Baroque Era essays

Baroque Era essays Humanism symbolizes an intellectual movement that begun in Verona. Humanist had faith in and emphasized the dignity and worth of the individual. That faith turned into the rediscovery of culture of classical antiquity, which contains elements of literature, history, rhetoric, ethics, and politics. A basic premise of humanism is that people are rational beings who possess within themselves the capacity for truth and goodness. This Renaissance revival of Greek and Roman studies emphasized the value of the classics for their own sake, rather than for their bearing to Christianity. Furthermore, the movement of Humanism had a major impact and influence in the Renaissance with a different mind set on how human beings view life. This movement made an impression on the elements of literature, visual arts, and music of those times. The humanist movement started in Italy, where the four early figures Francesco Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Giorgio Vasari, and Lorenzo Valla contributed greatly to the discovery and preservation of classical works. Petrarch, a Latin scholar, dedicated his life in studying golden wisdom of the ancients. Golden wisdom pertained to proper conduct of ones private life, rational governance of the state, the enjoyment of beauty, and the quest for truth. One of the first Westerners to study Greek was Boccoccio whom was a great writer. Vasari, invented the word rinascita (renaissance) for the reason that there was no Latin word for rebirth. Vasaris term was applied to the fine arts that had developed out of early humanism, but the term now describes an era that consciously freed itself from medievalism. Valla another Renaissance dedicated scholar of immense learning dared to challenge any authority and translated Herodotos and Thucydides into Latin. Furthermore, Petrach and other humanist all wrote in the same language, the vernacular language which became the accepted la...

Customer Relationship Management Helps Chase Card Services Manage Customer Calls Essays

Customer Relationship Management Helps Chase Card Services Manage Customer Calls Essays Customer Relationship Management Helps Chase Card Services Manage Customer Calls Essay Customer Relationship Management Helps Chase Card Services Manage Customer Calls Essay If you have a credit card, theres a good chance that it is from Chase. Chase Card Services is the division of JP Morgan Chase which specializes in credit cards, offering a vast array of credit card products such as the Chase Rewards Platinum Visa card. As one of the [argest credit card issuers in the United States, the company fields a correspondingly large amount of calls from people seeking customer service for their credit card accounts.Each of Chases 6,000 call center agents worldwide at the companys 11 call centers fields field up to 120 calls per day. The company handles slightly less than 200 million calls each year from a customer base of 100 million. Even a small reduction of 1% to the amount of calls received results in savings of millions of dollars and improved customer service for Chase. Achieving such a reduction is easier said than done, however. Li. 2006, Chase Card Services attempted to accom- plish this by improving first-call resolution. Fi rst-call esolution is when a call center agent is able to resolve a customers issues during the initial call to customer service without requiring additional calls. The problem was that the companys record keeping did not give an accurate account of current rates of first-call resolution. Chase had previously tried tracking first-call resolution rates oy having agents log the content and results of each call they received. But this task was time- consuming and was not standardized, since agents :ended to record results subjectively and not in a iniform way.Company policies for some customer requests were also far from ideal for increasing First-call resolution. For example, agents were only able to process balance transfers for customers calling from their homes, and the fee structure inderwent multiple changes over a short span, prompting repeat calls. Po improve call center efficiency, Chase contracted with Enkata technologies to implement a oerformance and talent management syste m. The system monitors and tags each call with the :opic and length of the call as well as the length of time the agent that handled the call has been orking. It doesnt require agents to perform any lotion to acquire this information; it tracks calls automatically by keeping track of the keyboard strokes of each agent. As soon as an agent clicks on the feature of the account that the customer is calling about, the Enkata system automatically identifies the reason for the call. Proprietery algorithms match the reason and caller identification to the amount of time predetermined for each type of call. The system then monitors discrepancies in call time, depending on the reason for the call. For xample, a call from a customer requiring card activation should be a quick call, so the system will pinpoint card activation calls that take longer than normal, or fee dispute calls that are shorter than normal. But sometimes customers have multiple reasons for calling, which would have been ve ry difficult to track prior to the implementation of Enkatas system. Now Enkata separates each individ- ual reason for calling and organizes them into a sequence, so that a call with multiple issues to resolve is analyzed using the appropriate time frame.By separating and organizing reasons for calling into distinct categories, Chase is able to determine criteria for declaring particular calls resolved For example, a card activation call will be considered resolved after only a few days without a follow-up call, but a disputed fee call wont be considered resolved until the customer received another statement without any complaints. This method gives Chase much more accurate data on first-call resolution, a feat which is regarded as very difficult and impressive in the industry. Enkata compiles this data and distributes it toChase Card Services in the form of weekly reports on call type and length, call handling times, repeat call rates, and other performance measures that allow both agents and supervisors to monitor their performance. The system also connects reports with call recordings to assist managers in coaching and evaluating their agents. When the system was still being implemented, Enkata used historical call data gathered prior to the implementation to create initial reports. Chase Card Services executives considered this initial upload of data to be the most time- consuming part of the implementation.Once the implementation was complete, the company hoped that improvements in the interpretation and management of this information would lead to improvements in agent pertbrmance, customer satisfaction, and customer retention. The results speak for themselves. Chase Card Services improved its first-call resolution rate to 91%, an increase of 3%, in its first year after the imple- mentation of the Enkata system. That represented a total savings of $8 million. Approximately $2. 5 mil- Lion of that total savings was a direct result of the average call time decreasing by two seconds.The company hopes to reach its goal of 95% within the next few years. A perfect rate of 100% first-call resolution is not feasible because some additional calls after the first are acceptable under certain circumstances, such as a customer remembering a charge that he or she had initially disputed. CASE STUDY QUESTIONS 1. What functions of customer relationship manage- ment systems are illustrated in this case? 3. Why is the call center so important for Chase Card Services? How could Chases call centers help it improve relationships with customers? . Describe the problem at Chase call centers. What management, organization, or technology factors contributed to the problem?3. How did using Enkata improve operational perfor- mance and decision making? Give examples. E. What management, organization, or technology factors would have to be considered in implement- ing the Enkata solution? Within three months time, 30% of agents that had scored below the accept able rate for first-call resolution improved to an acceptable rate. And although the number of active customer accounts grew by 5. % in the six months after implementation of the system, call volume decreased 8. 3% over that same span. Encouraged by these successes, Chase Card Services is now looking to expand the capabilities of the system to classify calls into even more cate- gories, and to link their collected data to marketing programs to foster cross-selling and upselling. Sources: Marshall Lager, Credit Where Due, Customer Relationship Management, April 2008; Michele Heller, How Chase Got Control of Call-Center Expenses, American Banker, February 26, 2008.

