Opinions of Experts in the Search for Knowledge Research Paper

Opinions of Experts in the Search for Knowledge - Research Paper Example his is where the expert and the ordinary individuals diverge, in the way they form their opinion, then acquire and interpret knowledge. Who is an Expert? According to Christine Hogan (2000), â€Å"an expert is a person with a high level of intelligence, skills or knowledge in a particular sphere, reinforced by publicity and honors by others, by research and publications† (57). A more complicated definition was posited by Kurz-Milcke and Gigerenzer (2004), who stressed that an expert is a social figure in the distribution of knowledge – those who, in comparison to most, not only have more knowledge but also are able to manage knowledge transfers (42). The authors further explained that an expert can only become an expert by way of his or her performances wherein he or she translates and integrates knowledge into popular meaning systems (42). And so, a learned person who has merely acquired knowledge but has not displayed or demonstrated his learning cannot be considered one. Society will not accord him or her the status of an expert unless work or several works were published that would support his being so. No one can claim such title or role without the explicit consent of many individuals, institutions, and organizations. It is, hence, easy, based on the previous two definitions, to identify whether one is interacting with an expert. An expert is someone who has previous knowledge or expertise on the subject and also he or she is known to have demonstrated those characteristics, one who built his reputation, translating it into status and recognition from the society he belongs. An individual will know that he is talking with an expert if that person speaks authoritatively, especially basing from his specialized skills and experiences in addition to the credibility he has earned in the society. The society reinforces this with recognition since its institutions value performance and contributions to the continuing search for knowledge. The above definitions also reveal an important variable - why an expert’s opinion is valuable and this is demonstrated in several areas of knowledge.

Social implications of the Internet Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Social implications of the Internet - Essay Example These innovations facilitated a tremendous flow of information, in the technical, business, cultural, political and entertainment fields. They also created a mass society, hungry for new products, better services, entertainment and general awareness, which resulted in an explosive growth in the advertisement - production - consumption cycle. Though the telephone, and to a certain extent the telegraph, had a limited scope for a two way interaction between ordinary citizens, the other media like radio and television presented only a one way flow of information. These media were still not truly interactive. The combination of all the above technologies, and also the innovations in electronics, led to the development of computers and private local networks. They allowed, for the first time, a two way exchange of written as well as graphic information between the networked computers. Since the use of these networks was initially limited to research and defence, they were more or less under the control of the government. Surprisingly, this very fact was instrumental in the further development of computing and networking technology. ... s were made by a few individuals for the people, the Internet was a development which became 'of the people, by the people and for the people', with a much larger portion of the mass society participating in the development process. The integration of the concept of World Wide Web with the internet, and also the advancement in Satellite Communication has practically connected each individual to every other, across the globe. The social impact of this phenomenon is unprecedented. With the refinement in the computer languages, the common man, with minimal or no expertise, has also been made part of this fully interactive medium, and can now explore, process and share any type of information, whether written or graphic, with any other person, in any part of the world, without taking a step out of his house. Right from children in schools, to senior citizens in retirement, the complete society has been integrated. The concept of Small office-Home office ( SOHO) is gaining popularity, reducing the necessity of commuting to the work place. Outsourcing of work is another development, which has made a considerable social impact, because of the internet. The society has also greatly benefited from the improvements in the service industry such as Banking, Insurance, Medical services, tourism etc., all due to the Internet. Like any other technology, the Internet is not without its set of problems. The major problem is uncontrolled uploading and downloading of information. Pornographic and other unsuitable content is already corrupting young minds. It is extremely difficult to invoke legal provisions in business transactions, due to the global reach of the Internet, and due to the absence of strong, mature and enforceable Cyber laws. Innocent people often fall prey to smart

A Thousand Splendid Suns Essay Example for Free

A Thousand Splendid Suns Essay â€Å"Come. There is a way to be good again,† said Rahim Khan to Amir. In the novel the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Amir, the main character, expresses his thoughts and actions due to his baneful choices. The tribulations he faced were all repercussions of the sin committed by his disdainful youth. His sins ravaged the early stages of his life and gave him a troublesome memory full of guilt. As the novel progressed, Amir attempted to disengage the memory of his sin and forget about it. Amir soon faced the long over due road to redemption. Khaled Hosseini’s novel the Kite Runner is about redemption, and that the lifelong pursuit of happiness will never be fulfilled without it. At a young age Amir and Hassan were best friends, even though Amir was roughly expressing it. Amir and Hassan enjoyed many activities together as Khaled expressed in his novel: â€Å"I spent most of the first twelve years of my life playing with Hassan. Sometimes, my entire childhood seems like one long lazy summer day with Hassan, chasing each other between tangles of trees in my father’s yard, playing hide-and-seek, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, insect torture†¦ We saw our first Western together, Rio Bravo with John Wayne, at the Cinema Park†¦,† stated Amir. Amir stated all these â€Å"friend-like† activities, yet witnessed the sexual abuse administered by Assef and his goons on Hassan without a peep from his mouth. At this point Amir’s lust for obtaining the kite, so he could finally enjoy love from his father had over come his friendship. That temporary love given to Amir by his father was enough for Amir to attempt to get rid of Hassan permanently, which worked. Amir’s sin committed in his early years set the stage for the rest of his life, for he would seek redemption for his acts. Many years passed, Amir was on his own now in America, with his wife Soraya that could not bare children. Amir received a call from Rahim Kahn who was dying and wanted a last visit from Amir. Amir had jumped at the chance to visit an old friend/father figure and flew to see Rahim. Little did Amir know he was about to face all of the tribulations he had seemed to forget of his past ten fold. Rahim Khan reveals â€Å"Hassan, Amirs childhood friend, the presumed son of the family servant was in reality, Amirs half-brother, his fathers illegitimate son with Alis wife. † He also reveals that the prolonged redemption is just around the Taliban by saving Amir’s half-nephew Sohrab (Hassan’s son) from Kabul. Amir was in a state of confusion, he expressed his plead to Rahim: â€Å"I can’t go to Kabul,† I had said to Rahim Khan. â€Å"I have a wife in America, a home, a career, and a family. † But how could I pack up and go and go back home when my actions may have caused Hassan a chance at those very same things (talking to himself)? I wished Rahim Khan hadn’t called me. I wished he had let me live on in my oblivion. But he had called me. And what Rahim Khan revealed to me changed things. Made me see how my entire life†¦had been a cycle of lies, betrayal, and deceit. ‘There is a way to be good again’ he’d said. Thus started Amir’s road to redemption. Amir searched through Kabul for Sohrab and an orphanage leader had stated that Sohrab had been sold to a Taliban leader. The Taliban Leader who showboated John Lennon glasses and conducted the stoning ceremony at halftime of the soccer game was the man that Amir had to speak with. As Amir conversed with the Taliban lead he learned of his cruel ways of massacring the Hazaras. Then the Taliban leader revealed, â€Å"What did you think? That you’d put on a fake beard and I wouldn’t recognize you? I never forget a face. Not ever. † The Taliban revealed himself as Assef, Amir’s childhood enemy. Assef created an ordeal stating that if Amir were to overcome him in a blood brawl, then Sohrab would be Amir’s boy to take. Assef completely demolished Amir by breaking several ribs with his brass knuckles. Amir was barely able to stand, but he withheld the beating for he knew that destiny had brought him to this moment. The moment came when Sohrab had pierced Assef’s eye and he and Amir escaped. Amir had finally accomplished his self-turmoil and had almost completed his redemption by saving his half-brother’s son, and almost dying for him. Amir knew that he had to adopt Sohrab when they got back to a safe haven. This caused some trouble with the embassy for they required legal documents of the orphaned child. Sohrab believed that there was no possible way for him to come to America and he did not want to return to an orphanage, so he attempted suicide. Amir had gone through a father’s worst nightmare when he thought his soon to be adopted son would die. Sohrab survived though, leaving a reckless, unrighteous Muslim, self- centered Amir behind. Amir’s pursuit of happiness was fulfilled as he and his son were flying kites in America. He had redeemed himself as he said to Sohrab, â€Å"Do you want me to run that kite for you? †Ã¢â‚¬ ¦A nod from Sohrab†¦ â€Å"For you, a thousand times over,† and a smile cracked open on Sohrab’s face.

