The Welcome Table by Alice Walker

I choose to analyze The Welcome Table by Alice Walker; this story is about an old, rundown black woman who staggers the necessary distance in the freezing cold to attend an all-white people church. The Welcome Table is told in the third person and shifts the point of view from which the story is told. The white people are at a loss when they see her near the entrance of the church and do not know what to do. Some people take her in as she is, an old black woman with a mildewed dress that is missing buttons. She is lean and wrinkled with blue-brown eyes. Her appearance makes some of the white people think of black workers, maids, cooks; others think of black mistresses or jungle orgies. Still others think that she is a foreshadow of what is to come – black people invading the one place that it still considered the white person's sanctuary, their church. They see her and transfer their fear of blacks onto her. The beginning of the story is told from the white people's perspectives as they see an old black woman come to their church and go inside. Inside the church, the point of view switches to the usher who tells the old black lady to leave. The point of view then switches back to the white women inside the church, who take it as a personal insult and feel the most threatened about the old black lady being at their church. They rouse their husbands to throw the old lady out. The perspective then changes to the old black lady. This constant changing of point of view is useful in that it portrays the fears, thoughts, and feelings of almost everyone in the story. Firsthand, the reader is able to know what the people are thinking and why. In the end, the point of view briefly returns to the white people who were at church that day. The story ends with the perspective of some black families who witnessed the old lady walking down the highway. The story starts on a Sunday morning at the steps of the church that white people attend. The focus moves briefly inside the church where it is cold. As the story progresses the setting moves to the highway located outside the church. It is freezing outside. It is interesting to note that the old black woman does not find Jesus inside the â€Å"white† church but outside of it. Also of interest; prior to meeting Jesus, the old black woman is cold and shivering. After meeting Jesus, no mention is made of the woman's being cold or shivering. Walker does not give a specific time period in which the story takes place or a specific location. This might have been done to make the story timeless. The language used in The Welcome Table is very descriptive in her details of the old black woman's appearance and the appearance of Jesus. Walker is also detailed when describing the white people's different emotions, thoughts, and feelings. Walker provides insight into all the characters with her word choices, and by doing so, makes a simple story more profound. Walker writes this story straight through for the most part with only two breaks. The first break comes immediately after the old woman is thrown out of the church. The point of view then shifts to the old black woman whose thoughts and feelings were unknown to the reader up to this point. The second break occurs after the old woman is walking with Jesus. Walker uses the break to shift forward in time in the white people's perspective. Although the old woman dies at the end of the story and an argument could be made that she was walking alone, this story contains hope and leaves the reader with a good feeling. The story gives hope that people who have lived a life of servitude and poor treatment will, in the end, find kindness, acceptance, and joy.

If i were a millionaire short Essay

Everyone have dreams andand every dream is unlike with each others. Some of them want to be a teacher, and slightly of them want to be an astronaut, but for me, I have in interesting and marvelous dream. My dream is to become a millionaire. If I were a millionaire, would life have to change for me? Would I overhaul it every(prenominal) on myself and my family.But, how would I do that, I already have all that I want for a palmy and happy living, how and what would I add? Could then I be in a position to stand by others in need, with that money, as, with a million to spare, I could render a lot of help to several people in need. I shall invest few of my money in prize bonds, saving Certificates and the like. In this way I shall not yet hold fast benefit for Myself but besides help my pastoral in its development plans. Further, I shall clear schools and colleges that will realize free education with Board and populate to poor students. I shall Set out on a world tour to know about the living conditions and springer of different nations. It will give me first hand knowledge slightly life in other countries.  I would spend all this money as my contribution towards mans rudimentary needs. Ordercustompaper.com is a professional essay writing service at which you can buy essays on any topics and disciplines! All custom essays are written by professional writers! A storehouse of knowledge would be constructed in the excogitate of a public library, at the doors of which, poor people would get free education. It will contain a large fleck of valuable and rare books. It would help in making the poor, moralistic and self reliant. This library would have books which, besides knowledge, would also give the readers insight into their behaviors. I would also start for the poor only some vocational centres where they would be taught skills by virtue of which, they would, at a later stage be able to get a livelihood. The plight of the poor sick in our country is absolutely heart rending. I would like to ensure give-and-take of  the urban poor in good, well established hospitals. This would be financed by me for at least a few patients.

Creative writing in non-fiction Essay

Creative nonfiction (also known as literary or narrative nonfiction) is that branch of writing which employs literary Styles, techniques and artistic vision usually associated with fiction or poetry to create factually accurate narratives on actual persons and events. Creative nonfiction contrasts with other nonfiction, such as technical writing or journalism, which is also rooted in accurate fact, but is not primarily written in service to its craft. It is a hybrid of literature and non-fiction because it comprises of Non-fiction elements and Literary elements which are essay form, story/narration, explanation/exposition, place/scene/setting, standard rhetorical patterns, characterization, focuses on ideas, facts (not only language),author personally engaged, researched facts, literary voice/feel, artistic, instinctual, polished language. The primary goal of the creative nonfiction writer is to communicate information, just like a reporter, but to shape it in a way that reads like fiction. As a genre, creative nonfiction is still relatively young, and is only beginning to be scrutinized with the same critical analysis given to fiction and poetry. Though only recently identified and taught as a distinct and separate literary genre, the roots of creative nonfiction run deeply into literary tradition and history though has been in use as earlier as 1970s but was originally made official in the year 1983 in the United States of America at a meeting convened by the National Endowment for the Arts to deal with the question of what, exactly, to call the genre as a category for the NEA’s creative writing fellowships. The NEA long recognized the art of nonfiction but has been trying to find a way to describe the category so writers would understand what kind of work to submit for consideration. â€Å"Essay† is the term used to describe this â€Å"artful† nonfiction, but it didn’t really capture the essence of the genre for the NEA or lots of other folks experimenting in the field. Technically, scholars, critics, and academics of all sorts, as well as newspaper op-ed reporters, were writing â€Å"essays,† although that was not the kind of work the It had in mind. â€Å"Journalism† didn’t fit the category, either, although the anchoring element of the best creative nonfiction requires an aspect of reportage. For a while the It experimented with â€Å"belles-lettres,† a misunderstood term that favors style over substance and did not capture the personal essence and foundation of the literature they were seeking. Eventually one of the NEA members in the meeting that day pointed out that a rebel in his English department was campaigning for the term â€Å"creative nonfiction. † That rebel was Professor Lee Gutkind. Forms within this genre are personal essays, memoir, travel writing, food writing, biography, literary journalism, and other hybridized essays. Personal essay is often a free-wheeling device of self-expression. If you ever want to experiment with prose and with loosened structure, this is where you can do it. A memoir is a piece of autobiographical writing, usually shorter in nature than a comprehensive autobiography. The memoir, especially as it is being used in publishing today, often tries to capture certain highlights or meaningful moments in one’s past, often including a contemplation of the meaning of that event at the time of the writing of the memoir. The memoir may be more emotional and concerned with capturing particular scenes, or a series of events, rather than documenting every fact of a person’s life (Zuwiyya, N. 2000). Literary journalism refers to the use of fictional techniques in writing a work of nonfiction. In other words, it’s a true, well-researched, journalistically-sound story that might normally be written in a dry newspaper manner that has been instead written with style, vivid description, and narrative flow that immerses the reader in the story. The quality of the writing used to tell the story is just as important as telling the truth of the story. Narrative history is the practice of writing history in a story-based form. It can be divided into two subgenres: the traditional narrative and the modern narrative. Traditional narrative focuses on the chronological order of history; it is event driven and tends to center upon individuals, action, and intention. Modern narrative typically focuses on structures and general trends. A modern narrative would break from rigid chronology if the historian felt it explained the concept better. Docufiction (often understood as docudrama) is a neologism which refers to a cinematographic work in a genre mixing fiction and documentary. Docudrama is wrongly used as a synonym of docufiction, confusing drama with fiction. The use of docufiction is common in television, consisting in illustrating facts or events with actors. The term docudrama is apter in this sense. The term docufiction is sometimes used to refer to literary journalism (creative nonfiction). Controversies over the legitimacy of creative nonfiction, both as a term and as a genre; flares up regularly, perhaps even annually. In recent years, several well-publicized incidents within the United States have called into question the truthfulness and factual standards of creative nonfiction. Given its different styles and characteristics, it is not held to the same journalistic ethics and standards as direct reporting or news publications. Its allowances of artistic license to authors are not standardized, and some have accused writers of glorification of interpretation, and even of fabrication. A recent example of these incidents is the James Frey controversy in regards to his memoir A Million Little Pieces, published in 2003. In his memoir, Frey claimed to certain experiences (claim to have helped a high school friend sneak out with her boyfriend on the night she died in a car wreck. But, according to thesmokinggun. com, police reports and the girl’s family indicate Frey had nothing to do with the tragedy. ), which purported to be a memoir but contained fictionalized events, is unmasked in 2006. Such scandals seem to inspire frenzies among literary and cultural critics, an excuse for predictable (but nevertheless often satisfying) expressions of Schadenfreude and sanctimonious pronouncements about Truth in Art. Writers are warned to not be too cre ¬ative with weaving their stories, however. If you add characters, dialogue, invent scenes and alter facts, you moved to the realm of historical fic ¬tion, a noble genre but still, fiction. Lee Gutkind, an English professor at the University of Pittsburgh, credited as the founder of the creative non-fiction movement. â€Å"There’s this research aspect of creative non-fiction (Ethics of Literary Non-fiction) that you can’t get away from — that a lot of writers try to skip over or do without. † Authors seem to be getting the emotional aspects of a nonfiction topic across successfully. Many authors try to carry the emotion with anthropomor ¬phism or an abundance of exclamation points, rather than building the story in such a way that the natural drama of it comes through. Sometimes, the descriptive language is not as strong as it could be. Nonfiction authors are more likely to use a simple, somewhat familiar description rather than searching for a more evocative, unique way of saying the same thing. Works Cited Gutkind, Lee (2007). The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 1. New York: W. W. Norton, xi. ISBN 0393330036. Johnson, E. L. ; Wolfe, Tom (1975). The New Journalism. London: Pan Books. ISBN 0330243152 Wyatt, Edward. â€Å"Best-Selling Memoir Draws Scrutiny†, The New York Times, 2006-01-10. Anderson, Chris (1989). Literary nonfiction: theory, criticism, pedagogy. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, xix-x. ISBN 0809314053. Nancy E. Zuwiyya, School Library Journal, Fox’s work, Colombia, Heinemann Library (Chicago, IL), 2000