Advertisement Campaign of Stanfords Master Program Essay - 1

Advertisement Campaign of Stanfords Master Program - Essay Example The advertisement to be studied is of Master’s Degree Program from Stanford University. Stanford University is one of the renowned and most respected universities across the globe. Most of the programs under this university are of high demand and students from various parts of the world come to study and gain knowledge and information. However, in order to successfully achieve 100% student enrolment as well as to ensure that the university and its programs are consistently preferred, the management needs to establish successful marketing campaigns for the same. The current media environment is extremely fragmented. It is characterized by the huge number of alternatives in media, competing for students’ time. This has also resulted in significant decline in their cognitive attention to a particular media and advertisement. For instance, Stanford University is facing the tough challenge from other universities in California, such as California University and San Diego Sta te University. The above situation has created difficulties for management committees in handling various marketing campaigns for different educational programs across universities. This increasing growth in simultaneous usage of media has a direct impact on the overall allocation of advertiser’s media money. It has become imperative for advertisers to allocate their advertisement budget into different media spaces, as focussing on only one or two media channels is not enough for the new age consumer. Apart from that, current research in media and advertisement suggests that media exposure always takes place in isolation. This means one particular medium is not in competition with other media for customer attention in a single timeframe.

Priorities of the Office of the Mayor of London and the Greater London Essay - 1

Priorities of the Office of the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority for a sustainable future of Environment - Essay Example In his tenure since 2008, Johnson has managed to create and implement some policies that are aimed at transforming London into one of the greenest and most energy efficient cities in the whole of Europe. Powers and Responsibilities of the GLA and the Mayor The GLA and the Mayor are responsible for matters to do with: housing, learning and skills, planning, waste management, culture, health, climate change and energy as well as water and sanitation. The GLA is responsible for ensuring that every resident of the city of London has access to good quality life. This includes proper and well maintained housing, a clean environment and easy access to public services such as healthcare and education. In its duty to keep the city friendly for its residents, the Mayor and GLA normally ensure that the infrastructure in the area is well planned and that waste is properly managed (Institute for Public Policy Research, 1997). It is also the duty of the authority to ensure that open and public spa ces remain as clean as possible so that the residents can relax comfortably safely. Another important duty of the Greater London Authority and the Mayor is to ensure that the city operates by international environmental standards. This means that the authority is responsible for looking into and tackling any issues regarding climate change and the environment in all corners of the city. ... to ensure that the environmental condition is such that all Londoners live a quality life free of any kind of pollution and irritants that are characteristic of most major cities all across the world (Johnson, 2008). Some of the environmental issues that have plagued the city for a long time include the lack of enough public space, development pressure, air pollution, noise pollution, litter and graffiti. Although the city of London is well known for its greenness, there is a big problem in how Londoners access green spaces for relaxation purposes. Government funding for green spaces and public parks has been on the decline for the last ten or so years and this has led to the depletion of these important resources (Johnson, 2009). Development has also been a big problem to London’s green environment. Pressure for new housing and public infrastructure expansion has seen most of the open green areas being cleared. The loss of green spaces has also led to the loss of wildlife tha t relies of these spaces for survival. Air pollution has also been a big problem for the city for a very long time, but there are measures in place to ensure that the air quality improves. Noise is also blighting many of the city’s beautiful features. Most of this noise comes from the streets and the airports. According to the World Health Organization, at least 25% of London’s population is affected by noise that is way above the organization’s standards (Greater London Authority, 2010). The Mayor’s Vision for a Better Environment In his mayoral campaigns and post-campaign strategies, the mayor laid down his vision for what he considered a better and greener environment. According to Johnson (2008), some of the plans he had for the city include: 1. Greening the city’s streets and

