Carlos Ghosn’s approach to turning Nissan around

Carlos Ghosn’s approach to turning Nissan around In order to give a thorough in-depth evaluation of Carlos Ghosns approach to turning Nissan around I have chosen to apply John Kotters 8-step model to strategic change implementation (Kotter J. P., 1996) displayed below. Kotter is regarded as an authority within the field of organization and change management and I find his model helps securing a comprehensive evaluation. The model is usually used as a forward-looking plan for how to handle a change process, but I will apply it as a retrospective analytical tool to review how the process was handled at Nissan. The first three steps are about creating the right climate for change and making sure the organization is ready to make a move ahead. The next three steps are about engaging and enabling the organization to pursue the strategy. Without support from a large part of the organization, change will not be successful, but equally important the organization needs to be equipped to handle such process change. The last two steps are all about implementing and sustaining change. Without focus on these aspects the organization is in risk of regress. The assignment puts emphasis on organizational and national culture. That is for good reason as I find them central aspects of the challenges Ghosn was facing, when he took over as the first non-Japanese COO of Nissan. Kotters 8-step model does not focus on culture, but it is implicitly handled in several of the steps most noticeable in step two and four. In the conclusion I will sum up the findings in the analysis and explicitly answer the four questions given in the text. 1 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Establish a sense of urgency2 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Form a powerful coalition3 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Create a vision4 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Communicate the vision5 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Empower others6 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Plan for and create short-term wins7 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Consolidate improvements8 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Institutionalize changes 3 | P a g e 2. EVALUATION ANALYSIS 2.1 ESTABLISH A SENSE OF URGENCY It is an ill wind that blows no good, this was also the case for the Yamaichi bankruptcy. The misfortune of the major financial house in Japan helped open the eyes of the employees in Nissan. Now the employees realized that lifetime employment was no longer a reality and that they had to do their own part to secure the companys future and thus their own jobs. Ghosn, to his credit, used the Yamaichi example whenever he could to continue to motivate his employees, repeating that their fate would be no different if they did not put all of their effort into figuring out, and then executing, the best way to turn Nissan around. (Millikin Dean, 2003) The bankruptcy was indeed a blessing in disguise for Ghosn as it created the burning platform that according to Kotter is crucial to do change. Change is always accompanied by anxiety for the unfamiliar, but this event made sure the whole organization was aware that status quo is more dangerous for Nissan and each employee than venturing into the unknown. Kotter believes that around half of the failed change efforts can be traced back to step one. If people do not see why change is necessary, then motivation for change will be nonexistent. Moving a huge organization simply by brute force is an impossible task, but Ghosns strike of luck created a powerful momentum that diminished potential resistance to change. 2.2 FORM A POWERFUL COALITION One man cannot change a huge company such as Nissan. Ghosn realized this as well. Even though he had been talking with plant employees and had gained a lot of knowledge about what should be done, he chose not to impose a revival plan on Nissan. He wanted the employees to come up with ideas themselves and to lay down a plan for what was to happen. His establishment of the nine Cross-Functional Teams (CFTs) and their sub-teams created powerful coalitions that were essential in turning the company around. These coalitions mainly consisted of middle managers, but they were empowered because they reported directly to two supervisors from the executive committee, had full access to all 4 | P a g e necessary information, and they had the full support from top management. The cross-functional aspect gave the freedom and insight to create radical changes without being weighted down by the need for conscientiousness and corporation, which is a general characteristic for most Japanese companies including Nissan. This powerful coalition is, according to Kotter, fundamental for a successful change as Ghosn needed protagonists to influence the whole organization and these protagonists needed to have enough impact to counteract the inherent resistance to change. A powerful coalition is especially important in Japanese culture as group harmony is a cornerstone in their work environment. A powerful coalition will have fewer problems, relative to a similar situation in a company in Western culture, converting the minds of opponents as many will act opportunistic and follow the majority or as Ghosn puts it: When you get a clear strategy and communicate your priorities, its a pleasure working in Japan. The Japanese are so organized and know how to make the best of things. They respect leadership. (Millikin Dean, 2003) 2.3 CREATE A VISION According to Ghosn, Nissan had been suffering from management lacking vision and he pointed this out as one of five main issues that he wanted to address. First creating the Nissan Revival Plan and then formulating Nissan 180 was an excellent two-step vision, which was guiding, laying a foundation for decision making, and created a bridge from the present to where he wanted to take the company in the future. The vision helped the employees understand why they had to undergo change by showing what was in store in the future. That they had to change their attention from regaining market shares to focus on customer demands. Not only was Ghosn aggressively launching the Nissan 180 program to transition out of the Nissan Revival Plan program, but he was also pushing a new, customer-focused initiative called Quality3-3-3. (Millikin Dean, 2003) 5 | P a g e Creating a vision that is tangible, concise, and easy to relate to for the employees is key when setting out to change an organization. Detailed plans for what needs to be done are at this point not advisable because they do not create the much needed excitement and enthusiasm, which is so vital. It is important to bear in mind that this step is part of the first three steps, which focus on creating the right climate for change. It is therefore all about talking to peoples feelings and not necessarily to their intellect. Furthermore Kotter stresses that leaders need to walk the walk. Actions often speak louder than words and if leaders want people to follow them, then they must take the lead. Ghosn was aware of this. One issue Ghosn noticed, shortly after arriving at Nissan, was the lack of communication between the layers of the organization, and as the quote below shows Ghosn was prepared to walks the walk himself. He was the first manager to actually walk around the entire company and meet every employee in person, shaking hands and introducing himself. (Millikin Dean, 2003) 2.4 COMMUNICATE THE VISION It is not enough to create a great vision. It also has to be communicated effectively to the organization. It says in the text that Ghosn communicated both NRP and Nissan 180 aggressively and that two of his three philosophies of management are: Transparency an organization can only be effective if followers believe that what the leaders think, say, and do are all the same thing. Communication of company direction and priorities this is the only way to get truly unified effort and buy-in. (Millikin Dean, 2003) Information concerning his methods of communication is unfortunately lacking, but there is no doubt, that he understood the importance of communicating the vision, and results show that he succeeded brilliantly. Ghosn and his coalition managed to reach out to all employees and motivate them to move towards the vision. If he had not been able to communicate 6 | P a g e effectively enough the NRP arguably would not have been the rapid success it turned out to be. The NRP was achieved in March 2002, one year ahead of schedule. (Millikin Dean, 2003) Kotter stresses the importance of having focus on communication of the vision because it will act as a guideline, and if people do not get that information they do not know which direction to go. Because mental images are easier to remember one of the effective ways to get the message across is using metaphors, analogies, and examples. His metaphor of 180 in the Nissan 180 vision is a paragon of virtue in that way. It clearly creates a picture of turning the company around, and incorporating the metrics in the 180 made it easier for employees to remember what they needed to do. 2.5 EMPOWER OTHERS The Japanese culture forced Ghosn to pay extra attention on the empowerment of employees. As mentioned, Japanese business culture is characterized by a search for conscientiousness, corporation, group harmony, and an avoidance of mistakes. This all leads to a delay of decision making and a lack of responsibility. The introduction of CFTs was an attempt to break with the inconveniences of Japanese culture without harassing the fundamentals. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦cultural conflict, if paced and channeled correctly, could provide opportunity for rapid innovation. (Millikin Dean, 2003) People in CFTs got a birds eye perspective of the company and it gave them a sense of ownership and responsibility, which was necessary to turn things around. Ghosn even went as far as to put his own fate in the hands of his employees as he had publicly stated his trust in the employees abilities. He encouraged employees to come forth with their ideas and take risks. This was contradictory to their instincts as it was embedded in the organizational culture not to seek risks and to reach consensus before making a decision. Furthermore, he made organizational changes such as permanent cross-functional departments and matrix organization for higher-level staff, which all emphasized the demand for 7 | P a g e responsibility and accountability. Finally he changed the traditional Japanese compensation system to a more Western approach with possibility for employee advancements based on performance instead of seniority. This greatly empowered the talented employees, which was much needed in this change. In many cases, these midlevel managers enjoyed learning about the business à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦and felt fully engaged in the change process, giving them a sense of responsibility and ownership about turning Nissan around. (Millikin Dean, 2003) 2.6 PLAN FOR AND CREATE SHORT-TERM WINS Ghosn excels when it comes to creating short-term wins. His NRP created tremendous results that boosted motivation throughout the organization. One success was a 20% reduction in purchasing costsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦the supplier base shrunk by 40% and the service suppliers decreased by 60%. (Millikin Dean, 2003) It is incredibly important that short-term wins are communicated broadly to the organization, so people can see their hard work come to fruition. Often leaders of change hope that short-term success will arise, but according to Kotter it is necessary to actually plan for them. A commitment to create short-term goals has a positive side effect as it increases the sense of urgency throughout the first period. Ghosn did it brilliantly by announcing to the public that the company would show a profit within two years. This is something all employees can understand and it creates a commitment that helps in the realization of his promises. 2.7 CONSOLIDATE IMPROVEMENTS One of Ghosns three management principles is to execute. He states that 95% of the job is about execution. It is not enough to have a strategy if it is not carried out. This is completely in line with Kotters thinking. The consolidation of improvements is all about securing the short-term wins by rooting them in the company and using that as a foundation for further work. At the same time as he declared that the NRP was achieved he announced the Nissan 180. Nissan 180 represented a plan for growth based on the improvements that NRP yielded. 8 | P a g e Now that they had made the necessary improvements, it was time to consolidate and improve further. I think many leaders mistakenly would have left out the second step of Ghosns two-step vision. But if he had done so, the company presumably would have had difficulties rooting the tremendous results and huge changes that were created in such a short time. His timing of the announcement of Nissan 180 was perfect as it kept the momentum going. The Nissan Revival Plan is over. Two years after the start of its implementation, all the official commitments we took have been overachieved one full year ahead of scheduleà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Nissan is now ready to grow. 2.8 INSTITUTIONALIZE CHANGES Another of Kotter areas of focus is that changes are often considered finished too early. The organization needs time to really settle in the new ways and if victory is declared too early, then there is a risk of returning to the old ways. Ghosn was aware of that as he was concerned with what will happen when he returned to Renault. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Ghosn contemplates the future, he knows that the transformation has really just begun The momentum and positive energy that have been created from all the success needs to be followed-up by a new vision and new goals. This can potentially be a difficult task because the great success could diminish the employees sense of urgency. Whether or not his successor is able to do so remains unknown, but the fact that Ghosn was aware that there is still a long way to go shows his great insight to problems with turning a company around and institutionalizing changes. 9 | P a g e 3. EVALUATION CONCLUSION Omitting the fact that Kotter introduced his 8-step model in 1995 one could almost suspect that Ghosn had read about Kotters model to strategic change as it looks like he follows them closely. Ghosns ability to establish the right climate for change, engaging and enabling the whole organization, and implementing and sustaining the change in such a large organization is admirable. 1) I think the resistance to change that Ghosn faced was inevitable. Turning a company around as drastically as was needed for Nissan is bound to create resistance. Such a big change makes the future uncertain for many employees and the uncertainty is something many naturally try to avoid. Combining that with strong Japanese traditions, an organizational culture that is hindering innovation and adaptability, and a Japanese government that historically always have bailed out troubled employees, and thereby created a pretext for inaction, only made it worse. Trying to move people, who do not find movement necessary, will unavoidably create tension and resistance. That being said, I think Ghosn handed the resistance to change ideally. 2) I am sure that many parts of the Nissan organization did not feel very good about having Ghosn changing things as drastically as he did. The reduction of 21,000 jobs will inevitably create opponents among the lower level employees as well as higher in the hierarchy. Furthermore, the demotion of Vice President of Sales and Marketing in Japan would presumably create antagonists with more leverage. Throughout the text examples of his no-nonsense approach to leadership shows that he is a tough leader that does not accept failure and he demands that people take responsibility for their actions. I think this kind of approach combined with his philosophies of management and his capacity for global leadership was the key to his success in Nissan and the reason why his opponents were not able to challenge him seriously. Another reason is the respect for leadership that is inherent in most Japanese. This made his approach to leadership even more effective. Finally, his involvement of the CF Ts made sure that he would not be the only one in the line of fire. The delegation of responsibilities to the CFTs helped getting the support of middle and lower levels, so he could focus his attention on top management. 10 | P a g e 3) The national culture has without a doubt played a large part in the outcome of Ghosns attempt to turn Nissan around. On the one hand it hindered change because of the sense of security the government created and its rigid approach to decision making and career advancement. On the other hand the respect for leadership made it easier for him and his CFTs to have an impact on the organization. The cultural differences between Ghosn and the Nissan organization was profound because he had never been exposed to Japanese culture before, but his approach to the culture ensured that he was fully aware of the issues that could arise. He stated that he wanted to discover Japan by being in Japan with Japanese people. That shows his humble and respectful approach to their culture, which I think benefitted him. 4) There is no doubt that Ghosn was lucky. His timing was impeccable as the bankruptcy of Yamaichi happened when he took office as COO in Nissan. This fortunate misfortune paved the way for a major organizational and cultural change that otherwise would have been hard to push through. Without this, Ghosn and his CFTs would probably have faced a much more daunting task. Whether or not they would have been able to power through in spite remains unknown, but having learned about Ghosn leadership abilities I think he would have found a way. All in all I think Carlos Ghosn did an incredible job turning Nissan around in a very short period of time. As a non-Japanese COO he managed to overcome Japanese cultural obstacles, as well as effectively transforming a bureaucratic organizational culture and turning a large continuing deficit into a profit within 18 month. One could question whether his successor will be able to continue what Ghosn started or if he/she needs to find his/her own way. Either way, Ghosn has a justifiable concern for the future of Nissan. They might be on the right path, but they are still far from reaching their goals. 11 | P a g e

Free Great Gatsby Essays: Deception :: Great Gatsby Essays

There are many American novels that yield insights into human nature, but few are as honest or intriguing as Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is brilliantly composed, and involves many different personalities, but it is at the core of this novel that we find the dark secret of humanity: deception. All of the inhabitants of East and West Egg use one another to get what they want, with little care as to how it will affect the people around them. Through the eyes of Nick Carraway, we see how the wealthy live: they live in a luxurious society surrounded by their own lies and deception. Looking in from the outside, their lives seem perfect; they have everything that money can buy, right? Wrong, the one thing that their money cannot buy them is happiness, and this is why each character deceives someone. Our story unravels early on in The Great Gatsby, Nick's very wealthy cousin, Daisy, simply has it all: she is beautiful and graceful; her bank account is large; she's traveled and knows people no matter where she goes. Her husband, Tom Buchanan, is without a doubt very lucky to be with her; but there's a ripple in this perfect couple: he's cheating on her. Not only is Tom cheating on her, but he's cheating on her with someone of a far lesser class; which makes the reader question why he's with her in the first place. Daisy had a very good reputation among the elite; she had never done anything that would have embarrassed her. "They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and wild, but she came out with an absolutely perfect reputation" (82). This illustrates how well put together Daisy is, he has used her, and continues to use her not only for her wealth, but also for her firm social standing. She could, literally, make or break Tom depending merely on whether or not she stayed with him; of course he'd remain with her, she defined his social standing. At the same time that Tom was using Daisy for her money, Daisy was using Tom, but for far different reasons. Nick reveals that Daisy doesn't need Tom in the same way that he needs her, she needs Tom to remain emotionally stable. As the story of Daisy and Gatsby's history unfolded, it became clear that they, at one point, loved each other very deeply, however, Gatsby had to leave Daisy to go to war.