Evaluation of the business strategy of a chosen company Assignment

Evaluation of the business strategy of a chosen company - Assignment Example In the second wave we can see concepts of standardization and mass production as center of attention of economist and scientist alike. These systems were basically focused on maximizing production and minimizing inputs. These concepts of mass production have their driving force in the massive increase in population over the last few centuries. With the massive increase in population the only route to success was to increase production and minimize cost. This was basically because technology in genetics was still not advanced, that meant you could not increase production from your raw materials and land many times over. The only control humans had at that moment was on machines, therefore they engaged in a massive mechanization of humans and production systems alike. This revolution was not only aimed towards manufacturing but services as well. This affected local shops and small businesses as they began to die out because they could not compete on price with machine inputs. This revo lution was psychological as well as economic people began to look alike, dress alike and think alike. In similar words individuality was slowly becoming obsolete and absent. Over time the second wave began to end as we reached the third wave practices of second wave were slowly abolished. The human society began to revert back to old practices and customs. One of the biggest signs of this reversion was birth control. Great emphasis was now being laid on keeping population in check. The concepts of standardization and mass production once again became obsolete. Emphasis was laid on individuality and personality once again. This information wave has triggered a ‘need’ in each human being to be different from others. Therefore in the present age the concept of small business catering to specific needs is once again in demand. These small businesses in management theory are usually termed SME (Small Medium Enterprise)

How the five new york crime familes influenced american society Research Paper

How the five new york crime familes influenced american society - Research Paper Example These included the application of gambling using enhanced technology over the internet without falling under the jurisdiction of the American legal system. This was done by having gambling occur through websites that were offshore and that had little chance of ever being intercepted by American law enforcement. Because of this, the family saw the American society face some of the largest debts owed by individuals to a crime family because of illegal gambling. This was as the case of Nicholas Cosmo, who started his own con after owing the family tens of thousands of dollars, which saw him run the Ponzi scheme to repay his own debt. This influenced the American society by bringing in the concept of crime to pay off debts owed to other criminals. The upgrade in the technological application of criminal activity was seen by the use of wired transfers to commit fraud by Nicholas Cosmo, who did all these as part of a debt that he owed to the family.1 Altogether, the Genovese crime family b rought together technological advancements for criminal gain, showing how vulnerable the American society is and how easily it can be defrauded. ... This infiltration saw the family rip millions of dollars from unsuspecting Americans who revealed their credit card number in order to go on with the free tours of the websites. This was designed such that once the user had provided their credit card details to the website, large amounts of funds were charged to the credit card illegally since none of them was authorized by the users and regulatory authorities. In addition, since the family made use of billing via telephone, they charged the government and other American in excesses of millions of dollars for their fraud. This is following the procurement, by the Gambino family, of a bank and a telephone company that allowed the family to plan elaborately their frauds and schemes to defraud Americans and the government.2 As such, the Gambino crime family influenced the American society in that it showed how powerful the crime families were to the point of infiltrating some of the most basic sectors such as banking and even internet u se, as well as phone calls. Their scams also led to the development of new waves of crime across America that were perpetrated in the most ingenious of ways that not even the government was able to crack until much later. This dug deep into the credibility of law enforcement in the American society since they were unable to bring to book, let alone discover the crime wave. It was part of the introduction of white-collar crime in the USA, where it showed how sophisticated organized crime rings were getting. In addition, Gambino family influenced the American society in that it inspired fear amongst Americans to the extent that even law enforcement had to

Report Child Labour Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Report Child Labour - Essay Example The last five are classified as the "worst forms" under the ILO Convention 182. (ILO 2002). The sheer enormity of the problem is mind boggling - It was estimated (UNICEF, 2005), that the global child labour force was for 5-14 and 15-17 were over 211 million and 141 million resp., of which over 97% were from the developing world. More than 180 Million children below 18 were involved in the "worst forms" of child labour. In the 43 countries of the world with an annual income of $500 or less per person, the percentage of children in child labour is usually between 30% and 60%, whilst in countries where income is between $500 and $1000 the percentage of child labourers drops to between 10% and 30%. They form a vicious circle, poverty giving rise to labour and labour perpetuating poverty. There are many causes of child labour. In developing countries, it is most often the need for additional income felt by both the parents and the child. Sometimes the child may work for only board and lodge in order to learn the trade as apprentices from a relative/ family friend. The family as an economic unit may also expect the child to chip in with its contribution at the shop, farm or small factory. Family breakdowns and natural calamities force children to take on the role of one or both parents to support themselves and their siblings. Trafficked children do not have the luxury of choice and very likely end up crossing borders illegally to be sold into the sex trade. It is also actively pursued by employers, since the children are cheap and obedient and can be easily coerced to work without benefits for low/no wages in the absence of adequate legal framework and infrastructure to determine the true age of children. In developed countries, children seek employment to secure financial independence from their parents. UNICEF, ILO, most NGOs and governments believe that child labour is exploitative and should be discouraged, since they perpetuate poverty. A contrary view is held by employers and sometimes parents in the developing countries, who genuinely believe that the local population benefits from this economic activity as their families would have suffered more in the absence of this activity. John Blundell (Blundell of the Institute of Economic Affairs who believes wholly in the efficacy of the free market argues: Child labour is not the modern invention of "globalisation". All farming has always used children. Scotland's school summer holidays exist not so everyone can fly down to the Spanish Costas, but so children are free to help with the harvest. To learn rural skills was the reality of education in most of human history. In more urban areas, the young would learn other appropriate skills. I believe that working in scruffy factories in Manila or Nairobi is an opportunity for the people involved. Making fashion garments or chic trainers for eventual sale on Princes Street offers far greater benevolence than the humbugging of overseas aid. Aid is famously described as a device by which the poor people in the West fund the rich of the Third World. But free trade in shirts transfers money from the rich

National Educational Technology Standars for Teacher(NEST-T) - Research Paper

National Educational Technology Standars for Teacher(NEST-T) - - Research Paper Example In this particular research paper, am going to base my study on NETS-T 1, the ability of teachers to Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity. Teachers use varied methods of teaching to impact knowledge into students. However, the method and medium used plays a critical role in advancing the student learning, creativity, and innovation in either context be it virtual or face-to-face environments. The 21st century is characterized by many inventions and innovations in order to raise the education standards for both the teachers and learners. Communications technology is playing a vital part in readily availing the information and, as a result, the teacher’s roles have become more of facilitating learning lieu to the provision of content (Apple, 2011). This has led to evolving in the roles of teachers and discovery of various sources of information to act as a reference for the teachers to act as facilitators in the acquisition of knowledge by the students. Technology provides students with various sources of information thereby simplifying the roles of teachers into facilitators. However, teachers as facilitators play an active role in directing the students to the appropriate sources of information for research using technology. Therefore, the teacher’s role can be defined as â€Å"facilitator of learning†. The key motive behind this new paradigm of teaching is the recognition of the â€Å"learners’ intrinsic motivation†, which plays a leading role in promoting innovation by encouraging a culture of open-minded attitudes towards the acquisition of â€Å"creative intelligence† that has led to innovation of independent learners. The facilitative teacher, therefore, understands psychological value of productiveness and creativity that pervades innovation in the learning process. As a facilitator, teachers promote acquisition of knowledge in a myriad ways that vary from student to student and