Artifical Intelligence Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Artifical Intelligence - Term Paper Example an important mission of artificial intelligence paradigm is to create human like intelligence in machine to reinstate and assist humans in everyday tasks. The basic purpose of this paper is to present a detailed analysis of autonomous cars with a particular focus on AI techniques used in the development of these cars. AI is a complete science which encompasses a wide variety of concepts and ideas. This paper will discuss these concepts briefly. This paper will discuss different AI techniques that are being used in these cars. Some of the well-known techniques are outlined below: Basically, robotics is a field of artificial intelligence which deals with the study of robots. In this scenario, robots refer to machines that are used to carry out tasks which can be performed by humans. In fact, some robots are made so intelligent that they can perform their work without instructions. While the majority of robots always has an instructor guiding them what to do (Dunbar, 2013). Additionally, the robot is a Czech word, which is used for robota, meaning "forced labor." In addition, this term was first used by Czech writer Karel Capek in a play in 1920. In this play, the robots ultimately take over their creators (Rouse, 2007). Physically, a robot contains the same components as humans have. In this scenario, a robot has some kind of motor, a portable physical structure, a power supply, a sensor system and a processing system "brain" that is responsible for controlling all of these components. Fundamentally, robots are human created forms of animal life but actually they are machines which are intended to replicate human and animal behavior (Harris M. C., 2010; Berlin, 2011; Harris T. , 2013). According to (Stergiou & Siganos, 2010), â€Å"an artificial neural network is a data processing model that is inspired by the method of biological nervous systems information processing.† Neural Network is also a renowned and heavily researched area of the AI. Stergiou & Siganos

Cooperative Learning Advantages for English Language Learners

Cooperative Learning Advantages for English Language Learners Cooperative learning is defined as any group learning activity organized in such a way that learning is dependent on the socially structured exchange of academic content as well as other information between the specific group of learners, and whereas each individual learner is accountable for his/her own learning (Tinker-Sachs et al, 2003). Furthermore, Kagan (2002; 1994) states that cooperative learning will ultimately lead to increases in the learning of other members in the group. Kagan posits (2002) that cooperative learning is an excellent teaching strategy that promotes enhanced learning for diverse student populations and is especially beneficial for English language learners. Noyes (2010) further states that English language learners participating in cooperative learning groups not only increase overall understanding of the English language, they also develop deeper understanding of academic content as well as academic language. Continuing research from Cummins (2009) suggest that students with diverse learning abilities, including students with learning disabilities improve their skills through the natural scaffolding strategies found in cooperative learning groups.

Elements of Plato in John Donnes The Good Morrow Essay example -- Don

Elements of Plato in John Donne's The Good Morrow There are clear Platonic elements in Donne's "The Good Morrow." The idea that Donne and his lady are halves that complete each other is traceable to Plato's theory of love. Lines 7 and 8 of the poem refer to the Platonic World of Ideas: the lady is presented as the Idea of Beauty, of which all earthly beauty is but an imperfect reflection. My argument, however, is that Plato's cave allegory and his World of Ideas are integral to a full understanding of this highly complex poem. The first reference to the Platonic cave comes in line 4 of the poem: "Or snorted we in the seven sleepers' den?" The seven sleepers are seven young Christians who were walled up in a cave in the year 249. Miraculously, they did not die but slept for 187 years. This miracle of early Christianity is negatively presented by Donne and the plight of the seven "snorters" may have a relationship to Plato's cave: there are fundamental similarities between Plato's cave-dwellers on the one hand, and the seven Christians (and the biblical myth of Exodus, for that matter) on the other hand, according to Downing. In both cases, there is a God who cares for the people involved, even though they are unaware of this fact; in the first case because they are asleep, in the second because they mistake shadows of shadows for reality. They are both trapped in a cave from which they apparently cannot escape. And they both dwell in darkness. In a poet of Donne's complexity, it is not far-fetched to argue that line 4 refers both to the seven Christians and to Plato's cave-dwellers, and that Donne wished us to read it in precisely this way. Such an argument is reinforced by the fact that the line is immediately followed by... ...a Platonic Idea is, of course, a paradox, as the World of Ideas is not only deathless but supposedly has existed since the beginning of time.) Alternatively, one can argue that Donne (or his poetic voice) experiences a transient relationship in this poem that may or may not develop into a Platonic Idea. Like Plato's cave-dwellers who came out into the light, however, he has learned a great deal and become capable, as a consequence, of achieving the Platonic Idea of sexual love in a possibly new, deathless encounter that is "mixed equally." WORKS CITED Donne, John. "The Good Morrow." The Oxford Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 1. Ed. Frank Kermode and John Hollander. New York: Oxford UP, 1974. 1024-25. Downing, Christopher. "How Can We Hope and Not Dream? Exodus as Metaphor: A Study of the Biblical Imagination." Journal of Religion 48 (1968): 35-53.