...Nestle S.A. is one too. So is Lorenzo Zambrano of Cemex in Mexico, Massimo Bongiovanni, CEO of Coop Centrale in Italy and Toshifumi Suzuki, CEO of 7-Eleven Japan. What do these global business leaders have in common that sets them apart from the majority of top management in other organizations? They are IT Savvy BUSINESS leaders. That means they communicate an organizing vision which affords a central role to leveraging IT for value creation; they engage themselves in strategic IT decisions and insist that their top management team does as well; they construct an equal partnership between business and IT ,and they achieve superior returns for their efforts. According to research by Peter Weill and Jeanne Ross[1], firms with higher IT spending and high IT savvy can achieve 20 percent greater margins than their competitors, whereas the lowest spenders and least IT savvy firms earn 32 percent lower margins than their competitors. Naturally with this sort of performance lift, most CEO’s, in fact most business leaders across the organization, must be IT savvy – right? Unfortunately the answer is “Not yet.” As for evidence, it is visible or can be deduced in headline-grabbing events about IT project failures, rigid information systems which reduce a company’s local and/or global agility, layoffs at firms due to inefficient operations and security breaches and data losses. All of these occurrences signal deficiencies in leveraging information technology effectively. Blame...
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...The agility and grace that are necessary to be a dancer take skill and years of practice. In order to be able to perfect the style and technique that it takes to be a performer, it is necessary to learn the tasks it takes to be a dancer. Dancers apply their ideas, emotions, and beliefs to convey a message through a form of art. There are three classic forms a dance, ballet, jazz, and modern. Ballet, jazz, and modern are the most intricate forms of dance; it implicates a technique that only expands through years of training. Majority of dancers start at a young age. However, if a person has the passion and time willing to spend on learning the new styles of dance, he or she will be a successful dancer. Dancers practice daily and attend many dance classes to help there dancing improve. Learning...
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...How can you understand about yourself or the world around you? Journeys can be inner, imaginative or physical. The journeys that we experience help us understand more about ourselves, others and the world around us. In the novel, “Mao’s Last Dancer”, the protagonist Li Cunxin takes an emotional journey as he discovers and learns more about the world around him. He experiences an inner journey and also gains new insights about himself and others. The related text, “The Road Not Taken”, also explores an inner and imaginative journey, and the emotional effect that this has on the persona through various techniques. As a young boy living in poverty, Li Cunxin was accepted to a ballet academy in Beijing, China. After attending for a while, one of his ballet...
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...Mao's Last Dancer Li Cunxin Dedication To the two special women in my life—my mother and my wife Mao’s Last Dancer A Wedding Qingdao, 1946 On the day of her marriage, a young girl sits alone in her village home. It is autumn, a beautiful October morning. The country air is cool but fresh. The young girl hears happy music approaching her house. She is only eighteen, and she is nervous, frightened. She knows that many marriage introducers simply take money and tell lies. Some women from her village marry men who don't have all their functional body parts. Those women have to spend the rest of their lives looking after their husbands. Wife beating is common. Divorce is out of the question. Divorced women are humiliated, despised, suffering worse than an animals fate. She knows some women hang themselves instead and she prays this is not going to be her fate. She prays to a kind and merciful god that her future husband will have two legs, two arms, two eyes and two ears. She prays that his body parts are normal and functional. She worries that he will not be kind-hearted and will not like her. But most of all she &+x worries about her unbound feet. Bound feet are still in fashion. Little girls as young as five or six have to tuck four toes under the big toe and squeeze them hard to stop the growth. It is extremely painful, and the girls have to change the cloth bandages and wash their feet daily to avoid infection. The tighter the feet are bound the smaller the feet will...
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...the Cultural Revolution was a place where you were told what to do, and what to say. Today I will be speaking to you about Mao’s Last Dancer, the film adaption of the autobiography of Li Cunxin. To begin with, I will speak about the Cultural Revolution in China, where the story is set. Li’s story took place during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of China, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution. This revolution took place from 1966 to 1976, lead by Mao Zedong, who was the leader of the Communist Party of China at the time. The Cultural Revolution led to millions of people being persecuted and thousands more being killed. Because of the Cultural Revolution, people no longer had freedom of speech and actions. If anyone was found criticising the Government or taking part in anti-communist operations, they would be arrested immediately. Generally, the people of China took to the idea of communism because they had been convinced and continually told that communism would bring great wealth to China. This was great news to the people of China because they had suffered a famine, which lead to the death of millions of people. The Cultural Revolution officially ended in 1976, after Chairman Mao died. Those found to be part of The Gang of Four, a group of Chinese Communist Officials, were arrested for treasonous crimes. In Mao’s Last Dancer, it is shown how Li was taught at school in Shandong that Chairman Mao would end poverty in China. After he arrived at the Beijing Dance...