Improving Student Learning When Budgets Are Tight (Ch. 3 Summary) Essay

Improving Student Learning When Budgets Are Tight (Ch. 3 Summary) - Essay Example Thus the author’s major argument is that schools and districts should develop strategic plans to successfully cope with tightening budgets. According to the author there are four major reasons why schools are facing problems with cost increases, namely, smaller classes, more electives, automatic pay increases, and growing benefit costs (Odden, 2012, 47-49). First, some schools and districts reduce class sizes in the belief that it will improve student performance. Such belief is supported by several studies which reported improvements in the academic achievement of students who belong in smaller classes. However, these smaller class sizes are only effective in early grades. Second, more elective courses demand greater costs because they are usually made up of smaller classes. Third, as expected, automatic pay increases boost costs. Teachers and administrators are automatically given salary increase every time they acquire more experience or move up to a higher qualification le vel. Unfortunately, this salary system is not associated with greater academic performance and better teaching; it merely increases costs. And lastly, pension and health benefits, especially for those currently employed, also add pressure to education resources. All of these four factors undoubtedly increase education costs, but with little or no positive impact on student learning or academic performance. The author provides several strategic methods to resolve the dilemma of increasing costs and flat performance, such as definite objectives, a plan of action, and a clear strategic budgeting plan. Those schools with adequate resources but experiencing budget cutbacks must only consider strategies that will have the least effect on academic performance, such as a smaller number of administrators and instructional aides. On the other hand, those schools with insufficient funding must leave out small class sizes and consider more instructional coaches to enhance core classroom instruc tion (Odden, 2012, 50-52). In essence, a general plan of action can offer guidance to both sufficiently and insufficiently funded schools. The Midwestern middle school example shows how a substantially funded school can improve student learning without having to increase costs or demand additional resources. The problems with the school are that it has too many staff, but no instructional coaches and tutors, and lacking in collaborative work which could promote student learning. According to the analysis, the school can in fact afford all the staffing needed to significantly enhance student learning (Odden, 2012, 54). Numerous staff positions and electives can be reallocated to areas that have greater impact on student performance, such as those for struggling students (e.g. poor, disabled, etc). The analysis shows that the suggested staffing allocation could drastically enhance academic performance without additional staffing and/or funding. One of the main suggestions given to suc cessfully address the issue of tightening budget in education is increasing class sizes in order to reallocate resources to other more important areas, like programs for struggling students. As mentioned previously, studies have found that smaller class sizes positively impact student learning in early grades, but nothing has been

Understanding Human Behavior & Prejudice can be hurtful and Essay

Understanding Human Behavior & Prejudice can be hurtful and destructive - Essay Example Understanding Human Behavior & Prejudice can be hurtful and destructive The key reason behind the understanding of human behaviour is that all the individuals in an organization cannot be the same in terms of nature, behaviour, personality and attitude (Freeman, 1999, p.229). The modern theories of human behaviour are based upon the differences in each and every individual within an organization. Before the study proceeds to realize and understand the human behaviour, it is important to determine what the human behaviour actually means. Behaviour is specific responses that can be observed directly or indirectly (Griffin and Moorehead, 2011, p.19). Indirect observations can be executed through the attitudes and decision making process of the leaders. On the other hand, direct observation process can be executed through understanding the responses of the individuals in a particular work or organizational environment (Martin, 2005, p.104). This organizational human behaviour process is quite unpredictable and critical to understand. The human behaviour can be classified into three components: motivated behaviour, goal oriented behaviour and caused behaviour. Human behaviour is the factor that depends upon the inner emotion of the individuals, such as anger, motivation, joy and sorrow (Henderson, 1996, p.195). It is important for the leaders to understand the past organizational behaviour in order to make any kind of decision or implement a strategy in the organizational human resource management process (Hernandez and O’Connor, 2009, p.12). ... Each and every individual has a distinctive combination of several characteristics, as behaviour is the outcome of interaction between the environmental and individual characteristics (Dutt, 2008, p.5). Some of these characteristics develop over time or present from the time of birth. These characteristics are known as learned and inherited. Some characteristics (Clawson and Bevan, 2008, p.9) and behaviour types have been provided in the following table: Characteristics Behaviour Relationship Conflict Tolerance Perception about role conflict Huge tolerance for limited role conflict. Significance of Job satisfaction Leaders express intrinsic rewards versus extrinsic less job satisfaction. Work Ethic Attendance Strong value and work ethic related with high work attendance. Interest Diversification Compensation and Salary Measurement Higher interest of performance diversity. Locus of Control Job stress experience Huge stress with external and emphasized locus of control. In order to und erstand the human behaviour, the leaders or managers should understand the Psychoanalytical model. Psychoanalytical model is based upon the ego, id and super ego. Ego generally represents the conscious stage of an individual. On the other hand, id represents the inner pleasure of an individual (Denisi and Griffin, 2005, p.21). Id in an individual can be both constructive and destructive. Destructive tendency of individuals can be dominating, aggressive and fighting (Cardwell and Flanagan, 2003, p.144). Throughout the life of an individual, id generally comes in a conflict with ego. On the other hand, ego depends upon the super ego. In terms of super ego, an individual cannot be aware about the functions of super ego (Guindon, 2010, p.71). Super ego generally represents