Actual Benefits of Information Technology Outsourcing Essay -- companie

1) Critically evaluate the competitive advantage that can be gained by companies through IS/IT outsourcing. Provide suitable example to support your answer. Introduction Outsourcing is an arrangement in which one company provides services for another company that could also be or usually have been provided internal. As we know, outsourcing is a development that is becoming further common in information technology or information system and other industries for services that have usually been regarded as basic to managing a business. In some cases, the whole information management of a company is outsourced, including planning and business analysis as well as the installation, management, and servicing of the network and workstations. For the example, University Kolej Poly-Tech Mara provided Campus Management System (CMS) for student and they bought this CMS from outsourcing from Indonesia. By outsourcing the logistical activities the company can achieve great remunerations. Outsourced environment has been exposed to regularly bring gains in productivity to companies, specifically through scale, technology and expertise. Besides, outsourcing can also h elp companies reduce costs associated with labour and real estate. Taking advantage of an outsourcing vendor’s global, centre-based dispersed delivery brings advance economies of scale and process proficiency. Competitive advantage is very important thing especially in term of business marketing because when your business starts growing, the companies should start to think of the potential benefits of going beyond the basics, as larger companies do, and look for ways to use information systems for competitive advantage. (Dr Donald J McCubbrey, Oct 6, 2010). To achieve a competitiv... ...ks Cited WNS Global Service, Gaining competitive advantage through analytics outsourcing, 14 October 2009. Available at, http://www.slideshare.net/WNSGlobalServices/kpo-whitepaper-wns-2009, Retrieved at November 2013. Journal of Accountancy, The Pros and Cons of IT Outsourcing, June 1998. Available at http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/1998/Jun/antonuci.htm. Retrieved at November 2013. Journal of IT Management, Volume IV, Number 2, Outsourcing the IS Function, The impact on competitive advantage, 1993. Available at, http://jitm.ubalt.edu/IV-2/article4.pdf. Retrieved at November 2013. B. A. Aubert, M. Patry, S. Rivard, â€Å"Assessing IT Outsourcing Risk†, Proceedings of the 31st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Jan 1998, Available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/6550923/The-Information-Technology-Outsourcing-Risk. Retrieved at Disember 2013.

How the business deals with legal factors Essay

A legal factor that has a big impact on Tesco’s is protecting employees which, includes the laws about how many hours an employee can work. This amount of hours depends on the employees contract, if they are a full time member of staff then they have to work between 35-45 hours a week but no more, these hours also have to be over reasonably shift, for example having a 8 hour shift a day over 5 days a week. If they are a part time member then they can work any amount of hours a week as long as it is no longer the 35 hours. This can impact on Tesco’s as they have to keep to the terms and conditions of their contracts with staff , which could affect activates Tesco’s wish to do as they may not fit in the with hours the members of staff involved can work. Tesco’s can deal with this by offering willing to work staff overtime shifts, if staff are willing to do this, it means that Tesco’s doesn’t need to employ any more member which works out better for them as if they were to do this, they would then have to find the correct amount of hours agreed in the contact which might not be available. Even though some staff maybe willing to work more hours, they may feel that because they are helping out the business that they don’t need to be as professional and honest as they are when working their own scheduled shifts, this article (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/tesco-accused-of-using-electronic-armbands-to-monitor-its-staff-8493952.html)is about how Tesco’s is trying to deal with this issue. Tesco’s has come up with this idea of its warehouse and forklift staff wearing electronic bracelets which helps improve the efficiency of it workers as it means they don’t have to carry around items such as pen and paper as the armband collects this data which also means they are collection correct data. This armband also allows Tesco’s to monitor their staff to check that they are doing their jobs when expected of them and that they are not taking any un-agreed breaks, the arm band also informs the staff of when they are allowed there b reaks. This helps Tesco’s make sure their staff are not working over the hours allowed or working under the hours agreed. A legal factor that impacts Tata motors  is the protection of customers and employees, like all businesses Tata has to keep to legal factors and laws, the need to treat all of their customers fairly and honestly, this helps customers feel they can trust the business as well as giving the a good reputation. Challenges that Tata face when selling their products are making sure they pass the sales of good act which means they need to describe the product exactly how it is and not say it does something it actually doesn’t. It also needs to pass the customer credit act. http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/tata-motors-focus-on-customer-satisfaction-to-woo-back-buyers-114111600186_1.html this article explains how they are going out of their way to make sure the give there customers the best service they possibly can. The article states that Tata motor has previously had problems with their customer service. They have taken this feedback and actually work on making it better by improving the quality of manufacture and repairs. How the business deal with social factors A common social factor that affects business is equal rights for both man and female workers and peoples religion. This could impact Tesco’s as if anyone feels as though they are being judged or unable to do something because of these reasons then they could cause problems for Tesco’s by making complaints either to their managers or their union. To make sure this doesn’t happen Tesco’s has to make sure that their staff know that everyone treated the same and if there are people applying for a job they cannot turn them away because of these reason, the only way they can do this is if someone is disabled in some way and their disability would stop them from doing the job required, however if this is the care they have to inform this person that is the reason but in a kind way as not to offend them. Tesco’s deal with these possible problem by getting new applicants to have a cv which is what they are judged upon or the job, they then have interview/trial which is so that they are then judged upon their abilities to do the job not on the gender or religious view. Tesco’s has coped well with this issues as if you are to go into their stores you are clearly able to see a balanced level of both male and female staff, Tesco’s also considers the religious view and has there store open later and close early on a Sunday as most religions see this a day of rest.

