disregard him, every bit good as his coevalss. This epoch, of drastic alteration, favored younger authors like Hemmingway, Fitzgerald and Don Passo s ( Love 9 ) . Lewis endurance, burying his success, is an mystery in itself. Lewis was inexorable that his novel be a microcosm of American middle category life. he hence did extended research for Babbitt. # 8220 ; From his notes he was able to set into the book a mass of accurate item about apparels, houses, trappingss, autos, nines, existent estate endeavors, and conventions. Therefore we have great assurance in Babbitt typicality in regard to things and sentiments: his toothpaste and bath towels, his grey suit, and his eyeglassess, the contents ofd his pockets, his supporter nine button ; and his indecisive and inconclusive treatment with his married woman Myra about the pick of suits, his concerns for his tummy, the sentiments he gleans from his newspaper # 8217 ; s columns, his contempt for socialist fomenters, and his religion in the strength of the towers of Zenith # 8211 ; all of these observations we are delighted to acknowledge as true # 8221 ; ( Light 80 ) . Through this extended research Lewis found a shallow mercenary universe in a province o f craze, which feared the reds, and a workers revolution, as if it was the pestilence ( Love 7 ) . The fact that Babbitt begins in 1920 is of utmost significance. 1920 is a satiric preliminary to a decennary of dizzying and mindless economic enlargement and compulsion. # 8220 ; Babbitt is the heroic poem of our roar old ages and it remains today as the major certification in literature of American concern civilization # 8221 ; ( Schorer 327 ) . When Lewis delved into the society, of the # 8216 ; roar # 8217 ; old ages, he uncovered awful intolerance of anyone who looked, acted, or thought otherwise. The ill-famed instance of the Italians, Sacco and Vanzetti is a perfect illustration of this sheer intolerance. # 8220 ; They were killed for holding unpopular sentiments. It was a systematic development of foreign blood, their imperfect cognition of English, their unpopular societal positions, and their resistance to the war, is what led to their slayings # 8221 ; ( Love 4 ) . Fur thermore the now ill-famed Klu # 8211 ; Klux # 8211 ; Klan was started at this clip with their end being # 8220 ; native, white, Protestant, domination # 8221 ; ( Love 5 ) . Along with the intolerance, of the mid-twentiess, Lewis besides found a great trade of lip service. Nothing embodies this better than peoples attitudes towards prohibition. Prohibition represented a lip service and blind which manifested the decennary ( Love 6 ) . Babbitt himself applauds the amendment, but so goes out imbibing as if he is above it. Lewis besides felt that people were really hypocritical in their political thoughts, and he illustrated this features within Babbitt. Babbitt speaks of the United States # 8217 ; neutrality with contradictions merely a adult male with many sets of engraved thoughts could express when he says # 8220 ; We got no concern interfering with the Irish, or any other foreign authorities ; still it # 8217 ; s beyond me why we don # 8217 ; t merely measure in there [ Ru ssia ] and kick those Bolshevik cusses out # 8221 ; ( Light 80 ) . It is clear that the many contradictions which represented the mid-twentiess clearly annoyed the more mature Lewis. The Twenties besides represented the beginning of a more unfastened society, like the one we have today. Through the innovation of the wireless # 8220 ; people could now hear everything that was traveling on # 8221 ; , all over the universe ( Love 5 ) . By the clip Theodore Dreiser finished his work, An American Tragedy, sex was an unfastened and respectable topic. The manner was being paved to sexual honestness ( Love 7 ) . Along these same lines the mid-twentiess represented the gradual Ascension of adult females # 8217 ; s hemlines. Womans could now vote, and there were many new occupations opening up for adult females ( Love 6 ) . The old restraints of the earlier decennaries were coming away. You could no longer # 8220 ; maintain # 8216 ; em down on the farm # 8221 ; , so people like George F. Babbitt moved to the large metropoliss ( Love 41-2 ) . Furthermore people were no longer every bit committed to the church. Rather the church was merely used for societal intents, it had become known as the establishment of God # 8221 ; ( Love 7 ) . Babbitt, who was Mr. 1920 used the church merely as a vehicle to run into powerful people, therefore bodying societies actions. Even in visible radiation of all the alterations # 8220 ; in-between category America still, as Babbitt was to demo, was surety to a series of clannish beliefs powerful plenty to find their pleasances every bit good as their duties # 8221 ; ( Love 41 ) . Lewis was looking on the scene right when the emperors new apparels where eventually vanishing ( Love 42 ) . Society was quickly altering right before Lewis # 8217 ; s horrified eyes. Lewis was a adult male who cared profoundly for the universe. He was disappointed, nevertheless, as to the bend the universe was taking. He hence created Babbitt, which beca me a paradigm for many coevalss to come. What nevertheless did Lewis privation to make, in doing Babbitt, and what did he desire to carry through? Sinclair Lewis wanted to # 8220 ; debamboozle American society # 8221 ; , he wanted to the portray the confusion in which Americans ran their lives ( Lovett 34 ) . Lewis desired to accurately portray American center category life. He coveted diging into the freshly found # 8216 ; civilization # 8217 ; of concern. However # 8220 ; Lewis did non simply want to demo the typical baron, synonymous with corruptness. The baron was fiction. The powerful maker, the huge speculator, the fabulous moneyman, the sovereign of tremendous endeavors, was merely a myth. Lewis wanted to demo the universe of the small man of affairs, and more peculiarly the jobber. The jobber who abolishes his ain humanity, in the civilization of concern # 8221 ; ( Schorer 330-1 ) . Lewis was looking for an nonsubjective representation of modern-day societal humanity, instead than the anti # 8211 ; novels of today where merely the book, itself, is existent. ( Love 27 ) . Lewis related in a missive to a friend that # 8221 ; he wanted to do Babbitt large in his reality, in his relation to all of us, non in the least exceeding, yet dramatic, passionate fighting # 8221 ; ( Light 75 ) . Babbitt was supposed to stand for a cast, or a type of mechanical American citizen. Lewis # 8217 ; s disposition was to convey a disclosure to the American people. Lewis wished to demo that # 8220 ; conformance is the great monetary value that our preponderantly commercial civilization exacts of American life # 8221 ; ( Schorer 330 ) . Lewis related in a 1920 missive to Professor Carl van Doren # 8221 ; I want it to be the narrative of an mean concern adult male, a tired concern adult male, non in a goffer prarie but in a metropolis of three or four hundred 1000 people ( every bit Minneapolis or Seattle or Rochester or Atlanta ) with its tremendous industrial po wer, its small theatre, and lively state nine and its overpowering menacing unorthodoxy Hunt, its narrowed eyed ( and damned capable ) suppression of anything endangering its commercial oligarchy. I hope to maintain it every bit far as may be from all propaganda ; I hope to do that adult male live # 8211 ; that adult male we have heard in the Pullman tobacco user, ponderously talking oil stock, the beauty of Lake Louise, the impudence of George the porter, and the excellence of his 1918 Buick which is so much better a theoretical account than the 1919 # 8243 ; ( Love 17 ) . Having one time seen this adult male Lewis wanted to develop him, so that he would non look merely idiosyncratic but, instead a conforming person who retains some capablenesss of his ain ( Light 80 ) . After indicating out the complete conformance the T.B.M. ( tired concern adult male ) exhibits, Lewis wished to demo its detrimental effects. # 8221 ; Lewis has discovered that a Babbitt can endure the tenseness s of conformance, though conformance was non supposed to convey tenseness. Discontentment with the work modus operandi, Babbitt would wish for one time the genius of romantic love, the satisfaction of holding left a grade on the metropolis, and a Lashkar-e-Taiba up on his changeless warring with rivals. So tired is Babbitt, that make up ones minding what suit to have on is an wash uping job with many nuances # 8221 ; ( Light 81 ) . All American # 8217 ; s experience that they are trailing the, slightly elusive, American dream. Lewis wanted to work the all right