Bisexuality Politicised Essay Example for Free

Bisexuality Politicised Essay This paper asks the question how can bisexuality be or become a danger to the dominant sexual script which I problematise as produced racism, sexism, homophobia, and monosexism. That this brand of heterosexuality occupies 99% of our cultural space in entertainment, education, history and public expression and is considered inevitable and unchallengable for 90% of peoples relationships is, I will argue, the victory of white patriarchal science. I intend to show the nature of this victory and imagine what counter struggle and victories might emerge from the site of my bisexuality. The Historical role of Biphopia- Policing the Treaty. Underpinning this paper is the belief in that many if not all heterosexual identifying people can be bisexual and that the majority are to some extent not privately monosexual. The majority status of bisexuality does not make it normal nor ideal however I mention it because it is important to realise that the invisibility of bisexuality requires extraordinary effort to maintain and it’s repression occurs against all people not just a few â€Å"natural† bisexuals. To understand the historical role that biphobia has played and the historical position of bisexuality it is necessary to recognise homosexuality as a creation of western patriarchal and homophobic medical science. Women have always loved women and men have always loved men but the classification of these experiences as a sexuality with little or no element of choice and a biological or individual psychological basis was given currency in the 19th century by a professional class that feared same sex desire. Their construction of homosexuality shaped and informs Western cultural understanding of sexuality â€Å"not in the first place because of its meaningfulness to those whom it defines but because of its indispensableness to those who define themselves against it. † (Segal, L. p145) for it was and is needed â€Å"not only for the persecutory regulation of a nascent minority of distinctly homosexual men (and women) but also for the regulation of the male (and female) homosocial bonds that structure all culture at any rate all public or heterosexual culture. † (Eve Sedgewick in Segal, L. pp194-5) Early psychoanalytic texts were quite explicit that the project was to police all male and female relationships warning â€Å"teachers and parents not to take too lightly friendships among girls which become passionate† and society to â€Å"be more concerned with the degree of heterosexuality or homosexuality in an individual than they are with the question of whether he has ever had an experience of either sort†. â€Å"The real danger from homosexuality† was seen to lie â€Å"not in actual sex association but in homosexual attitudes towards life† such as the negative attitudes of â€Å"thousands of women toward men, marriage and family life† influenced by â€Å"latent homosexuality† for â€Å"neurotic attitudes about love and marriage can prove contagious. † (Caprio, F. pp 6 -11) Generally, prior to this the western world had relied on Christianity to dictate the terms of sexuality. Whether sexual attraction was â€Å"natural† was no defence under a regime which tended to view â€Å"natural† sexual desires as needing control from a religious authority. The medical establishment faced the dilemma of replacing religious authorities without having any utilitarian basis for the repression of same sex desire. The construction of homosexuality as a distinct condition was to define normality as exclusive heterosexuality. In fact heterosexuality was simply the condition of being human. Sexual behaviour became a product of a persons condition; the â€Å"human condition† producing normal heterosexual behaviour. There was now no need for a religious justification for preferencing the heterosexual over the homosexual because behaviour was not a matter of choice but a matter of whether or not you were ill; Well or sane people simply didn’t want to have sex with people of their own gender. This was presented as a more humane response to homosexuality than religious condemnation or incarceration. Psychiatrists often called themselves compassionate as they argued for an adoption of â€Å"scientific† curative responses to homosexuality. (Caprio, F, p. xi) The majority gay and lesbian movement accepted the shifting of sexuality into an area for science and have embraced the notion of a biological basis or early psychological basis for sexuality. Their fight has largely been for homosexuality to be treated as incurable and it follows natural and equally valid alternative to heterosexuality, jettisoning any agenda to argue that is better. Only a minority have argued that homosexuality is a political choice and an option for everyone. With both sides ceasing hostilities1, when homosexuality was delisted as a mental illness in 1973 (Altman,D. ,p5), institutionalised heterosexuality and gays and lesbians overt interests have moved to coincide. Victories to normalise homosexuality also normalise heterosexualitys dominance by depoliticising sexuality in general. In 1993 when a homosexuality gene was â€Å"discovered† a genetic basis for the majority status of heterosexuality was created though not declared. Anyone who would argue that the commonality of heterosexuality might have something to do with social programming and institutional support can now be said to be messing with nature. The proud bisexual threatens this peaceful coexistence of the heterosexual majority and homosexual minority. Recognition of our bisexuality requires a validation of our sexual relationships with people of our own gender based on choice rather than the agreed legitimate biological basis. Such choice may be personal or circumstantial but also political or moral. Normalising bisexuality with a biological cause won’t defuse it’s threat though it could contain it if it relegates us to a fixed minority status. Society still has to reckon with why we choose to validate relationships with people of our own gender by identifying as bisexual. We reopen old debates that many who have found safety in a biological basis for their monosexual identity want to keep closed. (I will revisit this fear in the last section, Bisexuality and the Future when I discuss Bi supremacy. ) A bisexual identity simply has to be defined as confused or an exception to the rule. Individuals have to be pressured to fit themselves into one or the other category. In a secular society without moral taboos people can’t be allowed to entertain the idea that their partners gender is political. Also, understandably gays and lesbians know those moral taboos still hold significant power so many still see their best option as policing the treaty based on the attribution of their sexuality to a biological or psychological cause. Bisexuality and identification Withdrawing our support for the status quo. The bisexual identifying person is not predominantly someone who feels attraction equally to both genders or without any reference to gender2 and in terms of actual sexual or emotional experience the majority could be classified as predominantly homosexual or heterosexual. â€Å"Why then, don’t you call yourself gay or straight? † is the inevitable response to this confession. And confession it feels like because to indicate a â€Å"leaning† puts at risk the validity given to a bisexual identity within contemporary discourse. Sexual expression is usually presented as representative of something innate rather than a mediation between a person and their world. Consequently the woman who says she usually finds women easier to make emotional connections with is seen to be describing her â€Å"innate† difficulty emotionally connecting with men rather than her experience of men and their culture. Asserting a bisexual identity in the face of this invalidation is about contextualising sexual responses rather than finding invisible internal reasons for them. A bisexual identity in the above circumstance keeps open the possibility that a preference for emotional relationships with women could change if men and male culture changed. Alternatively a preference for sex with men might be attributable to homophobia. (Weinberg, M. S. , p221) The reasons for choices are not always positive ones but the possibility for counter argument exists. Holding onto a bisexual identification based on potentiality, rejects the conservatism of describing reality by the status quo. However a bisexual identity is also partially an attempt to accurately relate personal history as well and this too has a radical power. Most monosexual identifications represent people only by concealing some bisexuality. By identifying as bisexual a person accepts and celebrates those aspects of their life that are inconsistent with a monosexual identity. The power of metanarratives within modernism, including descriptions of sexuality, relies on such inconsistencies being deemed insignificant. Hence a public bisexual identity is a confrontation of generalist theories with lived experience. If people promote such a solidarity with their experiences and the people who compose them that is greater than any to a proposed theory then expounders of metanarratives (including myself) will lose power. Our authority to dictate â€Å"from above† will be replaced by a decentralised authority based on being â€Å"up close† to our own reality. Bisexuality and other oppressions. Sexuality forms alliances across genders, ethnicities, and classes so any bisexual movement which fails to take gender, race or class issues into account poses a real danger of obscuring differences and concealing oppression. (This is also true for a multiplicity of issues such as disability or mental illness). My discussion of bisexuality and other basis for oppression are not intended to present bisexual identification as the panacea of the worlds ills. Social change must be inspired by a diversity of experience and informed by a range of critiques. Given the above it is presumptious for me as a half-wog male to seek to resolve ongoing debates about a bisexual political agenda among feminist women or debates among black women and men on how to connect bi pride with anti-racism. To do so would be to pretend that I can speak from only my bisexuality and abandon any white, male perspctive. As a long term unemployed person I believe I can speak on class issues from the inside to some extent but also still acknowledge the privelage of my university education. This is not to say that I think that sexism is a womens issue or that the responsibility for opposing racism is solely non-whites. Nor am I comfortable being accountable to lesbian or straight feminists on the issue of bisexual profeminism or placing beyond reproach the homophobia of some black liberationist theorists like Eldrige