Strategic Changes That Reversed Sainsburys Fortunes Management Essay

Strategic Changes That Reversed Sainsburys Fortunes Management Essay In the last two decades of the twentieth century the UK supermarket chain, Sainsburys, suffered from an almost continuing decline in its corporate fortunes, which its management of the time seemed unable to stop. Not least important of these events was the loss of its competitive position within the UK supermarket sector. From a position of being the market leader by 1995 Sainsburys had relinquished this spot to its rival Tesco (Johnson, Scholes Whittington, 2005) and even this second position was lost to Asda, a brand that had been strengthened as a result of its takeover by the American giant Wal-Mart.(BBC News, 2006).As a result of the corporations problems, during the early part of this decade it began to look very likely that the Sainsburys brand would either disappear from the UK or be acquired by new owners as investors became increasingly disheartened with the business returns and performance. Justin King, the current CEO of Sainsburys, joined the business in March 2004 (Sainsburys 2005), at a time when, due to lack of competitiveness and poor performance in comparison with rivals, Sainsburys had become a constant target for potential takeover bids (Hutchings 2004). Contrary to expectations at the time of his appointment, during the course of the past five years King has been seen as responsible for the reversal of Sainsburys fortune, which can be evidenced by the fact that a 2007 takeover bid valued the business at  £10.6 billion, more than twice the  £5 billion bid considered three years earlier (Mail online 2009). It is the changes in Sainsburys fortunes that form the focus of this essay. The intention is to both analyse and evaluate the strategic choices the corporation has adopted under Kings leadership in order to improve its response to changes that occur within the industry and its marketplace. Strategic changes at Sainsburys post 2004 Research into corporate strategy, once concerned mainly with the internal operations of the business, has now been extended to include the impact of external forces and events (Johnson et al, 2005). Thus as Johnson, Scholes Whittington (2008) observe, it can be defined as an organisations abilities to renew and recreate its strategic capabilities to meet the needs of a changing environment. In this respect corporate strategy within supermarkets such as Sainsburys, was focused upon the creation of competitive advantage (Porter, 2004a), a position that was deemed as being achieved whenever it outperforms its competitors (Pettigrew, Thomas Whittington, 2002, p.55). However, as Grant (2004) and others have suggested, simply achieving competitive advantage is not sufficient. To sustain its success, a business has to continue to build upon its advantage to ensure is does not lose out to other competitors in the future, a situation which the management at Sainsburys had failed to address prior to 2004. On his appointment as CEO, King reviewed the current business strategy and introduced changes in several key areas as part of his three year programme aimed at turning the business around (Sainsburys 2005). The first task to be faced was to identify the core areas of potential business growth, which was deemed by King to be the UK market. This led to the sale of Sainsburys US supermarket chain and the use of the proceeds to acquire a number of Morrison stores that were sold as a part of regulatory conditions attached to its purchase of Safeway, as well as a planned expansion into the convenience store sector. As King said at the time, this was needed to strengthen our market position and deliver future growth (Food Drink Europe, 2004, para3). The second task was to decide where and how the business should refocus its drive for competitive advantage, which as Grant (2004) indicates, meant using either cost and/or differentiation as the main strategic drivers for success in terms of adding value for the customer and shareholder. It is clear from the latter part of this explanation that to create such an advantage it is important for the Sainsburys brand, to be seen as sufficiently different from those of its competitors so as to establish its own brand identification and customer loyalties (Porter, 2004b, p.9). In other words, as Tyreman (2009 para10) indicates within his study on marketing, the key and essential element of brand design and promotion is for the corporation to ensure that the chosen strategy of differentiation must be unique enough to enable it to stand out from its competitors. This is especially important in a case like Sainsburys which is competing for market share within a UK supermarket and grocery sect or, which is considered by many people to have reached a position of saturation over a decade ago (Q Finance,n.d.para15). In terms of cost, both Tesco and Asda had overtaken Sainsburys in the sector as a result of their low-price strategy. In addition, their quality of service and differentiation was perceived by the customer to be superior to the Sainsburys brand, which meant that Sainsburys new management team needed to develop a strategy that would address both of these issues. In relation to low-cost the business and marketing strategy was changed to concentrate more upon reducing prices. In addition to this impacting upon recognised brand goods, this led to a change of direction, which included the expansion and promotion of its low-price own brand alternatives within its stores, an area where competitors had built a significant advantage. To ensure that this approach did not have an adverse effect upon the financial performance of the business and the value being added for shareholders, this also meant that the business had to introduce a cost reduction and efficiency programme across the supply chain (Porter, 2004a). Improvements were therefore made to the supply chain processes, which included the introduction of new technology aimed at increasing cost efficiency, such as the implementation of IT knowledge and data management systems (Mari, 2009). As an integral aspect of this process the relationship with suppliers, and their influence upon the supply chain, particularly product design, cost and distribution were also re-evaluated in an effort to lower costs and improve delivery to the customer, for example with the adoption of a system geared towards the JIT inventory model (Just in Time). The effect of these changes was to aid the lowering of in-store prices whilst at the same time continuing to retain and grow business value. However, on their own these changes would not provide the change in fortunes required by the business unless they were accompanied by a process that would improve the relationship and brand image that it was promoting and marketing to both existing and potential customers (Wilson Gilligan, 2005). In terms of quality of service, this also meant that the business would require the commitment of its employees. As Sainsburys had learnt, through loss of market share, the relationship that a business builds and develops with its potential customer is essential to the long term success of the business and its ability to expand its share of the market(Lancaster Massingham,2001).As Kotler ( n.d. P.159) observes, the organisation that develops and implements the best tools to enable it to forecast where customers are moving, and to be in front of them, will be the one that gains the competitive advantage from these processes. Having failed to maintain its advantage in this respect, it was apparent that the existing approach to customer relationships at Sainsburys was another area of corporate strategy that King needed to address. Three main strategic changes were made within the business with regard to its relationship with customers. The first of these was to improve the communication process that existed between the business and its potential customer base, so that it could gain the required feedback that would help the business to understand the changing demands and needs of the customer (Lancaster and Massingham, 2001). This was achieved through a programme that included additional market research, which included in-store and external surveys and questionnaires. In addition, the management team was encouraged to spend more time in the corporations stores, talking to customers as well as employees in order to gain a better insight into how the business service and quality was perceived (Blackhurst, 2005). Secondly, driven by the results of this feedback, the business improved its employee training processes, particularly in the area of service quality, with the focus being on improving the customer shoppin g experience within their stores. One crucial element of strategy aimed at improving the customer shopping experience is reliant upon the management of the human resource function (Grant, 2005). In simple terms Human Resource Management (HRM) is defined as a strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organisations most valued assets-the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of its objectives(Armstrong, 2006.p.2.). It is the considered opinion of most academics that the type of relationship that business management has with its employees will have an important effect upon the success of its aims and objectives (Grant, 2005). Therefore, in keeping with other competitors within its own and other retail sectors, Sainsburys has had to review its HR policies and processes as part of the strategic changes required following the appointment of King in 2004. This review included both the internal aspect of human resources as well as the benefits and disadvantages the se will have upon the external business environment. One option that was immediately chosen was to increase the number of employees by 3,000; most were engaged in customer facing positions (Sainsburys, 2005). In addition the internal HR processes were changed. As Armstrong (2006) observes, there is generally considered to be two alterative options to HRM in business. These are the hard approach, which considers the management of employees should focus solely upon the effect that the individual or group of employees have in terms of assisting in the achievement of corporate goals, in other words what value the employee adds to the business. Alternatively, there is the soft approach, which is based upon employee involvement and motivation (Armstrong, 2006). With this approach the business seeks to understand and address the needs of the employee as well, primarily because it is considered that this will