line between the American dream and world ( Love 43 ) . That the streets are paved with gold is non the inquiry. The difference is over the definition of gold. Babbitt thinks that he has achieved the American dream, this is why he is so bewildered at his discontentedness with his life. Babbitt feels that he # 8217 ; s # 8220 ; done everything he ought to make # 8221 ; , as he bemoans to his friend # 8220 ; I supported m y household, and got a good house and a six cylinder auto, and built up a nice small concern, and I haven # 8217 ; t any frailties specially except smoking # 8230 ; I belong to the church, and play plenty golf to maintain in spare, and I merely associate with good decent chaps. And yet even so I don # 8217 ; t know if I am wholly satisfied. Babbitt has lived harmonizing to his dreams inspiration, but they are dreams which leave the dreamer restless and betrayed # 8221 ; ( Light 81 ) . Babbitt represents America # 8217 ; s revelation to the universe that the US is # 8220 ; crass, mercenary, self-satisfied and chauvinistic # 8221 ; . Lewis banked on the fact that on the sly, society could non digest what it had made itself ( Schorer 331 ) . Lewis wanted to state America the truth. He had the backbones to state America # 8220 ; to which stupid, and eventually annihilating, societal damnation, we were floating to # 8221 ; ( Schorer 334 ) . This type of sarcasm about in-between category topics, for in-between category readers neer took off in America ( Love 39 ) . Lewis made it go on, why? Lewis wanted to utilize the subliminal to its full extent. Lewis knew that by making a humourous, realistic character, like Babbitt, people would subconsciously place themselves with Babbitt. As a consequence people would hopefully alter so as to avoid Babbitt # 8217 ; s frustrating destiny. This was Lewis # 8217 ; s end. The type of sarcasm which Lewis wanted to use was # 8220 ; sarcasm which operates in the considerable and deplorable gulf between how things are and how they should be. What drove Lewis # 8217 ; s write was the annoying realisation of how human topics had fallen off from their rightful duties and potencies # 8221 ; ( Love 43 ) . Lewis possessed a know aparting moral sense, or a perceptual experience of a momentous ideal. To middle category America this sarcasm was indispensable. Lewis felt it important that their beliefs no longer be funneled to th em by the demands of society ( Love 41 ) . Lewis # 8217 ; s exploited this thought to the fullest in Babbitt. # 8220 ; Lewis # 8217 ; s inclination to travel rapidly from one subject to another, covering the full scope of in-between category concern life in America, from its ugliest facet # 8211 ; its racial, cultural, and spiritual dogmatism, and its cutthroat commercial patterns # 8211 ; to its basically harmless, simply cockamamie chases of recreation and pleasance. The consequence is to propose a universe non so much of concern as of hum # 8211 ; a crowded scene in frenetic gesture, yet without any existent motion toward any specific and worthwhile ends # 8221 ; ( Love 44 ) . Lewis wanted to capture the lip service of society. In Huckelberry Finn Twain wanted to demo Miss Watson lip service in having a slave and at the same clip being a Christian. Lewis tried to indicate out similar lip services, where society is to fault for the incompatibilities. Take for illustration B abbitt # 8217 ; s friend Chum Frink. # 8220 ; he enjoys liquor so cheers prohibition # 8221 ; ( 42 ) . Lewis wanted to utilize sarcasm by ego exposure. This is accomplished # 8220 ; when characters, like Frink, give their ignorance off # 8221 ; for all to see ( Light 78 ) . Lewis was seeking to capture the sad worlds of life. Lewis wanted to pin down his immolation into painting his ain portrayal of world ; # 8220 ; and when the last garment, which covers his nudity is stripped away, the torch explodes and the camera has caught the victim in every characteristic of his mean, and asinine world # 8221 ; ( Love 15 ) . Lewis wanted Babbitt to come alive. He wanted to portray the universe of the small man of affairs, who conforms to society in every which manner. Main Street was Lewis # 8217 ; s first effort at carry throughing this, but by composing Babbitt he declared himself a failure. # 8220 ; In Main Street heat and excitement were foreign to the hr, Babbitt, nevertheless, has that something existent, which makes it a work of art ; and it is signed in every line with the alone personality # 8221 ; , and more significantly the desires, # 8220 ; of the author # 8221 ; ( West 23 ) . Lewis wanted Babbitt to come alive, and to confront life the manner the conformists of society beseeched him to. Lewis wanted Babbitt to be the typical cat following door. Babbitt has become # 8220 ; the heroic poem of our roar old ages, and it remains today as the major certification, in literature, of American concern civilization # 8221 ; ( Schorer 327 ) . It seems as if Lewis succeeded in his end, he had made the universe aware of its monumental jobs. Lewis was the first American author to have the Nobel award in literature ( 1930 ) , which he received for his attempts in Babbitt ( Love 16 ) . Upton Sinclair, a major figure in literature, crowned Babbitt as # 8221 ; the best novel of all clip # 8221 ; ( Love 16 ) . # 8220 ; Babbitt became portion of our lives whic h before we had non recognized # 8221 ; ( Love 18 ) . Along with Babbitt # 8217 ; s gaudery and ginger he was besides, really humanly, hapless. How could it hold perchance failed? Commercially it did non. Babbitt became the greatest international success in printing history ( Schorer 331 ) . It seems as if Lewis got precisely what he wanted. His book was widely read and people accepted its searching comments as truths. Lewis had in fact, trusting to get the better of the restrictions of imitation, consciously made Babbitt seem existent, # 8221 ; yet before the novel was finished, Lewis had to profess something to its inevitable tone, and was looking towards his following book where he would seek once more # 8221 ; ( Light 77 ) . Why was this the instance? Hadn # 8217 ; t Lewis succeeded? The reply is the footing for the book itself. Lewis # 8217 ; s love for the universe was so great that there was ever something he could inquire society to work on, so hence his work was neer complete. He died, tragically, without of all time recognizing that in a perfect universe there is no topographic point for people. Ralph Waldo Emerson in Self Reliance had some of the same thoughts as Sinclair Lewis. To Emerson the expostulation to conforming is that # 8220 ; it loses your clip and film over the feeling of your character. If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead bible society, ballot with a great party either for the authorities or against it, distribute your tabular array like base housekeepers # 8211 ; under all these screens I have trouble to observe the precise adult male [ that ] you are # 8221 ; ( Emerson 411 ) . This was Lewis # 8217 ; s Babbitt, as if Lewis wrote it himself. Lewis was against all that was standardized, he felt that it abolished humanity. The small white house with a bluish door, and a walk in cupboard was Lewis # 8217 ; s Nemesis. # 8220 ; he was the first to demo us into what societal damnation we were floating. The inquir y is # 8211 ; have we landed? ! ? # 8221 ; ( Schorer 334 ) . Emerson, Ralph Waldo. # 8220 ; Self Reliance. # 8221 ; The American Tradition In Literature # 8211 ; Sixth Edition. ED. George Perkins, Sculley Bradley, Richmond Croom Beatty, E. Hudson Long. New York: Random House, 1985. 410. Lewis, Sinclair. Babbitt. New York: Harcourt, Brace A ; World, INC. , 1922Light, Martin. The Quixotic Vision of Sinclair Lewis. West Lafayette Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1975, 73 # 8211 ; 83. Love, Glen A. Babbitt An American Life ; Twaynes Masterwork Studies. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993. Lovett, Robert Moss. # 8220 ; An Interpreter of American Life. # 8221 ; Sinclair Lewis. Ed. Mark Schorer. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, INC. , 1962. 32-35. Mencken, H.L. # 8220 ; Portrait of an American Citizen. # 8221 ; Sinclair Lewis. Ed. Mark Schorer. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, INC. , 1962. 20-22. Schorer, Mark. # 8220 ; Afterword # 8221 ; Babbitt. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanavich, INC. , 1992. 327-334. John websters Universal Una bridged Dictionary. New York: Barnes A ; Baronial Books,1992. 106. West, Rebecca. # 8220 ; Babbitt. # 8221 ; Sinclair Lewis. Ed. Mark Schorer. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, INC. , 1962. 23-26.