Cleaver. What to speak on and when in regard to a radical bisexualitys’ impact on patriarchal, white supremist and class oppresion is best defined as problematic. As a simple way out I hope to show how I see a politicised bisexuality contributes to my pro-feminism, anti-racism and support for class struggles. It is my hope that this will have relevance for a wider audience. Radical Bisexuality and Pro-feminism. Judith Butler states that â€Å"the heterosexualisation of desire requires and institutes the production of discrete and assymetrical oppositions between â€Å"feminine† and â€Å"masculine† identities. † (Segal, L. p190) Monique Wittig goes further to argue that a woman’s place in heterosexuality is a class of oppression and that the lesbian escapes her class position. (Wittig, M, p. 47) I agree that â€Å"hetero†-sexuality (literally a sexuality based on opposites) reproduces and supports womens oppression in other spheres by creating a binary gender system. Men need to realise that their love for women is problematic when it is that â€Å"love† of the â€Å"feminine identity† that belongs to this sytem. This is the attraction for the other and requires women’s difference to be exaggerated and emphasised. These exaggerations shape women as not-men while we men shape ourselves and are shaped into embodiments of the ideal. The seeming irony of male heterosexuality where women are objects of love being consistent with misoginy where women are objects of hate makes perfect sense through the operation of oppositional heterosexuality precisely because the love requires women to be less than men. A love that does not require partners to be different than ourselves is not possible within exclusive heterosexuality because it fails to provide the argument to repress same sex desire. It is necessary for heterosexual men to confront their homophobia which demands they repress or invalidate their same sex desire before they can love their female partners as their â€Å"own kind† and not another species. An additional benifit to patriarchy of discrete gender identities that is liable to be lost when men reject oppositional heterosexuality is the regulation of male social interaction. The arguments to exclude gay men from the military reveal the mindset deemed necessary to produce a war machine; â€Å"We are asking men in combat to do an essentially irrational thing put themselves in a position where they are likely to get killed One of the few ways to persuade men to do that is to appeal to their masculinity You cannot have an adrogynous military The idea that fighting is a masculine trait runs deep. As a cultural trait it predates any written history. It may even be a genitic trait Just think what it would mean to demasculinize combat. The effect on combat effectiveness might be catastrophic. † Charles Moskos, Military Socioligist quoted in Colonel R. D. Ray, Military Necessity and Homosexuality (Gays:In or Out, p63) It is regrettable that non-heterosexual men and many women are proving they too can make excellent soldiers. 3 However the above quote exaggerates a fact that male â€Å"buddy† relationships are relied on by the military and that this requires a repression of same sex desire. This is because same sex desire is preferential it is not a love of all men equally but of a few and potentially for a time. The same-sex loyalty that is demanded by patriarchy including it’s military needs the stability of exclusive heterosexuality; â€Å".. the recognition of homosexuality is a threat to that peculiar combination of male camaraderie and hierachy on which most organisations depend; sexual desire is too anarchic, too disrespectful of established boundaries to be trusted. † (Altman, D. p63) Unravelling their heterosexuality is not the most important thing men must do to support feminism however it is a legitimate part of this support for â€Å"it is the repressed recognition of this fact (that everyone can be homosexual) that does much to fuel homophobia, but equally acts so as to promote male bonding and certain crucial authority structures. † (Altman D. ,p XI) Radical Bisexuality and Racism. The construction of homosexuality as a â€Å"natural† difference from the heterosexual norm shares and competes for the same conceptual space as constructions of race as biological differences from the white norm. This is particularly true because the hetrosexual ideal is represented as white with the sexuality of non-whites traditionally seen as untamed, violent, promiscuous or otherwise deviant even if heterosexual. Non-whites are considered only ever partly heterosexual while white queers are considered not proper whites. The competition for the limited conceptual space has led to historical difficulites in linking white supremacy with heterosexism (exacerbated by white queer activists own racial interests) and in fact has unwittingly linked Gay Power with white power. â€Å"Homosexuality as a race† has developed into a gay and lesbian ethnicity. For whites under racism where their whiteness is considered the norm and thus unnamed, this ethnicity is their only ethnicity, the lesbian/gay â€Å"language† their only language, and lesbian/gay history their only history, to the point that it is not seen as a difference within whiteness but a difference from whiteness. (Blasingame, p52) While we (white queers) are unconscious of our whiteness queer cultural politics consequently becomes a way of colonising non-white cultures with a new white culture, white leaders and white history in a particularly insidious way. While not as powerful as heterosexual institutions for people wanting to be publicly non-heterosexual we have considerable power; in the framing of beauty along racist lines, in the support of white non-heterosexual bourgeoius or political leaders and in the very conceptualisation of sexuality. As one example Brenda Marie Blasingame in Bisexuality and Feminism speaks of a history of sexuality in U. S. black communities which did not include placing people in particular â€Å"boxes† and accepted the practice of bisexuality. A part of moving into the white gay and lesbian movement for her was the requirement to come out as a specific sexuality and accept the marginalisation of bisexuals. For many people who are not white taking up a gay or lesbian and to a different extent bisexual identity requires an abandonment of their own ethnic politcal identity or view. (Blasingame, pp. 51 53) The common conceptual space of non-heterosexual and non-white however can and should however produce queer anti-racism provided white queers realise that this conception of their sexuality is wrong. There is a shared interest in anti-racism and anti-heterosexism in critiqing normalcy and naturalness. As only one example the construction of beauty posits that naturally â€Å"Gentlemen prefer Blondes†. Not only is this sexist for reducing women to a hair colour (and the Blonde is meant to be read as a woman) but it is heterosexist and clearly as racist as â€Å"Gentlemen prefer whites† when Blonde is only a white persons natural hair colour. When we politicise our sexuality we can open up not only the arguments against heterosexual dominance but the arguments against the sexual sterotypes of non-whites including the framing of Asian men as â€Å"young girls† represented in this regrettable quote from the 70’s magazine Gay Power; â€Å"I dig beautiful oriental men. Asking me to shoot at them is the same thing as asking heterosexual soldiers to shoot at beautiful young girls that they would like to fuck. † (Teal, D. p99) Radical Bisexuality and Class. It is worth noting that capitalism which I understand as the continual oppression of the poor that patriarchy is for women is no longer wedded to heterosexuality in Western affluent nations as it has been in the past. This is because Western nations are primarily consumer societies of fairly easily produced goods (easily because their production is either located in the Third World or in the Quattro Monde the world of the Western underclass or because their production is automated). Western capitalism can therefore relax the â€Å"restraint and repression† which was necessary to both control factory floors and ensure a ready supply of human capital through reproduction. (Altman D, p90) Part of this is also due to unemployment and global capital mobility being sufficient to obtain cheap labour and another contributing factor has been Western women raising their education so they are more useful in employment than at home. Also marriage was the institution by which women were given the role of providing a whole range of services capitalism wouldn’t such as aged care and child raising as well as supporting adult men. Now many of these services are provided by profitable private institutions so traditional marriages are actually in competition with capitalism. Of course the worlds poor can’t afford these services and Thirld World countries remain supportive of compulsory heterosexuality (Altman, D, p90) but in the Western consumer-capitalism there is a an interest to increase consumption through the market of previous services fulfilled by women’s unpaid labour. In order to perpetuate consumption growth capitalism must also locate new disatisfactions like teenage angst, at an alarming rate while also offering at a price their answer. In this context gay, lesbian and even bisexual identities as well as transgenderism, S+M and fetish celebrations are eagerly embraced by many industries as the basis for new markets. Our anxiety for recognition, meaning, ceremony and a positive celebration of our sexuality are easily exploitable. â€Å" one of the possible negative side-effects of the popularity of lesbian chic was that it codes lesbianism as merely a kind of fashion statement, something that requires certain consumer goods to mark the individual as lesbian. † (Newitz Sandell) Bisexuals have to be mindful that while we seek recognition, capitalism is looking for new markets and while these interests coincide this will only be true for those of us who can afford it and it will be on the backs of the world’s poor involved in the production of our new consumerables and bearing the greatest brunt of the waste from our new consumption. One positive way to resist becoming merely another market is by applying the awareness of the political nature of sexual desire to the desire for consumer goods and services. Both desires are constructed to serve particular interests and not fundamentally our own. Through working to ensure that all of our desire works for liberation we will resist commodification as we achieve recognition. Bisexuality and the Future To outline what I see as the goal of Radical Bisexuality I will illustrate two scenarios depicting false victories and one which I believe genuinely opens up the greatest possibility for liberation. Scenario 1. Recognition