Apostolic Worship (African Amercian) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Apostolic Worship (African Amercian) - Essay Example The traditional worship involves significant holiness and extensive reference on the Lord Jesus Christ’s name. These rituals are reflected in dress code during baptism, use of wine in communion, strong interpretation of the scriptures within the New Testament, and ordination. During worship, we use the authorized version of the Bible, which is King James. The commonly used version is the English Version to serve the congregations. Usually, the New Testament is highly adhered to as; it reflects on the life and suffering that Jesus underwent. Unlike other churches, we conduct worship on Sundays. The worships allow us to welcome the presence of the Holy Spirit. We usually sing various songs to cleanse our presence before the Lord. The church concentrates on worship, as it welcomes the Holy Spirit, which leads us during the service. Mostly, the congregation silently prays together to ask for the Holy Spirit to lead in the service (Alexander 58). The leadership of our Church is concentrated on the male members. The tradition is governed by the New Testament, which influences the male dominated leadership within the church. Prior to 1961, the Church leadership concentrated on one prelate leader. However, after the death of Lawson, Bonner proposed different governance within the church. Bonner’s proposal meant that; the church will involve the governance of different archbishops, and apostles who will form a board (Clark 146). Additionally, Bonner found it suitable to establish two more boards to account to the Apostle’s board. These boards involve the Boards of Presbyters and Bishops. When dealing with women and leadership within the church; our congregation remains adamant. The church holds that the scriptures never provide room for women to preach. The argument presented against women preaching is that; she seizes the authority given to a man. Women who preach are discouraged in First Corinthians 2:12. However,

Essay on Mr Pip and Hamlet - Thirst for Power Essay Example for Free

Essay on Mr Pip and Hamlet Thirst for Power Essay Many people want to have a lot of power, but what is often forgotten is that with great power comes great responsibilities. Sadly these responsibilities are not always taken. A thirst for danger can make someone a danger to others. The two works in which this is proven and that will be discussed are the novel Mister Pip, written by the novelist Lloyd Jones in 2006 and the play Hamlet, written by the playwright William Shakespeare in 1602. Whenever people want to be seen as being more powerful they become a danger to others. In the novel Mister Pip the mother of the protagonist, called Dolores, wants more power over her Matilda’s life. She believes that mister Watts, Matilda’s teacher and the only white man left on the island, has a bigger influence on Matilda’s life. This is the reason why she steals the novel, Great Expectations written by the novelist Charles Dickens, which Mr. Watts has been discussing and reading with his class. This is a very dangerous act, since the Redskins, who took the power over the Solomon islands , want to see the novel as a prove of the non-existence of mister Pip. In the play Hamlet Ophelia’s brother Laertes seeks for more power and respect from Claudius especially after his father was killed by Hamlet. By wanting this he becomes a danger to others. He wants revenge on Hamlet and plans, together with Claudius on killing him. By this he becomes a danger to young Hamlet. Political power is a reason for people to become a danger to others. In the beginning of the play Hamlet young Fortinbras plans on attacking Norway, because he wants more political power. In this way he becomes a danger to Norway, but also to his people because this could start a war. In the novel Mister Pip the redskins have the political power over the Solomon Islands. They formed a danger to the inhabitants of this islands. When they took over power they started a war between the redskins and the rebels, which caused a lot of deaths. People who want to take over power are very dangerous to others. In the play Hamlet, Claudius, old Hamlet’s brother, kills old Hamlet because he wants the power over the country. Furthermore he plans on killing young Hamlet, since young Hamlet is against Claudius haveng this power. Claudius becomes a danger to others by trying to kill them because he wants power. In the novel Mister Pip the rebels, who are against the red skins who took over power, want to take their power back. They are a danger to others since they get drunk on jungle-juice every night to handle the pressure and they rape women on the island. Their needs and will to take the power over the Solomon islands back are a danger to the people living on the islands. People who have a thirst for power are dangerous to others. When they want to take over power or become more powerful this can cause them to act in a way that is dangerous for others. This is clearlt shown in the two works studied, the novel Mister Pip and the play Hamlet.

Pages 20 through 25 of Bacchae by Euripides :: Bacchae Euripides Greek Plays Essays

Pages 20 through 25 of Bacchae by Euripides The reason that Bacchae by Euripides was chosen as a set text to be examined on is because it is a classic ancient Greek performance. It offers us a look at how the Greeks lived in a completely different culture to ours. It also shows us how important religion was to them and how they worshipped different gods to us; it is very interesting because this is how theatre started off in ancient Greece. From choosing a piece of drama this old, we can see how our theatre today has developed from previous ideas and techniques. Another benefit of using the Bacchae is that it is the first ancient Greek play I have studied and so offers challenge, the Greek way of life is a whole new culture to get used to. The scene that I have chosen to act out from the play is between pages 20 and 25 of the play and it is the part of the play in which Pentheus and Dionysos first meet each other. I have chosen this scene because I believe that it is a very important part of the play. It is a scene that contains a lot of stichomythia between the two very important characters in the play. This scene is a scene that would be enjoyable to act out, and also I feel that it is one of my favourite scenes in the play. I will be playing Pentheus in the scene I have chosen to act out from the Bacchae. Also I will be playing Pentheus in the devised scene that me and the other three members of my group for the devised scene will be writing and acting out. Although for the scene from the original script I will be working in a group of two, in the devised scene I will be working in a group of four, this is for a wider range of Bacchae characters to use in the devised piece. The content of this scene will include a dialogue between the original Bacchae characters of Pentheus, Dionysos, Agave and Kadmos.The scenes, which we will include, will be a scenario in which Dionysos visits the house of Pentheus, A fight scene between Pentheus and Dionysus with music in the background and Kadmos Narrating the scene. The devised piece will end with the realisation that whilst fighting, Pentheus and Dionysos where approached by Kadmos, when the old man tried to stop the fighting, just as in the Bacchae he was ignored. A stray fist leads to the death of Kadmos and the ultimate betrayal on the behalf of

Iago of Shakespeares Othello :: free essay writer

Iago of Othello Of all the characters presented in Shakespeare's literature the most sinister one is without a doubt Iago. He is a ruthless sociopath. No other character can even come close to his evil. Most of the antagonists present in Shakespeare's plays have valid reasons for the troubles the cause. Iago doesn't for the most part he just has a burning hatred for the world especially Othello. Iago is the whole reason there is any conflict in Othello . If he never had entered the play Othello would have married Desdimonia and they would have lived happily ever after. Right from the beginning of the play to the very end he causes conflicts. He is directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of: Othello Desdimona, Emilia, Cassio, and Roderigo. Which happen to be all of the main characters. I believe Shakespeare didn't just want Iago's character to be evil. I think he wanted him more to symbolize it. All of the problems he causes are through lies, treachery, manipulation, and a deep unknown hate. Some of his hate is fueled by jealousy and revenge. The ironic part is that he wants to be known as "honest Iago". Every act contains an evil plot set up by Iago. They all play into his "grand scheme". In the very beginning of act 1 Iago displays his hatred for Othello. He is angry at him for making Cassio the lieutenant. Jealousy is his first motif. He than tells Roderigo (a fo rmer suitor of Desdimonia) that Othello and Desdimonia are getting married. The two of them then go and tell Desdimonia's father, Brabantio that Othello and his daughter just got eloped. This infuriates Brabantio. Soon after Brabantio gets a gang after Othello. Iago's treachery is first displayed hear. When Othello is confronted Iago is on his side. Iago was the person who insighted the whole ordeal. Act 1-3 is where Iago pieces together his whole sinister plot to get revenge. He first tells Roderigo to sell his lands and move to Cypress to court Desdimonia. The last stanza is where he manifests his "grand scheme". His idea is to get Othello into thinking Cassio is in love with Desdimonia. That way Cassio will be dismissed from lieutenant and Othello will lose Desdimonia. Shakespeare does a very good job in showing what kind of person Iago is right from the beginning of the play. Iago of Shakespeare's Othello :: free essay writer Iago of Othello Of all the characters presented in Shakespeare's literature the most sinister one is without a doubt Iago. He is a ruthless sociopath. No other character can even come close to his evil. Most of the antagonists present in Shakespeare's plays have valid reasons for the troubles the cause. Iago doesn't for the most part he just has a burning hatred for the world especially Othello. Iago is the whole reason there is any conflict in Othello . If he never had entered the play Othello would have married Desdimonia and they would have lived happily ever after. Right from the beginning of the play to the very end he causes conflicts. He is directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of: Othello Desdimona, Emilia, Cassio, and Roderigo. Which happen to be all of the main characters. I believe Shakespeare didn't just want Iago's character to be evil. I think he wanted him more to symbolize it. All of the problems he causes are through lies, treachery, manipulation, and a deep unknown hate. Some of his hate is fueled by jealousy and revenge. The ironic part is that he wants to be known as "honest Iago". Every act contains an evil plot set up by Iago. They all play into his "grand scheme". In the very beginning of act 1 Iago displays his hatred for Othello. He is angry at him for making Cassio the lieutenant. Jealousy is his first motif. He than tells Roderigo (a fo rmer suitor of Desdimonia) that Othello and Desdimonia are getting married. The two of them then go and tell Desdimonia's father, Brabantio that Othello and his daughter just got eloped. This infuriates Brabantio. Soon after Brabantio gets a gang after Othello. Iago's treachery is first displayed hear. When Othello is confronted Iago is on his side. Iago was the person who insighted the whole ordeal. Act 1-3 is where Iago pieces together his whole sinister plot to get revenge. He first tells Roderigo to sell his lands and move to Cypress to court Desdimonia. The last stanza is where he manifests his "grand scheme". His idea is to get Othello into thinking Cassio is in love with Desdimonia. That way Cassio will be dismissed from lieutenant and Othello will lose Desdimonia. Shakespeare does a very good job in showing what kind of person Iago is right from the beginning of the play.