Why You Should Use Web Push To Reach Your Email Marketing Haters

Why You Should Use Web Push To Reach Your Email Marketing Haters What if I said  weve been blowing smoke when we talked about email marketing on this blog? Weve devoted a fair amount of space talking about email marketing- many thousands and thousands of words, in fact. First, weve convinced you that a substantial effort has to go toward building the number of emails on your list. Then, weve told you about the best ways to get people to sign up, and how to get people to open your email. But what if email was on the road to inevitable failure? What if there was something coming that would make it obsolete? Think of all the effort youve put into your email list. Its terrifying to consider that it might be the marketing version of the VHS tape, but perhaps that is inevitable thanks to Web push. Why You Should Use #WebPush To Reach Your #EmailMarketing Haters via @JulieNeidlingerWhat Is Web Push? You are already familiar with Web push  if you  are using an Internet browser like Safari (Chrome and Firefox have indicated theyll be getting Web push soon), and get notifications for things such as new Twitter activity. In a way, Web push is sort of like the notifications you get on your smartphone, except that Web push happens through your computers Internet browser, where most of us spend our workday. Any of your readers who have allowed your notifications to appear in their browser will receive a notification the next time you publish new content.  They can click on the notification and be taken to your freshly published content easily. Web push is attractive to your readers for several reasons. 1. Web push is easy to use. Web push is simple for your readers to set up.  When readers arrive at your Web push-enabled website, a notification pops up asking if theyd like to be notified every time you publish new content. Unlike email or other calls-to-action, Web push is painless. The user can easily select Allow or Dont Allow  when asked if they want notifications, and the window goes away. Thats it. They can go on with their Internet browsing without having to verify email later or go to a sign-up page. The barrier to entry is very low- you cant get much easier than one click, which is all that Web push requires of your reader. 2. The permission window is familiar. The Web push window that pops up asking if your reader would like to be notified looks like any other browser-based permission window. Thats easier to trust than a custom marketing pop-up window. Why You Should Be Using Web Push Not every content marketing tool that comes along is worth your time, but Web push is something you should consider using. It very directly gets your content in front of eyeballs that are receptive to it, making it similar to email in that readers have opted in. Its easy to get started. You can get your site ready for Web push without having to be a developer. Using Roost, you can set up Web push on your site easily with several integrations, including a WordPress plugin that makes managing Web push from your WordPress dashboard possible. Roost makes setting up Web push in your WordPress blog easy. With Roost, your notifications can be automatically generated whenever you publish new content, or you can create custom notifications and send them manually to all of your subscribers. Taking the idea of push notifications a step further, you could also use Pushbullet to get notifications right where your readers are. Pushbullet is a mobile app (not limited to just a  browser) that also has browser extensions to make push available for non-Safari users. While Pushbullet has features directed at individual user convenience (text messaging, link sharing between devices, phone notifications to your desktop), they also allow users to subscribe to channels. Thats where content marketers might want to take notice. By setting up a Pushbullet channel that uses your RSS feed, you can notify subscribers of new content immediately, much the same as Safari users experience Web push. It appears on their mobile phone, and on their desktop. Web push happens where your audience is. One of the big challenges content marketers face is choosing which social networks they will publish content on. There are so many networks, and each network attracts a different kind of user. Content marketers often struggle with managing all of these publishing channels. With Web push, it doesnt matter what social networks your reader prefers, because it has nothing to do with them. Instead, it is independent of social networks, appearing right in their browser. You dont have to create different, customized messages optimized for different networks. You dont have to research which kind of networks your niche performs best on. Just like with the email you send, your content arrives where your audience is  already working, outside of a network. Web push helps build data for you. When we measure the success of a blog post or headline, we often deal with a variety of metrics. Traffic, perhaps, and how many social shares it received. Web push gives you another avenue of metrics, allowing you to A/B test everything from the best time to send notifications to what kind of messages might lead to unsubscribing. For those of you who like to A/B test and base content marketing decisions on hard data, Web push is another building block for you, a chance to learn about your audiences behavior outside of social networks and search engines. Try #WebPush to A/B test #headlines and understand the best times to publish your #blog posts.Web push gives you control and customization. Despite the simplicity of Web push, both for the end user and for you to set up, you still have some customizations and control available to you. Roost recently announced that you can  now send specific blog post categories to different subscriber segments, allowing your readers to see only what they want to see. If youre a heavy blogger and publish several posts a day, you might send out a notification to a summary email or link instead of a notification for every blog post. You can send out important product updates, or breaking news. With the simple system of Web push, you can  control what gets sent to whom. It is more than just an RSS feed on notification steroids. Web push opens a door for people who dont like email marketing. Not everyone likes getting marketing emails, and Web push helps  solve  that problem. Youre probably pretty invested in your email marketing, accepting the loss of those folks you know dont want your marketing email in their inbox. According to blogger  Tim Varner, Web push has an opt-in rate that is 10 times higher than email newsletters. Ill admit Ive become both worn out and disinclined to hand out my email address as freely as I once did. Web push allows me to stay connected to a blog I like but keep my email to myself. I can also control what kind of notifications Ill receive, and I like that I have control. Web push is the perfect patch for the anti-marketing  streak that runs through some of your audience. #WebPush is the perfect way to reach  your #EmailMarketing haters.Why Email Is Still The King Web push sounds pretty great, doesnt it? But rest assured that all of the attention weve given to growing your email list hasnt been misplaced. We havent led you astray. We were not blowing smoke. The truth is, Web push will not replace email. Its cool, it has promise, and its yet another great tool for your content marketing tool box, butit isnt as powerful as email. Web push is easy to abuse. Its so easy to send notifications to your subscribers that you might be tempted to do it more often than you should.  Notifications arent the same as an email. An email shows up in the inbox and sits there until your reader decides to do something with it. A notification does not give the reader that kind of control, and a simple one-click unsubscribe is likely to happen if the notifications annoy your reader in that moment. Just as Web push  notifications are  easy to allow, its easy to turn off, too.  The temptation and simplicity of sending out many notifications may  prove too much for some marketers. Web push does not get an email address. Attracting audience members who  dont want to give you an email address is a catch 22. Web push doesnt give you anything from your audience, beyond the permission of sending notifications and the data from their usage.

Film analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 8

Film analysis - Essay Example Then, when the seriously ill boy miraculously recovers, sibling rivalry becomes too difficult to manage, and Monica leaves the fake boy in the forest to his own devices. A.I. is enriched with some deep moral themes and issues surrounding motherhood, qualities that make the movie one of the director’s masterpieces (Abu-Mostafa, 2007). The Spielberg work is extremely captivating, and it evokes yet again a stunningly provocative perception of child rearing and of the humanity,  interweaved with a massive feeling of melancholy in the face of science.  The movie draws substantial influence from â€Å"Pinocchio† by Disney. Among the themes that feature in the movie are modernity, false consciousness and consumption.   Ã‚   As Brookfield (2007) as said, modernity of the movie is apparent in its futuristic setting. The beginning of the narrative after the disastrous impacts of global warming helps to reinforce the theme of modernity. Floods that have wreaked havoc in the earth’s surface and uncontrollable population pressures on natural resources are some of the modern challenges that the world will continue to face in the future.  Spielberg predicted a situation where couples will be required to seek for permission to make babies, since the current threats of technological leaps shall have led to the replacement of human beings with mechanical human beings. Interestingly, parents who go for robotic children will have to contend with the fact that those children will remain young and respectful (Abu-Mostafa, 2007). The natural love in the traditional societies will be lost to modernity.   It is arguable that the very fact that â€Å"machine love† has replaced the natural love between individuals serves as the ironic contrast of a movie that attempts to depict hope, but rather in the wider perspective presents an awful representation of social

