Thursday, November 28, 2019

10 Fun Facts About UPenn

1. It is a tradition to throw toast on the field during all home football games.The cue to unleash the bread comes on the line, â€Å"Here’s a toast to dear old Penn† in a school fight song. Supposedly the toast tradition dates back to prohibition; when the school banned alcohol - the students fought back by taking the toast cue a bit more literally.In a good season, says Franklin Field supervisor Tony Overend, 20,000 to 30,000 pieces of toast will be thrown per game. A â€Å"toast zamboni† picks up the debris at the end of the day. 2. It is a freshman myth to never cross the compass that is embedded into the center of Locust Walk or else you will fail your first set of midterms. Rumor has it, a fraternity came up with the myth as a conversation starter with freshmen girls. 3. Enjoy your computer? Well you can thank UPenn! The first general-purpose electronic computer (ENIAC) was born in 1946 at theMoore School of Electrical Engineering. 4. The Penn Relays hosted every year is the largest and oldest track and field event in the United States - it started in 1895. It attracts hundreds of participants annually. 5. From 1756 to 1898, UPenns motto readSine Moribus Vanae until someonepointed out that the motto could be translated as Loose women without morals,The current motto isLeges sine moribus vanae,or Laws without morals are in vain. 6. Jon Huntsman Jr., whose family infamously built the Wharton School’s Huntsman Hall, served as the Governor of Utah. 7. From 1930 to 1966, there were a series of Rowbottom riots—a tradition in which students conducted mischief including window smashing and raiding panties from women’s dorms. 8. Donald Trump, Tory Burch, Noam Chomsky, John Legend, and the current president of Harvard are all Penn alumni. 9. In 2009, President Amy Gutmann’s salary was $1.3 million - yeesh! 10. UPennsponsoredbiological warfare research in the 1960s, which caused student petitioning. If you went to UPenn for college or grad school,create an Profileand add your essays and advice to get paid every time someone visits your profile. Make sure to include some UPenn-specific advice! If youre interested in applying to UPenn, sign up now to see all of the admitted students that already got in!