Stefan’s Diaries: Bloodlust Chapter 7

The next evening I gazed contented at the sun setting over the harbor. Miss Molly hadnt exaggerated: The girls at her house were hospitable. For breakfast Id had one with long, corn-silk hair and bleary blue eyes. I could still taste her wine-laced blood on my lips. Damon and I had spent the day wandering the city, taking in the wrought-iron balconies in the French Quarter–and the girls who waved to us from their perches there–the fine tailor shops with bolts of sumptuous silk in the windows, and the heady cigar shops where men with round bellies struck business deals. But of all the sights, I liked the harbor best. This was the citys lifeblood, where tall ships carrying produce and exotic wares entered and exited. Cut off the harbor, you cut off the city, making it as vulnerable and helpless as Miss Mollys girl had been that morning. Damon gazed out at the boats as well, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. His lapis lazuli ring glinted in the fading sunlight. â€Å"I almost saved her.† â€Å"Who?† I asked, turning sharply, hope swelling in my chest. â€Å"Did you sneak off and feed from someone?† My brother kept his eyes on the horizon. â€Å"No, of course not. I meant Katherine.† Of course. I sighed. If anything, last night had made Damon more malcontent than ever. While Id enjoyed the company and the sweet blood of a girl whose name I would never know, Damon had retired to a room of his own, treating the establishment as if it were simply the boardinghouse it pretended to be. â€Å"You should have drunk,† I said for the hundredth time that day. â€Å"You should have taken your pick.† â€Å"Dont you understand, Stefan?† Damon asked flatly. â€Å"I dont want my pick. I want what I had–a world I understood, not one I can control.† â€Å"But why?† I asked, at a loss. The wind shifted, and the scent of iron, mixed with tobacco, talcum powder, and cotton, invaded my nostrils. â€Å"Feeding time already?† Damon asked wryly. â€Å"Havent you done enough damage?† â€Å"Who cares about one whore in a filthy brothel!† I yelled in frustration. I gestured out to the sea. â€Å"The world is filled with humans, and as soon as one dies, another appears. What does it matter if I relieve one wretched soul of its misery?† â€Å"Youre being careless, you know,† Damon grunted. His tongue darted out of his mouth to lick his dry, cracked lips. â€Å"To feed whenever you feel like it. Katherine never did that.† â€Å"Yes, well, Katherine died, didnt she?† I said, my voice much harsher than I meant it to be. â€Å"Shed have hated who youve become,† Damon said, sliding off the fence and standing next to me. The scent of iron was more pervasive now, curling around me like an embrace. â€Å"No, she would have hatedyou,† I retorted. â€Å"So scared of who you are, unable to go after what you want, wasting your Power.† I expected Damon to argue, to strike me even. But instead he shook his head, the tips of his retracted canines just visible between his partially open lips. â€Å"I hate myself. I wouldnt expect any different from her,† he said simply. I shook my head in disappointment. â€Å"What happened to you? You used to be so full of life, so ready for adventure. This is the best thing that has ever happened to us. Its a gift–one thatKatherinegave to you.† Across the street, an old man hobbled past, and then a moment later, a child on an errand rushed by in the opposite direction. â€Å"Pick one and feed! Pick something, anything. Anything is better than just sitting here, letting the world go by.† With that I stood, following the iron and tobacco scent, feeling my fangs pulse with the promise of a new meal. I grabbed Damon, who lagged a few paces behind me, until we found ourselves on a slanted lane out of range of the gaslights. What little light there was gathered onto a single point: a white-uniformed nurse, leaning against a brick building, smoking a cigarette. The woman looked up, her startled expression turning into a slow smile as she took in Damon. Typical. Even as a blood-starved vampire, Damon, with his shock of dark hair, long lashes, and broad shoulders, caused women to look twice. â€Å"Want a smoke?† she asked, blowing smoke into concentric circles that blended with the mist in the air. â€Å"No,† Damon said hastily. â€Å"Come on, brother.† I ignored him, stepping toward her. Her uniform was spattered with blood. I couldnt stop staring at it and the way the rich red contrasted to the stark white. No matter how often I had seen it since changing, blood continued to awe me with its beauty. â€Å"Having a bad night?† I asked, leaning next to her against the building. Damon grabbed my arm and started to pull me toward the lights of the hospital. â€Å"Brother, lets go.† Tension coiled in my body. â€Å"No!† It took a swat of my arm to toss him against the wall. The nurse dropped her cigarette. The ash sparked, then extinguished. I felt the bulge of my fangs behind my lips. It was just a matter of time now. Damon struggled to his feet, crouching low as if I was going to strike him again. â€Å"I wont watch this,† he said. â€Å"If you do this, I will never forgive you.† â€Å"I have to get back to my shift,† the nurse muttered, taking a step away from me, as if to run. I grabbed her arm and pulled her to me. She let out one short yelp before I covered her mouth with my hand. â€Å"No need to worry about that anymore,† I hissed, sinking my teeth into her neck. The liquid tasted like rotting leaves and antiseptic, as if the death and decay of the hospital had invaded her body. I spit the still warm liquid into the gutter and threw the nurse to the ground. Her face was twisted in a grimace of fear. Stupid girl. She should have sensed the danger and run while she still could. It hadnt even been a hunt. Worthless. She groaned, and I wrapped my fingers against her throat and squeezed until I heard the satisfying crack of bone breaking. Her head hung at an unnatural angle, blood still dripping from the wound. She wasnt making any noise now. I turned toward Damon, who stared at me, a horrified expression on his face. â€Å"Vampires kill. Its what we do, brother,† I said calmly, my gaze locking on Damons blue eyes. â€Å"Its whatyoudo,† he said, taking off the coat around his shoulders and throwing it over the nurse. â€Å"Not me. Never me.† Anger pulsed like a heart at the very core of my being. â€Å"Youre weak,† I growled. â€Å"Maybe so,† Damon said. â€Å"But Id rather be weak than a monster.† His voice grew strong. â€Å"I want no part in your killing spree. And if our paths ever cross again, I swear I will avenge all of your murders, brother.† Then he spun on his heel and ran at vampire speed down the alleyway, instantly disappearing into the swirling mist.

Essay on Progressives

Essay on Progressives Essay on Progressives Essay on ProgressivesThe Progressive Movement of the first two decades of the twentieth century had some specific characteristics. The core principles of the Progressive Movement include the growth of American civic nationalism, democracy, patriotism, support for the colonial rule, transformation of society (Bowles, 2011). American In my opinion, the most significant successes of Progressivism were social changes, economic and educational opportunities, public policies and progressive reforms, democratic changes, increased role of government, while the most significant failures were poverty, expansion of racial segregation, and improper measures to address economic depression. In other words, there were some specific economic, social, and political problems that the Progressives sought to address through political liberalism and direct-democracy policies and reforms (The progressive era, 2002). They approached these issues at the local and national levels in different ways, placing e mphasis on federalism and state’s rights. Progressives were not successful in implementing their reforms, e.g. school reform and rapid industrialization reforms, which had some weak points (corruption, poverty). Some variations within Progressivism include the differing agendas of white and black Progressives. The success of specific Progressive policies and approaches were concluded in various social and economic reforms, such as worker’s compensation reform, adoption of laws, which restrict child labor, and minimum wage legislation reform, political reforms (e.g. referendum, reduction of the power of political parties, etc.). The First World War had a strong impact on Progressivism. At the same time, Progressivism affected the First World War by the democratic approach to social and economic reforms, the foreign policy approach. America’s participation in the First World War was based on the idea to make the world open to democracy and stop war actions across the world. Riis (1914) suggests in his book of photography that working class people’s lives in New York were influenced by the war.

Field Of Dreams Essays - English-language Films, Field Of Dreams

Field Of Dreams Essays - English-language Films, Field Of Dreams Field of Dreams The movie I have selected for my film review is Field of Dreams. I feel that it is a great movie, and is an outstanding form of popular culture. There are many different events that take place throughout this film that show this. Field of Dreams stars Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones. Costner plays a guy named Ray who, one day while working in his corn field, hears a voice. The voice tells him, ?If you build it, he will come.? After he hears the voice a few times he tears down his corn field, and builds a baseball field. Jones plays a retired author named Thomas Mann. Mann hears these voices also, and understands what Ray is going through. Reluctantly Mann goes along with Ray. After awhile old members of the White Sox, who got banned from baseball for life, appear out of the corn field. They now have a chance to play ball again. Mann ends up going back into the corn with the players in the end. This movie is more than just a movie about a sport. It has many other significant meanings. First of all, this film shows loyalty between Ray?s wife and him. Most wives would think their husbands were crazy if they told them they heard voices, which were telling them to build a baseball field. It?s going to take a ton of money, and also a lot of knowledge on how to go about doing it. It show how she believed in him when no one else would listen. She stuck by her husband like a wife is supposed to do, and gave him support when needed. I believe a lot of Americans liked seeing that type of commitment between two people, especially in a world where it?s not as prevalent as it should be. The second point this film shows is how much Ray loves baseball. Baseball has been a major part of American society and culture since the late 1800?s. It is known as America?s pastime. Throughout the film it is made very evident of the love Ray displays for the great game of baseball. The amount of money he spends to make the field says enough. One scene shows Ray on a tractor as he is plowing a field in preparation for the building of the stadium. His daughter is sitting on his lap. She is asking him all kinds of questions about baseball, and Ray answers all of them in a way that you can tell he loves talking about it. Another scene shows him driving across the country to find help for what he is doing. The sacrifices he makes for the game are incredible. Being a huge baseball fan this movie shows everything that is right about baseball. It shows that it is a game, and should be played for the fun of it. The third point this film makes is it allows the dreams of the players to live on. People having dreams is what makes the world happen. Without having a dream no one goes anywhere. In this film members of the old White Sox team that got banned from baseball are able to get back into the game, and once again live out the dreams and fantasies of playing the game they love. It kind of gives people hope, in a sense, not to give up. Still another point this film makes is in the world of relationships. The film shows the relations between a father and son. Ray finds out that one of the players who comes back to play is his father. He realizes that is what the voice was telling him. His father was the one who would come back if he built the field. While he was growing up he didn?t have the greatest relationship with his father. His father died while he was at a rather young age. Ray is aware that it is his father. Ray?s father is young so he has no idea he is his son. That didn?t matter though. Just to know that his father is back once again is enough for Ray. This is a problem many people in the world face. Lots of fathers and