Principles of Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Principles of Marketing - Essay Example More than 50% of Indian consumers use ordinary toilet soaps to clean their hair and usage of shampoo among majority of the populace is still restricted to social occasions as weddings and parties. While per capita consumption of shampoos is only 13ml in India it is 160ml and 330ml in Indonesia and Thailand respectively. The bigger players in Indian shampoo market are HLL, P&G, CavinKare, Dabur and Ayur (equitymaster.com 2007). Segmentation Companies divide markets into groups of consumers or segments with distinct needs and wants and identify which market segments it can serve effectively. To develop the best marketing plans managers need to understand what makes each segment unique and different. Marketing theory categories preferences into three different sub-categories (Anderson 2008): Homogenous preferences: When all consumers have roughly the same preferences and the market does not exhibit any natural segments. Diffused preferences: When consumers vary greatly in their preferen ces and if there are different brands in the market they are likely to position themselves throughout the available space and show real differences to match differences in consumer preferences. In shampoo market marketers almost always face a situation of diffused preferences as each category has specific requirements and expectation from the products they use. Clustered preferences: When natural market segments emerge from groups of consumers with shared preferences. Shampoo market is segmented primarily according to usage benefits. Some shampoos claim to serve the cosmetic benefits of providing strong, healthy and shining hair. Others claim to remove dandruff completely while the third category claims to deliver all the benefits related to herbal ingredients. The anti-dandruff segment is the fastest growing among the three segments with an annual growth rate of approximately 12% per annum (equitymaster.com 2007). There is also another small segment that is steadily gaining ground. This segment offers specialized shampoos as those that can be safely used in colored hair without removing the color. But this segment has not grown enough in size to warrant a separate analysis. Marketers also segment the market according to following criteria (Czepiel 1992): Geographic Segmentation: It divides the market into different geographical units such as nations, states, regions, cities or neighborhoods. In shampoo market, however, such variations do not matter that much as targeted consumers in every region or nation would have same, or nearly same, perceptions about beautiful hair. Demographic Segmentation: It divides the market into groups on the basis of age, family size, family life cycle, gender, income, occupation, education, religion, nationality and social class. Marketers of shampoo concentrate on ladies, irrespective of their age, and their income while marketing their products. Though in some situations religion, especially Islam might also have to be taken in to account. Marketers can now reach women very easily through television. Psychographic Segmentation: Buyers are divided into different groups on the basis of psychological/personality traits, lifestyles or values. People within the same demographic group can exhibit very different psychographic traits. Marketers of sh

Amusment Park Job Essay Example for Free

Amusment Park Job Essay Introduction A ride host has given you the all clear, the train begins to a ascend slowly up the mammoth 200ft steel mountain, your heart begins to race, you struggle to catch a breath as you are aware of the many twists and turns that are presumed to follow as you creep your way over the ominous peak. Life in many ways can be alluded to the adrenaline rush of racing on a roller-coaster. To experience that rush on a daily basis and you become the driving force behind what makes these chaotic machines of terror and excitement operate with such grace and cohesion would be much more than a career. The role of park manager can be a very difficult and stressful position, but the daily compensation is much more that can be put in a bank account. I will be discussing the job description, requirements, work conditions and prospects of this position. Job Description A theme park manager works in a very dynamic environment and this job requires a vast assortment of responsibilities and tasks that are mainly influenced by the size of the park you are managing. Managing a smaller park, such as Coney Island, would entail much less complexity in everyday operations in comparison to a larger park, such as Cedar Point, but would be just as rewarding and present its own challenges. Although vast and varying based on a particular parks values and needs, Brad Thomas director of operations at Silver Dollar City Branson MI states the position description as â€Å"Directors of Operations manage the overall operations of the theme park. He or she must do extensive planning and budgeting. He or she makes sure that the plans are in place, so the attraction or park does not make any promises it cannot keep. He or she also must see that all decisions made are within the park’s mission, vision, and values. Directors of Operations exert authority over every activity taking place in the attraction or theme park. † Each park has varying degrees of accountability delegated to the operations manager, but the basic function doesn’t vary from park to park. Job Requirements In this position, field experience is just as important as the educational requirements. Most parks look for someone that has worked their way up within a park and has first-hand experience with the park and its daily functions that includes everything from a ride host to admissions. The ideal candidate would be someone who has grown and developed their experience and education at the park they are seeking to manage. A job listing for a park management position at Coney Island requested the following requirements for their applicants: †¢A minimum of 5 years of experience in a management role within an amusement park or entertainment facility. †¢Post-secondary education in business, recreation, or hospitality management. †¢Excellent communication, interpersonal, and customer service skills along with strong team building and motivating abilities. †¢A firm grasp of financial business principles, safety compliance, time-management, and computer skills. †¢Ability to work long hours-weekends/nights are required. This is a position that is not usually given to someone just out of college. You must earn this position by working your way to the top. Work Conditions Work conditions depend on the location and whether or not the park is seasonal. Most parks operate from May through October, and can experience everything from scorching heat during the summer to freezing fall temperatures. This is prevalent to the position of park manager because most of the day is spent not in the office but throughout the park monitoring daily operations. They must be on site to ensure that the park is functioning properly and guest satisfaction is optimal. Rain or shine a park manager must monitor the parks activities and maintain guest satisfaction at all times. Salary Range Once again the details of the position vary greatly upon the size of the park and what that specific park delegates to the park manager. Brad Thomas stated that â€Å"An average salary range for a Director of Operations is from $21,900 to $86,500. The smaller properties have the lower salary, while the larger and more prestigious properties have the larger salaries. † This may not seem like a fortune to most but the people in these positions have a true passion for their respective parks. Job Prospects There are currently 285 operating parks with at least one roller coaster according to rollercoaster database (rcdb. com). Considering that new parks are rarely established and with most parks only having one park manager, this leads to the position of park manager being a very competitive career path. Although with limited opportunities, those who have a passion for this industry have the ability to make themselves stand out and increase their chances for success in seeking management employment. Conclusion In conclusion, the prospects of gaining this position may not seem obtainable due to the limited number of park managers. However, if you have the passion, education and skill requirements, then you have the potential of progressing your way to a park manager. Those who have received and hold this job title have spent countless years dedicating their lives and efforts to this industry. They have truly found an exceptional experience to call a career. The monetary benefits are overshadowed by the joy they bring to thousands of guests that visit their park on a yearly basis. Works Sited Amusement Park Search Results. Rollercoaster Database. N. p. , n. d. Web. 10 Feb. 2013. Similar Jobs Recommended For You. Similar Jobs Recommended For You. N. p. , 16 Jan. 2013. Web. 09 Feb. 2013. Theme Park Manager: Job Description. Prospects. ac. uk. N. p. , 1 Sept. 2011. Web. 10 Feb. 2013. Thomas, Brad. Director of Operations Attraction/Theme Park. Entertainment Management. N. p. , 01 Nov. 2000. Web. 09 Feb. 2013.

Explanation Of Choice Of Competitors

Explanation Of Choice Of Competitors The report is regarding Velour which is a Swedish fashion company in the upper medium price segment. The company has existed for 9 years and has succeeded to sustain and also expand on the Swedish market throughout the years. We as a consulting group have focused on Velours womens wear collection. Under a 6 week period we have been investigating how the fashion company Velour is operating. We have looked into the main competitors to the brand which we defined as Acne and Whyred. These are also Swedish companies which have the same target audience group as Velour; young women. The companies are also using the same kind of style in their design in womens wear and are strongly involved in the artistic sphere. The report describes Velours strategy of purchase, assortment and their different use of sales channels. The competitive brands are presented in the same way to create a coherent impression for the reader. The purpose of this report was to develop different parts within the company to be able to achieve its growth in the Swedish market. The improvements of Velours strategies are presented in the end of this thesis. A budget and time plan is also presented in the report. Table of contents 1.Introduction We have chosen Velour which is a brand based in Gothenburg. We were able to get in contact with Ann-Sophie and Hanna who are working with the brand and are also the persons who provided us with information about the company. We consider the brand to be interesting since it is a rather small clothing brand with clothes that attract us and we saw opportunities to develop brand strategies. The brand is still small but we think that Velour has capabilities to become an even stronger brand than it currently is on the Swedish market for womens clothing. We consider the design to be timeless and stylish which can be interesting for a lot of women in the Swedish market. Assignment We are acting as a consultant group with the purpose of developing new strategies for the brand Velour. This is made to be able to increase the sales volume and to increase the awareness of the brand. Method To be able to develop these strategies for Velour we have been in contact with employees of the company and also with employees of the competitors. We have also been visiting the stores and done researches on the Internet to increase our knowledge of the brands. Delimitations We are only focusing on womens wear on the Swedish market. Therefore other collection lines from the brand will not be mentioned in this report, neither will international markets. 