improve motivation and, as a result, increase quality and productivity. In Sainsburys it had already become apparent by 2004 that its major competitors, Tesco and Asda, had embarked upon a process of employee involvement which, using an appropriate approach to leadership and team building, was enabling these businesses to improve the success of their respective businesses in the area of human relationship management (Pettigrew et al. 2002). As Armstrong (2006) indicates the chances of successful adoption of a corporate strategy are much improved if the business has developed a relationship with the workforce that encourages involvement and participation at all stages of its development and implementation. It is not surprising therefore, that King and his management team decided the corporation needed to introduce a more robust HR regime and system; one that paid more attention to the importance of employee involvement and satisfaction within the decision making process of the business. Taking into account that it is the business front line employees who have the closest contact with the customer they therefore designed a strategic change that was designed around the soft approach. This change was achieved to a large extent by copying their competitors systems. In other words, they made management more accessible to the employee, involved them to a greater extent in business decisions, through a process of individual store and regional meetings and encouraged the employee to submit innovative and new ideas to their management team at all levels (Sainsburys, 2005). Finally, Sainsburys made significant changes to its approach in relation to the marketing and promotion of the brand. As Lancaster Massingham (2001) rightly observe, when any change in strategy is introduced it is important to communicate that message to the existing and potential customer. Therefore a new style of campaign has been developed by the corporation over the past four years that has concentrated upon delivering a message that focuses upon the low-price and customer service quality of the business offerings and shopping experience. This focused upon two main areas of the new strategy. The first, using a low-price approach, which concentrated on the promotion of its value brand and Meal for  £5, emphasised its commitment to a low-cost approach. The second, using celebrities such as Jamie Oliver to provide advice to customers about meals, using the companys products and portraying the friendliness of its employees, sought to reaffirm and build the business relationship wi th the customer. It is through the introduction of all of these strategic changes, culminating with the development of a promotional campaign, which includes the use of household celebrities that Sainsburys has sought to reposition the brand and increase its competitive advantage over other market players. The intention of this new approach has therefore been to improve its brand image, incorporating its new low-price focus with an improved range and choice of products and services. The objective being to change the customers previously held perception of the business. Impact of the Strategic changes Having analysed and discussed the various improvements that have been introduced at Sainsburys since King became CEO, the question that remains is to assess how positive the impact of these strategic changes has proven for the business and in this respect an evaluation of subsequent results produces mixed results. As will be discovered from the following comments, not all of these are positive. In relation to the change in Sainsburys market share within the supermarket sector, although there has been some improvement in this area resulting from the changes made to the corporate strategy, it still remains in third position (figure 1). This is in spite of the fact that in the past two years Sainsburys has improved its market share of the industry by almost 1% (BBC News 2006). Figure .Market Share Comparison Source: BBC News (2008) What is equally apparent from the decade comparison is that, when judged against its two main competitors, even taking into account recent improvements, it is noticeable that Sainsburys has still lost significant ground, in the case of Tesco by over 12%. It therefore follows that, in order to narrow the gap still further, and indeed to re-secure its position as the second biggest competitor in the sector, Sainsburys will have to continue to develop its strategy in a manner that provides it with a level of competitive advantage that remains superior to that of its rivals. Another aspect to consider in evaluating the success of strategic changes made from 2004 onwards, is the extent to which the strategic changes have delivered on expectations and predictions made at the commencement of the term of the new management team. In part it is these predictions that were responsible for the failure of the takeover bids being made for the business at that time, as investors considered that, if delivered, the return on their investment was likely to be improved. In the CEOs report within the 2005 financial statement, King suggested that the business had embarked upon a three-year programme designed to grow sales by  £2.5 billion by the end of 2007/08 and return Sainsburys to sustainable growth in both sales and profitability.(Sainsburys,2005).The subsequent financial results (figure 2) show that, this has been achieved, if one views this improvement from the 2005 results and, furthermore, that the improvement has been continued in subsequent years and, up to the year end for 2009 at least, seems to be defying the impact of the recent economic and financial crisis. Figure . Sainsburys Turnover 2001-2009 Source: Sainsburys (2005 and 2009) This potential improvement can be measured in another way, namely the performance of the share price for the same period of time. Figure .Sainsburys-10 Year Share Price Source: http://markets.ft.com/ft/markets/interactiveChart.asp It is confirmed from this comparison that, from its lowly position when King was appointed, Sainsburys share performance improved dramatically until around the end of 2007, when a new bidder for the business was rumoured to be occurring (Peston,2007). At that stage its performance almost matched those of Tesco and Morrisons. However, since the 2007 bid was aborted the adverse share performance between Sainsburys and the others has widened considerably, meaning that shareholders value is now a little more than 15% better than it was five years ago. Future Focus and Strategies Since 2004 Sainsburys has adapted and embraced change to secure its survival and prosperity. In todays challenging trading conditions it continues to focus on capitalising on these changes by identifying consumer trends and forecasting where such trends are leading, always with the end goal of securing trading success (Wilson Gilligan, 2005). In this current economic crisis Sainsburys has shown it has managed not only to ride out the recession but to emerge from it a winner with like for like sales in the quarter to January 2010 increasing by 4.2% .Analysts in 2010 are now saying that Sainsburys strong performance shows just how far the supermarket chain has come since March 2004 under King and acknowledge that his strategic changes have broadened the brand appeal of Sainsburys and turned its future around (Hall, 2010). With its future plans to focus on estate development and to step up its on-line resources in both food and non food, the support of its suppliers will be crucial to sustain Sainsburys future growth. To this end in March 2010 a Sainsburys Trade Briefing will be held to give all suppliers the opportunity to ascertain how they can work in tandem with the retailer in the testing year ahead to everyones mutual benefit. Conclusion In conclusion therefore, whilst it would be correct to say that the strategic changes made following the appointment of King have, to some extent led to a reversal of its former fortunes, certainly in respect of the comparison of its own revenue streams, in other areas the improvements have not been as beneficial as investors and the management anticipated. Gains in market share sufficient for the business to recover second position have changed little between 2005 and 2008, which means that the brand image and its promotional message needs to be improved to encourage more customers to choose Sainsburys in preference to other competitors. Similarly the share performance indicates that the business has still not totally convinced the markets that it can sustain its recovery.

The Effects of Cloning on the Actual Clone Essay -- Biology Medical Bi

The Effects of Cloning on the Actual Clone Abstract An examination of the side-effects of cloning from the actual clone?s point of view. Focusing on the female cloned sheep Dolly (1995-2001) and her development under the unusual conditions in which she was raised that resulted in a premature euthenization. Not only is the process of conception brought into consideration, but also the living conditions and interactions between Dolly and other creatures is detailed. The resulting behavioral development of the sheep is then weighed and the death of Dolly attributed to not the cloning process, but the propaganda and attention given the actual sheep. The controversy surrounding the issue and ethics of cloning, centered on the large animal side, is also addressed here. Contributing factors as to why clones are not the exact carbon copies of their ancestors, as is expected, are also listed. Technical jargon is elaborated upon. _____________________________________________________ With all the controversy over the ethics of cloning, the focus of all the articles has been on ?playing God? and how it changes the meaning of life. The train of thought has been that animal cloning will lead to human cloning, and that human cloning is unethical and maybe even dangerous if the practice becomes common. But the common civilian doesn?t stop to think about the effects of cloning on the actual clone. No, most non-scientifically oriented people simply know some of the ethical arguments for or against cloning. Such points including that tampering with natural selection is wrong, or that cloned livestock would benefit the economy. Of course, the media most commonly focuses on the bad news and then the propaganda about cloning issues surfaces. Tak... ...cloned sheep that would be consumable by humans. (NISE 19997) This study is still being continued at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, and now Dolly has two younger cloned siblings that are contributing to the research along these lines. From the Clone?s Perspective 5 Many other animals such as lab mice have been successfully cloned as well. However, domestic animals like dogs and cats have not been produced through the cloning process. Rats as well have so far been a failing experiment. (Pence, 2004) From the Clone?s Perspective 6 References NISE. (1997 March). Hello Dolly. Scottish Sheep Shocker. 7-28-05: http://whyfiles.org/034clone/ Pence, G. (2004) Cloning After Dolly: Who?s still afraid? Lanham Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc. Roslin Institute. (1998 April). Progress AD (After Dolly). 7-28-05: http://www.roslin.ac.uk/public/cloning.html