La Voz a Ti Debida Anaylsis

Pedro Salinas has a reputation of one of the great love poets of his time. In his poem ‘La voz a ti debida’ he explores a deeper meaning of love by comparing appearance with reality and the superficial with the transcendent. This particular poem is one part of a trilogy of love poems written by the author between 1933-1939. All three were well received. The other two poems ‘Razon de amor’ and ‘Largo lamento’ describe the reason for love and the pain of separation, whereas the first focuses on the confusion of love.The works of Pedro Salinas were referred to as â€Å"prosias† by Federico Lorca; a famous Spanish poet from a similar era. Prosias is something Lorca used to describe a work wherein there is no distinguishable pattern, rather a mixture between prose and poetry. Testament to this fact there seems to be no recognisable pattern throughout the poem. Pedro Salinas uses language that is not conventional to the poetry of his time; he u ses a lot of symbolism, metaphor and imagery. However, the love is described negatively – it does not focus on a particular character, the benefits of being loved, being in love or on a particular love story.There is no reference of love between two specific people therefore illustrating how Salinas refers to love in a different manor to his contemporaries. Salinas writes in a very natural way; he does not use rhyme, specific line length and there does not appear to be any kind of prominent patterns. The poem is an exploration into the absolute, wit and beauty. Salinas associates love with confusion, this is made clear in the first few lines of the poem in which he uses imagery of a mask, he is showing that love can be deceiving and changes the way someone can think, act and behave: Extraviadamente amantes, por el mundo. ?Amar! ?Que confusion sin par! ?Cuantos errores! Besar rostros en vez de mascaras amadas. ’ The imagery in the poem such as the choir of mermaids symb olizes the fact that love can obscure reality, causing people to fantasize, creating an exaggerated impression of their lives. This correlates with the confusion that is highlighted by the reference to masks. Mermaids are also supposed to be associated with beauty and desire, they are angelic, virginal and young.They are also surrounded by water, so they are with nature, suggesting that love is natural, involuntary and all encompassing. As a result people’s identities are altered as they are overcome with emotion and fantasy. Furthermore, the mermaid in snow was confusing, however this could have been a device which Salinas used to represent the confusion of love, as he associates opposites with each other. This could be suggestive of the fact that love can enable people to be attracted to one another despite their differences.Moreover, Salinas shows that ultimately this can often result in failure, as these people are incompatible as are mermaids with snow. ‘sirenas y corales en las nieves perpetuas, y en el fondo del mar, constelaciones ya fatigadas, las transfugas de la gran noche huerfana, donde mueren los buzos. Los dos. Que descarrio! ’ The reference to the death of the divers suggests that they met their fate whilst searching for, or exploring, love. This shows that love is alluring, seductive and uncontrollable as it can lead people astray and destroy them. ‘?Este camino, el otro, aquel? Los mapas, falsos, trastornando los rumbos, juegan a nuestra perdida, entre riesgos sin faro. ’ This phrase strengthens the argument that what people believe about love is often false; they are misled. This is suggested by maps being false, people are unaware of the confusion that love can cause. Salinas uses imagery to show that love can be controlling; rash decisions may be made upon their lust. My understanding of this section is that people are happy not to be right, they are ‘on the edge of victory but have no desire to winâ €™.This further suggests that love clouds vision and alters the normal way in which people think and act; they are not their normal selves. ‘De alegria purisima de no atinar, de hallarnos en umbrales, en bordes tremulos de victoria, sin ganas de ganar’ Salinas goes beyond the surface with regards to love, he does not so much focus on individuals and their identities, but more on what love is as a concept. The lovers that the narrator describes are anonymous and are therefore are lacking in identity.This is a purely intentional feature included by the author in order to allow each individual reader to extract and relate to particular aspects of his writings. Therefore I believe that the poem conveys a universal meaning about love, and about how people can become infatuated with others, becoming dependent and losing their identities. The phrase ‘Extraviadamente amantes, por el mundo’ is be representative of this, as the narrator is suggesting that love ca n often be misleading for everyone. I enjoyed reading this poem as it is written in an unusual style with lots of imagery.Due to the interpretative nature of ‘La voz a ti debida’, each individual reader is able to extract and understand Salinas’ descriptions of the concept of love in various ways, depending on their own identity and personal experiences of love. Salinas’ descriptions of love could be considered somewhat ambiguous; in that sense, he has played with a general understanding of human emotion and compassion with the aim of making his work more widely applicable and understandable to a larger group of readers. This is exactly as Salinas would have wanted – for every individual to feel as if each line had been written specifically for them.