Sunday, November 24, 2019

How To Redesign Your Website Like CoSchedule In 10+ Easy Steps

How To Redesign Your Website Like In 10+ Easy Steps Alright. So you’re about to start a huge REDESIGN of your company’s website. That’s no small task, and quite franklyit’s intimidating. 301 redirects, copy, coding, A/B tests, wireframes, sitemaps, planning! And that’s just the obvious ones. This summer, ’s product marketing team made the bold move to update our entire website. And while researching and learning from others was a huge help, the resources out there were pretty minimal (especially for small teams) like us. So, we decided to recap our experiences and share some life lessons. Here it goes: This is how two people (in-house) built a website from scratch in 4 months. The Process: 1. The Five Day Brainstorm Sprint There’s an awesome book called Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days. If you haven’t read it, here’s a great starting point: And it’s basically what we did. In a week’s time, we created three very different storylines with accompanying Photoshop designs. We forced ourselves to create a story, design it, and present it to leadership every other day. It was scrappy and tad intense, but it got us where we needed to go†¦ We started with anything and everything. Pushing outrageous ideas quickly- to help  us flesh out ideas, build off of them, and create the official story. From a  comic book feel with super heroes to little robots guiding marketers along their journey, each idea brought us a little closer to the final story. 2. Plot Out Your Sitemap. Put a name to every page on your new website. It doesn’t have to be overly complex, Megan (product marketing’s awesome UX/UI designer) built one in less than an hour. And with a high level view of your new site, you’ll be able to  build a strong path for conversions and a strong storyline to guide them along the way. 3. Write Your Copy Before  Design. Before a single wireframe was created, every line of copy was written for EVERY page. We spent a good three weeks creating skimmable  content and placing a major emphasis on good headlines for each talking point. Recommendation: Write a minimum of 25 headlines per talking point and (if you can), test and iterate on them with a team member. ’s Headline Analyzer is a great tool for writing headlines . Use the â€Å"but why† process to find your users WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). Before a single word is written,  ask yourself this question to get to the real benefits or the real reason why anyone would care to read x blog, page, email, etc. If you haven’t already, watch Simon Sinek’s TED talk on Why ↠ it’s a great starting point to building a story your users will care about. 4. Build Wireframes For Your Designers Sanity Wireframes are the skeleton to design AND if you want your designer to still love you at the end of a project, DON’T skip this. Wireframes are a lot like sitemaps and are a simplistic view of a page layout. They help ensure that when designing really starts, you aren’t caught off guard by layouts and can move forward quickly. 5. Start With Photoshop, Then Code. Create high fidelity designs  of each page. Similar to writing copy for every page BEFORE design, high fidelity design should be done BEFORE code. Again, it’s a necessary step because it eliminates the need to â€Å"imagine† what your page or elements of the page will look like and makes changes easier (because you catch them earlier). 6. A/B Test (Tn The Midst Of Process). Start testing your assumptions early. After creating your copy and initial PS designs, start testing out a few of your ideas on your existing website (think elements: headlines, logos, images, etc). Quick How-To for Creating An A/B test: Create a hypothesis: Based on your current sites performance and the particular element youd like to test create a hypothesis to build your test around: For example: Replacing the static image on the homepage with a autoplay video will increase conversions Test it: Create a variation of your hypothesis (new homepage with video), and then A/B test it against the original page. Calculate the test duration with respect to your monthly visitors, current conversion rate, and expected change in conversion rate. (VWO will help calculate all of this for you HOWEVER if you dont have this,  heres a calculator). Analyze it: Dig into your results and see which variation performed the best. If theres an obvious  winner, go ahead an implement that variation to the real website. If results were a tad muddy, revise your hypothesis and keep testing. We tested a few headlines and added a video to the homepage during our website redesign, and saw a 6% increase in conversions → pretty awesome validation! It pays to test early. Never rest on your assumptions: prove and disapprove them with data! Recommended Tool: VWO for A/B testing. It’s great for non-designers and quick A/B experiments. Use â€Å"quick learnings† to get faster results when you can’t run a test for an extended period. 7. Coding: Once Designs Are Approved, Code It. Once youre at the coding stage stick to the plan. Focus on pushing out code, getting it out into the world, and iterate on it AFTER you launch your new site. Aside from minor bug fixes, avoid major overhauls at this point. 8. Push Code to your Staging  Site (For Review, Edits, etc.) This is where all your hard work comes to life (behind the curtain). Here you can test and revise the functionality of your designs. We use Meistertask for our QA  (quality assurance) phase. Similar to many Kanban views, its helps us to track the progress on edits as well as test, retest, and sign-off on edits. You can create  custom phases (open bugs, in progress, review, and done) and utilize Skitch to create visuals (your designer will love you for this). 9. Plan Time in the Project for Bug Fixes†¦ You will have bugs, so plan for it. Recruit folks from the team to purposely test and break your website (so real users don’t have to). In addition, test user experience during this phase. Observe a friend or team member, someone who hasn’t been involved in the project, click around the new site. Take notes and be ready to make changes. Getting a new set of eyes will help to validate if the user flow is second nature or clunky. Remember: Good design just works. If your user has to think youre doing it wrong. 10. Go Live!  Hold Your Breath and Release Your Hard Work Into the Real World. The 10+ step: Keep A/B Testing. Launching your new site is NOT  the end all be all. Its just the beginning. Throughout your redesign process build a list  of various items to test: color, images, copy, video, etc. And then build out a schedule for testing those ideas a few weeks after your launch. Remember, your website has one goal: to convert visitors into paying customers. And if you want to increase conversions, A/B testing will help you  to determine whats is and isnt working with your new design. Lessons Learned: Write Your Copy in the Customer’s Words The best way to sell to your ideal customer, is to use the phrases and words of your current customers. They’re your best advocate and they speak the buyer’s language. So how do you do this? When creating copy for ’s new site, we went through pages and pages of customer surveys. Polldaddy has this awesome feature that creates word clouds of the most populars words and phrases AS WELL AS a filtering option to rank popular answers (I relied on both of these heavily). In addition, customer interviews were part of the process. Over the project, I scheduled and recorded Skype calls with some of our current customers to find their stories. It was a great way to get natural, candid  responses to how and why they use . Daily syncs (more meetings can be good, if done with a purpose) Before this project, I was definitely on team â€Å"less meetings, more doing† But after this project I realized the problem isn’t the meetings, it’s the FOCUS in those meetings. For our entire redesign, the product marketing team met for 30 minutes (or less) each afternoon for a hyper focused  status update and feedback on our individual projects. These daily syncs helped us produce faster and push past blockers sooner. It was a highly focused meeting with an enforced timeline. And because of these guidelines typical meeting bullshit was rare. People left those syncs with clear action items and good feedback on their work. Recommendation: Pick two action items for each sync. Skip the small talk. And go right into the area you need feedback on copy, wireframe, design whatever it is. Remember, you’re on a time constraint, so honor it. Also, if you’re doing your syncs over the web, it can be awkward knowing how and when to end a meeting. Embrace the awkward, and just call it when it needs to end  (time is precious, and you’re doing everyone a favor).