of bisexuality as a third alternative way that people unchangably are. To some extent as I have said earlier this can’t overcome the capacity of bisexuals to fit in as straight and thus can’t conceal the choice to embrace the homosexuality within the heterosexual that they represent. However there are arguments that could be presented that bisexuals have to express their same sex desire or become depressed (â€Å"go mad†). These arguments could form the basis of depoliticising and medicalising bisexuality as has been done with homosexuality. This may make bisexual lives easier to defend and add to the options for young people but relegates bisexuals to the same minority status as is currently given to gays and lesbians. Most people who admit to loving their own gender in straight society would face the same oppression bisexuals now face as â€Å"heterosexual experimenters† and recruitment of the majority would be difficult as they would remain â€Å"true† heterosexuals as unable to change as â€Å"true† bisexuals or gays and lesbians. Further it could also trade the oppression that is invisibility for bisexuals with the oppression that is hyper-visibility for straight men and women, and increasingly gays and lesbians. Having recognised sexuality’s repression but not it’s production we will be easily exploitable by capitalism and our liberation may mean as being as marketed to and ritutalised as heterosexuality. Scenario 2. Bisexuality is considered the only natural sexuality which equates it with the only right sexuality. Heterosexuality would be patholigised along with homosexuality as both are considered to have unnatural â€Å"blocks† to loving one or the other gender. This is Bisexual Supremacy which I acknowledge as a justification for gays and lesbians to distrust bisexuals. While it is unlikely to be widely accepted it is possible that it could dominate queer spaces as a pocket of resistance to heterosexual dominance in the same way as celebrations of gay and lesbian purity have. It is certainly more likely to be targetted at lesbians and gays than straights and while this is the fault of heterosexism’s power, not my own, it must be refuted. This is not to say that politicising sexuality will not require some gay men in particular to reassess their rhetoric. Mysoginistic comments which denegrate women’s bodies deserve political criticism and can’t be assured the right to be accepted. However the wider charge of institutionalising the sexual oppression of women and supporting male social bonding can’t be levelled at male homosexuality and certainly not at lesbianism. Indeed at certain points in the struggle against institutionalised oppression different sexual identifications and choices will be appropriate. Because bisexuality is as deliberate a sexuality choice as any other and not a submission to some biological imperative (and even if it were I reject the claim that naturalness equals rightness) we can’t claim an non-contextual ideal status. Its political usefulness is only that of any tactic relative both to the circumstances and to the person, meaning that for some and at some times other sexual choices and identifications are more appropriate. Bisexual supremacy also prioritises the effort to be bisexual over other efforts to unravel heterosexist, patriarchal and racist programming. I have already stressed the need for a variety of critiques of power to inform social change which Bisexual supremacy ignores. In particular men in relationships with women need to realise that doing their share of the housework is far more meaningful than maintaining or developing their capacity to love other men. Scenario 3. The Dream. Realising our sexualities are scripted will hopefully prompt redrafts along feminist, anti-racist and anti-capitalist lines. No-one should be the sole author of this project even with their own sexuality as we all need to listen to the perspectives our privelages rob us off. Certainly a part of this will be a dialogue between political lesbians, bisexuals and straight women which already has a history and whose future I don’t want to conclude. Consequently my dream is vague. What I don’t see in this future is the fetishisation of wealth, whiteness or gendered difference. Women in relationships with men will recieve support and encouragement as full humans. Advertisers will be incapable of capturing our consumption with snake oil as we demand economic production satisfy new needs that we create, for justice and community. Pleasure including sexual pleasure will mean enjoying our values not forgetting them. Bisexuality like other sexualities will have to argue it’s political legitimacy but not it’s existance. Sexual identifications such as â€Å"Confused† may replace bisexual for many if it is recognises more of their personal truth and political terms like Anti-racist may be key elements of sexual identification. Radical bisexuality wont end all struggles but the raw energy of sexuality will be accountable to and in the employ of the great project of improving the world . Bibliography Altman, Dennis, The Homosexualisation of America, The Americanization of the Homosexual, St. Martins Press, New York, 1982 Sedgewick, E. K. , How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay, pp. 69 81, Fear of a Queer Planet : Queer Politics and Social Theory, Warner,M. (Editor), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1993 Segal, Lynne, Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure, University of California Press, U. S. A. , 1994. Foucalt, Michel, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1:An Introduction, Allen Lane, London, 1978 Newitz, A. and J. Sandell,â€Å"Bisexuality And How To Use It: Toward a Coalitional Identity Politics†, Bad Subjects, Issue # 16, October 1994 Caprio, F. S. M. D. Female Homosexuality:A Psychodynamic study of Lesbianism, The Citadel Press, New York, 1954 Weinberg,M. S. , C. J. Williams, D. W. Pryor, Dual Attraction: Understanding Bisexuality, Oxford University Press, Inc. , New York, 1994 Blasingame, B. M. , â€Å"The Roots of Biphobia: Internalised Racism and Internalised Heterosexism† in Closer to Home: Bisexuality and Feminism, Edited by E. R. Wise, Seal Press, U. S. A. , 1992 Colonel R. D. Ray, Military Necessity and Homosexuality , reprinted in Gays:In or Out: The U. S. Military Homosexuals A Source book, Brassey’s, March 1993. Teal D. , The Gay Militants, Stein and Day Publishers, New York, 1971. Wittig, M. , The Straight Mind and Other Essays, Beacon Press. Boston, 1992 Descriptors for Sexual Minorities †¢ Front Page †¢ What is h2g2? †¢ Whos Online †¢ Write an Entry †¢ Browse †¢ Announcements †¢ Feedback †¢ h2g2 Help †¢ RSS Feeds Contact Us Like this page? Send it to a friend! Descriptors for Sexual Minorities | Asexuality | Homosexuality Heterosexuality | Bisexuality | Polyamory | The Kinsey Scale | The Gender Pronoun Game | Coming Out Embarrassing Questions About Sexual Orientation | Going Back In Sexuality U-turns Modern culture has developed a number of terms and symbols to set apart its sexual minorities. Some of these originated within the different communities themselves. Others evolved from scientists, psychologists, legislators, and newspaper reporters trying to describe their gay, bisexual, transsexual, and polyamorous subjects. Many include obscure references to history that go largely unrecognized. Words Lesbian The word lesbian comes from the Greek island Lesbos, where the poet Sappho lived in 600 BC. Sappho wrote numerous poems about her female love, most of which were destroyed by religious fanatics during the Middle Ages. While the first usage of the word lesbian is unknown, it was used in several academic books as early as 1880. The word became more popular during the 20th Century, especially during the feminist era. The term lesbian separatist was commonly used to distinguish feminists who wished to avoid the company of men altogether. Fag, Faggot, Fag Hag Fag and faggot are American insults for gay men. The term faggot first started being used in this way in around 1914, but it is not clear where the word came from. A faggot is a bundle of sticks, used for firewood and tied up for carrying around. In the 16th century it was used as an insulting term for a useless old woman as something that weighs you down, in the same way that baggage is sometimes used nowadays. But its quite a jump from 1592 to 1914 with nothing recorded in between. Gay men in the latter half of the 20th Century began using the term fag hag to refer to straight women who frequently gather at gay establishments, partly as an insult and partly because of the rhyme. Dyke Contrary to popular belief, the origin of the insult dyke1, in reference to lesbians, has nothing to do with waterways or canals. The word first appeared in 1710 in British newspaper stories about presumed homosexuals Anne Bonny and Mary Reed. The two women captained a very successful pirate venture and completed several lucrative raids of the British Empire before agreeing to be interviewed. Reporters often noted their predilection for wearing mens clothing, and one editorial avoided the unpleasant connotations of cross dressing by using a French word which refers to mens clothing, dike. Over the years, this term was corrupted to the modern form dyke. Since then, general misunderstanding about the terms origins have inspired many stand-up comedy routines and bad puns. Polyamory, Polygamy, Monogamy The prefix poly- means many, while mono means one. The suffix gamy was originally from the French word for marriage, but has since been misunderstood as referring to sex. These terms refer to the number of consensual romantic partners taken by each adult in a family. Of course, the suffix amory refers to love. Polyamory is a relatively new term coined by modern practitioners, and is greatly preferred by them. Polygamy and the now defunct term bigamy were coined as early as 1800, as the practice of multiple marriages was outlawed in most Western nations. The state of Utah in the USA applied for Statehood three times before finally accepting an injunction against the polygamy practised at that time by the Mormon church. Polygamy is commonly understood as referring to heterosexual relationships where the man has multiple partners. However, with modern polyamory any combination of genders and orientations fulfills the definition. It is not necessary for all parties in a polyamorous relationship to be involved each with the other. Gay During the 1800s and early 1900s, gay was simply a state of jubilant happiness. However, during the late 1800s gay was sometimes used to describe prostitutes in much the same way that the phrase happy hookers is used today. One theory is that gay came into use to describe homosexual men because of the rise in numbers of male prostitutes during the 1900s. Another theory is that gay was