2. Industry definition The industry contains of companies that are in the wholesale segment acting as product developing brand suppliers; that means that they are working with product development, design, marketing, purchasing and producing womens wear with a creative twist within the upper medium priced segment on the Swedish market. 3. Industry description Below description of the industry will be presented. Choice of competitors and an explanation of the five force model can also be found. 3.1 General description The fashion industry within textile is one of the most globalized sectors, this due to the great amount of employment opportunities the industry provides. The industry of fashion constantly changes and as a company in this industry one always has to pay attention and be first to deliver the latest trends. What is the latest today is not the latest tomorrow. There are constantly new competitors to the industry and to survive one really has to have a strong business idea and be clear about the message of the companys brand. http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/sector/themes/crisis/textil.pdf The Swedish fashion market contains mostly of small to medium sized companies. The Swedish fashion market is of high importance for Swedish trade and today around 300 000 people work within the Swedish fashion industry and this is approximately 5 percent of the Swedish GDP. Many of the Swedish brands have succeeded on an international level. Velour is one of them and is followed by HOPE, Filippa K, Anna Holtblad, Whyred and many other fashion brands. http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/9622/a/96709 Velour is categorized to be an upper medium price brand on the Swedish market. The industry Velour belongs to, has a target group of young women to middle age women in Sweden. The woman is someone who is aware of her approach and has a rather large interest in fashion. However she is not a fashion slave since she does not follow all current trends, instead she creates her own style by combining different pieces. The woman in Sweden is a person who is down to earth and is conscious about society and environmental issues (M. Solomon and N. Rabolt, 2009). In the industry Velour belongs to, collections consist of quite plain designed clothes with a creative twist that very simply create recognition about the brand. Brands in this industry have a collection that fits in a base wardrobe with tops, dresses and chinos. Statistics kring turnover industry- mailat svensk handel 3.2 Explanation of choice of competitors Through the description of the brand and the description of the customer we can say that the competitors of Velour on the Swedish market for women swear are Acne and Whyred. We choose to select Acne and Whyred as competitors of Velour on the Swedish market for women swear through issues of price, presence in the country, style and interest in arts. To begin with Acne it is a young Swedish fashion brand which was founded in 1996. Acne represents the Swedish style for women from 18 to 45 years old and is the typical brand of style without efforts. We see Acne to have the same target group as Velour and to also have the interest in arts just like Velour but more interested in graphics and design. Acne has a Swedish style of clarity, fluidity and urban design and considering the price Velour and Acne are in the same price range. Our other competitor Whyred which was founded in 1999 also has interest in arts, especially in music. Whyred ´s clothes are classic, with a modern twist which give them this artsy touch that inspires Whyred designers. Considering the price Whyred and Velour is in the same range. Whyred as the other two companies have a Swedish styl e in their design. When looking at the three companies we can see that they all three have the same target group. 3.3 Five force model To understand the industry of Velour within the fashion industry we have been using the model of Porters five forces. The model is used to understand the structure and profitability within an industry. Porter states that the underlying economic structure is a factor that plays a great role of a companys strength to be competitive. The company analyzes Industry competitors, Potential establishers, suppliers, customers, substitutes. The five fundamentals in this model establish the strength for each force (Hollensen, S 2007). 3.3.1 Industry competitors Strong competitors on the Swedish market to Velour are Acne and Whyred. Both this companies are Swedish and have a Swedish background. When looking at Acne and Whyred one can see that they have quite the same target group within the women collection. Both Acne and Whyred have similar design of their collection as Velour and they all three is categorized within the middle price brand. You can find the collections near each other in the same town in Sweden. Other competitors on the Swedish market are brands like Filippa K, Carin Rodebjer, Carin Wester and Hope. 3.3.2 Potential establishers Both existing and potential companies in an industry can affect the profitability of the industry. As we already have mention the fashion industry constantly changes and the level of new players is also in constantly movement. The fashion industry has a high level of new entrants and the competition for Velour we see as quite tough. This due to new designers that more easily enter as an middle price brand than in comparison as an high price or luxury price brand. Some French brands like Sandro, Claudie Pierlot, Comptoir des Cotonniers and Maje are today not on the Swedish market but we see these brands to have the potential to become competitors on the Swedish market. They could compete with Velour if they were entering the Swedish Market. They are powerful French companies focusing on women, targeting the same group of people and really involved in arts. The price range is the same and they could offer a wider group of products, where customers could find anything: from shoes, via c oats, to evening dresses. 3.3.3 Suppliers Within the fashion industry the supply chain is of high importance. Merchandise trade in the fashion industry plays a very central role and the suppliers have to take action very fast. The bargaining power is high for the supplier of fashion companies and this due to the fact that they mostly have the control of the production. Some fashion companies own big parts of the suppliers themselves and this result in more control for the fashion companies. The most comment is that the fashion companies outsource some parts of the value chain to another company. Velour has manufacturers of fabrics, trimmings and garments. Velour design within the company and own their designers. The production and distribution is outsourced to other companies and today the company has dependency on single suppliers. 3.3.4 Customers We have been focusing on the companies bargaining power due to the suppliers within the industry. In the industry of fashion the buyers have a restrained power to effect to their benefits, this because there is a great amount of small buyers and retailers in this industry. Velour is selling to retailers who are selling to the end-consumers. Velour is also acting as an integrated retailer since they have their own stores. 3.3.5 Substitutes Substitutes can affect the attractiveness of the industry and also influence the profitability within the industry. A substitute in an industry depends on buyers willingness to substitutes but also of the cost performance of the substitutes. The risk of substitutes in this industry is very high and this because of the great amount of designer cloths and fashion houses. Another factor that influence is high threats between substitutes is the generic substitutes that mostly very easily enter the fashion industry. This with help from the already existing well know name that help the generic substitutes to be introduced on the market. We see luxury brands to be a substitute for Velour and this because the luxury brands offer high fashion products and also the absolutely latest trends to wear. Secondhand are also within this category and this because like Velour, secondhand products offer uniqueness and inspiration to create a style of your own. The option of tailor made fashion we also s ee as a substitute and this since customers today are more aware than ever to have perfect fitted clothes. It becomes more and more usual to travel abroad and in many countries you can get your tailor made items at a very reasonable price. We think this option is going to increase and the prices should decrease if the demand for tailor made clothes gets higher. We also place made to measure and swopping with colleagues as substitutes for Velour. Suppliers Manufacturers of fabric, trimmings and garment Substitutes Secondhand, luxury brands, tailor made, made to measure, swopping with colleagues Buyers Retailers + Velour is acting as an integrated retailer Potential establishers Maje, Comptoir des Cotonniers, Sandro, Claude Pierlot, Industry Rivalry Velour ACNE, Whyred, Filippa K, Hope, Carin Wester 4. Commissioned company description and analysis 4.1 General description The Velour brand was created by Per Andersson and Johan Lundell. The idea for the brand was created through the store Nostalgi which they operated in Gothenburg. The store was opened in 1997 and the idea was to sell never worn clothes from the 1940s and 1980s. The shop found success and became popular amongst the independent scene in Sweden and design and music people found the store interesting. Per and Johan started to design t-shirts during 2001 and the Velour label was created. A third person joined the team at this time, Andreas Remling who had knowledge in finances and could handle the brands economics. http://www.va.se/nyheter/2007/01/19/bakom-kulisserna-pa-svensk/ Mattias Lind also joined the brand but left the company and started his own brand Julian red in 2003. Today the company has got 14 employees working with the brand. At first only a few basic casual clothes were designed but this soon developed into whole collections of garment. The first real collection of the brand was launched in 2001 and could be found at the Nostalgi store. In the year of 2005 a woman named Titti Andersson was hired for the design of the womens collection. http://www.alltomstockholm.se/shoppingmode/article29059.aos The company has had several different designers working with the brand during their years in the business, one of them is Karl-Wilhelm Bjà ¶rk who previously worked with Vivienne Westwood. http://www.kingmagazine.se/Markeslistning/?designer=17771 The core values of the brand are tailoring, graphic and casual. Perfect fit and focus on beautiful details should create the opportunity for the person who wears the clothes to be able to create its own style by combining pieces from the brand. The overall design concept of Velour springs out of a classic preppy look with traditional garments redesigned in a new stylish, yet effortless, way. We call this Feelgood Preppy. [1] The clothes are for people who are interested in fashion but not follow all trends that are present, Velour is for the people who wants to create their own unique style. The colors used in the different collections are mellow with colorful