Thursday, November 21, 2019

The Extent to Which an Organization's Structure Not Only Shapes Its Essay

The Extent to Which an Organization's Structure Not Only Shapes Its Culture, But Also Its Ability to Transfor - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that a thorough literature review on the subjects of organizational structure, transformation and culture reveals a great wealth of information on the two subjects. Handled individually, it is evident that organizational structure and culture are quite important in the realization of an organization’s goals and objectives. Unfortunately, little has been done in covering and unearthing the relationship between structure and culture in an organization. Similarly, the relationship between an organization’s structure and its ability to transform and manage change has not been exhaustively discussed or debated. Notwithstanding the fact that the influence of organizational structure on culture and transformation has been overlooked in many studies and practical management of businesses, there exists a rather important interconnection between these aspects of an organization. However, it may be quite a difficult task to distinguish a n organization’s structure and culture since structure always operates within a business culture, implying culture and structure are quite intertwined. While culture refers to the umbrella issues and manner/patterns in which an organization operates, structure refers to the infrastructures, methods, and practices therein. The structure of an organization thus helps ensure that its culture is practiced and run efficiently and consistently. Given this important role of structure in shaping an organization’s culture and ensuring cultural consistency and efficacy, establishing good structures should be the hallmark of every organization. The structure therefore not only influences and shapes organizational culture but it is also an integral part of the culture. The culture of an organization is also a responsibility of its structure, which relates and deals directly with the settings of an organization’s culture. For instance, cultural issues in an organization such as the workings of the management, employees’ responsibilities and the handling of disputes and complaints are all directly tied to its structures and how they work. The main way in which structure affects organizational culture is through the role of structure in interconnecting the different groups/teams in an organization hence enabling them to work smoothly to realize organizational and personal objectives and progress. In this regard, the elements of structure most important in shaping an organization’s culture and its smooth operations include effective communication and coordination among employees and departments. Several theories have been developed to highlight the role of structure in influencing the culture of an organization. The first among these theories is the pre-bureaucratic structure. In this structure, an organization lacks the standardization of tasks and is mostly applicable to small businesses, which are adaptive and have no repeat scenario. The second structural theory is the bureaucratic structure in which larger organisations establish certain processes and procedures to help in meeting their objectives.

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Participating in team sports helps to develop good character in Essay

Participating in team sports helps to develop good character in chidren - Essay Example Though the results from these studies are somehow conflicted, there is a solid argument that sports are influential in developing good character in children. Is character intrinsic in human beings? To comprehend this, one must understand the definition of character. The term â€Å"character† is employed to refer to an encompassment of qualities that make an individual distinguishable. These qualities are usually complex, which psychological and ethical influences shape an individual character. These definitions make it evident that character is not intrinsic. This is because of its psychological and ethical inclinations. These two factors are external and are influenced by an individual’s interaction with life. Good character may be defined as conducting oneself in a manner that is socially accepted. Therefore, for a child to have good character, it is imperative that they interact with the society in order to know what is accepted to be good and vice versa. Therefore, interactions such as sports may have a significant influence on character development in children that are positively viewed in the community. Children participation in team sports clearly has a consequence in the development of character in children. This is because sports make available an opportunity for children to learn qualities that entail good character. Some of these qualities include commitment, discipline, and teamwork among other qualities that are regarded as good character. Children, through sports, also understand better human relationships and how best to relate in society. The characters that are learned through sports influence the child’s life decisions in his or her lifetime (Dunlap, 2004). Character development in children is evident in sports through the development of principles. Principles depicted to be of good character include honesty, compassion, integrity, self-control, courage, hard work, etc.. These principles are learned in sports