How Kinect Gave A Competitive Advantage To Microsoft Media Essay

How Kinect Gave A Competitive Advantage To Microsoft Media Essay We choose to analyze Microsoft-Kinect as a topic for our group project because we wanted to analyze that how Kinect gave a competitive advantage to the Microsoft in the gaming industry. Our analysis will focus on the technology Microsoft used in Kinect and the reasons of Kinect becoming the fastest selling tech-gadget, even though it was just launched in November 2010. We will also discuss the strategies Microsoft used while developing and launching the Kinect and the various factors that helped Microsoft to become leader by selling 10 million gadgets in a very short span of time, beating Apples iPad and iPhone previous record. Microsoft Kinect made into the Guinness book of records as the fastest selling electronics device. [1] Introduction: Kinect is a controller free gaming experience for the Xbox 360 video game platform to stir up great hype in the gaming industry since its launch. It has a great impact on the approach to gaming and changed the meaning of game industry and the Entertainment World. Microsoft came with a complete entertainment solution for the whole family with the launch of Kinect. With the selling of 10 million gadgets, Microsofts Kinect became the fastest selling tech gadget. By beating Apples iPad and iPhones previous record it made into the Guinness book of records as the fastest selling gadget and wrote the new chapters in the Microsoft success story. In 2006, when Nintendo introduced a new game console called Nintendo Wii, Nintendo revolutionized the whole game industry, instead of competing with the mainstream players like Sony PlayStation and Xbox 360. Nintendo Wii targeted a broader demographic than its competitors and tried to incorporate both refreshing gaming experience and user friendly in terfaces to target the previously untapped portion of the demographic. Gamers of all ages, including the female players and the elderly are getting into the action of Nintendo Wii. Nintendo started a new chapter in the gaming industry with the launch of its Nintendo Wii MotionPlus. Kinect was Microsofts delayed reaction to the massive success of the Nintendo Wii but the launch of Kinect gave a all new dimension to the gamers about how games are played. Even thought Xbox 360 was leading in the market before Kinect came into the market but Xbox 360 sales become double since Kinect launch. Analysis for Game Industry: Using 5 Forces model of Porter To understand well about the performance of the firms we should first try to analyze the industry and its factors which influence the firms performance. We apply the 5 force approach on the gaming industry. Game industry is a highly dynamic industry. We can see 7 generation of console within 30 years. Technology changes rapidly in the game industry as well as customer requirements expectations are really high in this industry. Hard core gamers love new challenges and improved graphics and games. Product life cycle is very short in the game industry. So companies need to innovative in this industry for a sustainable competitive advantage and invest more in the R D and come up with new products. Threats of New Entrants are very low because this is capital intensive business and brand image is very important in this industry. Bargaining Power of Customers is fairly high.There are lots of substitutes available in the market so customers have high bargaining power. Switching cost from one product to another is also not too much high. Bargaining Power of Suppliers is low. There are only very few big brand players in the gaming consol industry so game providers do not have much choices. If they want to sell their games they have to work with these brands. Threats of Substitute Product is high. There are lot of players in the industry also there is a threat from the movie industry, Sports industry which can be a possible substitution for entertainment. Competitive Rivalry is very high. Big players like Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony is already in the market. Every firm tries to differentiate their products and try to come up with something innovative. For a sustainable competitive advantage Microsoft wanted to come up with something which can be sustainable for their leadership position in the gaming industry and they came up with Kinect for Xbox 360. Technology evolution To understand the Kinect development it is important for us to understand the history of Microsoft, its positioning and challenges faced in the gaming industry. Microsoft Corporation is a software company and well known for the Windows operating system. In 2000, by seeing the growth opportunity and lucrativeness of the game industry, Microsoft decided to enter in gaming and entertainment industry. There were mainly 2 reasons for Microsoft to move into gaming industry. First reason as already mentioned above that Microsoft was seeing a rapid growth in the gaming market. Microsoft saw huge opportunities in the game industry and found it a very lucrative market to have a presence there. Second, the game industry has a huge dependence on the Software and high technology. Microsoft as one of the leader in the Software industry thought to leverage this capability to get success in the game industry. Sony and Nintendo were well established players in the gaming industry with well known brands in the game industry. Microsoft launched Xbox in the year 2001, after more than a year Sony lunched its Playstation2. By that time Sony was having a large and loyal customer base and Microsofts Xbox was unable to outperform PlayStation2 of Sony. There were many reasons of underperformance of the Xbox. One of the reasons was Xboxs incompatibility with many of the existing games in the market at that time. Microsoft entered in the game industry first time in 2001, so most of the games available at that time were for either PlayStation or Nintendo. Although, Microsoft launched Xbox with many compatible games developed in-house and by third party developers, it was not an easy task to induce gamers to buy Xbox over the already successful PlayStation2. The other reasons were Microsofts lack of experience in the gaming market and the absence of USB port in Xbox. There was also a late mover disadvantage to the Microsoft. The price of X-Box was higher compared to that of its competitor Sony PS2. Also Microsofts poor marketing strategy added on all these factors. X-Box and PS2 were both considered at the same level but due to an early launch of PS2 it had captured the market share despite X-Box having advantage over the hardware components. In August 2003, Sony was a leader with 54% Market share compared to 27% of Xbox. There were few challenges for Microsoft. Microsoft was a new entrant in the gaming industry and lacked experience of working with retailers and game developers. To boost the sales of Xbox, Microsoft cut its price after the six month of its launch and this step boosted the sales of Xbox. To overcome this problem Microsoft planned to launch its seventh generation console much ahead of all its competitors. In 2005, Microsoft launched the first seventh generation console Xbox 360. Microsoft gathered the inputs and emphasized on design and features of Xbox 360. Microsoft invested in a huge advertising campaign for launch of Xbox 360 and spent over US $ 100 million. Xbox 360 came up with new features: built in windows media centre Wi-Fi enabled, guide button, wireless binding button and Xbox live etc. Microsoft kept the design simple and decided not to manufacture chips in-house. They planned to go for semi-custom chip and hardware and alter them according to their need and mainly focus on the assembling hardware as it will reduce costs and allow them to closely monitor vendor network. Microsoft also decided to go for intellectual property rights, which was one of the most important decisions Microsoft took. They launched new games, which became popular in the market and provided new service enabling users to download and view films on Xbox 360. Results for Xbox 360 turned out well and Microsoft became leader in gaming console market. Microsoft sold more than 10.4 million consoles by Dec 2006. Xbox 360 was a hit in Europe US. But still there were some drawbacks with Xbox 360. There was a backward incompatibility issue with Xbox 360 and biggest problem was manufacturing cost for Xbox 360 was still higher than its selling price. But Microsofts long term price strategy was to gain a greater share of the console market which was dominated by Sonys PS2. Microsoft decided to gave benefits to the gamers from drastic price cuts. When Sony and Microsoft were focusing on pursuing faster processing speed and better graphics in their game consoles, in 2006, Nintendo introduced a new game console called Nintendo Wii, which used existing technologies and focused on developing unique user interface. Wii lead to better gaming experience for a wider audience. The industry recognizes that games should not be limited just to the interactions using the game controller. Microsoft wanted a sustainable competitive advantage in the gaming industry. They launched Kinect in November 2010. Kinect is a controller free gaming experience for the Xbox 360 video game platform. It was big success for Microsoft. It wrote the new chapters in the Microsoft success story. It will bring game-changing impact to the Microsoft. Competitive Advantage Three are only 3 major players left in the industry today -Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. Microsofts Xbox 360 kick-started the console war of the seventh generation in 2005, a year ahead of Sony and Nintendo. This move gave the first mover advantage to Microsoft. Instead of competing in terms of performance with its competitors, in 2006, Nintendo launched Nintendo Wii which brought the concept of motion-gaming and defined a new set of rules for the industry by keeping its price low. Microsoft brought Kinect in response to Wii and went beyond the motion gaming. It interacts with the game using a camera which tracks the players entire body without holding anything in the hand. In fact, Microsofts made a strategy to charge only $150 to penetrate the market and get the casual market to take notice of this new product. Also they spent almost 500 million USD on the launch of Kinect aiming to reach new audiences, including advertisements on Kelloggs cereal boxes and Pepsi bottles, commercials during shows such as dancing with the Stars and Glee as well as print ads in various magazines such as People and InStyle etc. They also organized a show on November 3 in Times Square, where singer Ne-Yo performed with hundreds of dancers in anticipation of Kinects midnight launch. It is clear that Kinect has defined its targeted niche as the casual gamers. Microsoft made the product highly appealing to new customers, rather than current customers hardcore gamers. In addition to this, Kinect differs to the Move in that it wont be backwards-compatible with current games meaning Kinect will feature new games, for new customers. Kinect compatible games are not designed for the gamers who want to sit on the couch and relaxed while playing. The games and experiences are designed to be as fun to watch as they are to play-the games are designed to get the people off the couch and that is the real controller free gaming experience. Also when one wants to enjoy movies, music, and ESPN on Xbox 360, one can control the entertainment hands free from the comfort of the couch. So Kinect defy the trend that playing video game is the job of couch potatoes. Now people can play the video game with real time experience while doing a lot of physical exercise. Its not going to be easy to compete with Project Natal. The companies are doing a lot of great work with the cameras. But the magic is in the software. Its a combination of partners and our own software, Shane Kim- corporate vice president for strategy and business development at Microsofts game division. [12] The Disruptive Innovation Model According to Joseph Schumpeter, creative destruction is a process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. In simple words it can be explained as the process of destroying an old well established technology and replacing it with an innovative new technology. Kinect is a controller-free gaming and entertainment experience by  Microsoft  for the  Xbox 360  video game platform. Kinect offers a revolutionary new way to play games. In Kinect, you are the controller of the game. Before Kinect every game console came with a controller which was a barrier that stops people playing games. Microsoft wanted to come up something which can break down this barrier and can appeal to both mainstream and casual gamers. Kinect is one complete package for the whole family. It is a complete and affordable way for everyone to enjoy controller-free fun and entertainment. Even though Kinect response in the market is tremendous but still people using consol games with the controller, but seeing the response of the customers it looks like this innovation will change the meaning of game industry and soon it will replace the controller gaming with controller-free gaming. In future this is a disruptive innovation that will change gaming world. The position of Kinect on Normal Distribution of Adopters The normal distribution curve for adopters (Figure 1) represents the groups of people who adopt the new technology at different times. It comprises of the innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and the laggards. The Microsoft targeted directly the early majority of the market, instead of targeting the innovators and early adopters first and moving ahead. This is because Xbox 360 was already in the market and performing very good in terms of sales as well as quality. Kinect is a complementary product for Xbox 360 and through Kinect, Microsoft targeted to the casual gamers as well as for the hardcore gamers. Launch of Kinect rejuvenates the sales of Xbox 360 as well. Microsoft was doing everything for breaking down barriers and getting to the mass market, where controllers are barriers and awkward for some people to learn to use a controller. There are different segments of customers. There are the fans of Halo, Forza, and other titles that command a premium price. They deliver an amazing, professionally developed, full-blown experience that customers are willing to pay for. There are some customers who want more casual, bite-size experiences. They want a free-to-play model. You need the downloadable episode in Grand Theft Auto to extend the console game experience or a song you can download for Rock Band. You have a lot of different kinds of options. We enable all the business models, Shane Kim- corporate vice president for strategy and business development at Microsofts game division. [12] Figure 1: Normal distribution Curve for Kinect Adopters Moreover the extraordinary features of Kinect such as low price (approximately $150), attractive and slim look of the console and mass marketing support, all positioned Kinect to fit for the early majority section of adopters. Kinect with Xbox 360 provided a whole entertainment solution to the entire family. Microsoft Kinect clearly goes beyond gaming. Xbox Live gave a new meaning to the social networking. Kinect targeted a whole new range of customers. Besides the existing supporters, Microsoft targeted to open a mass market of first-time game players, like women, younger children and teenagers, who were not typically drawn to this form of interactive entertainment. Since Xbox 360, Xbox live all were very much popular already, Microsoft avoided the hurdle of crossing the chasm. S Curve Diffusion