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...As a ballet dancer, each day I strive for perfection. As a girl who is naturally short with short legs, sometimes that can be hard because it can lead to shorter lines, which are not aesthetically pleasing. Grand allegro, or big jumps, is especially challenging because I do my grand jetes higher and in a shorter time frame than the girls who have the long legs. I continuously get corrections to lengthen my lines during grand jetes because I am not in the air for long enough to do so. While I cannot change what I was born with, I can figure out a way to stay in the air for a longer amount of time and travel a longer distance, which would allow me to lengthening out my legs and give longer lines. A grand jete is a leap that I take from running....
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...Such as the stupidities for her highly popular novel Storm Dancer (dark epic fantasy novel). “This book is too long. I had to spend many hours reading it. I’m busy and have other things to do.” “The character of Queen Matilda is not believable”. Well, there’s no Queen Matilda in the book… Digital Book World listed snippets from Bestseller reviews: “It was one of the most boring and shallow books that I have ever read.” Review of the American classic The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald “Not nearly enough consistency and far to [sic] little plot.” Review of Harry Potter And the Half Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling “If I were you, I’d peruse it briefly at your neighborhood library before putting hard-earned money out.” Review of the children’s classic A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle “Superficial...
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...Explication of “The Harlem Dancer” The poem “The Harlem Dancer” is a story of a man in a nightclub in Harlem, New York. It is a poem of the observations he makes, not only of the dancer he is watching, but also the individuals around him viewing the dancer. It doesn't classify the situation as good or bad but instead it sends a message that even new things can become the norm eventually. The poem is about how everyone views situations differently. It begins with the youths and their prostitutes viewing this dancer and how they are applauding and based on the fact the word ‘applauding’ is written in capital letters, it suggests that this group of onlookers were rather obnoxious in their appreciation of the dancer. The author then moves...
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...not started dance yet. Immediately, I was greeted by Ms. Lynette which I had not seen in a long time. We sat down, started chatting and she asked me this question, “What do you want to get out of dance?”. This was a very hard question for me to answer because I really wasn’t sure what I wanted specifically. Sure I wanted to become a better dancer so I can dance at Clemson but I also wanted to better myself in all aspects of dance and life. I was very nervous when I decided that I wanted to dance again. Everyone my age is such great dancers and I...
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...http://www.livescience.com/22522-hurricane-katrina-facts.html Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadliest hurricanes ever to hit the United States. An estimated 1,833 people died in the hurricane and the flooding that followed in late August 2005, and millions of others were left homeless along the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans. Katrina was the most destructive storm to strike the United States and the costliest storm in U.S. history, causing $108 billion in damage, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA). It ranks sixth overall in strength of recorded Atlantic hurricanes. It was also a very large storm; at its peak, maximum winds stretched 25 to 30 nautical miles (46 to 55 kilometers) and its extremely wide swath of hurricane force winds extended at least 75 nautical miles (138 km) to the east from the center. Katrina initially formed about 200 miles (322 km) southeast of the Bahamas on Aug. 23, 2005, as a tropical depression, according to the NOAA. A well-defined band of storm clouds began to wrap around the north side of the storm's circulation center in the early morning hours of Aug. 24. With winds of about 40 mph (65 kph), the storm was named Tropical Storm Katrina. Hurricane Katrina originally formed about 322km southeast of the Bahamas on August 23, 2005. A lot of storm clouds began to form around the north of the hurricanes centre point in the early hours of august 24th. The winds blew up to 65kmph. By the time it made its way to southern...
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...Carolina School of the Arts for my Junior year of high school seemed like an inconceivable possibility my mind could not bear to acknowledge. After all, I had left the comfort of my home studio on a risky move to a less popular, but seemingly better, dance studio. Over the past year I had sacrificed my social life to train in the new studio for the dream that one day I might become a professional ballet dancer. I had all the resources an aspiring ballerina could want: a retired ballerina as my teacher, ample time for training, and an impressive performance resume. When my eyes finally made contact with the pallid envelope, I immediately knew my fate. If I had been accepted, I would have expected to receive a big fat packet full of housing and registration information. It was as though my soul had died. Until that moment, dancing was my calling and I intended it to be my lifelong passion. My heart sank as I opened the envelope and read the dispiriting words of rejection....