Earthquake located on the San Andreas Fault line Essay

An Earthquake that registered 7.8 on the Richter Scale which lasted approximately 1 minute caused catastrophic damage to the City of Berkeley and LPHG. As a result of the Earthquake 31 employees perished including 1 as a result of the H1Z1 virus which had an outbreak in the wake of the catastrophe. The damage and loss of life has caused significant delays to the release of LPHG’s release of EFHG. DRP Documents: (e.g., disaster  recovery plan, backup plans etc.) Include specific details about the documents, including completeness. The Disaster Preparedness plan was not written as thoroughly as possible and left little direction to the disaster recovery team. it was missing major information, such as a list of critical services, Employee contact information and vendor contact information. see more:summary of san andreas movie The Business Impact analysis for this type of scenario or any disaster was never completed so there was little information to help the disaster preparedness team as far as how this disaster will impact the organizations operations. The Backup Policy was written thoroughly and included information on the backup schedule and storage locations. It also listed the backup methods used and the length of time full backups were kept for. The document also included instructions to restore data from both differential and full backups, but did not address what to do in a disaster scenario such as this. Lastly, the document does not address data storage at an offsite location, which would be beneficial if the whole campus is lost during an emergency. Post-Disaster Response Summary: Because the DRP was not completed properly there was not enough information available to employees, and they were not able to respond properly. They had to find employees names and addresses on their own since this information was missing from the DRP. Since no Business Impact analysis was done for this type of situation there was no relevant information available to help the DR team members through this specific situation. One bright spot is that they organizations data has been protected. Strengths of Disaster Response EVALUATION Strength #1: Strength Details: Summary of Strength: The Backup plan was set up and in place and data was protected and stored in multiple locations to ensure its safety. Additionally, the data retention policy made sure that full backups were kept for a period of at least 2 weeks and that differential backups were used in addition to full backups.  Contributing Factors: Plans There was a data backup plan in place Policies Policies were clearly outlined in the Backup and Recovery Policy document, and were being followed Documents The Backup and Recovery Policy was able to provide enough documentation to explain procedures for backing up data. Positive Consequences: Because the Policy was in place and was being followed, the Organization was able to retain all of its data through this disaster. once normal operations resume that data can be restored. Ways to Improve: The locations of data storage should be revised to allow for an offsite storage location. currently both data storage locations are located on campus. At least one of these locations needs to be changed to an offsite location to allow for greater chance of data retention in case a disaster strikes that wipes out the whole campus. Strength #2: Strength Details: Summary of Strength: Data recovery plan was written and procedures were in place to restore data in case of emergency. Since this was prepared the organization can restore operations successfully and resume work when normal operations begin again Contributing Factors: Plans Data restoration plan was written and in place Policies Policies were clearly defined in Backup and recovery policy document. Documents Backup and Recovery document provides clear instructions to follow in case of emergency and outlines step by step process to restore data Positive Consequences: Since the Backup and recovery document was in place and provided clear instructions this allows for a quicker recovery time to restore data once normal operations resume. Ways to Improve: The Data recovery document should be refined to include the priority of data restoration when all business functions have been compromised Strength #3: Strength Details: Summary of Strength: Disaster Recovery team had previously prepared Disaster preparedness plan, a Backup and Recovery Policy, and a Business Impact Assessment. Contributing Factors: Plans Having these plans in place give the Disaster Recovery team the instructions they need when disaster strikes Policies There were policies in place for the Disaster Recovery team to follow these documents Documents Documents were readily available and helped provide basic guidance to Disaster recovery Team Positive Consequences: Having the documentation available helped the Disaster Recovery team kick off the process to restore the organization to operational status. Ways to Improve: These documents need to be thoroughly reviewed after the organization is restored to operational status. When they are reviewed they need to be more thoroughly filled out and include any lessons learned from the current disaster. Areas for Improvement of Disaster Response EVALUATION Area for Improvement #1: Area for Improvement Details: Summary of Area for Improvement: Documentation needs to be improved and completed. The Documentation that existed, though helpful did not provide any comprehensive guidance to the disaster recovery team. Contributing Factors: Plans The Disaster Preparedness plan and the Business Impact analysis were not completed properly. Policies Policies for developing proper disaster recovery documentation were not in place and as a result the documentation to support it was not correctly done Documents Disaster recovery documentation was not complete and did not give employees enough information to used during the disaster recovery process Consequences: There are multiple scenarios that can be created from the lack of preparedness. At the very least the lack of documentation and foresight into planning can cause a delay in the recovery process for the organization. On the more extreme side this can put the organization out of business because the organization can take an extraordinary amount of time to return to normal operating conditions Ways to Improve: Review existing documentation and ensure that is it done completely. This is an incredibly important and clearly necessary approach. Additional documentation will have to be created in order to assist the Emergency Response team in the future. Area for Improvement #2: Area for Improvement Details: Summary of Area for Improvement: Data storage and Business Continuity plan did not identify the need for an off campus site to store data backups and allow for restoration of IT services in case of emergency Contributing Factors: Plans A plan needs to be developed that involves identifying an off campus site in case of emergency Policies Policies will need to be created to identify when an alternate site is needed to be used and how to go about restoring services from that site. Documents Documentation will have to be written to support proper procedure for bringing alternate site up during emergency situations. Consequences: Without an off campus secondary site, the organization runs the risk of total destruction should an emergency happen that destroys or compromises the main campus. Ways to Improve: A secondary site with proper equipment that is far enough away from main campus could enable the organization to continue operations even if the main campus is compromised. Area for Improvement #3: Area for Improvement Details: Summary of Area for Improvement: There is no process in place to validate and review the various documents for the Disaster Recovery Plan. Additionally no Disaster response teams have been identified to review and execute these plans when needed. Contributing Factors: Plans All Disaster Recovery documentation should be completed and review periodically. A process to validate and test the plan should be put into place. Policies Policies and procedures should be created to ensure that documentation is completed and reviewed Documents All documents involving Disaster Recovery need to updated and reviewed on a regular basis. Consequences: Since the documentation was done so haphazardly, the ability to return to normal operation status in a timely manner is put in jeopardy. Even worse, this can cause the organization to cease to exist. Ways to Improve: Create a Disaster Recovery team and put them in charge of documenting and planning all facets of disaster recovery. Have them update and add the required documentation and have disaster recovery drills to verify the plans. Additionally, the team should take their findings from testing and continually update and try to improve the policy.

Crowdsourcing: Human-based Computation and Amazon Mechanical Turk