Pattern of Kinect Kinect was launched in November 2010 and became the fastest selling electronics device. Although it sold more than 10 million devices by the end of February 2011, still on the S-Curve, Kinect is positioned in the accelerated part of market growth. Market growth of Kinect has not yet reached its diminishing return on sales its limits. Diffusion pattern is with successive groups of consumers adopting the new technology; its market share will eventually reach the saturation level. Kinect A Radical or an Incremental Innovation? Kinect uses an RGB camera (image sensor), a 3-D depth camera (which determines how far away an object is from the camera), and a multi-array microphone. These were already existing technologies. Kinect is an Incremental Innovation rather than Radical Innovation since it is not based on a completely new technology, but an application of previously available technologies. Technology Strategy Do it differently According to Microsoft, Xbox Live and Kinect will be fundamental parts of their identity going forward and will lead them into online and natural user interfaces. Microsoft has a competitive advantage over its competitors in the form of Kinect. Launch of Kinect shows the leadership of the Microsoft in the technology field whether it is software development or the games. Along with good hardware of console which supports high processing power and graphics Microsoft tried entirely new concept in the game industry with the introduction of Kinect. This was about unleashing a new category of controller-free gaming and entertainment. We didnt want to do something that would be derivative of what Nintendo did with the Wii. Thats been a nice innovation for them but this goes much farther. Were talking about full-body recognition. It can tell when someone is standing or sitting down. It can tell when something moves in front of you or behind you, Shane Kim- corporate vice president for strategy and business development at Microsofts game division. [12] Open Innovation Even though Microsoft filed lot of patents for Kinect in order to get more casual players Microsoft director of incubation for Xbox, Alex Kipman announced that Kinect was left open By Design on the November 19 broadcast of National Public Radios Science Daily program. According to him Microsoft will not allow someone to use the algorithms that Xbox uses and to avoid the illegal uses, they put lot of efforts and make sure that this will not happen. But simultaneously Microsoft kept the design flexible so that if anyone want to write an open source driver for PC, which opens the USB connection for Kinect, take the inputs from the sensor. Microsoft wanted to break down the barriers that prevent people from enjoying what Microsoft is offering so that Xbox can attract more casual players. This will help Microsoft to get more participants and will make a bigger install base for Microsoft Xbox 360.[14]. By definition Installed base is a measure of the number of units of a particular type of system actually in use, as opposed to market share, which only reflects sales over a particular period.[15] New Product Development for Kienct: Introduction of product life cycle of Kinect: There are 6 stages in any product life cycle: Product Development, Introduction, Growth, Maturity, Saturation and Decline. Firm spend a lot of money on research and development in the beginning, and if the research is successful, then on advertisement. If the introduction of the product is successful then the product goes to the growth stage of product life cycle. In growth stage, firm try to recover its development cost as much as possible. In maturity stage, other firms will also come in the market and increases the competition. In the declining stage customer may change their need or the product becomes obsolete and people are not interested in firms product anymore. In the case of Kinect it is in the growth stage as Kinect was introduced successfully in the market and became an instant hit. Now, Microsoft has reduced the expenses on advertising of the Kinect as well as Xbox 360. As discussed above, through Kinect Microsoft was targeting to the casual gamers and to bring them in the market Microsoft had to remove the barriers, which were mainly the game controllers. Controllers, whether wired or wireless, are barriers for a lot of people and it is awkward for many people to learn the use of a controller. So Microsoft decided to come up something which gives casual gamers a controller free experience and this need gave birth to the Project Natal. Kinect was first announced on June 1, 2009 under the code name Project Natal, named on the name of Brazilian city Natal. Kinect uses a sensor to track body movement and recognizes face and listen to the voice. It provided a new way to play the video games where gamer uses full body to play the game. It provides gamers to play personalize games in which the players face and voice are recognized by the device. Kinect uses an RGB camera (image sensor), a 3-D depth camera (which determines how far away an object is from the camera), and a multi-array microphone. [2][11] Motion Sensor Voice Recognition Facial Recognition Skeletal Tracking Microsoft Patents for Kinect When a company files for a patent, government gives monopoly and protection for the innovation for a specific period of time. In return the inventor has to disclose the information details of the invention. Microsoft also filed multiple patents in an effort to protect the software and technology behind its motion-sensing gaming system Kinect, from other rivals. It was very important that Microsoft did not want to allow any loopholes that would allow others to copy its technology. Microsoft has filed at least 12 patents to protect the intellectual property of its motion sensor controller technology surrounding Kinect. The company aggressively aims to patent every aspect especially the software that enables a gaming experience that is based on gestures and motion tracking. The patent applications are based on Extending Standard Gestures, Gestures Beyond Skeletal, Gesture Shortcuts, Gesture Tool, Gesture Coach, Avatar Integrated Shared Media Selection, Localized Gesture Aggregation, Sys tems And Methods For Tracking A Model  , Real Time Retargeting of Skeletal Data To Game Avatar  , Systems and Methods For Applying Animations or Motions to a Character  , Avatar Integrated Shared Media Experience  , User Movement Feedback via On-Screen Avatars.[13] We want to ensure that we have great intellectual property protection. You have to have a strong legal approach, and this is not easy stuff. It has to be all buttoned up, legally. We have had a very concerted focus on this , Shane Kim- corporate vice president for strategy and business development at Microsofts game division. [12] Market Strategy for Kinect Game industry is currently expanding but it divided into many segments after Nintendo launched its Wii MotionPlus. Microsoft and Sony were seeing a huge potential and wanted to quickly react.Microsoft saw a huge potential market for casual gamers. Microsoft was able to identify that this newly developed market had massive potential and can worth millions to Microsoft. Microsoft Identified that every game console came with a controller which was a barrier that stops many people from playing games. So, Microsoft decided to come up something which can break down this barrier and can appeal to both mainstream and casual gamers. Microsoft adopted a Market Pull strategy for Kinect by identifying the latent needs of the casual gamers. Microsoft came up with the idea of Kinect, a controller free gaming experience. Microsoft through new Xbox 360 with Kinect took a disruptive approach: focus on fun and expand the market by appealing to non-gamers. Microsoft decided to keep the price low for Ki nect so that they can attract casual gamers as well. They kept Kinect retail price as $149 or if a gamer wants to purchase with Xbox 360, price of the bundle is $299. An analyst indicated that Microsoft losing a big amount for each box. The companys goal is to make a profit on software titles, royalties, and Xbox Live subscriptions. Selling more Xbox 360 consoles attracts more developers interested in developing games compatible to Kinect and Xbox 360, which in turn encourages more demand for consoles and generates licensing revenue for Microsoft. This is called snow-ball effect and Microsoft used it very well. Along with the good design and low price Microsoft heavily spent on the marketing campaign of Kinect. They spent almost 500 Million Dollars on the launch campaign of Kinect. Campaign for Kinect was You Are the Controller. They aimed to reach to new customer and to reach them, they advertized Kinect on Pepsi Bottles and Kelloggs Cereal boxes, commercials during shows such as dancing with the Stars and Glee as well as print ads in various magazines such as People and InStyle. They distributed free Xbox 360 consoles and Kinect to the audience in The Oprah Winfrey Show. Between November 1 and November 28, Burger King gave away a free Kinect bundle every 15 minutes. A major event was organized on November 3 in Times Square, where singer Ne-Yo performed with hundreds of dancers in anticipation of Kinects midnight launch. [9][11] Microsoft strategy worked well for Kinect as well as for the sale of the Xbox 360.The first advantage Microsoft had that they were able to capture a significant portion of the rapidly growing video gaming market from the sale of Kinect. Kinect also made a significant impact on the sale of Xbox 360. This shows a very good example of Network externalities. By definition Network externalities is that the value of a technology product/service to a user increases with the number of other users of the same or similar product/service. Xbox value increased when Kinect was launched. Marketing efforts of Kinect not only impacted Kinect Sale but it also contributed to Xbox 360 sale. Network externalities comes because of the snowball effect, which means a large installed base of a product attracts producers of complementary products/services and if there is a availability of complementary products/services it attracts users, increasing the installed base. So that means both occurs because of ea ch other. The same thing happens in the case of Xbox 360 and Kinect. Kinect is a complementary good for Xbox 360. Xbox 360 was having a large install base which helped the sales of Kinect but because of the Kinect, Xbox 360 installed base also increased. Microsoft reported that it sold more than 10 million Kinect devices till the end of February 2011. Microsofts core PC software businesses reached on the saturation point and it was looking for some new areas to sustain its success. Microsoft entered in the game industry by launching Xbox but Kinect made Microsoft the leader in the game industry by giving a technological edge over Sony and Nintendo. In past, companys reputation has suffered as a result of the litigation surrounding its Windows monopoly and other antitrust lawsuits. Kinect and Xbox 360 brought back the innovative image of the Microsoft and established the company as a technology leader in the game industry as well and built its brand.[17].The below charts show the Xbox market share before and after the Kinect launch. The following graphs try to show the market share of Xbox 360, Wii and PS3. As we can see Xbox 360 stole the market share of Sony and Nintendo both, but Nintendo sales were more impacted than that of Sony. Value Ecosystem To understand value chain for Microsoft it is important first to understand the value chain for the game industry. Game industry value chain is made up of six parties mainly: Game Publishing: involved in paying for development of new titles and seeking returns through licensing of the titles. Game Developers: includes developers and designers, who may be working under individual contracts or as part of in-house development teams. Console Manufactures: generates game development middleware, customizable game engines, and production management tools. Distributers: involved in marketing catalogs of games for retail and online distribution. Hardware Suppliers: or the providers of the underlying platform, which may be console-based. End-users layer: or the users/players of the games. Marketer: Advertise the games. Figure # -Video Game Software Value Chain The game development value chain explains that first, the game developers create games for the game publishers, who amalgamate games from various developers. The game publishers are like the pools where many game developers pooled their developed games. The game publishers then select the games suitable for the market and send those games to distributers /retailers and finally to customers. The game publishers may also send the games to marketing agencies which may help to advertise the games to the customers. In some cases, game publishers can sell their games to the console maker itself. While selling games to the console makers the digital rights management (DRM) providers provide DR to game developers to protect their copyrights. In case of Microsoft, the DRM provider is the console maker itself, as the DRM is integrated into the hardware of the console. Creating New Value Chains with Kinect Microsofts Shane Kim has put forward a belief that Kinect provided a value addition to Xbox 360. Microsoft believed that the Xbox 360 has an approximate life of 10 years so Xbox 360 has a life cycle through 2015. Microsoft was having a vision that Project Natal will be a great innovation. Kinect will be a big value addition for a person who thinks that controller is a barrier in playing games. Microsoft wanted to come up with complete system which can create a value for whole family to take the leadership position. To come up with a good product companies do integrated business with third parties. Kinect is a combination of partners and Microsofts own software. Kinect is based on software technology developed internally by Rare, a subsidiary of Microsoft Game Studios owned by Microsoft, and on range camera technology by Israeli developer PrimeSense. Microsoft also acquired Big Park to develop its game for Xbox Live. Microsoft consoles can now play music CDs, and DVDs directly and the DRM is proprietary to the individual publishers. Microsoft allowed publishers and game developers to develop games which can be played on Kinect. In addition to games, you can use Kinect to make video phone calls via Xbox Live. [20] Microsoft has also made internet connected game play available with a subscription-based service, Windows Live, its own application service provider. It allows customers to link play across the internet. Microsoft has managed to channel yet another revenue stream via the connectivity value chain. Microsoft is best positioned to exploit the value ecosystem. Microsoft also fully utilizes its other value chains to create network effects to draw the customers. As a gauge for the amount of licensing revenue that a console maker earns, an analysis of one of Microsofts own console games indicates that the game development value chain itself would bring in 11.5% of the sales price of the console game. Price for games for Kinect from Microsoft was $49 each. Microsoft started selling 4-gigabyte Xbox 360 with Kinect and the Kinect Adventures game in a bundle for $299. Microsoft provided Kinectimals, Kinect Sports and Kinect Joy Ride, each available for $49.99 in Kinect Adventures. It also prices Dance Central game for Kinect at $49.99. This is a very significant part of Microsoft marketing strategy, since games have been priced at $59.99 since the Xbox 360 and PS3 launched in 2005. Its smarter to price games cheaper. The entire pricing strategy is thus