A summary of Amazon’s business Essay

I’ve used Amazon in my books for over 10 years now since many companies, from startups and small businesses to large international businesses, can learn from their focus on the customer and the approach of using technology and analysis to improve results. It consistently outperforms other companies in its ACSI customer satisfaction rating too. I aim to keep the case study up-to-date for readers of the books and Smart Insights readers who may be interested. In it we look at Amazon’s background, revenue model and sources for the latest business results. I recommend anyone studying Amazon checks the latest Amazon revenue and business strategies from their SEC filings / Investor relations. The annual filings to give a great summary of eBay business and revenue models. A good summary of the latest business model initiatives is available in this Amazon annual report summary for 2011. For Q4, 2010: North America segment sales, representing the Company’s U.S. and Canadian sites, were $7.21 billion, up 45% from fourth quarter 2009. International segment sales, representing the Company’s U.K., German, Japanese, French, Chinese and new Italian sites, were $5.74 billion, up 26% from fourth quarter 2009. Excluding the unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 29%. Amazon has come a long way since it launched in 1995: From: and it’s offices†¦ to it’s current Seattle headquarters: Amazon performs exceptionally efficiently measured against revenue per visitor, which is one of the key measures for any commercial website, whether it’s a media site, search engine, social network or a transactional retailer or offers travel or financial services. Of course profit per user would be quite different due to the significantly lower costs of other .coms like Facebook and Google. Note: SEC is the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which is a government agency for which companies have to submit an open evaluation of their business models and marketplace conditions. Further Amazon case information This case study created by FaberNovel â€Å"Amazon.com: The Hidden Empire† one of five â€Å"Most Favorited† slideshows and one of the five â€Å"Most Popular Technology Presentations† of 2011. Recommended: Amazon Case Study Context Why a case study on Amazon? Surely everyone knows about who Amazon are and what they do? Yes, well that’s maybe true, but this case goes beyond the surface toreview some of the ‘insider secrets’ of Amazon’s success. Like eBay, Amazon.com was born in 1995. The name reflected the vision of Jeff Bezos, to produce a large scale phenomenon like the Amazon river. This ambition has proved justified since just 8 years later, Amazon passed the $5 billion sales mark – it took Wal-Mart 20 years to achieve this. By 2008 Amazon was a global brand with other 76 million active customers accounts and order fulfillment to more than 200 countries. Despite this volume of sales, at December 31, 2007 Amazon employed approximately 17,000 full-time and part-time employees. In September 2007, it launched Amazon MP3, a la carte DRM-free MP3 music downloads, which now includes over 3.1 million songs from more than 270,000 artists. Amazon Vision & strategy In their 2008 SEC filing, Amazon describe the vision of their business as to: â€Å"Relentlessly focus on customer experience by offering our customers low prices, convenience, and a wide selection of merchandise.† The vision is still to offer â€Å"Earth’s biggest selection and to be Earth’s most customer-centric company. Consider how these core marketing messages summarising the Amazon online value proposition are communicated both on-site and through offline communications. Of course, achieving customer loyalty and repeat purchases has been key to Amazon’s success. Many dot-coms failed because they succeeded in achieving awareness, but not loyalty. Amazon achieved both. In their SEC filing they stress how they seek to achieve this. They say: â€Å"We work to earn repeat purchases by providing easy-to-use functionality, fast and reliable fulfillment, timely customer service, feature rich content, and a trusted transaction environment. Key features of our websites include editorial and customer reviews;  manufacturer product information; Web pages tailored to individual preferences, such as recommendations and notifications; 1-Click ® technology; secure payment systems; image uploads; searching on our websites as well as the Internet; browsing; and the ability to view selected interior pages and citations, and search the entire contents of many of the books we offer with our â€Å"Look Inside the Book† and â€Å"Search Inside the Book† features. Our community of online customers also creates feature-rich content, including product reviews, online recommendation lists, wish lists, buying guides, and wedding and baby registries.† In practice, as is the practice for many online retailers, the lowest prices are for the most popular products, with less popular products commanding higher prices and a greater margin for Amazon. Free shipping offers are used to encourage increase in basket size since customers have to spend over a certain amount to receive free shipping. The level at which free-shipping is set is critical to profitability and Amazon has changed it as competition has changed and for promotional reasons. Amazon communicate the fulfillment promise in several ways including presentation of latest inventory availability information, delivery date estimates, and options for expedited delivery, as well as delivery shipment notifications and update facilities. This focus on customer has translated to excellence in service with the 2004 American Customer Satisfaction Index giving Amazon.com a score of 88 which was at the time, the highest customer satisfaction score ever recorded in any service industry, online or offline. Round (2004) notes that Amazon focuses on customer satisfaction metrics. Each site is closely monitored with standard service availability monitoring (for example, using Keynote or Mercury Interactive) site availability and download speed. Interestingly it also monitors per minute site revenue upper/lower bounds – Round describes an alarm system rather like a power plant where if revenue on a site falls below $10,000 per minute, alarms go off! There are also internal performance service-level-agreements for web services where T% of the time, different pages must return in X seconds. 2011 update on vision and importance of technology According to founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, technology is very important to supporting this focus on the customer. In their 2010 Annual Report (Amazon,  2011) he said: â€Å"Look inside a current textbook on software architecture, and you’ll find few patterns that we don’t apply at Amazon. We use high-performance transactions systems, complex rendering and object caching, workflow and queuing systems, business intelligence and data analytics, machine learning and pattern recognition, neural networks and probabilistic decision making, and a wide variety of other techniques.And while many of our systems are based on the latest in computer science research, this often hasn’t been sufficient: our architects and engineers have had to advance research in directions that no academic had yet taken. Many of the problems we face have no textbook solutions, and so we — happily — invent new approaches†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ All the effort we put into technology might not matter that much if we kept technology off to the side in some sort of R&D department, but we don’t take that approach. Technology infuses all of our teams, all of our processes, our decision-making, and our approach to innovation in each of our businesses. It is deeply integrated into everything we do†. The quote shows how applying new technologies is used to give Amazon a competitive edge. A good recent example of this is providing the infrastructure to deliver the Kindle â€Å"Whispersync† update to ebook readers. Amazon reported in 2011 that Amazon.com is now selling more Kindle books than paperback books. For every 100 paperback books Amazon has sold, the Company sold 115 Kindle books. Kindle apps are now available on Apple iOS, Android devices and on PCs as part of a â€Å"Buy Once, Read Anywhere† proposition which Amazon has developed. Amazon Customers Amazon defines what it refers to as three consumer sets customers, seller customers and developer customers. There are over 76 million customer accounts, but just 1.3 million active seller customers in it’s marketplaces and Amazon is seeking to increase this. Amazon is unusual for a retailer in that it identifies â€Å"developer customers† who use its Amazon Web Services, which provides access to technology infrastructure such as hosting that developers can use to develop their own web services. Members are also encouraged to join a loyalty programme, Amazon Prime, a fee-based membership program in which members receive free or discounted express shipping, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. Competition In its SEC (2005) filing Amazon describes the environment for our products and services as ‘intensely competitive’. It views its main current and potential competitors as: 1) physical-world retailers, catalog retailers, publishers, vendors, distributors and manufacturers of our products, many of which possess significant brand awareness, sales volume, and customer bases, and some of which currently sell, or may sell, products or services through the Internet, mail order, or direct marketing; (2) Other online E-commerce sites; (3) A number of indirect competitors, including media companies, Web portals, comparison shopping websites, and Web search engines, either directly or in collaboration with other retailers; and (4) Companies that provide e-commerce services, including website development; third-party fulfillment and customer-service. It