How to Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your Brand

How to Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your Brand Think about the content you share for a second. Is it all your own content? If so, that needs to change. As much as your audience may love you, they want to see a variety of content. This is what we call content curation. Its simply sharing the content from others similar to you on social media.  Sharing others’  content is one of the best ways to show that you’re not all about you, and that you value a variety of perspectives beyond your own. If you are already curating content, are you doing it correctly? Is it the right content for your audience? Lets take a look! By the end of this post, youll be a pro at content curation. Table of Contents Whats the Definition of Content Curation? What Are the Benefits? See Some Examples of Well-Curated Content What Content Should Your Company Curate? Choosing Tools and Developing a Workflow The Best Curation Frequency and MixHow To Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your BrandWhat Is  Social Media Content Curation? Marketers borrowed the word curate from museums. Curators are the ones who strategically choose  collections of art that appeal to a specific audience to feature in their museums. When you apply that concept  to social media curation, the definition looks like this: Content curation involves: Planning topics your audience loves. Searching for content from others that ties into those topics and your audiences interests. Sharing only the best information you find on your social networks for your audience to. To help you get started, here are a a few freebies to download: Content Curation Template: Keep track of your favorite content curation sources with this Excel template. Content Curation Frequency Infographic: Know the best frequency and mix for sharing content. Social Media Marketing Calendar: Plan every post, all in one place. Five Key Benefits to Curating Content There are many reasons a team will turn to using curated content for social media. Your Marketing Team Can't Produce Enough Social Media Content  On Their Own Social media requires a steady stream of professional, reputable content. Twitter alone should have about 15 unique posts a day (typically). By utilizing great curated content, you're able to fill those gaps more easily. How to Curate Content For Social Media To Help Boost Your ReachIt's Efficient and Cost-Effective Since you're not being slowed down by creating every piece of content yourself, curation is a great way to still have a content marketing strategy in place without investing a huge amount of money and time. Position Your Brand as a Thought Leader Once you get to know your audience and curate only the best, most share-worthy content tailored to them, you'll be recognized as a trustworthy and dependable specialist in your area. In other words, they'll trust that you know what you're talking about. Maintain Conversations With Your Audience Especially in the early stages of your content initiative, it's important that you figure out exactly who your audience is and what kind of content they like to devour and share. The only way to do this is by experimenting with several different content types, and the last thing you should be doing is creating all  of that content. By curating and tracking performance, you quickly pick up on what your audience  finds valuable, in what format they like to consume, from which sources, at what time of day, etc. For audiences that are more mobile and social, content curation is a great way to start and maintain a conversation every day. It also allows you to be present with your audience without making it all about you. Experiment with content types and topics to find  out what your readers  want. #contentcurationIt's a Great Way to Connect With Influencers Behind the scenes, the relationships you build with other influencers in the space by showcasing their work is a happy byproduct of content curation. Remember that analogy I made about the kid who stole homework and claimed it as his own? That's all wrong. It's more like the kid collected and compiled the best work from multiple kids' homework, printed out copies for everyone, and shared it as a study aid. #ContentCuration is like finding  the best work from everywhere and  sharing it with everyone.As a curator, when you share someone else's content, you are giving it more exposure and doing so in a favorable light. You are saying, "Hey, check this out. The message in this is totally on point." And the original content creators will remember this! When done right with proper attribution, curation creates symbiotic relationships. 7  Examples of Quality Curated Content So, what does quality social media content curation look like? Get an idea with these seven  examples. Every one of these posts does the following things: Shares something from a reputable source. Adds its own perspective with custom post copy. Adds value for each brand's audience. #1.   Convince and Convert #2. RealTruck.com #3.   Passion Planner #4. Cambria Quartz #5. Buzzfeed #6. Lemonly #7. Sanford Health Assembling Your Content Curation Toolbox Now that we've covered how awesome and beneficial content curation is, it's time to implement it into your own strategy. First off, you'll need to locate and find curation worth sharing. It's one thing to share content, but it's another thing to share good content. So where do you find this magical content? RSS readers. Gather the RSS feeds of content you know your audience will consistently enjoy. Categorize them tightly into narrowly focused topical groupings so you can better plan on the topics you’ll share when the planning stage comes. A tool like Feedly works well for this. BuzzSumo: This powerful platform is excellent for surfacing highly shared and trending content. Google Alerts. Sign up for Google Alerts on topics your readers care about.  Be cautious about two things: 1) make your search as narrow as possible, or you’ll regret the flood of information, and 2) read the content you find since it’s a bit of a wild card what Google will dig up for you. You can send these alerts directly to your email. Focused social network lists. Create Twitter lists  of people who  belong in particular niches. Having all of the users in your general news feed isn’t helpful if you're trying to curate according to topic when it comes time to plan. Just as you want to categorize your RSS feeds, you ought to do the same with your social feeds. Forums and groups. Places like Inbound.org and other similar industry or niche related forums are perfect places to find currently hot content. Look to curate  content that is getting a lot of discussion on it. Pieces that die in silence without much reaction can be seen as being down-voted by the crowd. That kind of content is  probably not something your audience is going to want to read and talk about, either. Sign up for emails. Find great email newsletters that consistently share content you might not otherwise find. They’re doing curation of their own, and there’s nothing stopping you from making use of their finds. Just be sure to check them out to be sure it’s something your audience would want. Don’t assume  just because someone else gave it a seal of approval. If you're looking for more options, check out this list of tools  from Curata. With tools like Feedly and Storify, you can create different categories of content and save time!  In the social media world we have  no time to spare, so curation tools are here to help. Know What And How To Curate You can’t share junk. No one wants their social feed filled with garbage, so simply publishing posts for the sake of needing to do it is a bad idea. Find the best content, the content you enjoyed, the content your audience members are sharing and talking about, the content that is actually helpful. Curate and share only the best content your audience is  talking about that is actually helpful.That means you have to actually read the stuff. You have to be willing to go past the headline and make sure the content you’re going to share is well-written, well-thought, and (here’s a pet peeve of mine) accessible if your audience member doesn’t have a subscription to a website. Nothing is more irksome than following a link to a piece of content I can’t read unless I subscribe. Unless you know your audience is mostly subscribed to a site, share that content by linking, summarizing, commenting on, and quoting it in your own standalone blog post. If a tool makes it easy to fill your content curation schedule with recommended content without you having to read it, be careful. You're trusting them to curate for you and your audience is expecting you to be the tour guide in the library, not someone else. Curation keeps your social schedule fresh and promotional social messages  to a minimum.Start By Finding Your Content Core As a content curator, it's your goal to share content that your audience will enjoy and benefit from.  The purpose of the content core exercise  is to understand the difference between what you do, and what you need to talk about. Visually, the content core looks something like this: At the center of your content is what you do. At , we make editorial calendar software, so this is a combination of social media and content marketing topics. For our customers, we solve problems such as: Providing a single interface for planning and executing content marketing efforts. Displaying an upcoming publishing schedule on a visualized monthly calendar. Allowing users to reschedule content via simple drag-and-drop. Facilitating team communication and an effective workflow. Providing a tool that helps them save time and grow their blog traffic. These are topics we should definitely write about and be searching for to help our audience understand a correlation between our tool and their needs. As we move away (ever so slightly) from our content core and focus on what our target audience really wants to hear about, we improve the  effectiveness  of our content marketing and better focus in on our target audience’s needs. Keep this in mind when you are searching content  through various sources. There are plenty  of tools out there that will help you with curation, you just have to figure out what your audience wants to read about then decide which sources will work best for you. Here are some examples of strong sources: Reputable publications in your industry. Blogs from other companies you partner with. Your clients, if you're an agency or consultant. Content Marketing Institute also put together a killer list of curation sources. Are you curating content from the best possible sources?Identify What Types Of Content Your Audience Likes To See Does your audience prefer videos or blog posts? How about quizzes or polls? Identify what resonates with your audience and try to curate your content types around that. But how do I know what my audience likes? Look back no more than six months into your social news feed history. Look for trends in what you’re audience responded to. If you see a 35% increase in engagement when you post videos, focus on curating video content posts. Look to your audience, they’ll tell you what they want to see. How to Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your Brand Think about the content you share for a second. Is it all your own content? If so, that needs to change. As much as your audience may love you, they want to see a variety of content. This is what we call content curation. Its simply sharing the content from others similar to you on social media.  Sharing others’  content is one of the best ways to show that you’re not all about you, and that you value a variety of perspectives beyond your own. If you are already curating content, are you doing it correctly? Is it the right content for your audience? Lets take a look! By the end of this post, youll be a pro at content curation. Table of Contents Whats the Definition of Content Curation? What Are the Benefits? See Some Examples of Well-Curated Content What Content Should Your Company Curate? Choosing Tools and Developing a Workflow The Best Curation Frequency and MixHow To Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your BrandWhat Is  Social Media Content Curation? Marketers borrowed the word curate from museums. Curators are the ones who strategically choose  collections of art that appeal to a specific audience to feature in their museums. When you apply that concept  to social media curation, the definition looks like this: Content curation involves: Planning topics your audience loves. Searching for content from others that ties into those topics and your audiences interests. Sharing only the best information you find on your social networks for your audience to. To help you get started, here are a a few freebies to download: Content Curation Template: Keep track of your favorite content curation sources with this Excel template. Content Curation Frequency Infographic: Know the best frequency and mix for sharing content. Social Media Marketing Calendar: Plan every post, all in one place. Five Key Benefits to Curating Content There are many reasons a team will turn to using curated content for social media. Your Marketing Team Can't Produce Enough Social Media Content  On Their Own Social media requires a steady stream of professional, reputable content. Twitter alone should have about 15 unique posts a day (typically). By utilizing great curated content, you're able to fill those gaps more easily. How to Curate Content For Social Media To Help Boost Your ReachIt's Efficient and Cost-Effective Since you're not being slowed down by creating every piece of content yourself, curation is a great way to still have a content marketing strategy in place without investing a huge amount of money and time. Position Your Brand as a Thought Leader Once you get to know your audience and curate only the best, most share-worthy content tailored to them, you'll be recognized as a trustworthy and dependable specialist in your area. In other words, they'll trust that you know what you're talking about. Maintain Conversations With Your Audience Especially in the early stages of your content initiative, it's important that you figure out exactly who your audience is and what kind of content they like to devour and share. The only way to do this is by experimenting with several different content types, and the last thing you should be doing is creating all  of that content. By curating and tracking performance, you quickly pick up on what your audience  finds valuable, in what format they like to consume, from which sources, at what time of day, etc. For audiences that are more mobile and social, content curation is a great way to start and maintain a conversation every day. It also allows you to be present with your audience without making it all about you. Experiment with content types and topics to find  out what your readers  want. #contentcurationIt's a Great Way to Connect With Influencers Behind the scenes, the relationships you build with other influencers in the space by showcasing their work is a happy byproduct of content curation. Remember that analogy I made about the kid who stole homework and claimed it as his own? That's all wrong. It's more like the kid collected and compiled the best work from multiple kids' homework, printed out copies for everyone, and shared it as a study aid. #ContentCuration is like finding  the best work from everywhere and  sharing it with everyone.As a curator, when you share someone else's content, you are giving it more exposure and doing so in a favorable light. You are saying, "Hey, check this out. The message in this is totally on point." And the original content creators will remember this! When done right with proper attribution, curation creates symbiotic relationships. 