accents. The brand is present in 100 stores spread through Europe countries such as Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, United Kingdom but its largest market is still in Scandinavia. Velour can also be found overseas in Canada, Australia, the United States and in Japan. The target group of the brand is people between 20-35 years. http://feed.ne.cision.com/wpyfs/00/00/00/00/00/0D/6A/CE/wkr0010.pdf The Velour creator Johan Lundell is no longer working with the brand and neither is Andreas Remling, however, Per Andersson has continued his work at Velour and is the head designer for the mens collection. He is at this point alone running the brand management for Velour. The turnover for Velour in 2009 was 19,807 million SEK. In 2008 the turnover was 13, 302 million SEK which was a small growth from the year before. http://www.foretagsfakta.se/G%C3%B6teborg/Velour_By_Nostalgi_AB/989686 Velour has used creative ideas in their marketing. For example in 2006 Velour held a fashion show in a tunnel in Stockholm. They got permission to block off this area and do this project. http://www.foretagsfakta.se/G%C3%B6teborg/Velour_By_Nostalgi_AB/989686 According to Velour people in the music business are dedicated to the brand and find it interesting. Velour is a brand which is inspired by the music branch and they mean that their design is following that lifestyle. http://feed.ne.cision.com/wpyfs/00/00/00/00/00/0D/6A/CE/wkr0010.pdf http://www.businessregion.se/download/18.8afae6210a70372e0c8000236/Business1-06_klar_pdf.pdf According to Velour they have a competitive advantage of being situated in Gothenburg. According to Andreas Remling their main competitors are located in Stockholm and this can result in that the brands from the same city become coherent in their design, they are inspired by each other and the uniqueness can fade. Another positive thing about Gothenburg is the good solutions for logistics and the existence of good suppliers. http://www.businessregion.se/download/18.8afae6210a70372e0c8000236/Business1-06_klar_pdf.pdf 4.2 Value chain 4.3 Brand promise Velours nerve springs out of their history, eclectic inspiration and their values. Velour is offering a perfect fit and beautiful details, leaving it up to the wearer to create his or her own individual style, offering key pieces or a whole wardrobe. Beautiful details Create an individual style Perfect fit To claim to be offering a perfect fit is crucial according to us. Everybody is different and do probably not fit perfectly in Velours clothes. Velour means that they are leaving it to the wearer of the clothes to create their own unique style which we think is correct. The customer is as mentioned above in the report aware of her appearance and approach and is combining different pieces to create her own individual style. They depend on the customer to be able to do this on her own which we think is the case. 4.4 Current Strategy In this part we will explain how Velour works with its purchase strategy and explain lead times within the company. The different lead times are regarding the different activities from idea to finished product and the time to perform the different activities. For Velour from the first day the inspiration starts to the day that the products is out in the stores it takes around 12 months. If Velour starts in August on a new collection the sales samples are done in December. The company uses different manufactures and the samples are sent to manufactures abroad and the manufacturers are choosing matching suppliers to Velour. Below the process will be explained more detailed. 4.4.1 Purchase strategy Velour gets a lot of inspiration from the city Gothenburg where the brand also was founded. The studio of Velour is located in the long streets in the Linnà © district in Gothenburg and this street represents a classic mixed- use variety. They all share the same precious urban oxygen and here you can find galleries, recording labs, artist studios, coffee shops and sex shop all in the same street. This gives a feeling of uniqueness to the design and the brand of Velour. The preppy classic look is the overall design concept for the company. The designers make new collection in an effortless, new stylish way with traditional garments. The Swedish west coast also influences the designers mind when it comes to creating the right style of Velour ´s collection. When the inspiration and the design are finished, Velour picks sober colors to use in the collections and this with colorful touch. The choices of the colors are often grey, black or marine blue. The prints and patterns that are u sed together with the colors are gently created where every image, square and pigment has its place. (www.velour.se ) The inspiration together with product development and the ready sales sample takes for Velour 4 month. (Interview with Velour) The company does not have any production of its own; instead the production is handled by manufacturers abroad in countries like India, China, Portugal and Tunisia. The lead time at the manufacturers is around 3 months. Velour ´s manufactures are always working with different suppliers and this to be able to find suppliers that can produce Velour ´s needs to the price the company is able to pay. The amount of different supplier varies from season to season, usually 20-25 different suppliers are used each season. (Interview with Velour) Velour is using the full price purchase which means that the product development manufacturer place a purchase order to the producers of finished products. Then it is up to the producer to (according to the description of the purchase order) to do the purchase of the different garments and trimmings. Then the producer send Velour a full price suggestion which consists of a total price to produce the products ( Interview with Velour).This way of work can also be called purchase of ready-made garment (RMG) (Hedà ©n, McAndrew, 2005) The transportation is at all times made through shipping by boat and Velour always has the FOB (Free on board) agreement. When a company has the FOB agreement, the company takes the risk of the goods when the goods have been shipped and are placed on the pier. The transportation from the factories to Sweden takes around 3 months. From April to July Velour have sell-in to their different retailers and for Velour this has a show room in Stockholm were they show all new collections to the retailer. Under this period the product also is placed in stock and Velour has their warehouse in Borà ¥s. When the time is ready for the collection to be out in stores all products are sent from the warehouse in Borà ¥s to all the retailers within the Swedish market and to the single store in Gothenburg. The company has no written code of conduct and does not follow any initiative but examines their businesses as well as they can. Velour tries to be as ethical and critical as possible regarding the process of making the clothes. In environmental aspects the clothes that are made in cotton are all made by ecological cotton. 4.4.2 Assortment strategy Velour uses different types of fabrics; the company describes them as traditional. Fabrics they use repeatedly are wool, nylon, lining, acetate, cotton, elastane, lambswool, polyester, polycrepe, acrylic, mohair and ramie. The cotton that is used in the garment making is ecological. The sizes of the womens collections are divided into 4 steps; XS, S, M and L. Two collections are launched each year and these are called spring and autumn. The product groups that Velour offers are visible below. This is based on the womens autumn collection 2010. The assortment in each product group are not the same in every collection, that is why for example no shoes are present in the womens autumn collection 2010. The product groups stay the same, but the number of products in each category varies from the different collections. 4.4.3 Sales channel strategy Velour has only got one store of its own. This store is situated in Gothenburg at Magasinsgatan 19. The brand Velour was founded in 2001 and at this point the brand was sold through the store Nostalgi which was operated by the founders of the brand. However, this store does no longer exist and has been replaced by the one on Magasinsgatan. Velour is mainly sold through retail stores and department stores where the brand is presented amongst other clothing brands. Velour is also sold through their own online store which can be found at the companies website. The reason for using this kind of sales channel strategy is because of the fact that it is requires a high financially capacity to own its own stores. Through shop-in-shops which are currently used, the brand is represented in a lot of location but at a smaller amount of costs. 4.5 Future goals In 2006 the goal was, within a ten year period, to be one of the top fashion brands within Scandinavia. http://www.businessregion.se/download/18.8afae6210a70372e0c8000236/Business1-06_klar_pdf.pdf 5. Brief competitor description and analysis for 2 competitors Below the first chosen competitor, Acne will be described. 5.1 General description of Acne Acne was founded in 1996 and the first collection of Acne clothes was launched in 1998. The company was founded by Jonny Johansson who did not have any background in design before starting the brand. The brand has been a success in Sweden and currently a well known brand among young people which are interested in fashion. Acne studios have an advertising agency, art gallery, furniture collection, magazine. (Acne Official Website) Today the Acne studio represents 5 brands (Acne Paper, Acne Advertising, Acne Art Department, Acne JR and Acne Fashion and Denim) with 200 employees and has approximately an annual turnover of 38 millions Euros. (Georgina Safe, 2010) . The company also enjoy the involvement of a Capital-Risk firm: ÃÆ'-resund, which opens Acne to a wide range of possibilities in term of development and investments. When it comes to self expression Acne sees fashion to be the best way of have that (Acne Official Website). The style is typical Scandinavian, with simple lines, without abundance of colours: The style is simplistic but in the same time Acne clothes can be identified to be cool and personal. They are creating an image, not only a clothing brand. They are building a Lifestyle brand through desirable products. They also created an identity through their jeans with the famous red stitching. This identity is the result of Jonny Johanssons will of a garment that makes you feel stronger and more self confident. The brand is known of the denim jeans but the company dont want to be a denim brand, instead they wanted to offer ready to wear where the denim is included as a product. According Jonny Johansson they did not wanted to categorize themselves (Nina Jones, 2009). When Acne opens a new shop they dont think in the way of where they need to be located, instead they use the strategy of where they want to set up new stores. They are based the store locations on friendship and people who really want to have the brand located in that particular area. Acne doesnt believe in the strategy to put stores everywhere just to cover the map. In terms of strategy they also have an attitude of branding by doing,not advertising(JC Marcus, 2010, [1]). Acne adopted a code of conduct; they joined the Fair Trade Foundation. Acne is in accordance with their value and this new value of the fashion industry: labour practices and conditions have to be taken in account to preserve social matters of the value chain. There are also two types of production, one for their own stores and the other for all the other retailers and franchises. This difference of production shortens or lengthens the lead-time. 5.2 Value chain Acne buys material and produces in factories in Italy, Portugal, Hong Kong and Turkey. All of the production is outsourced. They act in the textile value chain in the wholesale segment as product developing brand suppliers which means that they concentrate on design, purchase, marketing and distribution. Concentrating on distribution, Acne is present in the retail segment in several levels: as a retail branch company (they own 4 stores in Sweden), as integrated wholesalers through Corner in department stores for example, in the Internet through their website on which one can shop online and through outlets with two outlets in Sweden, one in Gothenburg and one in Stockholm and also the web outlet. 