believes the main competitive factors in its market segments include â€Å"selection, price, availability, convenience, information, discovery, brand recognition, personalized services, accessibility, customer service, reliability, speed of fulfillment, ease of use, and ability to adapt to changing conditions, as well as our customers’ overall experience and trust in transactions with us and facilitated by us on behalf of third-party sellers†. For services offered to business and individual sellers, additional competitive factors include the quality of our services and tools, their ability to generate sales for third parties we serve, and the speed of pe rformance for our services. From Auctions to marketplaces Amazon auctions (known as zShops) were launched in March 1999, in large part as a response to the success of eBay. They were promoted heavily from the home page, category pages and individual product pages. Despite this, a year after its launch it had only achieved a 3.2% share of the online auction compared to 58% for eBay and it only declined from this point. Today, competitive prices of products are available through third-party sellers in the ‘Amazon Marketplace’ which are integrated within the standard product listings. The strategy to offer such an auction facility was initially driven by the need to compete with eBay, but now the strategy has been adjusted such that Amazon describe it as part of the approach of low-pricing. Although it might be thought that Amazon would lose out on  enabling its merchants to sell products at lower prices, in fact Amazon makes greater margin on these sales since merchants are charged a commission on each sale and it is the merchant who bears the cost of storing inventory and fulfilling the product to customers. As with eBay, Amazon is just facilitating the exchange of bits and bytes between buyers and sellers without the need to distribute physical products. Amazon Media sales You may have noticed that unlike some retailers, Amazon displays relevant Google text ads and banner ads from brands. This seems in conflict with the strategy of focus on experience since it leads to a more cluttered store. However in 2011 Amazon revealed that worldwide media sales accounted for approximately 17% of revenue! Amazon marketing Amazon does not reveal much about its marketing approach in its annual reports, but there seems to be a focus on online marketing channels. Amazon (2011) states â€Å"we direct customers to our websites primarily through a number of targeted online marketing channels, such as our Associates program, sponsored search, portal advertising, email marketing campaigns, and other initiatives†. These other initiatives may include outdoor and TV advertising, but they are not mentioned specifically. In this statement they also highlight the importance of customer loyalty tools. They say: â€Å"while costs associated with free shipping are not included in marketing expense, we view free shipping offers and Amazon Prime as effective worldwide marketing tools, and intend to continue offering them indefinitely†. How ‘The Culture of Metrics’ started A common theme in Amazon’s development is the drive to use a measured approach to all aspects of the business, beyond the finance. Marcus (2004) describes an occasion at a corporate ‘boot-camp’ in January 1997 when Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos ‘saw the light’. ‘At Amazon, we will have a Culture of Metrics’, he said while addressing his senior staff. He went on to explain how web-based business gave Amazon an ‘amazing window into human behaviour’. Marcus says: ‘Gone were the fuzzy approximations of focus groups, the anecdotal fudging and smoke blowing from the marketing department. A company  like Amazon could (and did) record every move a visitor made, every last click and twitch of the mouse. As the data piled up into virtual heaps, hummocks and mountain ranges, you could draw all sorts of conclusions about their chimerical nature, the consumer. In this sense, Amazon was not merely a store, but an immense repository of fact s. All we needed were the right equations to plug into them’. James Marcus then goes on to give a fascinating insight into a breakout group discussion of how Amazon could better use measures to improve its performance. Marcus was in the Bezos group, brainstorming customer-centric metrics. Marcus (2004) summarises the dialogue, led by Bezos: â€Å"First, we figure out which things we’d like to measure on the site†, he said. â€Å"For example, let’s say we want a metric for customer enjoyment. How could we calculate that?† â€Å"There was silence. Then somebody ventured: â€Å"How much time each customer spends on the site?† â€Å"Not specific enough†, Jeff said. â€Å"How about the average number of minutes each customer spends on the site per session† someone else suggested. â€Å"If that goes up, they’re having a blast†. â€Å"But how do we factor in purchase?† I [Marcus] said feeling proud of myself. â€Å"Is that a measure of enjoyment†? â€Å"I think we need to consider frequency of visits, too†, said a dark-haired woman I didn’t recognise. â€Å"Lot of folks are still accessing the web with those creepy-crawly modems. Four short visits from them might be just as good as one visit from a guy with a T-1. Maybe better’. â€Å"Good point†, Jeff said. â€Å"And anyway, enjoyment is just the start. In the end, we should be measuring customer ecstasy† It is interesting that Amazon was having this debate in about the elements of RFM analysis (described in Chapter 6 of Internet Marketing), 1997, after already having achieved $16 million of revenue in the previous year. Of course, this is a miniscule amount compared with today’s billions of dollar turnover. The important point was that this was the start of a focus on metrics which can be seen through the description of Matt Pounds work later in this case study. From human to software-based recommendations Amazon has developed internal tools to support this ‘Culture of Metrics’.  Marcus (2004) describes how the ‘Creator Metrics’ tool shows content creators how well their product listings and product copy are working. For each content editor such as Marcus, it retrieves all recently posted documents including articles, interviews, booklists and features. For each one it then gives a conversion rate to sale plus the number of page views, adds (added to basket) and repels (content requested, but the back button then used). In time, the work of editorial reviewers such as Marcus was marginalised since Amazon found that the majority of visitors used the search tools rather than read editorial and they responded to the personalised recommendations as the matching technology improved (Marcus likens early recommendations techniques to ‘going shopping with the village idiot’). Experimentation and testing at Amazon The ‘Culture of Metrics’ also led to a test-driven approach to improving results at Amazon. Matt Round, speaking at E-metrics 2004 when he was director of personalisation at Amazon describes the philosophy as ‘Data Trumps Intuitions’. He explained how Amazon used to have a lot of arguments about which content and promotion should go on the all important home page or category pages. He described how every category VP wanted top-center and how the Friday meetings about placements for next week were getting ‘too long, too loud, and lacked performance data’. But today ‘automation replaces intuitions’ and real-time experimentation tests are always run to answer these questions since actual consumer behaviour is the best way to decide upon tactics. Marcus (2004) also notes that Amazon has a culture of experiments of which A/B tests are key components. Examples where A/B tests are used include new home page design, moving features around the page, different algorithms for recommendations, changing search relevance rankings. These involve testing a new treatment against a previous control for a limited time of a few days or a week. The system will randomly show one or more treatments to visitors and measure a range of parameters such as units sold and revenue by category (and total), session time, session length, etc. The new features will usually be launched if the desired metrics are statistically significantly better. Statistical tests are a challenge though as distributions are not normal (they have a large mass at zero for example of no purchase) There are other challenges since multiple  A/B tests are running every day and A/B tests may overlap and so conflict. There are also longer-term effects where some features are ‘cool’ for the first two weeks and the opposite effect where changing navigation may degrade performance temporarily. Amazon also finds that as its users evolve in their online experience the way they act online has changed. This means that Amazon has to constantly test and evolve its features. Amazon.com Technology It follows that the Amazon technology infrastructure must readily support this culture of experimentation and this can be difficult to achieved with standardised content management. Amazon has achieved its competitive advantage through developing its technology internally and with a significant investment in this which may not be available to other organisations without the right focus on the online channels. As Amazon explains in SEC (2005) ‘using primarily our own proprietary technologies, as well as technology licensed from third parties, we have implemented numerous features and functionality that simplify and improve the customer shopping experience, enable third parties to sell on our platform, and facilitate our fulfillment and customer service operations. Our current strategy is to focus our development efforts on continuous innovation by creating and enhancing the specialized, proprietary software that is unique to our business, and to license or acquire commercially-developed technology for other applications where available and appropriate. We continually invest in several areas of technology, including our seller platform; A9.com, our wholly-owned subsidiary focused on search technology on www.A9.com and other Amazon sites; web services; and digital initiatives.’ Round (2004) describes the technology approach as ‘distributed development and deployment’. Pages such as the home page have a number of content ‘pods’ or ‘slots’ which call web services for features. This makes it relatively easy to change the content in these pods and even change the location of the pods on-screen. Amazon uses a flowable or fluid page design unlike many sites which enables it to make the most of real-estate on-screen. Technology also supports more standard e-retail facilities. SEC (2005) states: ‘We use a set of applications for accepting and validating customer orders, placing and tracking orders with suppliers, managing and assigning inventory to customer  orders, and ensuring proper shipment of products to customers. Our transaction-processing systems handle millions of items, a number of different status inquiries, multiple shipping addresses, gift-wrapping requests, and multiple shipment methods. These systems allow the customer to choose whether to receive single or several shipments based on availability and to track the progress of each order. These applications also manage the process of accepting, authorizing, and charging customer credit cards.’ Data Driven Automation Round (2004) said that ‘Data is king at Amazon’. He gave many examples of data driven automation including customer channel preferences; managing the way content is displayed to different user types such as new releases and top-sellers, merchandising and recommendation (showing related products and promotions) and also advertising through paid search (automatic ad generation and bidding). The automated search advertising and bidding system for paid search has had a big impact at Amazon. Sponsored links initially done by humans, but this was unsustainable due to range of products at Amazon. The automated programme generates keywords, writes ad creative, determines best landing page, manages bids, measure conversion rates, profit per converted visitor and updates bids. Again the problem of volume is there, Matt Round described how the book ‘How to Make Love Like a Porn Star’ by Jenna Jameson received tens of thousands of clicks from pornography-related searches, but few actually purchased the book. So the update cycle must be quick to avoid large losses. There is also an automated email measurement and optimization system. The campaign calendar used to be manually managed with relatively weak measurement and it was costly to schedule and use. A new system: Automatically optimizes content to improve customer experience Avoids sending an e-mail campaign that has low clickthrough or high unsubscribe rate Includes inbox management (avoid sending multiple emails/week) Has growing library of automated email programs covering new releases and recommendations But there are challenges if promotions are too successful if inventory isn’t available. Your Recommendations Customers Who Bought X†¦, also bought Y is Amazon’s signature feature. Round  (2004) describes how Amazon relies on acquiring and then crunching a massive amount of data. Every purchase, every page viewed and every search is recorded. So there are now to new version, customers who shopped for X also shopped for†¦ and Customers who searched for X also bought†¦ They also have a system codenamed ‘Goldbox’ which is a cross-sell and awareness raising tool. Items are discounted to encourage purchases in new categories! I have a more detailed article on Amazon personalisation / recommendation system He also describes the challenge of techniques for sifting patterns from noise (sensitivity filtering) and clothing and toy catalogues change frequently so recommendations become out of date. The main challenges though are the massive data size arising from millions of customers, millions of items and recommendations made in real time. Amazon Partnership strategy As Amazon grew, its share price growth enabled partnership or acquisition with a range of companies in different sectors. Marcus (2004) describes how Amazon partnered with Drugstore.com (pharmacy), Living.com (furniture), Pets.com (pet supplies), Wineshopper.com (wines), HomeGrocer.com (groceries), Sothebys.com (auctions) and Kozmo.com (urban home delivery). In most cases, Amazon purchased an equity stake in these partners, so that it would share in their prosperity. It also charged them fees for placements on the Amazon site to promote and drive traffic to their sites. Similarly, Amazon charged publishers for prime-position to promote books on its site which caused an initial hue-and-cry, but this abated when it was realised that paying for prominent placements was widespread in traditional booksellers and supermarkets. Many of these new online companies failed in 1999 and 2000, but Amazon had covered the potential for growth and was not pulled down by these partners, even though for some such as Pets.com it had an investment of 50%. Analysts sometimes refer to ‘Amazoning a sector’ meaning that one company becomes dominant in an online sector such as book retail such that it becomes very difficult for others to achieve market share. In addition to developing, communicating and delivering a very strong proposition, Amazon has been able to consolidate its strength in different sectors through its partnership arrangements and through using technology to facilitate product promotion and distribution via these partnerships. The Amazon retail platform enables other retailers to sell products online using  the Amazon user interface and infrastructure through their ‘Syndicated Stores’ programme. For example, in the UK, Waterstones (www.waterstones.co.uk) is one of the largest traditional bookstores. It found competition with online so expensive and challenging, that eventually it entered a partnership arrangement where Amazon markets and distributes its books online in return for a commission online. Similarly, in the US, Borders a large book retailer uses the Amazon merchant platform for distributing its products. Toy retailer Toys R’ Us have a similar arrangement. Such partnerships help Amazon extends its reach into the customer-base of other suppliers, and of course, customers who buy in one category such as books can be encouraged to purchase into other areas such as clothing or electronics. Another form of partnership referred to above is the Amazon Marketplace which enables Amazon customers and other retailers to sell their new and used books and other goods alongside the regular retail listings. A similar partnership approach is the Amazon ‘Merchants@’ program which enables third party merchants (typically larger than those who sell via the Amazon Marketplace) to sell their products via Amazon. Amazon earn fees either through fixed fees or sales commissions per-unit. This arrangement can help customers who get a wider choice of products from a range of suppliers with the convenience of purchasing them through a single checkout process. Finally, Amazon has also facilitated formation of partnerships with smaller companies through its affiliates programme. Internet legend records that Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon was chatting to someone at a cocktail party who wanted to sell books about divorce via her web site. Subsequently, Amazon.com launched its Associates Program in July 1996 and it is still going strong. Googling http://www.google.com/search?q=www.amazon.com+-site%3Awww.amazon.com for sites that link to the US site, shows over 4 million pages, many of which will be affiliates. Amazon does not use an affiliate network which would take commissions from sale, but thanks to the strength of its brand has developed its own affiliate programme. Amazon has created a tiered performance-based incentives to encourage affiliates to sell more Amazon products. Amazon Marketing communications In their SEC filings Amazon state that the aims of their communications  strategy are (unsurprisingly) to: Increase customer traffic to our websites Create awareness of our products and services Promote repeat purchases Develop incremental product and service revenue opportunities Strengthen and broaden the Amazon.com brand name. Amazon also believe that their most effective marketing communications are a consequence of their focus on continuously improving the customer experience. This then creates word-of-mouth promotion which is effective in acquiring new customers and may also encourage repeat customer visits. As well as this Marcus (2004) describes how Amazon used the personalisation enabled through technology to reach out to a difficult to reach market which Bezos originally called ‘the hard middle’. Bezos’s view was that it was easy to reach 10 people (you called them on the phone) or the ten million people who bought the most popular products (you placed a superbowl ad), but more difficult to reach those in between. The search facilities in the search engine and on the Amazon site, together with its product recommendation features meant that Amazon could connect its products with the interests of these people. Online advertising techniques include paid search marketing, interactive ads on portals, e-mail campaigns and search engine optimisation. These are automated as far as possible as described earlier in the case study. As previously mentioned, the affiliate programme is also important in driving visitors to Amazon and Amazon offers a wide range of methods of linking to its site to help improve conversion. For example, affiliates can use straight text links leading direct to a product page and they also offer a range of dynamic banners which feature different content such as books about Internet marketing or a search box.Amazon also use cooperative advertising arrangements, better known as ‘contra-deals’ with some vendors and other third parties. For example, a print advertisement in 2005 for a particular product such as a wireless router with a free wireless laptop card promotion will feature a specific Amazon URL in the ad. In product fulfilment packs, Amazon may include a leaflet for a non-competing online company such as Figleaves.com (lingerie) or Expedia (travel). In return, Amazon leaflets may be included in customer communications from the partner brands. Our Associates program directs customers to our websites by enabling independent websites to make millions of products available to their  audiences with fulfillment performed by us or third parties. We pay commissions to hundreds of thousands of participants in our Associates program when their customer referrals result in product sales. In addition, we offer everyday free shipping options worldwide and recently announced Amazon.com Prime in the U.S., our first membership program in which members receive free two-day shipping and discounted overnight shipping. Although marketing expenses do not include the costs of our free shipping or promotional offers, we view such offers as effective marketing tools. Marcus, J. (2004) Amazonia. Five years at the epicentre of the dot-com juggernaut, The New Press, New York, NY. Round, M. (2004) Presentation to E-metrics, London, May 2005. www.emetrics.org.