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...Nikki Jones Professor French Engl. 1301 April 3, 2013 Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self One's perception of themselves is usually influenced by their own experiences. In Alice Walker essay "Beauty: When the Other Dancer self" she describes herself over coming and gaining acceptance of herself exactly the way she is. She narrates in remembrance of the event that forever changed her and perception of beauty. Walker uses superlatives, Metaphors, and tense throughout her writing to deliver her ever-changing outlook toward her own beauty. Walker describes the accident that happens to her as a child to show that one’s mindset can be altered through an intense experience and how her attitude completely transforms from a arrogant child into a newly reincarnated woman who now sees a new kind of beauty from within herself. She uses different points of her life to develop this very idea in separate comprehensible stages. She brings the scene to life when she tells us how she manipulates her daddy into taking her to the county fair by swirling around, with her hands on her hips, in her pretty dress and biscuit polished patent leather shoes and says '“I’m the prettiest!”' As she parades around using her cuteness for her father's approval. Her attitude is further encouraged by the people of her church. She was always used to hearing “'Oh, isn’t she the cutest thing!' This makes us believe that she is satisfied with her looks and shows us that she is confident with the outer...
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...Children hurt and tease each other, from the clothes they wear to what they look like. Children do not have the maturity to understand or realize how cruel comments can affect someone. When we see someone with a physical defect or someone that may not look “normal”, its human nature to stare, but we have to teach our children to be sympathetic and supportive towards people like this. In, Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self, Alice Walker suggests that a psychological and physical scar can turn ones life into a downward spiral but can overcome it all in the end. Walker begins to describe how quickly she turned into a self-hatred human being in the blink of an eye. She takes us on an emotional roller coaster with present and past memories of her life. Walker depicts herself as a wonderful and beautiful child who at one point could stand proud in front of people with confidence, almost on the verge of cockiness. One day she is wearing beautiful and colorful dresses, and the next she becomes a rough and dirty tomboy. It was her Kelly 2 tomboy change when her life made a drastic turn that resulted in a physical scar and far worse, a psychological scar that she would endure for most of life. As she became older, Walker regained her confidence. She had been given a life-changing opportunity to repair her physical defect. Instantly, she became a happier person, however, it wasn’t until her concerned daughter tells her...
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...Resistance can be defined as opposing or fighting unjust, oppressive systems or power holders through action or argument (newtactics). In the film Mao's Last Dancer as well as Cabaret, resistance is displayed through characters actions, but also through dance performance. In both films , dance works as a means of escape, representing one's fundamental individual rights. The dance styles of ballet and burlesque performed in the films, combine art, passion and subject matters into a cultural resistance against autocracy. Mao's Last Dancer tells the story of ballet dancer Li Cunxin and his struggle against persecution as well as his fight for individual rights during the era of Mao's cultural revolution. The cultural revolution was a sociopolitical...
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...Duet Solo Dancers by Charles Mingus When I first listened to this song, I was engaged to its rhythm. I felt like it was telling a story. This song sounds like a black and white movie of like the twentieth century where there is some kind of ball going on. Then there is this lady that walks into the bar, where the ball is being held, and then looks across the room, with her gaze matching with that of a dashing, handsome young sailor. She is drawn to him as she walks over to him and pulls out a stick of cigarette and asks the young sailor for a light(er). He then, captivated by the beauty of this fair maiden, is pushed to light her cigarette. He then offers to buy her a drink which after a flirtatious gaze, obliges to the young sailor’s request. The young fine sailor, then orders a martini for the lady and him. They make a toast and start drinking. As they drink, they discuss. The young sailor then asks the fair maiden to dance. Which she accepts; and they step forward to the dance floor for a dance. He twirls her and they begin dancing, smiling at each other with every move they make. They dance so good and so wonderful that people on the dance floor, vacate the dance floor just for them too as they (the people) continue to marvel at the matching pair or the chemistry between them. As this dance continues, the fair maiden’s husband bursts in and finds his wife engrossed in a rather enchanted, seductive gaze with the sailor. Out of anger and rage, her husband pulls out his pistol...
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