7  Examples of Quality Curated Content So, what does quality social media content curation look like? Get an idea with these seven  examples. Every one of these posts does the following things: Shares something from a reputable source. Adds its own perspective with custom post copy. Adds value for each brand's audience. #1.   Convince and Convert #2. RealTruck.com #3.   Passion Planner #4. Cambria Quartz #5. Buzzfeed #6. Lemonly #7. Sanford Health Assembling Your Content Curation Toolbox Now that we've covered how awesome and beneficial content curation is, it's time to implement it into your own strategy. First off, you'll need to locate and find curation worth sharing. It's one thing to share content, but it's another thing to share good content. So where do you find this magical content? RSS readers. Gather the RSS feeds of content you know your audience will consistently enjoy. Categorize them tightly into narrowly focused topical groupings so you can better plan on the topics you’ll share when the planning stage comes. A tool like Feedly works well for this. BuzzSumo: This powerful platform is excellent for surfacing highly shared and trending content. Google Alerts. Sign up for Google Alerts on topics your readers care about.  Be cautious about two things: 1) make your search as narrow as possible, or you’ll regret the flood of information, and 2) read the content you find since it’s a bit of a wild card what Google will dig up for you. You can send these alerts directly to your email. Focused social network lists. Create Twitter lists  of people who  belong in particular niches. Having all of the users in your general news feed isn’t helpful if you're trying to curate according to topic when it comes time to plan. Just as you want to categorize your RSS feeds, you ought to do the same with your social feeds. Forums and groups. Places like Inbound.org and other similar industry or niche related forums are perfect places to find currently hot content. Look to curate  content that is getting a lot of discussion on it. Pieces that die in silence without much reaction can be seen as being down-voted by the crowd. That kind of content is  probably not something your audience is going to want to read and talk about, either. Sign up for emails. Find great email newsletters that consistently share content you might not otherwise find. They’re doing curation of their own, and there’s nothing stopping you from making use of their finds. Just be sure to check them out to be sure it’s something your audience would want. Don’t assume  just because someone else gave it a seal of approval. If you're looking for more options, check out this list of tools  from Curata. With tools like Feedly and Storify, you can create different categories of content and save time!  In the social media world we have  no time to spare, so curation tools are here to help. Know What And How To Curate You can’t share junk. No one wants their social feed filled with garbage, so simply publishing posts for the sake of needing to do it is a bad idea. Find the best content, the content you enjoyed, the content your audience members are sharing and talking about, the content that is actually helpful. Curate and share only the best content your audience is  talking about that is actually helpful.That means you have to actually read the stuff. You have to be willing to go past the headline and make sure the content you’re going to share is well-written, well-thought, and (here’s a pet peeve of mine) accessible if your audience member doesn’t have a subscription to a website. Nothing is more irksome than following a link to a piece of content I can’t read unless I subscribe. Unless you know your audience is mostly subscribed to a site, share that content by linking, summarizing, commenting on, and quoting it in your own standalone blog post. If a tool makes it easy to fill your content curation schedule with recommended content without you having to read it, be careful. You're trusting them to curate for you and your audience is expecting you to be the tour guide in the library, not someone else. Curation keeps your social schedule fresh and promotional social messages  to a minimum.Start By Finding Your Content Core As a content curator, it's your goal to share content that your audience will enjoy and benefit from.  The purpose of the content core exercise  is to understand the difference between what you do, and what you need to talk about. Visually, the content core looks something like this: At the center of your content is what you do. At , we make editorial calendar software, so this is a combination of social media and content marketing topics. For our customers, we solve problems such as: Providing a single interface for planning and executing content marketing efforts. Displaying an upcoming publishing schedule on a visualized monthly calendar. Allowing users to reschedule content via simple drag-and-drop. Facilitating team communication and an effective workflow. Providing a tool that helps them save time and grow their blog traffic. These are topics we should definitely write about and be searching for to help our audience understand a correlation between our tool and their needs. As we move away (ever so slightly) from our content core and focus on what our target audience really wants to hear about, we improve the  effectiveness  of our content marketing and better focus in on our target audience’s needs. Keep this in mind when you are searching content  through various sources. There are plenty  of tools out there that will help you with curation, you just have to figure out what your audience wants to read about then decide which sources will work best for you. Here are some examples of strong sources: Reputable publications in your industry. Blogs from other companies you partner with. Your clients, if you're an agency or consultant. Content Marketing Institute also put together a killer list of curation sources. Are you curating content from the best possible sources?Identify What Types Of Content Your Audience Likes To See Does your audience prefer videos or blog posts? How about quizzes or polls? Identify what resonates with your audience and try to curate your content types around that. But how do I know what my audience likes? Look back no more than six months into your social news feed history. Look for trends in what you’re audience responded to. If you see a 35% increase in engagement when you post videos, focus on curating video content posts. Look to your audience, they’ll tell you what they want to see. How to Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your Brand Think about the content you share for a second. Is it all your own content? If so, that needs to change. As much as your audience may love you, they want to see a variety of content. This is what we call content curation. Its simply sharing the content from others similar to you on social media.  Sharing others’  content is one of the best ways to show that you’re not all about you, and that you value a variety of perspectives beyond your own. If you are already curating content, are you doing it correctly? Is it the right content for your audience? Lets take a look! By the end of this post, youll be a pro at content curation. Table of Contents Whats the Definition of Content Curation? What Are the Benefits? See Some Examples of Well-Curated Content What Content Should Your Company Curate? Choosing Tools and Developing a Workflow The Best Curation Frequency and MixHow To Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your BrandWhat Is  Social Media Content Curation? Marketers borrowed the word curate from museums. Curators are the ones who strategically choose  collections of art that appeal to a specific audience to feature in their museums. When you apply that concept  to social media curation, the definition looks like this: Content curation involves: Planning topics your audience loves. Searching for content from others that ties into those topics and your audiences interests. Sharing only the best information you find on your social networks for your audience to. To help you get started, here are a a few freebies to download: Content Curation Template: Keep track of your favorite content curation sources with this Excel template. Content Curation Frequency Infographic: Know the best frequency and mix for sharing content. Social Media Marketing Calendar: Plan every post, all in one place. Five Key Benefits to Curating Content There are many reasons a team will turn to using curated content for social media. Your Marketing Team Can't Produce Enough Social Media Content  On Their Own Social media requires a steady stream of professional, reputable content. Twitter alone should have about 15 unique posts a day (typically). By utilizing great curated content, you're able to fill those gaps more easily. How to Curate Content For Social Media To Help Boost Your ReachIt's Efficient and Cost-Effective Since you're not being slowed down by creating every piece of content yourself, curation is a great way to still have a content marketing strategy in place without investing a huge amount of money and time. Position Your Brand as a Thought Leader Once you get to know your audience and curate only the best, most share-worthy content tailored to them, you'll be recognized as a trustworthy and dependable specialist in your area. In other words, they'll trust that you know what you're talking about. Maintain Conversations With Your Audience Especially in the early stages of your content initiative, it's important that you figure out exactly who your audience is and what kind of content they like to devour and share. The only way to do this is by experimenting with several different content types, and the last thing you should be doing is creating all  of that content. By curating and tracking performance, you quickly pick up on what your audience  finds valuable, in what format they like to consume, from which sources, at what time of day, etc. For audiences that are more mobile and social, content curation is a great way to start and maintain a conversation every day. It also allows you to be present with your audience without making it all about you. Experiment with content types and topics to find  out what your readers  want. #contentcurationIt's a Great Way to Connect With Influencers Behind the scenes, the relationships you build with other influencers in the space by showcasing their work is a happy byproduct of content curation. Remember that analogy I made about the kid who stole homework and claimed it as his own? That's all wrong. It's more like the kid collected and compiled the best work from multiple kids' homework, printed out copies for everyone, and shared it as a study aid. #ContentCuration is like finding  the best work from everywhere and  sharing it with everyone.As a curator, when you share someone else's content, you are giving it more exposure and doing so in a favorable light. You are saying, "Hey, check this out. The message in this is totally on point." And the original content creators will remember this! When done right with proper attribution, curation creates symbiotic relationships. 7  Examples of Quality Curated Content So, what does quality social media content curation look like? Get an idea with these seven  examples. Every one of these posts does the following things: Shares something from a reputable source. Adds its own perspective with custom post copy. Adds value for each brand's audience. #1.   Convince and Convert #2. RealTruck.com #3.   Passion Planner #4. Cambria Quartz #5. Buzzfeed #6. Lemonly #7. Sanford Health Assembling Your Content Curation Toolbox Now that we've covered how awesome and beneficial content curation is, it's time to implement it into your own strategy. First off, you'll need to locate and find curation worth sharing. It's one thing to share content, but it's another thing to share good content. So where do you find this magical content? RSS readers. Gather the RSS feeds of content you know your audience will consistently enjoy. Categorize them tightly into narrowly focused topical groupings so you can better plan on the topics you’ll share when the planning stage comes. A tool like Feedly works well for this. BuzzSumo: This powerful platform is excellent for surfacing highly shared and trending content. Google Alerts. Sign up for Google Alerts on topics your readers care about.  Be cautious about two things: 1) make your search as narrow as possible, or you’ll regret the flood of information, and 2) read the content you find since it’s a bit of a wild card what Google will dig up for you. You can send these alerts directly to your email. Focused social network lists. Create Twitter lists  of people who  belong in particular niches. Having all of the users in your general news feed isn’t helpful if you're trying to curate according to topic when it comes time to plan. Just as you want to categorize your RSS feeds, you ought to do the same with your social feeds. Forums and groups. Places like Inbound.org and other similar industry or niche related forums are perfect places to find currently hot content. Look to curate  content that is getting a lot of discussion on it. Pieces that die in silence without much reaction can be seen as being down-voted by the crowd. That kind of content is  probably not something your audience is going to want to read and talk about, either. Sign up for emails. Find great email newsletters that consistently share content you might not otherwise find. They’re doing curation of their own, and there’s nothing stopping you from making use of their finds. Just be sure to check them out to be sure it’s something your audience would want. Don’t assume  just because someone else gave it a seal of approval. If you're looking for more options, check out this list of tools  from Curata. With tools like Feedly and Storify, you can create different categories of content and save time!  