In a companion blog post to his June 2006 Wired magazine article, Jeff Howe posited the first definition of crowdsourcing:â€Å"Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers.†Daren C. Brabham was the first to define â€Å"crowdsourcing† in the scientific literature in a February 1, 2008, article:â€Å"Crowdsourcing is an online, distributed problem-solving and production model.†In the classic use of the term, problems are broadcast to an unknown group of solvers in the form of an open call for solutions. Users—also known as the crowd—s ubmit solutions which are then owned by the entity that broadcasted the problem—the crowdsourcer. In some cases, the contributor of the solution is compensated monetarily, with prizes, or with recognition. In other cases, the only rewards may be kudos or intellectual satisfaction. Crowdsourcing may produce solutions from amateurs or volunteers working in their spare time, or from experts or small businesses which were unknown to the initiating organization.Crowdsourcers are primarily motivated by its benefits. One of these includes the ability to gather large numbers of solutions and information at a relatively inexpensive cost. Users are motivated to contribute to crowdsourced tasks by both intrinsic motivations, such as social contact,  intellectual stimulation, and passing time, and by extrinsic motivations, such as financial gain.Due to the blurred limits of crowdsourcing, many collaborative activities are considered crowdsourcing even when they are not. Another consequ ence of this situation is the proliferation of definitions in the scientific literature. Different authors give different definitions of crowdsourcing according to their specialties, losing in this way the global picture of the term.After studying more than 40 definitions of crowdsourcing in the scientific and popular literature, Enrique Estellà ©s-Arolas and Fernando Gonzà ¡lez Ladrà ³n-de-Guevara developed a new integrating definition:â€Å"Crowdsourcing is a type of participative online activity in which an individual, an institution, a non-profit organization, or company proposes to a group of individuals of varying knowledge, heterogeneity, and number, via a flexible open call, the voluntary undertaking of a task. The undertaking of the task, of variable complexity and modularity, and in which the crowd should participate bringing their work, money, knowledge and/or experience, always entails mutual benefit. The user will receive the satisfaction of a given type of need, be it economic, social recognition, self-esteem, or the development of individual skills, while the crowdsourcer will obtain and utilize to their advantage that what the user has brought to the venture, whose form will depend on the type of activity undertaken†.Henk van Ess emphasizes the need to â€Å"give back† the crowdsourced results to the public on ethical grounds. His non-scientific, non-commercial definition is widely cited in the popular press:â€Å"Crowdsourcing is channeling the experts’ desire to solve a problem and then freely sharing the answer with everyone†Crowdsourcing systems are used to accomplish a variety of tasks. For example, the crowd may be invited to develop a new technology, carry out a design task (also known as community-based design or distributed participatory  design), refine or carry out the steps of an algorithm (see human-based computation), or help capture, systematize, or analyze large amounts of data (see also citizen science).HistoryThe term â€Å"crowdsourcing† is a portmanteau of â€Å"crowd† and â€Å"outsourcing,† coined by Jeff Howe in a June 2006 Wired magazine article â€Å"The Rise of Crowdsourcing†. It has been argued that crowdsourcing can only exist on the Internet and is thus a relatively recent phenomenon., however, long before modern crowdsourcing systems were developed, there were a number of notable examples of projects that utilized distributed people to help accomplish tasks.Historical examples The Oxford English DictionaryThe Oxford English Dictionary (OED) may provide one of the earliest examples of crowdsourcing. An open call was made to the community for contributions by volunteers to index all words in the English language and example quotations of their usages for each one. They received over 6 million submissions over a period of 70 years. The making of the OED is detailed in The Surgeon of Crow Thorne by Simon Winchester.Crowdsourcing in gene alogy researchGenealogical research was using crowdsourcing techniques long before computers were common. Beginning in 1942 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (also known as the Mormon church) encouraged members to submit information about their ancestors. The submitted information was gathered together into a single collection. In 1969 in order to encourage more people to participate in gathering genealogical information about their ancestors, the church started the three-generation program. In this program church members were asked to prepare documented family group record forms for the first three generations. The program was later expanded to encourage members to research at least 4 generations, and became known as the four-generation program.Institutes that have records of interest to genealogical research have used crowds of volunteers to create catalogs and indexes to records.Early crowdsourcing competitionsCrowdsourcing has often been used in the past as a competition in order to discover a solution. The French government proposed several of these competitions, often rewarded with Montyon Prizes, created for poor Frenchmen who had done virtuous acts. These included the Leblanc process, or the Alkali Prize, where a reward was provided for separating the salt from the alkali, and the Fourneyron's Turbine, when the first hydraulic commercial turbine was developed.In response to a challenge from the French government, Nicholas Appert won a prize for inventing a new way of food preservation that involved sealing food in air-tight jars. The British government provided a similar reward to find an easy way to determine a ship’s longitude in the The Longitude Prize. During the Great Depression, out-of-work clerks tabulated higher mathematical functions in the Mathematical Tables Project as an outreach project.Modern methodsToday, crowdsourcing has transferred mainly to the Internet. The Internet provides a particularly good venue for crowdsourcing since individuals tend to be more open in web-based projects where they are not being physically judged or scrutinized and thus can feel more comfortable sharing. This ultimately allows for well-designed artistic projects because individuals are less conscious, or maybe even less aware, of scrutiny towards their work. In an online atmosphere more attention is given to the project rather than communication with other individuals.Crowdsourcing can either take an explicit or an implicit route. Explicit crowdsourcing lets users work together to evaluate, share, and build different specific tasks, while implicit crowdsourcing means that users solve a problem as a side effect of something else they are doing.With explicit crowdsourcing, users can evaluate particular items like books or webpages, or share by posting products or items. Users can also build artifacts by providing information and editing other people's work.Implicit crowdsourcing can take two forms: standalo ne and piggyback. Standalone allows people to solve problems as a side effect of the task they are actually doing, whereas piggyback takes users' information from a third-party website to gather information.Types of crowdsourcingIn coining the term of â€Å"crowdsourcing†, Jeff Howe has also indicated some common categories of crowdsourcing that can be used effectively in the commercial world. Some of these web-based crowdsourcing efforts include crowdvoting, wisdom of the crowd, crowdfunding, microwork, creative crowdsourcing and inducement prize contests. Although these may not be an exhaustive list, they cover the current major ways in which people use crowds to perform tasks.According to definition by Henk van Ess that has been widely cited in the popular press,â€Å"The crowdsourced problem can be huge (epic tasks like finding alien life or mapping earthquake zones) or very small (‘where can I skate safely?'). Some examples of successful crowdsourcing themes are p roblems that bug people, things that make people feel good about themselves, projects that tap into niche knowledge of proud experts, subjects that people find sympathetic or any form of injustice.†Crowd votingCrowd voting occurs when a website gathers a large group's opinions and judgment on a certain topic. The Iowa Electronic Market is a prediction market that gathers crowds' views on politics and tries to ensure accuracy by having participants pay money to buy and sell contracts based on political outcomes.Threadless.com selects the t-shirts it sells by having users provide designs and vote on the ones they like, which are then printed and available for purchase. Despite the small nature of the company, thousands of members provide designs and vote on them, making the website’s products truly created and selected by the crowd, rather than the company. Some of the most famous examples have made use of social media channels: Domino's Pizza, Coca Cola, Heineken and Sam Adams have thus crowdsourced a new pizza, song, bottle design or beer, respectively.Crowdsourcing creative workCreative crowdsourcing spans sourcing creative projects such as graphic design, architecture, apparel design, writing, illustration. etc. Some of the better known creative domains that use the Crowdsourcing model include 99designs, DesignCrowd, crowdspring, Jade Magnet, Threadless, Poptent, GeniusRocket and TongalCrowdfundingCrowdfunding is the process of funding your projects by a multitude of people contributing a small amount in order to attain a certain monetary goal. Goals may be for donations or for equity in a project. The dilemma right now for equity crowdfunding in the USA is how the SEC is going to regulate the entire process. As it stands rules and regulations are being refined by the SEC and they will have until Jan. 1st, 2013 to tweak the fundraising methods. The regulators are on edge because they are already overwhelmed trying to regulate Dodd – Frank and all the other rules and regulations involving public companies and the way they trade. Advocates of regulation claim that crowdfunding will open up the flood gates for fraud, have called it the â€Å"wild west† of fundraising, and have compared it to the 1980s days of penny stock â€Å"cold-call cowboys.