5.3 Brand promise; Create novel expression Current strategy We have to precise first that Acne does not have a proper strategy that leads the brand. The team does what is necessary to both realising Acnes envies and to satisfying customers. If once they have to change their own strategy, theyd do it. In fact, the brand is lead by its Brand Promise, its Values and Vision. 5.4 Purchase strategy Acne buys material from Italy, Portugal, HK and Turkey. These counties they also have al the production placed (S.Jà ¶nnson L.Lagerdahl, 2005).In the factories Acne has divided two groups: production for their own stores, and production for the other retailers. They have through this organisation different lead-times between inspiration and arrivals of the clothes on the shelves. Inspiration to garments in the stores takes approximately 10 months year since we first do a sell collection to our WH clients, then we need to wait for their sales figures before we place the production orders. If we do garments only for our stores it takes 4-6 months(Therese Munthe, Acne Chief of Production ) 5.5 Assortment Strategy The assortment strategy comes from a great group work. Jonny Johansson said that in Sweden he was used to work in groups and for him it is the only way to succeed. The brand produces two collections a year: Autumn/Winter, Spring/Summer. The collections do not have so many articles and are made on an arithmetic scale, 15 pieces for each product group (11). 5.6 Sales Channel Strategy In Sweden Acne develops itself through its 4 own stores situated in Gothenburg and Stockholm, they also own a corner in Ã…lhà ©ns and an Outlet Store in Stockholm. They also sell through department stores and via the Internet. Acne choose to work through this way to be able to control the image they have of their brand, they can choose the department stores they want to work with and with their own shops and the Internet they have a total image control of the brand. Moreover, they spotted a trend with the Outlets thanks to which they can sell what was left from the previous collections. 5.7 Future goals New collaborations. Bags/ Underwear 6. Brief competitor description and analysis for 2 competitors Below the second chosen competitor, Whyred will be described. 6.1 General description of Whyred Whyred is a Swedish fashion brand which is founded by three ex-employees of H&M; Roland Hjort, Lena Patriksson Keller and Jonas Clason, in 1999. The story began with a Mens collection in 1999 and one year later the first Womens collection was in the shelves. The brand is positioned in the middle high price segment, with a turnover of 45 million SEK in (2006/2007) and 75 million SEK in (2007/2008) the brand is really growing, touching new customers. The first own shop is opened in 2001 in Stockholm, they have in 2010, 4 stores in the main Swedish cities. In 2005 they launched the shoe production line and also they set up the online outlet stores in 2007. The interesting part is that Whyred has labeled the products with Stockholm instead of Sweden, because Stockholm shows the country of origin (Sweden) and it is known as a beautiful city (Knudsen Lind 2007). The name of the brand comes from a radio interview with Roland Hjorts grandfather who was a famous Swedish artist. In that interview he was asked, What is your favorite colour? He replied: Red and the interviewer asked immediately Why red, he quipped Well, blue then. (A.K Sari, 2010) The strong inspiration of Whyred has been from the iconic style of the 1960s to give to the consumer the possibility of a Clean Living under Difficult Circumstances, inspired from THE WHOs manager Pete Meaden(Whyred Official Website). Whyred is strongly involved into the arts (especially in Cinema and Music) since the primary steps, they have project through collaborations. For instance, for their fourth art project, the short movie La Vitesse Et La Pierre is directed by Igor Zimmermann and the music is composed by Yourhighness which unveiling will happen on November 2010 in Sweden (Whyred Official Website). Moreover, they are pursuing the pull strategy by publishing the pictures of well-known people who dressed Whyred garments in the magazines or the newspapers (Knudsen Lind 2007). The brand is following simplicity by considering postmodern aesthetics, giving aesthetic awareness and making new expressions for their customers. They have ambition to make a brand as a leading European premium fashion brand (A.K Sari, 2010). 6.2 Value chain 6.3 Brand promise 6.4 Current strategy 6.4.1 Purchase strategy 6.4.2 Assortment strategy Whyred has set up its production to tow collection per year f

Advantages and Disadvantages of Robotic Surgery

Advantages and Disadvantages of Robotic Surgery Tresha Reid-Matthew DeVry University Robotic Surgery is a surgical technology in the world of healthcare that doctors are opting to use for many surgical procedures on humans today. Robotic surgery is a procedure that involves a surgeon manipulating the hands of a robot. Many people don’t know enough about  robotic surgery. It is very important for everyone to familiarize themselves with this technology because in the near future this equipment has the potential to take over the operating rooms of many hospitals.The goal of this paper is to give some basic information about how Robotic surgical procedures has evolved and to bring to light some of the ways robotic surgical procedures might affect you one day. When I was faced with the choice of having robotic surgery two months ago I felt like I didn’t know enough about the technology. I had no knowledge of how this type of surgery would affect me. I would like people to be able to understand how this technology will affect their lives.For this assignment I decided to research the advantages and drawback of robotic surgery to inform everyone about this technology so that if faced with this choice you won’t be in the dark like I was. INTRODUCTION On television in shows such as Grey’s Anatomy the process of conventional surgical procedure are acted out on screen for the world to watch. In the near future many scenes in such shows will have to be altered to feature the surgeries being done by physicians with robotic surgical devices (if they haven’t already done so already). Robotic surgeries are becoming very common in our society.It is very important for everyone to know and understand what this practice entail so that if presented with the choice of human or machine one can make the right choice. I was living my life day to day like many people. I exercise when I can and I eat right. For a period of a little over a year I was ex periencing abdominal pains so my doctors put me through many series of exams. One of the test results came back abnormal showing that I had a tumor. Being a young woman that is recently married I was scared so I decided to have my tumor removed right away.When my husband and I sat down to discuss my options with my physician I was given a choice   between a conventional procedure that is performed solely by a human doctor or robot assisted surgical procedure that involves an actual surgeon manipulating the hands of a robotic machine. I was very frightened about the thought of having a machine working on my body because the idea was foreign to me. I heard about robots working on car and I heard of the surgical procedure but I never actually though about being the subject of one of these devices.I wasn’t confident enough about this type of surgery so I opted to go with the conventional type of procedure. Robotic surgery is performed everyday around the world and it has the po tential to dominate the world of surgery, however it has advantages and disadvantages. Discussion Many people might think that this is a topic of no interest to them because right now they don’t need a surgical procedure done or they have no plans of having a surgical procedure. To those people I would like to say neither did I!To make light of this subject the first thing I would like to do is provide a timeline that show a brief history on the development stage of robotic surgical machines. ?  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   1921 a Czechoslovakian play writer named Karel Capez introduced and coined the term robot in a play called Rossom’s Universal Robots†. The play writer based the term off of the Czech meaning of the word â€Å"forced labor† (Long, 2007). ?  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   1923 The term robots entered the English language (Long, 2007). In the begging of the robots career they started relatively as â€Å"dumb machines† that did onl y slavish repetitive tasks.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     1985 Robotic Surgeries began with a robotic machine called the Puma 560. The user of the robot was a surgeon named Kwoh et al who perform neurosurgical biopsies with the machine. He wanted to be as accurate as possible and felt the machine would be able to perform a greater precision. ?  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The next person to use the Puma 560 was Davies et al three years later during a transurethral resection of the prostate Lippincott, W (2004). ?  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The next system that was later developed was PROBOT. This was a robot designed especially to assist with transurethral resection a man’s prostate.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   During the same time period that PROBOT was being developed, another machine called the ROBODOC was being developed. This robotic was designed to assist with precision of hip replacements. ROBODOC was the first surgical robot approved by the FDA. ?à ‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Researchers from the National Air and Space Administration (NASA) Ames became interested in using the information that was present from the previous robots to develop a technology called   telepresence surgery. The technology of telepresence became the major driving force behind the development of surgical robotic robots as we know them today. Lippincott, W (2004) ? 