In the social media world we have  no time to spare, so curation tools are here to help. Know What And How To Curate You can’t share junk. No one wants their social feed filled with garbage, so simply publishing posts for the sake of needing to do it is a bad idea. Find the best content, the content you enjoyed, the content your audience members are sharing and talking about, the content that is actually helpful. Curate and share only the best content your audience is  talking about that is actually helpful.That means you have to actually read the stuff. You have to be willing to go past the headline and make sure the content you’re going to share is well-written, well-thought, and (here’s a pet peeve of mine) accessible if your audience member doesn’t have a subscription to a website. Nothing is more irksome than following a link to a piece of content I can’t read unless I subscribe. Unless you know your audience is mostly subscribed to a site, share that content by linking, summarizing, commenting on, and quoting it in your own standalone blog post. If a tool makes it easy to fill your content curation schedule with recommended content without you having to read it, be careful. You're trusting them to curate for you and your audience is expecting you to be the tour guide in the library, not someone else. Curation keeps your social schedule fresh and promotional social messages  to a minimum.Start By Finding Your Content Core As a content curator, it's your goal to share content that your audience will enjoy and benefit from.  The purpose of the content core exercise  is to understand the difference between what you do, and what you need to talk about. Visually, the content core looks something like this: At the center of your content is what you do. At , we make editorial calendar software, so this is a combination of social media and content marketing topics. For our customers, we solve problems such as: Providing a single interface for planning and executing content marketing efforts. Displaying an upcoming publishing schedule on a visualized monthly calendar. Allowing users to reschedule content via simple drag-and-drop. Facilitating team communication and an effective workflow. Providing a tool that helps them save time and grow their blog traffic. These are topics we should definitely write about and be searching for to help our audience understand a correlation between our tool and their needs. As we move away (ever so slightly) from our content core and focus on what our target audience really wants to hear about, we improve the  effectiveness  of our content marketing and better focus in on our target audience’s needs. Keep this in mind when you are searching content  through various sources. There are plenty  of tools out there that will help you with curation, you just have to figure out what your audience wants to read about then decide which sources will work best for you. Here are some examples of strong sources: Reputable publications in your industry. Blogs from other companies you partner with. Your clients, if you're an agency or consultant. Content Marketing Institute also put together a killer list of curation sources. Are you curating content from the best possible sources?Identify What Types Of Content Your Audience Likes To See Does your audience prefer videos or blog posts? How about quizzes or polls? Identify what resonates with your audience and try to curate your content types around that. But how do I know what my audience likes? Look back no more than six months into your social news feed history. Look for trends in what you’re audience responded to. If you see a 35% increase in engagement when you post videos, focus on curating video content posts. Look to your audience, they’ll tell you what they want to see. How to Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your Brand Think about the content you share for a second. Is it all your own content? If so, that needs to change. As much as your audience may love you, they want to see a variety of content. This is what we call content curation. Its simply sharing the content from others similar to you on social media.  Sharing others’  content is one of the best ways to show that you’re not all about you, and that you value a variety of perspectives beyond your own. If you are already curating content, are you doing it correctly? Is it the right content for your audience? Lets take a look! By the end of this post, youll be a pro at content curation. Table of Contents Whats the Definition of Content Curation? What Are the Benefits? See Some Examples of Well-Curated Content What Content Should Your Company Curate? Choosing Tools and Developing a Workflow The Best Curation Frequency and MixHow To Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your BrandWhat Is  Social Media Content Curation? Marketers borrowed the word curate from museums. Curators are the ones who strategically choose  collections of art that appeal to a specific audience to feature in their museums. When you apply that concept  to social media curation, the definition looks like this: Content curation involves: Planning topics your audience loves. Searching for content from others that ties into those topics and your audiences interests. Sharing only the best information you find on your social networks for your audience to. To help you get started, here are a a few freebies to download: Content Curation Template: Keep track of your favorite content curation sources with this Excel template. Content Curation Frequency Infographic: Know the best frequency and mix for sharing content. Social Media Marketing Calendar: Plan every post, all in one place. Five Key Benefits to Curating Content There are many reasons a team will turn to using curated content for social media. Your Marketing Team Can't Produce Enough Social Media Content  On Their Own Social media requires a steady stream of professional, reputable content. Twitter alone should have about 15 unique posts a day (typically). By utilizing great curated content, you're able to fill those gaps more easily. How to Curate Content For Social Media To Help Boost Your ReachIt's Efficient and Cost-Effective Since you're not being slowed down by creating every piece of content yourself, curation is a great way to still have a content marketing strategy in place without investing a huge amount of money and time. Position Your Brand as a Thought Leader Once you get to know your audience and curate only the best, most share-worthy content tailored to them, you'll be recognized as a trustworthy and dependable specialist in your area. In other words, they'll trust that you know what you're talking about. Maintain Conversations With Your Audience Especially in the early stages of your content initiative, it's important that you figure out exactly who your audience is and what kind of content they like to devour and share. The only way to do this is by experimenting with several different content types, and the last thing you should be doing is creating all  of that content. By curating and tracking performance, you quickly pick up on what your audience  finds valuable, in what format they like to consume, from which sources, at what time of day, etc. For audiences that are more mobile and social, content curation is a great way to start and maintain a conversation every day. It also allows you to be present with your audience without making it all about you. Experiment with content types and topics to find  out what your readers  want. #contentcurationIt's a Great Way to Connect With Influencers Behind the scenes, the relationships you build with other influencers in the space by showcasing their work is a happy byproduct of content curation. Remember that analogy I made about the kid who stole homework and claimed it as his own? That's all wrong. It's more like the kid collected and compiled the best work from multiple kids' homework, printed out copies for everyone, and shared it as a study aid. #ContentCuration is like finding  the best work from everywhere and  sharing it with everyone.As a curator, when you share someone else's content, you are giving it more exposure and doing so in a favorable light. You are saying, "Hey, check this out. The message in this is totally on point." And the original content creators will remember this! When done right with proper attribution, curation creates symbiotic relationships. 7  Examples of Quality Curated Content So, what does quality social media content curation look like? Get an idea with these seven  examples. Every one of these posts does the following things: Shares something from a reputable source. Adds its own perspective with custom post copy. Adds value for each brand's audience. #1.   Convince and Convert #2. RealTruck.com #3.   Passion Planner #4. Cambria Quartz #5. Buzzfeed #6. Lemonly #7. Sanford Health Assembling Your Content Curation Toolbox Now that we've covered how awesome and beneficial content curation is, it's time to implement it into your own strategy. First off, you'll need to locate and find curation worth sharing. It's one thing to share content, but it's another thing to share good content. So where do you find this magical content? RSS readers. Gather the RSS feeds of content you know your audience will consistently enjoy. Categorize them tightly into narrowly focused topical groupings so you can better plan on the topics you’ll share when the planning stage comes. A tool like Feedly works well for this. BuzzSumo: This powerful platform is excellent for surfacing highly shared and trending content. Google Alerts. Sign up for Google Alerts on topics your readers care about.  Be cautious about two things: 1) make your search as narrow as possible, or you’ll regret the flood of information, and 2) read the content you find since it’s a bit of a wild card what Google will dig up for you. You can send these alerts directly to your email. Focused social network lists. Create Twitter lists  of people who  belong in particular niches. Having all of the users in your general news feed isn’t helpful if you're trying to curate according to topic when it comes time to plan. Just as you want to categorize your RSS feeds, you ought to do the same with your social feeds. Forums and groups. Places like Inbound.org and other similar industry or niche related forums are perfect places to find currently hot content. Look to curate  content that is getting a lot of discussion on it. Pieces that die in silence without much reaction can be seen as being down-voted by the crowd. That kind of content is  probably not something your audience is going to want to read and talk about, either. Sign up for emails. Find great email newsletters that consistently share content you might not otherwise find. They’re doing curation of their own, and there’s nothing stopping you from making use of their finds. Just be sure to check them out to be sure it’s something your audience would want. Don’t assume  just because someone else gave it a seal of approval. If you're looking for more options, check out this list of tools  from Curata. With tools like Feedly and Storify, you can create different categories of content and save time!  In the social media world we have  no time to spare, so curation tools are here to help. Know What And How To Curate You can’t share junk. No one wants their social feed filled with garbage, so simply publishing posts for the sake of needing to do it is a bad idea. Find the best content, the content you enjoyed, the content your audience members are sharing and talking about, the content that is actually helpful. Curate and share only the best content your audience is  talking about that is actually helpful.That means you have to actually read the stuff. You have to be willing to go past the headline and make sure the content you’re going to share is well-written, well-thought, and (here’s a pet peeve of mine) accessible if your audience member doesn’t have a subscription to a website. Nothing is more irksome than following a link to a piece of content I can’t read unless I subscribe. Unless you know your audience is mostly subscribed to a site, share that content by linking, summarizing, commenting on, and quoting it in your own standalone blog post. If a tool makes it easy to fill your content curation schedule with recommended content without you having to read it, be careful. You're trusting them to curate for you and your audience is expecting you to be the tour guide in the library, not someone else. Curation keeps your social schedule fresh and promotional social messages  to a minimum.Start By Finding Your Content Core As a content curator, it's your goal to share content that your audience will enjoy and benefit from.  The purpose of the content core exercise  is to understand the difference between what you do, and what you need to talk about. Visually, the content core looks something like this: At the center of your content is what you do. At , we make editorial calendar software, so this is a combination of social media and content marketing topics. For our customers, we solve problems such as: Providing a single interface for planning and executing content marketing efforts. Displaying an upcoming publishing schedule on a visualized monthly calendar. Allowing users to reschedule content via simple drag-and-drop. Facilitating team communication and an effective workflow. Providing a tool that helps them save time and grow their blog traffic. These are topics we should definitely write about and be searching for to help our audience understand a correlation between our tool and their needs. As we move away (ever so slightly) from our content core and focus on what our target audience really wants to hear about, we improve the  effectiveness  of our content marketing and better focus in on our target audience’s needs. Keep this in mind when you are searching content  through various sources. There are plenty  of tools out there that will help you with curation, you just have to figure out what your audience wants to read about then decide which sources will work best for you. Here are some examples of strong sources: Reputable publications in your industry. Blogs from other companies you partner with. Your clients, if you're an agency or consultant. Content Marketing Institute also put together a killer list of curation sources. Are you curating content from the best possible sources?Identify What Types Of Content Your Audience Likes To See Does your audience prefer videos or blog posts? How about quizzes or polls? Identify what resonates with your audience and try to curate your content types around that. But how do I know what my audience likes? Look back no more than six months into your social news feed history. Look for trends in what you’re audience responded to. If you see a 35% increase in engagement when you post videos, focus on curating video content posts. Look to your audience, they’ll tell you what they want to see.