†The process allows for up to 1 million dollars to be raised without a lot of the regulations being involved. Companies under the current proposal will have a lot of exemptions available and be able to raise capital from a larger pool of persons which can include a lot lower thresholds for investor criteria whereas the old rules required that the person be an â€Å"accredited† investor. These people are often recruited from social networks, where the funds can be acquired from an  equity purchase, loan, donation, or pre-ordering. The amounts collected have become quite high, with requests that are over a million dollars for software like Trampoline Systems , which used it to finance the commercialization of their new software.A well-known crowdfunding tool is Kickstarter, which is the biggest website for funding creative projects. It has raised over $100 million, despite its all-or-nothing model which requires one to reach the proposed monetary goal in order to acquire the money. UInvest is another example of a crowdfunding platform that was started in Kiev, Ukraine in 2007. Crowdrise brings together volunteers to fundraise in an online environment.Most recently, the adult industry gained its own site in the way of Offbeatr. Offbeatr allows the community to cast votes on projects they would like to see make it to the funding phase. â€Å"Wisdom of the crowd†Wisdom of the crowd is another type of crowdsourcing that collects large amounts of information and aggregates them to gain a complete and accurate picture of a topic, based on the idea that a group of people is on average more intelligent than an individual. This idea of co llective intelligence proves particularly effective on the web because people from diverse backgrounds can contribute in real-time within the same forums.iStockPhoto provides a platform for people to upload photos and purchase them for low prices. Clients can purchase photos through credits, giving photographers a small profit. Again, the photo collection is determined by the crowd's voice for very low prices.In February 2012, a stock picking game called Ticker Picker Pro was launched, using crowdsourcing to create a hedge fund that would buy and sell stocks based on the ideas coming out of the game. These crowdsourced ideas, coming from so many people, could help one pick the best stocks based on this idea that collective ideas are better than individual ones.MicroworkMicrowork is a crowdsourcing platform where users do small tasks for which computers lack aptitude for low amounts of money. Amazon’s popular Mechanical Turk has created many different projects for users to par ticipate in, where each task requires very little time and offers a very small amount in payment. The Chinese versions of this, commonly called Witkey, are similar and include such sites as Taskcn.com and k68.cn. When choosing tasks, since only certain users â€Å"win†, users learn to submit later and pick less popular tasks in order to increase the likelihood of getting their work chosen. An example of a Mechanical Turk project is when users searched satellite images for images of a boat in order to find lost researcher Jim Gray. Inducement prize contestsWeb-based idea competitions, or inducement prize contests often consist of generic ideas, cash prizes, and an Internet-based platform to facilitate easy idea generation and discussion. An example of these competitions includes an event like IBM’s 2006 â€Å"Innovation Jam†, attended by over 140,000 international participants and yielding around 46,000 ideas. Another example is Netflix Prize in 2009. The idea wa s to ask crowd to come up with a recommendation algorithm which was more accurate than Netflix's own algorithm. It had a grand prize of US$1,000,000 and it was given to the BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos team which bested Netflix's own algorithm for predicting ratings by 10.06%Another example of competition-based crowdsourcing is the 2009 DARPA experiment, where DARPA placed 10 balloon markers across the United States and challenged teams to compete to be the first to report the location of all the balloons. A collaboration of efforts was required to complete the challenge quickly and in addition to the competitive motivation of the contest as a whole, the winning team (MIT, in less than nine hours) established its own â€Å"collaborapetitive† environment to generate participation in their team. A similar challenge was the Tag Challenge, funded by the US State Department, which required locating and photographing individuals in 5 cities in the US and Europe within 12 hours based o nly on a single photograph. The winning team managed to locate 3 suspects by mobilizing volunteers world-wide using a similar incentive scheme to the one  used in the Balloon Challenge.Open innovation platforms are a very effective way of crowdsourcing people’s thoughts and ideas to do research and development. The company InnoCentive is a crowdsourcing platform for corporate research and development where difficult scientific problems are posted for crowds of solvers to discover the answer and win a cash prize, which can range from $10,000 to $100,000 per challenge. InnoCentive, of Waltham, MA and London, England is the leader in providing access to millions of scientific and technical experts from around the world. The company has provided expert crowdsourcing to international Fortune 1000 companies in the US and Europe as well as government agencies and nonprofits.The company claims a success rate of 50% in providing successful solutions to previously unsolved scientific and technical problems. IdeaConnection.com challenges people to come up with new inventions and innovations and Ninesigma.com connects clients with experts in various fields. The X PRIZE Foundation creates and runs incentive competitions where one can win between $1 million and $30 million for solving challenges. Local Motors is another example of crowdsourcing. A community of 20,000 automotive engineers, designers and enthusiasts competes to build offroad rally trucks. Implicit crowdsourcingImplicit crowdsourcing is less obvious because users do not necessarily know they are contributing, yet can still be very effective in completing certain tasks. Rather than users actively participating in solving a problem or providing information, implicit crowdsourcing involves users doing another task entirely where a third party gains information for another topic based on the user’s actions.A good example of implicit crowdsourcing is the ESP game, where users guess what images are a nd then these labels are used to tag Google images. Another popular use of implicit crowdsourcing is through reCAPTCHA, which asks people to solve Captchas in order to prove they are human, and then provides Captchas from old books that cannot be deciphered by computers in order to try and digitize them for the web. Like Mechanical Turk, this task is simple for humans but would be incredibly difficult for computers.Piggyback crowdsourcing can be seen most frequently by websites such as Google that mine one’s search history and websites in order to discover keywords for ads, spelling corrections, and finding synonyms. In this way, users are unintentionally helping to modify existing systems, such as Google’s ad words.CrowdsourcersThere are a number of motivations for businesses to use crowdsourcing to accomplish tasks, find solutions for problems, or to gather information. These include the ability to offload peak demand, access cheap labor and information, generate bet ter results, access a wider array of talent than might be present in one organization, and undertake problems that would have been too difficult to solve internally. Crowdsourcing allows businesses to submit problems on which contributors can work, such as problems in science, manufacturing, biotech, and medicine, with monetary rewards for successful solutions. Although it can be difficult to crowdsource complicated tasks, simple work tasks can be crowdsourced cheaply and effectively.Crowdsourcing also has the potential to be a problem-solving mechanism for government and nonprofit use. Urban and transit planning are prime areas for crowdsourcing. One project to test crowdsourcing's public participation process for transit planning in Salt Lake City has been underway from 2008 to 2009, funded by a U.S. Federal Transit Administration grant. Another notable application of crowdsourcing to government problem solving is the Peer to Patent Community Patent Review project for the U.S. Pat ent and Trademark Office.Researchers have used crowdsourcing systems, in particular Mechanical Turk, to aid with research projects by crowdsourcing aspects of the research process such as data collection, parsing, and evaluation. Notable examples include using the crowd to create speech and language databases,and using the crowd to conduct user studies. Crowdsourcing systems provide these researchers with the ability to gather large amount of data. Additionally, using crowdsourcing, researchers can collect data from populations and  demographics they may not have had access to locally, but that improve the validity and value of their work.Artists have also utilized crowdsourcing systems. In his project the Sheep Market, Aaron Koblin used Mechanical Turk to collect 10,000 drawings of sheep from contributors around the world. Sam