990’s Scientists from the National Air Space Administration teamed up with the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) to developed a dexterous telemanipulator for hand surgery with a design goal of give the surgeon the sense of   literally operating on the patient in front of them somewhat, instead of from across the room. ?  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The US Army recognized   the work being done by at the Stanford Research Institute and became interested of treating wounded soldiers remotely instead of putting   the surgeons in arms way the idea was to be able to treat solde rs and decrease mortality by â€Å"bringing the surgeon to the wounded soldier—through telepresence. ? Many of the surgeons and engineers working on surgical robotic systems for the Army eventually formed commercial ventures. These ventures lead to the introduction of robotics to civilian surgical communities. ?  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Computer Motion, Inc. of Santa Barbara, CA. This company used funding provided by the US Army to develop the Automated Endoscopic System for Optimal Positioning (AESOP), a robotic arm controlled by the surgeon voice commands to manipulate an endoscopic camera.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Shortly after AESOP was marketed, Integrated Surgical Systems (now Intuitive Surgical) of Mountain View, CA, licensed the SRI Green Telepresence Surgery system. This system underwent extensive redesign and was reintroduced as the Da Vinci (one of the world most used surgical assisted device today. ?  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   One year later C omputer Motion put the Zeus system into production   Robotic surgery today has certainly come a long way. The surgical procedure is similar to when it was first developed but more advanced in terms of the many procedures that robots can assist with.The device as we know it today is equipped with cameras and enhanced visual effects, to allow doctors the option of getting inside the body through tiny incisions and reparing what ever is necessary to be repared. The surgical procedure that I underwent conventionally is done by a surgeon making an eight to ten inch cut at the bottom of my stomach (very similar to the cut a woman gets when delivering a baby). I was hospitalized for three days and was given pain medication around the clock. Dr.Thad Denehy, MD (my surgeon) advised me that Robots in the field of surgery have dramatically changed the procedure and that my greatest benefit to having the Robotic Surgery was less pain, less bleeding and less scaring. Since the machine uses cam eras and enhanced visual effects, doctors make smaller incisions. The Da Vinci and Zeus system each use â€Å"arms† to operate. In order for these arms to get inside the body and operate, the robot only requires a one centimeter incision to fit each arm. For my procedure it would have required   three tiny incisions on my abdomen.The cut would have been about   one centimeter in   length (a little less than a half of an inch) to fit the arms of the robot instead of a 20 inch cut (about 8 inches) at the bottom of my stomach. According to Dr. Denehy the advantage to having the robot assist surgical procedure would have been that I would get smaller cuts the smaller cuts. He explained that smaller cuts are better because a large incision would require more time to heal. Another potential great advantage from getting the robot assist surgery Dr. Denhey explained would be less blood loss.This would be good for patients who are anemic (low blood count) or for people with medi cal conditions that cause them to bleed easily. In my case Im anemic so I would benefit from this procedure. With less blood loss and smaller incisions the the Dr. went on to advise me that would be less than half the recovery time of conventional surgery. Two weeks to full recovery instead of eight weeks to full recovery. This could be a determining factor for many people. a person who don’t have the luxury of staying out of work for more than eight weeks would be back to work in some cases as early as one week.According to Dr. Denehy the larger the cut the more trauma it cause to a persons body and the risk of getting an infection is high. Though Dr. Denehyy had such wonderful things to say about Robotic surgery I still wast convinced. One major disadvantage for me was the amount of experience he had with using the Robot assist device. He had only performed 32 surgeries using this machine while with the conventional surgery he had performed over 2000. I was very concerned a bout his experience level with this machine. This surgeon was recommended to me by two other doctors. According to Dr.Wai (One of my regular gynecologist) during my exam (before going to see Dr. Denhey) Dr. Denhey was the best surgeon in her opinion to remove my tumor. I was very freigtened that the best qualified doctor for the job only did this procedure 32 times with the robot that offered so many promises. In my research I learned that since robotic surgical procedure is a new technology   its uses and efficacy have not yet been well established (Anthony R. Lanfranco, BAS, Andres E. Castellanos, MD, Jaydev P. Desai, PhD,*† Ã‚   William C. Meyers, MD   (2011). I spoke with two surgions new in the field (Dr.Steven Choe, MD and Dr. Poovendran, Saththasivam, MD. to see if maybe Dr. Denehy experience level was due to him being an older surgeon. I was very surprised to learn that both new doctors had never used this equipment. I was told by both physicians that it wasnâ€℠¢t mandatory to learn how to use the machine but since the hospital had just purchased the machine they were both going to get training for using this machine. Surgeons start out their careers without learning about the robots initially. It is not mandatory for them to learn how to use the machine. This made me think of another disadvantage.What would happen if the surgeon performing the surgery become ill and need assistance. Who would jump in and assist him with the procedure ? If all surgions arnt on the same page with knowing how to use the machine Im not sure if this surgery is a benefit at all. As a patient I would be most confident knowing that if something should go wrong during the procedure with the health of my doctor another physicial in the vicinity of the hospital is ready and capable of jumping in and completing the procedure. According to Dr. many surgions still lack the skills of working with the surgical robot.Another disadvantage was that to date, most of the stud ies that have been done for the surgical robots has been of practicality of the equipment . The researchers of the technology haven’t done any follow up studies to date on a long-term period. At leart thatwas what my surgeon advised me during my consutation. I also learned that many procedures performed with the robotic surgical device will also soon be redesigned to optimize the use of robotic arms and increase efficiency. This is great for a patient looking to have a procedure done in the future but not so great for a patient waiting to have a procedure done today.Many of the disadvantages seem to be projects that can all go away with time and experience it see very likely that many disadvantages be remedied in the future( Anthony R. Lanfranco, BAS, Andres E. Castellanos, MD, Jaydev P. Desai, PhD,*† Ã‚   William C. Meyers, MD 2011) It became clear to me that though this technology offer many advantages there are some disadvantages that really concerns me. One of them b eing that because this equipment requires a surgeon to move the instruments while watching a video monitor potentially a lot could go wrong.Robot assist surgeries requires the surgeon to move in the opposite direction from the target on the monitor. If the surgeon becomes tired and forgets that he is to be moving in the opposite direction he or she can cause major damages. In order for this to work correctly it require a lot of hand eye coordination and great hand and finger dexterity. The idea that this procedure is done through the eyes and fingers of a human being, lead me to believe that this type of procedure is not safety proof.Perhaps even more important than the probability of a fault is the ability to detect that a fault has indeed occurred and prevent hazards resulting from it, that is, allow the robot to â€Å"fail safely†. This usually involves shutting the robot down and removing it from the patient, and having the operation manually completed by a surgeon. As th e task which the robot undertakes becomes more and more complicated, there is an increasing need for more complex hardware and software components (faster response, better accuracy, more degrees of freedom).This increases the probability of error exponentially. Software is notoriously difficult to reason about, while hardware reliability never ceases to be of prime importance. CONCLUSIONS Robotic surgery is rapidly making its way into the progression of surgical procedures as we know it today. Though the technology is fairly new it’s becoming the choice for surgery for both surgeon and patients. Many individuals still feel that they need time to completely trust theses machines and would probably consider it in a few more years.With the further use of this machine the pros will more than likely outweigh the cons. The more surgeons use this machine they will become more familiar with the different capabilities of Robotic Surgical devices. They will also figure out ways getter better trained and getting a lot of practice using the equipment. More studies will be done on the feasibility of the technology. Conventional Surgical techniques took thousands of years to develop to where it is today adding this new dimension to it will further expand and make better the many practices.People such as myself will take a second look at having the robot assist in with surgical procedures that involve myself and will probably be more excited about having to get smaller incisions and reduced recovery time for after surgery. References Brown University. (1999). Robotic surgery. Retrieved from http://biomed. brown. edu/Courses/BI108/BI108_2005_Groups/04/   Long, T. (2007, January 25). The robot cometh. Retrieved from http://www. wired. com/science/discoveries/news/2007/01/72500 Parmar, A. (2001). STRESS-FREE SURGERY. Siliconindia, 5(10), 44. Interview with Dr. DenehyInterview with  First year surgical resident at saint peters University Hospital Steven Choe Interview with first year sergical resident Povendran, saththasivam at saint peters university hospital Websites http://biomed. brown. edu/Courses/BI108/BI108_2008_Groups/group12/Roboticsurgery. html http://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pmc/articles/PMC1356187/ http://www. onlineschools. org/robotic-surgical-technology/ http://library. thinkquest. org/03oct/00760/ http://www. medscape. com/viewarticle/466691_5 Anthony R. Lanfranco, BAS, Andres E. Castellanos, MD, Jaydev P. Desai, PhD,*† Ã‚   William C. Meyers, MD SUMMARY