Summary Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Summary - Research Paper Example Pery and Wein (2008) advocating the full disclosure of terminal diagnosis indicate that "good death" occurs when the subjective (patient) and the objective (society, family) appear to blend seamlessly - before, during, and afterward (p.400). Simultaneously, Chochinov et al (2000) concludes that what patients are told, how they are told t and the manner in which they are able to integrate and cope with such information remains an important issue for clinicians attending to patients facing imminent death (p.505). Finally, Field and Copp (1999) emphasize that full disclosure approach to communication of terminal diagnosis is mandatory and results in positive outcomes for patients, their families and medical personnel. More specifically, Field and Copp (1999) indicate the following outcomes: (1) better information and communication from medical personnel, including nurses, (2) patient's participation in decisions about care, (3) psychological support from family members, (4) palliative c are, (5) self-esteem, (6) autonomy and decreased anxiety, (7) preparation for death and acceptance. Because there is emerging empirical evidence on improvements of patients' quality of life occurring after terminal diagnosis is communicated to them, a need for change in practice is mandatory. According to Rosswurm and Larrabee (1999), improvements in medical care are mad

Multinational Corporation Expansion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 2

Multinational Corporation Expansion - Essay Example The international finance dimension of political risks and foreign exchange encompass all the foreign exchange and political regulation put by a country to foreign investors. Almost every country has unique political and foreign exchange risks. By venturing into Ugandan market, PWC would be exposing itself to risks associated with this country. It would also be exposed to opportunities that arise due to both the regulation of foreign exchange and other political regulations. Uganda is a country that has few foreign exchange restrictions and does not charge very high interest rates to external investors. Therefore, this would be a potential opportunity for PWC in its attempt to venture into this market. However, this country is very politically unstable and its elections are always accompanied by violence. Therefore, its economy fluctuates from time to time, which can raise a potential risk to PWC. The market imperfection dimension of international finance encompasses legal restrictions, transaction/ transportation costs, information asymmetry, and discriminatory taxation (Eun & Resnick, 2007). This increases the cost of operation or even complicates the operations of the international organizations. Uganda has very few legal restrictions and discriminatory taxation and therefore this would act as a potential opportunity for PWC in its attempt to venture into this Ugandan market. However, Uganda is one of the most underdeveloped countries in the East African region. As a result, it has under-developed infrastructure and very few transactional services. Therefore, PWC might encounter high transactional/transportation cost as well as the unavailability of transactional/ transportation services. Expanded opportunity set dimension of international finance is the location of production in any country or region to maximize performance and raise funds (Eun & Resnick, 2007). In

The Buddhist Discipline Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

The Buddhist Discipline - Research Paper Example This research paper demonstrates Buddhists history, practices, teachings and disciplines, that are followed by more than 375 million people these days. Founded in northeastern India between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE by Siddhartha Gautama, Buddhism has emerged into one of the world’s most influential major religions and philosophical thoughts. Through missionary activity, it spreads from India to Central and Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan, and in the 20th century it found its way into Africa, Europe, The Americas, and Australia. Currently, the fourth largest religion, Buddhism plays a central role in the spiritual, cultural, and social life of its followers. Despite the distinctive practices and unique collections of canonical texts of the two schools (branches) of Buddhism, Mahayana and Theravada, Buddhism’s main teachings (discipline) are focused on resolving the issue of human suffering. These teaching are summarized in the Four Noble Truths, of which the fourth is the Eightfold Path. Accepted by all schools of Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths is one of the fundamental teachings of Buddhism and is said to have been taught by the Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, in his first sermon, which he delivered after his enlightenment. The Eightfold Path is a subject of less discussion in Buddhist circle than the Four Noble Truths. These eight elements, which are correct view, an accurate understanding of the nature of things, specifically the Four Noble Truths. Rebirth and karma are other Buddhist teachings, that are mentioned in this research paper.

Industrial Security Plan Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Industrial Security Plan - Assignment Example A safety officer supervises workplace activities to make sure that workers comply with organizations government safety regulations and policies. On the formulation of a policy, a security officer would ensure that all employees are alerted and in addition monitor on the compliance. The officer may also find it necessary to ask each employee sign a statement accepting receipt of the information. Safety officers examine interior and exterior workplaces to establish if there are any possible safety hazards. In these inspections, a safety officer checks for broken and damaged equipment, slip and fall hazards and other likely hazards (Subramanian, 2006). The officer also views workers to make sure that they are wearing necessary personal protective gear and following organization safety policies. For instance in the construction business, safety officers verify the stability of scaffolding, make sure that workers use helmets and footwear, and check to certify employees operate constructio n apparatus in a safe manner. When a workplace accident happens, a safety officer does an investigation to determine causes of the accident. The officer may decide to question witnesses, take pictures of any property damage and inspect the scene. Once the safety officer determines the reason of the accident, he is required to write a report detailing the grounds for the accident and lists recommendations that can assist in future accidents prevention. The OSHA requires the management to provide training on all safety topics and the ever-changing safety routines. These include hazardous materials handling, machine guarding and fire prevention plans. Safety officer’s spot out training needs build up appropriate and proper training programs and convey training to workers. They may solicit feedback from employees and use the feedback to better the existing programs or craft new ones (Subramanian,

Design, Analyze, and Create Political Poster or Personal Story Art Essay

Design, Analyze, and Create Political Poster or Personal Story Art Piece - Essay Example The middle portion shows the animals scrambling for water at the Serengeti River which flows through the park. With the large number of animals at the park, competition for water becomes difficult. The painting therefore shows the wild animals that include zebras, buffaloes and antelopes meeting at the river to quench their thirst The lower portion of the picture shows a herd of antelopes running for their lives away from a predator probably a pride of lions or cheetahs. Antelopes are a common prey for animals like lions and cheetahs and sometimes crocodiles at the Serengeti. Predation at the park is a familiar occurrence as the animals look for food for survival. There are numerous battles in the park between the wild animals as they search for food and water. Therefore, the painting shows a herd of antelopes at the Serengeti Park running away from a predator. The purpose of the picture is to educate people of what happens at the Serengeti National Park in the Kenya-Tanzania border in East Africa. The Serengeti National Park is one of the best attraction sites in East Africa. The Great Serengeti Migration is considered as one of the Seven Wonders of the World (Mari & Croze 56). The site of approximately 2 million wild animals crossing the Serengeti River annually is spectacular to watch. The great migration occurs from July to August during dry spell in Kenya. The animals therefore migrate into Tanzania from Kenya in search of water and pasture. The picture therefore is meant to educate people mostly from America and Europe about the marvellous site of the Serengeti Migration in East Africa. Apart from the Great Migration, the picture also seeks to show the different wild animals found in the park. The park has approximately over ten different species of wild mammals. Some of the wild animals include: buffaloes, zebras, antelopes, elephants, giraffes, cheetahs, wildebeest and lions. In addition there are also different species of birds at the park. The park is one of the few areas in the world where one is able to find large numbers of wild animals moving and grazing freely. It provides a natural scene of nature and wild animals that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The picture therefore shows the natural wild animals found at the Serengeti in addition to showing the Great migration of the animals with a view of encouraging citizens from America and Europe to visit the park as a tourist destination. The picture also purposes to sensitize the world on the beauty of nature and therefore the need to preserve nature and the wild animals. For the wild animals at the Serengeti to continue to exist, efforts must be put in place to protect these animals and their habitat (Mari & Croze 145). Encroachment of land by humans has continuously reduced the habitats of these wild animals hence reducing their numbers considerably. The Park should therefore be reserved as a game reserve and humans should not use the lands in the park for any pu rpose such as farming. Only this way will the beautiful scene of the animals preserved. The picture also seeks to discourage the illegal poaching of these wild animals by show casing their beauty. The painting seeks to encourage more tourists from the US to visit the site as a tourist destination. With more tourists, the Kenyan government will put more efforts to discourage poaching as the park will be generating a lot of revenues from tourism. The number of elephants has been reported to

Industrial Security Plan Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Industrial Security Plan - Assignment Example A safety officer supervises workplace activities to make sure that workers comply with organizations government safety regulations and policies. On the formulation of a policy, a security officer would ensure that all employees are alerted and in addition monitor on the compliance. The officer may also find it necessary to ask each employee sign a statement accepting receipt of the information. Safety officers examine interior and exterior workplaces to establish if there are any possible safety hazards. In these inspections, a safety officer checks for broken and damaged equipment, slip and fall hazards and other likely hazards (Subramanian, 2006). The officer also views workers to make sure that they are wearing necessary personal protective gear and following organization safety policies. For instance in the construction business, safety officers verify the stability of scaffolding, make sure that workers use helmets and footwear, and check to certify employees operate constructio n apparatus in a safe manner. When a workplace accident happens, a safety officer does an investigation to determine causes of the accident. The officer may decide to question witnesses, take pictures of any property damage and inspect the scene. Once the safety officer determines the reason of the accident, he is required to write a report detailing the grounds for the accident and lists recommendations that can assist in future accidents prevention. The OSHA requires the management to provide training on all safety topics and the ever-changing safety routines. These include hazardous materials handling, machine guarding and fire prevention plans. Safety officer’s spot out training needs build up appropriate and proper training programs and convey training to workers. They may solicit feedback from employees and use the feedback to better the existing programs or craft new ones (Subramanian,

Legal and Political Aspects in Public Education Essay

Legal and Political Aspects in Public Education - Essay Example CAPE 18 requires that the principal implements strictly the federal, state, and local laws within the learning environment. In this accord, the principal must ensure that the members of staff strictly adhere to the curriculum set by the law. While laws are crucial in ensuring that the teachers have a framework within which to operate, there is evidence that strictness within the learning environment hinders educators’ creativity, which is crucial for modern learning environment. In this light, while laws within the learning environment are crucial to induce ethical behavior and maintain learning standards, they hinder staff creativity. As more laws become part of the learning environment, it becomes crucial to understand their impacts on public education. Over the years, the government has revised its laws that govern public education. The California Administrator performance Expectations is one of the laws that provide guidelines on how the public education staff should conduct themselves within the learning. In CAPE 18, Implementing California Schools Laws, Guidelines and Other Relevant Federal, State and Local Requirements and Regulations, provides guidelines for school heads. This article requires that principals ensure that the staff members remain within the curriculum framework while delivering services in public education. Secondly, it requires that principals maintain high ethical standards while recruiting and dismissing staff. Besides, the principal must ensure that school practices and procedures meet legal maintenance, health, and safety requirements within the learning environment. The implication of this section was that the principals ensure strict implementation of federal, local, and state laws that pertain to education. The law ensures that all staff members work within the legal framework (Catano & Stronge, 2006). Therefore, the law does not admit any diversion from the law, as this would be misconduct