Monday, November 18, 2019

German of germany Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

German of germany - Essay Example entered the prison cells and examined their design and tried to analyze how the cells functioned to make the prisoners unable to flee yet were assured a healthy environment despite their number. Throughout the video, the ideas of the interviewer had been largely expressed in a preconceived manner. It is true that Cole presented facts about the concentration camps as he showed the evidences, sometimes showing a fair outlook by acknowledging information about the camp made popular by the holocaust survivors. However, those acknowledgments were pretty harmless to the preconceived beliefs he was trying to prove. He seemed to have carefully drafted the documentary in favor of the German version of the holocaust story and also seemed quite anxious to mention he is a Jew but an atheist, wearing his kippah to prove that he is not some revisionist or the like. His efforts nevertheless, do not prove his reliability rather it is his words that expose his intentions. Cole said he wanted to uncover what really happened during the holocaust but he seemed only to be proving what he believed in, that the testimonies of the survivors are not true. Evidences can be destroyed and altered and with the time that passed, no one can really know the truth except those who witnessed the

Friday, November 15, 2019

The Power Struggles In Scrubs English Literature Essay

The Power Struggles In Scrubs English Literature Essay Comedies have a special intricate way of presenting power struggles in the most comical form possible. They manufacture laughter from the simplest stereotypes of cultures, politics, and societies by using pun, wit, sarcasm, satire, parody, slapstick, farce, and scatology in order to cope with issues we face everyday. Power struggles deal with class, ethnicity, gender, and many others themes that offer issues that tend to be taboo. Hence, these themes are incorporated into comedies in hopes that they will somehow gradually mend the problems our society seems to ignore. The popular syndicated comedy, Scrubs, is the epitome of a comedy that introduces power struggles in a comical form. Scrubs follows the lives of Doctor John J.D. Dorian, Doctor Elliot Reid, and Doctor Christopher Turk and elaborates on the dilemmas they face at their workplace, Sacred Heart Hospital. Dorian, Reid, and Turk try to cope with several issues that are presented on every episode, but struggle with their indiv idual obstacles. In Scrubs, Dorian struggles to be recognized as a doctor, Reid struggles to be accepted as a women and an equal, and Turk struggles to be accepted as a surgeon. Second, Doctor Elliot Reid is another doctor that struggles to be respected as a woman and an equal. In contrast to Dorian, who struggles for recognition, Reid deals with the disrespected from patients and colleagues for being a woman doctor. Reid believed that becoming a doctor meant that she would receive the respect all male doctors acquire. Instead she is looked down upon for being a woman and is not trusted as a professional. She enters the doors of Sacred Heart Hospital ready to be accepted as a doctor, but is received as an immature doctor from females and a piece of ass from the males. For example, in an episode, Carla, a nurse, confronts Reid and explains to her that, You are nothing, but an immature doctor that cries when thing get tough. Moreover, her male coworkers repeatedly sexually harass her. It seems that there is no room for a female doctor in Sacred Heart Hospital and the only resort would be to be a nurse. Reid is not content with her treatment and resorts to cons tant crying. Her sobs adds to the negative perception people have about her. Even though she wants to be respected as a woman and an equal she wants, above all, to receive respect from Doctor Bob Kelso. Her main objective is to be accepted by Doctor Bob Kelso who has respect for no one especially Doctor Reid. Doctor Bob Kelso is a grumpy old man, who loves to humiliate and mistreat his whole staff. He is the Chief of Medicine in Sacred Hear Hospital and loves to abuse his power. Doctor Reid comes to Doctor Bob Kelso for advice and recognition, but she is pushed away by Kelsos negative and degrading comments. For example, Doctor Reid explains her accomplishments to Doctor Kelso, but responds with sarcasm, Great job sugar cakes, keep up the great work, now get out of my face. A few times she tries to stand up to Doctor Bob Kelso, but finds herself fearing him more than believing in herself. Their encounters are presented on every episode and represent the struggles women have in male dominated professions. Despite the fact that she hates her treatment, she is determined to do the best she can as a