Gutenberg’s Press and the Transition from Medieval to Modern

There are many ideas and concepts that facilitated the transition from the Medieval Era to a more modern, Renaissance society, but it can be argued that Johann Gutenberg's invention of the printing press was the most important factor to this change in Europe. The creation of the press was no easy task for Gutenberg; he was faced with many obstacles. However, once created, the press benefited people around the world for centuries and continues to be a fundamental part of our society today. Before the invention of the printing press, books were extremely expensive, limiting education to the very wealthy. Because only the upper class could afford to purchase books, education was a means of separating the aristocracy from the lower classes. It was nearly impossible for the less fortunate to move up in society since they could not educate themselves. The reason books were so pricey was due to the methods employed to create each page individually. For a scribe to copy an entire novel by hand would take much patience and many hours. A common method of producing copies was for one man to read the original word by word, and a group of scribes would write each word as the reader said them. â€Å"By this method,† describes John Fontana in his work Mankind's Greatest Invention, â€Å"one manuscript served as the source of reproduction for many copies when the scribes finished writing the last of the reader's orally presented words† (13). Not only was this time consuming, but the more copies that were made, the more errors were made. Eventually, a method of creating copies without such a high margin of error came about. People would hand carve blocks of wood with raised letters and cover the blocks with ink. Then they would place a sheet of paper on the block to make a copy. To make the process even more difficult, they had to carve the letters and words backwards so they would print correctly, and they had to make these letters look normal when reversed. Albert Kapr, in his book Johann Gutenberg: The Man and his Invention, describes how â€Å"a calligrapher had first to write out this text, which was traced as a mirror-image reversal on to a planed limewood plank and then cut out with a knife in such a way that the lettering was left as a raised surface† (21). This method is called xylography, and while it was an improvement in that it reduced mistakes, carving a block of wood for each page to be printed was even more time consuming than writing the words by hand, and books remained as expensive as ever. Johann Gensfleisch Gutenberg, a goldsmith from Mainz, Germany, wanted to change all this. His idea was to replace the wood blocks with separate letters made of metal. One would be able to move the letters around to make words and sentences, and then reuse them. â€Å"The key to this new method was not as is generally believed, the discovery of the value of movable type, for movable letters had been known and used for centuries,† explains Fontana. â€Å"It was the mechanism for making the types† (28). This type of printing press was, in fact, already being used in China, but the technology to create such a machine was yet to be discovered in Europe. In working to build this machine, Gutenberg was faced with obstacle after obstacle. Just when he would think he might have mastered it, he would encounter another problem to solve. â€Å"The invention of typography was not,† noted Theo DeVinne in his work The Invention of Printing, â€Å"the result of a happy thought or of a flash of inspiration. It was not born in a day . . . it was thought out and wrought out† (376). To begin with, he had two main concerns: finding a device that would keep the letters in place, and making a press that would print clearly. Gutenberg soon came up with a solution to the first of the two issues. He paid a carpenter for the use of his winepress, so as to have â€Å"a suitable bed for a page of metal letters to rest on,† and arranged the letters on one side of it (Fontana 22). He wanted to come up with a frame to hold the paper; then when one was ready to print, they could twist a screw to press the paper up against the letters. The letters were to be created by pouring melted metal into a mold. Then Gutenberg came across several more problems. The first was the question of how to make all of the letters exactly the same thickness so that when they were pressed against the paper, they would print evenly. Also, he needed a solution for putting narrow letters on narrow metal bases and wide letters on wide bases. Using the same base for all letters would not only be impractical in that it would waste space, it would also make the words look uneven, with different sized spaces between letters. Regardless of the width of the character, each metal piece had to be the same height so the lines would not be crooked. DeVinne made the point that â€Å"if the types of one character, as of the letter a, should be made the merest trifle larger or smaller than its fellows of the same font, all the types, when composed, will show the consequences of the defect† (52). Gutenberg came up with two brilliant ideas to solve the problems. In order to make all of the letters the same thickness, he made the mold the desired height and added extensions on the sides to catch any overflowing metal. That way he could make sure that they would not be too thick, and as long as he poured metal to the top, they would not be too thin. Once dried, â€Å"this extra piece at the bottom of the metal letters opposite to the part the prints called the face, was easily broken off and smoothed before it was used for the printed page† (Fontana 30). As for making the letters different widths, he had to make an adjustable mold. He first experimented using wood, and once perfected, he made one out of metal. He came up with a mold that consisted of two L-shaped pieces that could fit together, and slide back and forth to make the enclosed area larger or smaller. Here Gutenberg encountered further setbacks. The lead he had been using to make the letters was too soft-it was printing unevenly after just a few pages had been printed. Gutenberg solved the problem of making the typeface hard enough to resist pressure by mixing the lead with parts of tin and a substance that acted like antimony,† hardening the metal and preventing expansion or shrinkage while the metal dried (Fontana 30). It also took a lot of searching to find ink that was the right consistency to leave a thin layer on paper. Should it be too thin, it would spread through the paper, and should it be too thick, it would clump and appear uneven. Upon fixing these problems, Gutenberg had come up with his first working printing press. With it, he printed copies of the first, second, and third editions of the Donatus. However, few people would purchase the pages because many considered his invention immoral, as they believed hand-written script to be a sacred art. Also, there were still problems with the press. The type face varied too much-the lines would go from thin to thick and back to thin again, and the ink did not stick to paper well. DeVinne tells us that â€Å"judged by modern standards, the types are ungraceful; the text letters are too dense and black, and the capitals are of rude form, obscure, and too small for the text† (421). The press itself took a lot of strength, especially when making multiple copies. All of these parts needed improvement, so Gutenberg got to work. He created more defined molds and stronger metal letters, which allowed for thinner printed lines. In hopes of eventually printing the Bible, Gutenberg worked to create letters that would, when placed together, resemble the handwriting of scribes. It was a difficult task, but he managed to finalize pages of beautiful lettering, each having two columns. The only problem was that only thirty-six lines would fit on a page, and Gutenberg wanted to fit forty-two lines. Otherwise, the amount of pages to print the Bible would be much greater and more costly. â€Å"If he had been only an ordinary dreamer about great inventions,† believes DeVinne, â€Å"he would have abandoned an enterprise so hedged in with mechanical and financial difficulties† (416). It was around this time that Gutenberg met John Fust, who offered to help finance his project if they could form a partnership. Gutenberg agreed as he was greatly in need of a means of paying for new equipment to make a forty-two-page press. DeVinne reports that these â€Å"small types were unique; they were never used, so far as we know for any other work† (406). This was most likely Gutenberg's greatest mistake, because when Fust did not get a quick return on his money, he sued Gutenberg for almost all of his equipment, including the new printing press. This was a set back from which Gutenberg never recovered, and though his invention greatly benefited many, he died a poor man. The printing press made a dramatic impact on European culture in many ways. One important way that it affected society was to bring about a higher level of individualism than had been before experienced. As Marshall McLuhan noted in his book The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographical Man, â€Å"the portability of the book, much like that of easel-painting, added much to the new cult of individualism† (206). Because there was no longer the need to be a part of a University or monastery in order to have access to books and education, people began spending more and more time on their own, teaching themselves, and therefore, becoming more and more independent. The distribution of a highly increased number of books due to the invention of the press also facilitated individualistic ideas by giving more people the opportunity to read, forcing them to interpret information themselves. In an oral culture, one is taught by the verbal explanations of others, allowing little opportunity for personal interpretation or for discovering oneself through thought and analysis of material, as is possible in a written culture. â€Å"To the oral man the literal is inclusive, contains all possible meanings and levels,† and through the introspection demanded by this increase in reading, individualism soared (McLuhan 111). With this increase in individualism came much higher levels of education and literacy. McLuhan, in discussing the advantages the press gave to learning, said â€Å"this very natural inclination towards accessibility and portability went hand in hand with greatly increased reading speeds which were possible with uniform and repeatable type† (207). Because the printing press used the same mold for multiple copies of the same letter, it was much less difficult to read than when it was necessary to accustom oneself with each scribe's handwriting with which one was encountered. The significant decrease in the price of books that occurred in conjunction with the printing press paved the way for the education and rise of a new middle class. â€Å"The book became a source of productive energy for a new breed of merchants and entrepreneurs,† and where before these people had been held back from penetrating the higher levels of society, they could now afford to educate themselves (Kapr 20). This education led to a cycle that allowed the middle class to make more money, which allowed them to purchase even more books and further educate themselves. While this new class of people did not have the social status of the aristocracy, Wyndham Lewis stated that â€Å"birth or training, in this age that has been called that of bastards and adventurers, never mattered less† (qtd. in McLuhan 119). Another important change that the invention of the printing press brought about was the new concept of mass production. Before the press, nobody had thought of the idea of creating something that could produce multiple copies of anything, so multiple copies of pages were just the first of endless possibilities. â€Å"Just as print was the first mass-produced thing, so it was the first uniform and repeatable commodity,† and the realization that exact duplicates could be made of products other than books was one that has been acted on for centuries to bring us mass-production as we know it today (McLuhan 125). Clearly Gutenberg's invention of the printing press with movable type was a turning point in history from medieval to modern times. While its creation took many practice runs and a lot of trial-and-error, Gutenberg's incredible patience and determination paid off and helped to build the new culture of the Renaissance. The press was not just a means of copying the written page, but a vehicle for the concept of individualism, the rise of education and the new middle class, and an introduction to mass