Personal & Professional Development Essay Example for Free

Personal Professional Development Essay 1.1  Cunningham1 has defined self-managed learning as â€Å"†¦idealised adult action learning†. Therefore, self learning is a process where the learner develops their learning goals, decides on strategies to make it happen, identifies resources needed to achieve it and adopts the process to evaluate their achievement. Self managed learning can only be effective if a person has the ability to independently decide about their learning and can manage this without much institutional support. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that most people, though understanding the need for such learning approach, are unable to identify and manage their learning without guidance and support from an institution. Hence, people go to an institution to learn. However, It is the responsibility of the learner to take charge of their learning. In an adult learning environment, where most learners have been out of touch with learning for a while, it is important that the tutors initially provide hands on approach to guide the learners. Gradually, ‘tutor dependency’ reduces and the learner becomes more self dependent, starting to manage their learning more effectively. Self learning process can be facilitated through research, using online tools such as web logs, wikis, search engine facilities, use of social software and other multimedia tools such as audio and video equipment. 1.2  Lifelong learning is a process that takes place throughout an individual’s life based on their life experiences, interaction with others and range of different circumstances which are used to acquire knowledge. It is, defined as the ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons’’[2). There are various methods of learning, which can be termed as ‘life long learning’. These are: †¢ Home schooling : People learning at home rather than at an institute. †¢ Adult education : Enrolling in an adult learning course to gain formal qualifications for work or leisure. †¢ Continuing education : Courses to gain further knowledge without getting any formal qualification. †¢ Knowledge work : On-the-job training but can also include practical courses for professional development. †¢ Personal learning environment: Using a range of sources and tools including online applications. Lifelong learning is the most effective way to enhance personal and professional development. Therefore, all the above methods should be encouraged and used to gain relevant knowledge in relation to an individual’s goals and aspirations. A method used by a person depends on what their personal learning goals are, and on the answers to the key questions of what, when, where, how and why. 1.3  The benefits of self managed learning to individuals and organisations are many fold. The key benefits are : †¢ Ability to choose the content :Allows people to pick and choose what they are going to learn, and who they are going to learn from, depending on personal level of knowledge and preferences. †¢ Determining the schedule : Allows people to adapt learning process to their personal agenda, without depending on time schedules imposed by others. †¢ Learning with passion : Topic is chosen based on what the learner wants to learn, making the learner more engaged and the learning process more enjoyable. †¢ Sense of accomplishment and satisfaction : As the learner has chosen the topic, it provides greater degree of satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment within learners. †¢ More productive life : As it is a learner guided process, there is more passion and commitment within the learner about their learning, enhancing their chances of securing more expertise in the area. †¢ Develop expertise and skill : After gaining skill and expertise in the chosen field, a person is more likely to become an expert in the area, with others seeking their expertise and be willing to pay for it. 2.1 Since leaving school, I have worked within the catering sector all my working life, initially as a General Assistant in the kitchen, helping cook and chef. However, through my competence and performance, I was able to gradually rise to the position of Head Chef, with people working under my supervision. This allowed me to have experience of managing people effectively in a challenging fast moving environment. In addition, I was able to gain adequate knowledge and understanding about various health safety guidelines through relevant training, including gaining relevant qualifications. I was able to comply with the professional standards for a Chef through the training I received. Also, working closely with the management, I was able to understand fully the key aims and objectives of the business and focused on ensuring that through my work, I help the business to fulfil them. It is important for a restaurant to provide good quality food and customer service – the two key aspect for such business. Unless the quality of the food and the level of customer service is to their satisfaction, customers will not come back, which is vital for a business. So, my role as a Head Chef is crucial to the success of the company. Since the restaurant is doing well, I feel confident that I have contributed towards the achievement of the company’s aims and objectives, complying with the professional standards required for my job. 2.2  Having worked in the kitchen all my working life, I would now like to have a change of career and move to management, where I would like to manage the whole business, either by setting up my own restaurant or be employed in a restaurant owned by others. In order to help me achieve my aim, I would need proper qualification, understanding and knowledge about how to manage a restaurant efficiently. Therefore, my development needs are as follows : †¢ How to devise an effective business plan †¢ How to prepare a comprehensive sales and marketing strategy †¢ How to be a competent business manager †¢ How to manage a business efficiently and profitably In order to acquire the knowledge required to achieve those aims, I need to enrol in a business course which will not only allow me to have the relevant knowledge but would also enable me to have thorough understanding of these areas, resulting in a qualification. In addition to the areas mentioned above, I also need to focus on some other areas, such as enhancing my literacy and numeracy skills as it would be necessary if I am to manage to restaurant. I also need to improve my social and communication skills too, which is vital for a business within the hospitality sector. 2.3 Since I don’t currently have any formal qualification other than GCSE, the only way for me to achieve my goal of enrolling in a course to acquire relevant knowledge and gain qualification would be to enrol in a course that does not have an entry requirement of any formal qualification and would accept someone with only GCSE. So, I started researching about various courses available that is relevant to me and is available for people who only have GCSE. I have identified that the Business Management HND is the best course for me as it offers all relevant aspects to help me achieve my developmental needs while allowing people with only GCSE to enrol. Therefore, I have enrolled in this course. However, I am seriously considering taking this further and go into further studies on business management, either through university or an informal course in continuing education, which may not result in a formal qualification but would provide me with the knowledge I need to achieve my goals. I feel that enrolling in the Business management HND is the first step towards achieving my aim of acquiring all relevant information and gain relevant qualifications regarding running a successful restaurant business. I also researched about courses to facilitate my aim of enhancing my literacy, numeracy, social and communication skills and have identified some of the courses that will be relevant to me and would assist me in achieving my goals.