doctor. Furthermore, while Reid faces unequal treatment other doctors struggle to just be accepted. Finally, Doctor Christopher Turk struggles to be accepted as a surgeon and wishes not to be seen as a black surgeon. All his life he was seen as the over achiever due to his skin color, but was sick of hearing positive comments because he knew it was his skin that surprised everyone. No one expected a black individual to become a professional, especially a surgeon. Turk always faced people that treated him with respect, not because of his profession, but because of being a black surgeon. His colleagues view him as someone especial who fought against the odds to be someone respectful. He understands that society is full of ignorant people, but never expected that his workplace be infected with them. He carries himself highly and lets no one degrade him in any form. He is a strong believer of equality and wishes everyone can see pass colors and only see great people with dreams. For example, an episode introduced Turk as a hero after he saved the life of a reported. The media showered him with praise, depicting him as a great hero, but Sacred Heart Hospital saw him as a black hero. He was pictured with words such as Sacred Heart is DOWN for the People, and other black slang. Turk noticed that he was not being recognized and praised for being a surgeon, but celebrated for being a black surgeon. His own employer did not see him as an important asset to the hospital, but as promoter for its own benefit. He spoke to Doctor Bob Kelso regarding this issue, but he refused to cooperate. At the end Doctor Kelso agreed to drop all advertisements after constant struggle with Turk. Up to this point Turk still struggles to be accepted as a surgeon. In conclusion, in Scrubs, Dorian struggles to be recognized as a doctor, Reid struggles to be accepted as a women and an equal, and Turk struggles to be accepted as a surgeon. Each doctor had his or her own power struggle to deal with. They all have serious obstacles they have to face and comedy exhibits these issues as a means to cope with them. Comedies represent real life and real issues; their main objective is to help individuals cope with them with laughter and content. They use different tactics to approach each issue and present them in the most hilarious form. Power struggles tend to be part of everyones life, but everything seems to be easier with a smile on a face.

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

decaling cars :: essays research papers

Decaling cars may look easy but in reality it’s quite difficult. Throughout the years people have used decals to convey messages. How do people use decals to get this message across? Well to decal a car there are certain things that the person decaling the car should know: How long the life span of the vinyl you want to last, where the decals are going to go, window or body decals, how much vinyl you need, how to prepare the car for the vinyl, designing the decals and weeding the cut vinyl, applying the finished decals   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Vinyl is a plastic spread with a sticky adhesive spread onto the back of it†Ã¢â‚¬â€œChris Walker. There are different types of vinyl ranging from a one-year life span to a twenty-year life span. All the difference is between the different types of vinal is basically the thickness of the vinyl. It really depends on the person decaling the car. Other decals last longer in the weather than others so this too must be taken into consideration. First decide weather the decals should last a long time or just for a temporary thing.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Now for the decaling. First decide what type of decals is going to be made i.e. window decals or car body decals. Second choose which type of vinal would be best for this project. Should the vinal last a long time or should it be temporary? Now before placing decals on the car it would be best to draw them out on paper first. By doing this it helps to eliminate any errors that may acquire. Draw up a quick sketch of the car that is being decaled from different angels, front view, side view, rear view, and top of the car. With these sketches the decals can be placed onto the car without error. After that has been taken care of draw the decals onto the sketches where they should be placed on the car. To help decide witch design(pearce)to it is best to look in books and magazines or if wanted they could just create there own design. Check and decide to see if the decals are going to look good when placed on the car. Once the decal’s placements has been decided measure each decal to see how much vinal is needed to be able to cut these decals out. First measure the length of the car, the height, width, and measure the windows.