Brown (artist) leverages the crowd by asking visitors of his website explodingdog to send him sentences that he uses as inspirations for paintings. Art cur ator Andrea Grover argues that individuals tend to be more open in crowdsourced projects because they are not being physically judged or scrutinized. As with other crowdsourcers, artists use crowdsourcing systems to generate and collect data. The crowd also can be used to provide inspiration and to collect financial support for an artist’s work.Additionally, crowdsourcing from 100 million drivers is being used by INRIX to collect users' driving times to provide better GPS routing and real-time traffic updates.DemographicsThe crowd is an umbrella term for people who contribute to crowdsourcing efforts. Though it is sometimes difficult to gather data about the demographics of the crowd, a study by Ross et al. surveyed the demographics of a sample of the more than 400,000 registered crowdworkers using Amazon Mechanical Turk to complete tasks for pay.While a previous study in 2008 by Ipeirotis found that users at that time were primarily American, young, female, and well-educated , with 40% having incomes >$40,000/yr, in 2009 Ross found a very different population. By Nov. 2009, 36% of the surveyed Mechanical Turk workforce was Indian. Of Indian workers were male, and 66% had at least a Bachelor’s degree. ? had annual incomes less than $10,000/yr, with 27% sometimes or always depending on income from Mechanical Turk to make ends meet.The average US user of Mechanical Turk earned $2.30 per hour for tasks in 2009, versus $1.58 for the average Indian worker. While the majority of users worked less than 5 hours per week, 18% worked 15 hours per week or more. This is less than minimum wage in either country, which Ross suggests raises ethical questions for researchers who use crowdsourcing.The demographics of http://microworkers.com/ differ from Mechanical Turk in that the US and India together account for only 25% of workers. 197 countries are represented among users, with Indonesia (18%) and Bangladesh (17%) contributing the largest share. However, 28% o f employers are from the US.Another study of the demographics of the crowd at iStockphoto found a crowd that was largely white, middle- to upper-class, higher educated, worked in a so-called â€Å"white collar job,† and had a high-speed Internet connection at home.Studies have also found that crowds are not simply collections of amateurs or hobbyists. Rather, crowds are often professionally trained in a discipline relevant to a given crowdsourcing task and sometimes hold advanced degrees and many years of experience in the profession.Claiming that crowds are amateurs, rather than professionals, is both factually untrue and may lead to marginalization of crowd labor rights.MotivationsMany scholars of crowdsourcing suggest that there are both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations that cause people to contribute to crowdsourced tasks, and that these factors influence different types of contributors.For example, students and people employed full-time rate Human Capital Advancement as less important than part-time workers do, while women rate Social Contact as more important than men do.Intrinsic motivations are broken down into two categories, enjoyment-based and community-based motivations. Enjoyment-based motivations refer to motivations related to the fun and enjoyment that the contributor experiences through their participation. These motivations include: skill variety, task identity, task autonomy, direct feedback from the job, and pastime. Community-based motivations refer to motivations related to community participation, and include community identification and social contact.Extrinsic motivations are broken down into three categories, immediate payoffs, delayed payoffs, and social motivations. Immediate payoffs, through monetary payment, are the immediately received compensations given to those who complete tasks. Delayed payoffs are benefits that can be used to generate future advantages, such as training skills and being noticed by potential employ ers. Social motivations are the rewards of behaving pro-socially, such as altruistic motivations. Chandler and Kapelner found that US users of the Amazon Mechanical Turk were more likely to complete a task when told they were going to â€Å"help researchers identify tumor cells,† than when they were not told the purpose of their task. However, of those who completed the task, quality of output did not depend on the framing of the task.Another form of social motivation is prestige or status. The International Children's Digital Library recruits volunteers to translate and review books. Because all translators receive public acknowledgment for their contribution, Kaufman and Schulz cite this as a reputation-based strategy to motivate individuals who want to be associated with institutions that have prestige. The Amazon Mechanical Turk uses reputation as a motivator in a different sense, as a form of quality control. Crowdworkers who frequently complete tasks in ways judged to b e inadequate can be denied access to future tasks, providing motivation to produce high-quality work. CriticismsThere are two major categories of criticisms about crowdsourcing, (1) the value and impact of the work received from the crowd and (2) the ethical implications of low wages paid to crowdworkers. Most of these criticisms are directed towards crowdsourcing systems that provide extrinsic monetary rewards to contributors, though some apply more generally to all crowdsourcing systems. Impact of crowdsourcing on product qualitySusceptibility to faulty results caused by targeted, malicious work efforts. Since crowdworkers completing microtasks are paid per task, there is often a financial incentive to complete tasks quickly rather than well. Verifying responses is time consuming, and so requesters often depend on having  multiple workers complete the same task to correct errors. However, having each task completed multiple times increases time and monetary costs.Crowdworkers ar e a nonrandom sample of the population. Many researchers use crowdsourcing in order to quickly and cheaply conduct studies with larger sample sizes than would be otherwise achievable. However, due to low worker pay, participant pools are skewed towards poor users in developing countries.Increased likelihood that a crowdsourced project will fail due to lack of monetary motivation or too few participants. Crowdsourcing markets are not a first-in-first-out queue. Tasks that are not completed quickly may be forgotten, buried by filters and search procedures so that workers do not see them. This results in a long tail power law distribution of completion times. Additionally, low-paying research studies online have higher rates of attrition, with participants not completing the study once started. Even when tasks are completed, crowdsourcing doesn't always produce quality results. When Facebook began its localization program in 2008, it encountered criticism for the low quality of its cro wdsourced translations.One of the problems of crowdsourcing products is the lack of interaction between the crowd and the client. Usually there is little information about the final desired product and there is often very limited interaction with the final client. This can decrease the quality of product as client interaction is a vital part of the design process.It is usually expected from a crowdsourced project to be unbiased by incorporating a large population of participants with a diverse background. However, most of the crowdsourcing works are done by people who are paid or directly benefit from the outcome (e.g. most of open source projects working on Linux). In many other cases, the resulted product is the outcome of a single person's endeavour who creates the majority of the product while the crowd only participates in minor details.Concerns for crowdsourcersEthical concerns. Because crowdworkers are considered independent contractors  rather than employees, they are not guaranteed a minimum wage. In practice, workers using the Amazon Mechanical Turk generally earn less than the minimum wage, even in India. Some researchers considering using Mechanical Turk to get participants for studies have argued that this may be unethical.Below-market wages. The average US user of Mechanical Turk earned $2.30 per hour for tasks in 2009, versus $1.58 for the average Indian worker. While the majority of users worked less than 5 hours per week, 18% worked 15 hours per week or more, and 27% of Indian users said income from Mechanical Turk is sometimes or always necessary for them to make ends meet. This is less than minimum wage in either country, which Ross et al. suggest raises ethical questions for researchers who use crowdsourcing.[ When Facebook began its localization program in 2008, it received criticism for using crowdsourcing to obtain free labor.Typically, no written contracts, non-disclosure agreements, or employee agreements are made with crowdsourced e mployees. For users of the Amazon Mechanical Turk, this means that requestors have final say over whether users’ work is acceptable; if not, they will not be paid. Critics claim that crowdsourcing arrangements exploit individuals in the crowd, and there has been a call for crowds to organize for their labor rights.Difficulties in collaboration of crowd members, especially in the context of competitive crowd sourcing. Crowdsourcing site InnoCentive allows organizations to solicit solutions to scientific and technological problems; only 10.6% of respondents report working in a team on their submission.