The characteristics between management and leadership

The characteristics between management and leadership This assignment is initially discussing about the characteristic difference between management and leadership, how their skills are engaged in an organisation including with their roles and responsibilities. Then the discussions follows to the main objectives of this assignment, those are (i) Identifying and evaluating the personal and professional skills which are required for a successful manager and evaluating how he/she meets the organisational or personal goals; importantly covering the key managerial/leadership skills such as time management, running meetings, making presentations, stress management, etc. (ii) Providing a range of suitable practical methods for developing or improving those skills (iii) Identifying preferred learning style by using an effective personal audit in order to develop managerial/leadership skills (iv) Developing a workable development plan in order to develop or improve those skills to become an effective manager according to SMART and SWOT analysis (v) Reviewing/monitoring process and feedback what I have undertaken in order to achieve those skills and finally (vi) Concluding how/what I have learned from my analysis and how I can use this similar approach for future development. 1.1 Manager The Manager plays a vital role in order to achieve and improve the productivity and organizational objectives. He/She is responsible for managing, planning, distributing and monitoring the work of their employees, achieving the effective utilization of the organization resources and brings the employees objectives along with the organization objectives. Good managers are born and not made. Managers are autocratic in nature, they do the right things to avoid risk and they formulate the policies/ systems to consistent manner; also they are rigid with their subordinates (Hollingsworth, 1999). Managers mainly rely on strategy, structure and systems (Watson, 1983). 1.2 Leader Leaders are those who involved in the process of setting a new direction or vision for their group to follow and motivating them by satisfying their basic need in order to achieve the common organization goal, it is the process of influencing the performance of the employee by respecting their freedom towards the group goals. Good leaders are made and not born. Leaders are democratic in nature, they do the things right and they wont formulate the policy they use to predict with set examples; also they like risks and flexible with the other group members (Hollingsworth, 1999). Leaders mainly rely on style, staff, skills and shared goals (Watson, 1983). 2.0 Outcome 1 Methods to improve Personal and Professional skills This part of the assignment mainly identifies and evaluates the importance of personal and professional skills which are required for a successful manager and how he/she meets the organisational or personal goals; importantly covering the key managerial skills such as time management, running meetings, making presentations, stress management, etc. In addition, it provides a range of suitable practical methods for developing or improving those skills. 2.1 Skills for successful manager and its importance The managers important role in any organization or workplace is that to manage the people/worker/subordinates in order to meet the organization objective or goal and also promote positive employee motivation and employee morale. The mangers activities are very complex and varied because they have to coordinate with all the organization resource such as human resource, material resource, financial resource and informational resource in order to achieve the overall organization goal (Pride, Hughes and Kapoor, 2008, P187). The role of the manger is very crucial as they have to deal or handle various people. Therefore, the successful manager must have the personal and professional skills which are very essential and listed in page-**; and utilize them in a proper way, so that they can perform their duties and activities efficiently. Personal skills are his/her own development skills in order to achieve his/her career goals in life and it can be continuously developed on day to day basis; For example, wants to become a manager. Professional skills are working environment skills in order to achieve organisation goals and it can be developed and utilized whenever the opportunity arises in the working environment; For example, becoming an effective manager. In practical, the effective manager must have and develop the both skills in order to achieve his/her goals as well as the organisation goals. To be an effective manager at all level of organisation (i.e lower, medium and top level), they need to possess combination of all the skills listed above. Among these skills, the first four are the very important skills to become a successful manager. This part of assignment evaluates how these skills are important and providing a range of best suitable methods for developing or improving these skills, which enables me to meet both organisational and own goals and objectives. 2.1a Evaluation and Methods to develop Time management Time management skill is one of the valuable assets for manager, and it helps how the valuable time is effectively utilized/ managed in order to meet the goals. As time costs money, it is lost and not recoverable if the time is wasted. Therefore successful manager must find every opportunity to save time in order to improve productivity/profit by analysing workload and understanding subordinates capability, controlling time wasting activities, etc. The key elements to the effective time saving/managing skills are listed below: Define the goals to meet the deadline Budget the man-hour or cost Plan and schedule the workload Provide marginal budget for unforeseen workload or changes Prioritize and organise accordingly Distribute the workload to subordinates Review and track the planned task Use and maintain time management log for daily or weekly Control the wastage time and use effectively Guide/encourage the subordinate to improve production Above listed elements of time management skill can be achieved by set of workable practical methods such as procedures, policies, spreadsheets, checklists, etc. For example, Gantt chart for planning and scheduling, time log sheet for consumed budget hour and to estimate balance hour respective to task, Weekly progress report for reviewing/tracking the planned task, etc. As I want to become a manager, I need to develop or improve time management skill. Though majority of this skill and key elements can be developed while working as manager, I have developed lots of key elements of time managing skill while studying this course, in order to achieve the course outcome. For example, time log sheet enabled me to maintain and review how I am spending daily hours (see appendix-**), Gantt chart for assignment work (see appendix-**), etc. 2.1b Running meeting Organising meeting skill is one of the vital skills for the manager, and it helps to get collective decision-making, better focused discussion, to improve the productivity, to motivate the employee, etc to build an effective organisation. Importantly it is a best place to communicate the management/project objectives to team-worker or other discipline employee, to reward the performer, etc (Pocket, 2006, P47-69). The key elements for the effective running meeting skills are listed below: Defining the purpose of meetings Prepare agenda (meeting time, place, chairperson, attendees) Circulate agenda and Invite the participants in advance Welcome the participants with refreshments Clear and focused discussion by using visual aids Encourage group discussion Take notes for agreed outcomes/ actions/ responsibilities Review past meeting outcomes Control and avoid repeated discussion Encourage feedback/idea and questionnaire session Prepare minutes of meeting and circulate Therefore above mentioned components of meeting running skill can be achieved by set of workable practical methods such as procedures, agenda, minutes of meeting, forum, meeting templates, spreadsheets, etc. Though the key elements of this skill can be developed when the opportunity arises probably while working as manager, I have developed lots of key elements of running meeting skill while studying Strategic management course in order to achieve the group task as a chair person for SILVER SPOON group. For example, agenda sheet enabled me to invite participants and define the meeting perspective, venue and time (see appendix-**) and Minutes of meeting enabled to confirm the action plan to group member (see appendix-**), etc. 2.1c Making presentation Presentation skill is one of the important skills for a successful manager in many aspects of their work, and to communicate efficiently in a group of audience. The most important factors to consider in presentations are audience attitudes, actions, needs and responsibilities throughout the presentation. This enables the audience or subordinates in many ways such as time saving or effort, make money, help to take advantage of opportunities, make them more popular and famous, and increase their curiosity and enjoyment (Suzy, 2008, P6-10). The great presentation is a process and combination of the following key elements: Think and research on the topic before presentation Organize the content with introduction, body and conclusion Attract the audience by eye contact, posture, movement, gesture, etc Interact the audience to think, not only listen Deliver the presentation with confidence Use visual aids effectively Overcome presentation nerves and avoid vague language Effective communication skill by oral/written/drawing Keep it short and simple (KISS) Capability of answering the audience questions Therefore above mentioned key elements of presentation can be achieved by set of workable practical methods such as Power-point slides, handouts, seminars, etc. As manager gives presentation in various groups meeting with subordinates/supervisor/ clients, using techniques should be graspable/ understandable by audience. Actually these above mentioned key elements can be developed while working or when the opportunity arises. Though I have gained bit of presentation skill in Strategic management course when presenting SIVLER SPOON group task, I must need to develop this skill, where I have lot of scopes to improve. 2.1d Stress management Stress is one of the persons reactions of the body and mind to change. It is very important for everyone to manage and control the stress, to become healthier and happier. Effected stress produces physiological, psychological, stress related issues on him/her. Manager has high chances of developing stress due to various demands such as task demands, Role demands, Interpersonal demands and Organisational structure. Though it can not be fully avoidable, but it can be manageable by using effective stress management skill (Robbins and Decenzo, 2008, P206). Overstress resulting to decrease the productivity, decrease profit, leading to mistake, etc. Therefore, it is mandatory for manager to have stress management skill in order to avoid stress related problems; that is control or manage the stress by using time management, running meeting, making presentation skills. The stress management skill is the combination of following key elements (Cartwright and Cooper, 1997, P416): Recognise, anticipate, monitor and regulate stressors Redesign the task or work environment Establish flexible work schedules Encourage participative management Include employees in career development Build a good and supportive team Establish fair employment policies Find alternative routes/solutions Actually this is the follow-up skill of Time management, Running meeting and Making presentation. So, the above mentioned key elements of stress management skill can be achieved by using same set of workable practical methods, which used in others. Actually these above mentioned key elements can be developed while working as manager. So I am looking chance for developing this skill. I also feel that, with remarkable development of other managerial/leadership key skills, I can easily develop the stress management skill. Outcome 2 Personal skills audit 3.1 Preferred learning style As I want to become a more effective manager, I need to learn several skills which are listed in page-**. This part of assignment examines my learning style by undertaking personal skill audit, which helped me to identify my current possessing skills, knowledge, abilities, values and preferred learning style along with my strengths and weaknesses in order to achieve my effective manager goal. Appendix-** illustrates the Learning style questionnaire (LSQ) with my answer, and its result proves shows that my preferred learning style is PRAGMATIST. 3.2 Strengths and weaknesses As I am PRAGMATIST, my learning style strengths and weaknesses are listed below: Strengths: Tries to put own ideas, theories and techniques into workplace Innovative and experimental Analyse and evaluate with various options Set targets, and tries to achieve them Works well independently Weaknesses: Acts without caution end up with negative outcome Task oriented rather than people oriented Undervalues personal feelings Is impatient and needs full control Likes to work independently Referenced from Week-1 hand outs and (Honey and Mumford, 1992) 3.3 How it affects my skills development As I audited and analysed my strengths and weaknesses of my learning style, below discussion reveals that how it will affect and how to overcome in order develop the four key skills for an effective manager. For example, Time management: As I am pragmatist, my planning/target may fail due to without taking any caution or overriding the task to others or effectively not using the source, which clearly affect my performance. However as strength I set/try to achieve the target with ideas, techniques and options, so I try to plan the task with right person/man-hour. Also assigning right task to right person and monitoring frequently enables to track and avoid last minute problems. Stress management: As I am pragmatist, giving more importance to the task rather than people or their feelings, may results to generate huge stress due to poor quality/inefficient project outcome. However as strength I take opportunity to experiment and evaluate with various options, so I try to encourage/educate the subordinates in order to meet the task. Further more, frequently reviewing the task progress and rewarding person enables to avoid workplace stress. Outcome 3 Personal development plan 4.1 SMART analysis Objectives and goals are widely used in planning and design. It is a composite statement of the end target, to be attained within the specified time and schedule. SMART is one of the key methods to create an effective objective or goal. So, the SMART objectives are: Specific : Objectives should be well defined and clearly state that what is to be achieved Measurable : Objectives needs to be quantifiable in order to measure or monitor the goal process and confirm whether it is in favourable condition. Performance could be quantitative and qualitative measure that allows us to make changes if anything goes wrong during the process and stay on track to meet the targets Achievable : Objective is within the capability and ability to reach the most desirable target. Also it must be realistic and appropriate for the business or activity Relevant : Objective should be specific and must relate to the short or long term business target Time defined : The end result should be accomplished with in the targeted deadline (Mike, 2008, P**) 4.2 SWOT analysis SWOT analysis is one of the powerful tools to analyse the personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This process enables to improve the strength, overcome/minimise the weakness/gaps as well as taking the greatest opportunities that are available. Appendix-** explores my SWOT analysis for my personal development and it is in Edexcel level 7 format. 4.3 Personal development plan (PDP) Planning is a logical component of the management process. PDP is an ongoing process throughout our life, which helps to manage/develop any individual skills through the process of self learning, reflection and structure on how to achieve their target/goal. In order to become a successful manager, I must have to plan and define the effective objective by using SMART analysis in order to accomplish the target within the scheduled time. Also I have to assess/examine my strengths and weakness by SWOT analysis in order to develop 4 managerial key skills listed in Outcome 1. From outcome-2, I established my learning style is PRAGMATIST using personal skills audit with my learning strengths and weaknesses. As I have analysed myself thoroughly, my PDP for achieving 4 effective managerial key skills are explored in the appendix-**. In that exploring process, my PDP mainly intended to help the following: Improve my personal and professional managerial skill Identify and develop my transferable skill Focus my thinking and plan forward and set realistic targets Articulate my personal goal and objective Evaluate progress towards the achievement Conclusion This assignment work helped me to understand the personal/professional skills for an effective manager and its importance, analyse suitable workable methods for developing these skills, identifying my learning skills with learning strengths and weaknesses, developing a personal development plan by SMART and SWOT analysis, Monitoring and feedback undertaken, etc. Especially, I gained thorough understanding of 4 Key skills in addition to other skills for an effective manager. From this overall task, I have developed a skill that how to set the target, analysing pros and cons, prepare a planning/route and schedule (viable and time), budgeting, analysing strength and weakness, monitoring and reflecting, scope for efficiency/improvisation, and finally meet the target. By using this PDP and methods, it could be very grateful to succeed in my academic career and also it helps me to efficiently utilize these skills in my future employment in order to make a successful and imaginative organis ation. Conclusion Professional development is very important for every professional, irrespective of their employment. It plays a vital role in order to step up their career ladder. For every business and organization, this advanced professional development program boost up their employees personal and professional managerial/leadership skills and knowledge in order to achieve their business objective and improve the productivity. If the managements are lack in those skills and knowledge then they wont be resisting in the Industrial market. The objectives of this assignment are mainly focused on how to improve the managerial/leadership skills including time management, running meetings, making presentation and stress management and these are very important skills for managers/leaders. This assignment works on to identify and evaluate the strategy or method for developing the personal and professional managerial /leadership skills as listed above. Also this covers the learning strategies and styles whi ch will be very useful for me to build my positive skills and to overcome my weaknesses in order to improve my skills and knowledge. By using this development plan and method, it could be very grateful to succeed at my university and also it helps me to utilize these skills in my future employment in order to make an effective and imaginative organization. foster (Word Count: 200) Appendices Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Bibliography using Harvard Referencing System Textbook Reference: Web Reference Personal / Professional skills Why it is necessary Time management It is cost effective and non recoverable Helps to plan, prioritize, organise, schedule and budget the work Organising meeting It is vital to get the solution from group or to improve the productivity or to motivate the employee Helps to discuss/convey the message among the group such as work plan, progress, new awards, etc Presentation To convey key points or improve delivery style Effective visual aid Stress management To analyse and reduce stress developed in job/ life To improve or control physical/emotional situation Self-awareness and self-management Effective communication To communicate clearly and correctly by written or oral or sketch, etc Map out the ideas/objective thinking in a proper way Problem solving and Decision making To provide/decide best or lesson learnt solution, when the problem arises in workplace or subordinate Performance management To conduct appraisals and guide subordinates for their career development Maintain a performance record of subordinate for easy access and feedback Recognise and encourage the top performers Team development Motivation To motivate/encourage the team towards project/organisation goal by monitoring progress Observing skill To listen/observe what is happening in the group Thoroughly understanding the situation and problem Well as I begin I would like to remember you one point that no one can withstand in the market of an organization when the people lack certain skills and knowledge. In order to ensure for proper skills and knowledge a proper idea about the development of their skills are briefed in this report. Keeping in mind, the four skills developed in this report were time management, stress management, running meeting, and group discussion. Not only the skills but also the learning styles were discussed. What are the techniques and objectives to meet the desired characteristics? How to improve the management skills for the effective leadership? The main concept of learning is mentioned clearly in this report which may be useful in the future requirements for an organization to be effective and imaginative.