production. Gutenberg’s Press and the Transition from Medieval to Modern There are many ideas and concepts that facilitated the transition from the Medieval Era to a more modern, Renaissance society, but it can be argued that Johann Gutenberg's invention of the printing press was the most important factor to this change in Europe. The creation of the press was no easy task for Gutenberg; he was faced with many obstacles. However, once created, the press benefited people around the world for centuries and continues to be a fundamental part of our society today. Before the invention of the printing press, books were extremely expensive, limiting education to the very wealthy. Because only the upper class could afford to purchase books, education was a means of separating the aristocracy from the lower classes. It was nearly impossible for the less fortunate to move up in society since they could not educate themselves. The reason books were so pricey was due to the methods employed to create each page individually. For a scribe to copy an entire novel by hand would take much patience and many hours. A common method of producing copies was for one man to read the original word by word, and a group of scribes would write each word as the reader said them. â€Å"By this method,† describes John Fontana in his work Mankind's Greatest Invention, â€Å"one manuscript served as the source of reproduction for many copies when the scribes finished writing the last of the reader's orally presented words† (13). Not only was this time consuming, but the more copies that were made, the more errors were made. Eventually, a method of creating copies without such a high margin of error came about. People would hand carve blocks of wood with raised letters and cover the blocks with ink. Then they would place a sheet of paper on the block to make a copy. To make the process even more difficult, they had to carve the letters and words backwards so they would print correctly, and they had to make these letters look normal when reversed. Albert Kapr, in his book Johann Gutenberg: The Man and his Invention, describes how â€Å"a calligrapher had first to write out this text, which was traced as a mirror-image reversal on to a planed limewood plank and then cut out with a knife in such a way that the lettering was left as a raised surface† (21). This method is called xylography, and while it was an improvement in that it reduced mistakes, carving a block of wood for each page to be printed was even more time consuming than writing the words by hand, and books remained as expensive as ever. Johann Gensfleisch Gutenberg, a goldsmith from Mainz, Germany, wanted to change all this. His idea was to replace the wood blocks with separate letters made of metal. One would be able to move the letters around to make words and sentences, and then reuse them. â€Å"The key to this new method was not as is generally believed, the discovery of the value of movable type, for movable letters had been known and used for centuries,† explains Fontana. â€Å"It was the mechanism for making the types† (28). This type of printing press was, in fact, already being used in China, but the technology to create such a machine was yet to be discovered in Europe. In working to build this machine, Gutenberg was faced with obstacle after obstacle. Just when he would think he might have mastered it, he would encounter another problem to solve. â€Å"The invention of typography was not,† noted Theo DeVinne in his work The Invention of Printing, â€Å"the result of a happy thought or of a flash of inspiration. It was not born in a day . . . it was thought out and wrought out† (376). To begin with, he had two main concerns: finding a device that would keep the letters in place, and making a press that would print clearly. Gutenberg soon came up with a solution to the first of the two issues. He paid a carpenter for the use of his winepress, so as to have â€Å"a suitable bed for a page of metal letters to rest on,† and arranged the letters on one side of it (Fontana 22). He wanted to come up with a frame to hold the paper; then when one was ready to print, they could twist a screw to press the paper up against the letters. The letters were to be created by pouring melted metal into a mold. Then Gutenberg came across several more problems. The first was the question of how to make all of the letters exactly the same thickness so that when they were pressed against the paper, they would print evenly. Also, he needed a solution for putting narrow letters on narrow metal bases and wide letters on wide bases. Using the same base for all letters would not only be impractical in that it would waste space, it would also make the words look uneven, with different sized spaces between letters. Regardless of the width of the character, each metal piece had to be the same height so the lines would not be crooked. DeVinne made the point that â€Å"if the types of one character, as of the letter a, should be made the merest trifle larger or smaller than its fellows of the same font, all the types, when composed, will show the consequences of the defect† (52). Gutenberg came up with two brilliant ideas to solve the problems. In order to make all of the letters the same thickness, he made the mold the desired height and added extensions on the sides to catch any overflowing metal. That way he could make sure that they would not be too thick, and as long as he poured metal to the top, they would not be too thin. Once dried, â€Å"this extra piece at the bottom of the metal letters opposite to the part the prints called the face, was easily broken off and smoothed before it was used for the printed page† (Fontana 30). As for making the letters different widths, he had to make an adjustable mold. He first experimented using wood, and once perfected, he made one out of metal. He came up with a mold that consisted of two L-shaped pieces that could fit together, and slide back and forth to make the enclosed area larger or smaller. Here Gutenberg encountered further setbacks. The lead he had been using to make the letters was too soft-it was printing unevenly after just a few pages had been printed. Gutenberg solved the problem of making the typeface hard enough to resist pressure by mixing the lead with parts of tin and a substance that acted like antimony,† hardening the metal and preventing expansion or shrinkage while the metal dried (Fontana 30). It also took a lot of searching to find ink that was the right consistency to leave a thin layer on paper. Should it be too thin, it would spread through the paper, and should it be too thick, it would clump and appear uneven. Upon fixing these problems, Gutenberg had come up with his first working printing press. With it, he printed copies of the first, second, and third editions of the Donatus. However, few people would purchase the pages because many considered his invention immoral, as they believed hand-written script to be a sacred art. Also, there were still problems with the press. The type face varied too much-the lines would go from thin to thick and back to thin again, and the ink did not stick to paper well. DeVinne tells us that â€Å"judged by modern standards, the types are ungraceful; the text letters are too dense and black, and the capitals are of rude form, obscure, and too small for the text† (421). The press itself took a lot of strength, especially when making multiple copies. All of these parts needed improvement, so Gutenberg got to work. He created more defined molds and stronger metal letters, which allowed for thinner printed lines. In hopes of eventually printing the Bible, Gutenberg worked to create letters that would, when placed together, resemble the handwriting of scribes. It was a difficult task, but he managed to finalize pages of beautiful lettering, each having two columns. The only problem was that only thirty-six lines would fit on a page, and Gutenberg wanted to fit forty-two lines. Otherwise, the amount of pages to print the Bible would be much greater and more costly. â€Å"If he had been only an ordinary dreamer about great inventions,† believes DeVinne, â€Å"he would have abandoned an enterprise so hedged in with mechanical and financial difficulties† (416). It was around this time that Gutenberg met John Fust, who offered to help finance his project if they could form a partnership. Gutenberg agreed as he was greatly in need of a means of paying for new equipment to make a forty-two-page press. DeVinne reports that these â€Å"small types were unique; they were never used, so far as we know for any other work† (406). This was most likely Gutenberg's greatest mistake, because when Fust did not get a quick return on his money, he sued Gutenberg for almost all of his equipment, including the new printing press. This was a set back from which Gutenberg never recovered, and though his invention greatly benefited many, he died a poor man. The printing press made a dramatic impact on European culture in many ways. One important way that it affected society was to bring about a higher level of individualism than had been before experienced. As Marshall McLuhan noted in his book The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographical Man, â€Å"the portability of the book, much like that of easel-painting, added much to the new cult of individualism† (206). Because there was no longer the need to be a part of a University or monastery in order to have access to books and education, people began spending more and more time on their own, teaching themselves, and therefore, becoming more and more independent. The distribution of a highly increased number of books due to the invention of the press also facilitated individualistic ideas by giving more people the opportunity to read, forcing them to interpret information themselves. In an oral culture, one is taught by the verbal explanations of others, allowing little opportunity for personal interpretation or for discovering oneself through thought and analysis of material, as is possible in a written culture. â€Å"To the oral man the literal is inclusive, contains all possible meanings and levels,† and through the introspection demanded by this increase in reading, individualism soared (McLuhan 111). With this increase in individualism came much higher levels of education and literacy. McLuhan, in discussing the advantages the press gave to learning, said â€Å"this very natural inclination towards accessibility and portability went hand in hand with greatly increased reading speeds which were possible with uniform and repeatable type† (207). Because the printing press used the same mold for multiple copies of the same letter, it was much less difficult to read than when it was necessary to accustom oneself with each scribe's handwriting with which one was encountered. The significant decrease in the price of books that occurred in conjunction with the printing press paved the way for the education and rise of a new middle class. â€Å"The book became a source of productive energy for a new breed of merchants and entrepreneurs,† and where before these people had been held back from penetrating the higher levels of society, they could now afford to educate themselves (Kapr 20). This education led to a cycle that allowed the middle class to make more money, which allowed them to purchase even more books and further educate themselves. While this new class of people did not have the social status of the aristocracy, Wyndham Lewis stated that â€Å"birth or training, in this age that has been called that of bastards and adventurers, never mattered less† (qtd. in McLuhan 119). Another important change that the invention of the printing press brought about was the new concept of mass production. Before the press, nobody had thought of the idea of creating something that could produce multiple copies of anything, so multiple copies of pages were just the first of endless possibilities. â€Å"Just as print was the first mass-produced thing, so it was the first uniform and repeatable commodity,† and the realization that exact duplicates could be made of products other than books was one that has been acted on for centuries to bring us mass-production as we know it today (McLuhan 125). Clearly Gutenberg's invention of the printing press with movable type was a turning point in history from medieval to modern times. While its creation took many practice runs and a lot of trial-and-error, Gutenberg's incredible patience and determination paid off and helped to build the new culture of the Renaissance. The press was not just a means of copying the written page, but a vehicle for the concept of individualism, the rise of education and the new middle class, and an introduction to mass production.