This pocket guide will introduce you to VeriSM key concepts and the VeriSM model and help you to understand how they can apply in your organization. VeriSM is an approach that offers value-driven, evolving, responsive, and integrated service management. VeriSM is designed to enable organizations and professionals understand how to create a flexible operating model using Governance, Service Management Principles and a Management Mesh to define, produce, provide and respond to consumer requirements for service. VeriSM is essential reading for anyone who works within a service organization. It will be of particular interest to: • Managers - who want to understand how to leverage evolving management practices; • Service owners and service managers - who need to bring their skills up to date and understand how service management has changed; • Executives - who are accountable for effective service delivery; • Graduates and undergraduates - who will be joining organizations and who need to understand the principles of service management.
Making strategic decisions is a fundamental skill for leaders and managers. However, in a business environment that is in a constant state of change, making strategic decisions has never been more difficult. Strategic Decision Making addresses this challenge by providing a framework that can be used to make sound decisions in an uncertain world. Structured around the core concepts of framing, experimenting and scaling, this book will ensure that efforts are focused where the need is greatest, that interventions are tested, evaluated and revised if necessary and that successful initiatives are effectively rolled out across the business. Packed with real world examples and backed up by academic research, Strategic Decision Making will allow today's leaders and the leaders of tomorrow to make successful and defensible business choices. It shows how to: avoid decision-making bias, overcome organizational inertia, manage the difficulties of rigid organizational structures and avoid being side tracked by outdated or irrelevant experience. Essential reading for business practitioners and management students alike, this comprehensive guide provides a robust approach to achieving strategic success.
This first book-length analysis of Amazon’s Kindle explores the platform’s technological, bibliographical, and social impact on publishing. Four Shades of Gray offers the first book-length analysis of Amazon’s Kindle and its impact on publishing. Simon Peter Rowberry recounts how Amazon built the infrastructure for a new generation of digital publications, then considers the consequences of having a single company control the direction of the publishing industry. Exploring the platform from the perspectives of technology, texts, and uses, he shows how the Kindle challenges traditional notions of platforms as discrete entities. He argues that Amazon’s influence extends beyond “disruptive technology” to embed itself in all aspects of the publishing trade; yet despite industry pushback, he says, the Kindle has had a positive influence on publishing. Rowberry documents the first decade of the Kindle with case studies of Kindle Popular Highlights, an account of the digitization of books published after 1922, and a discussion of how Amazon’s patent filings reflect a shift in priorities. Rowberry argues that while it was initially convenient for the book trade to outsource ebook development to Amazon, doing so has had adverse consequences for publishers in the mid- and long term, limiting opportunities for developing an inclusive and forward-thinking digital platform. While it has forced publishers to embrace digital forms, the Kindle has also empowered some previously marginalized readerships. Although it is still too early to judge the long-term impact of ebooks compared with that of the older technologies of clay tablets, the printing press, and offset printing, the shockwaves of the Kindle continue to shape publishing.
This lively reader traces the search for American tradition and national identity through folklore and folklife from the 19th century to the present. Through an engaging set of essays, Folk Nation shows how American thinkers and leaders have used folklore-ranging from Paul Bunyan and Davey Crockett to quilts, cowboys, and immigrants-to express the meaning and mystique of their country. Simon Bronner has carefully selected statements by public intellectuals and popular writers as well as by scholars, all chosen for their readability and significance as provocative texts during their time. The common thread running throughout is the value of folklore in expressing or denying an American national tradition.
The Oxford Handbook of American Folklore and Folklife Studies surveys the materials, approaches, concepts, and applications of the field to provide a sweeping guide to American folklore and folklife, culture, history, and society. Forty-three comprehensive and diverse chapters delve into significant themes and methods of folklore and folklife study; established expressions and activities; spheres and locations of folkloric action; and shared cultures and common identities. Beyond the longstanding arenas of academic focus developed throughout the 350-year legacy of folklore and folklife study, contributors at the forefront of the field also explore exciting new areas of attention that have emerged in the twenty-first century such as the Internet, bodylore, folklore of organizations and networks, sexual orientation, neurodiverse identities, and disability groups. Encompassing a wide range of cultural traditions in the United States, from bits of slang in private conversations to massive public demonstrations, ancient beliefs to contemporary viral memes, and a simple handshake greeting to group festivals, these chapters consider the meanings in oral, social, and material genres of dance, ritual, drama, play, speech, song, and story while drawing attention to tradition-centered communities such as the Amish and Hasidim, occupational groups and their workaday worlds, and children and other age groups. Weaving together such varied and manifest traditions, this handbook pays significant attention to the cultural diversity and changing national boundaries that have always been distinctive in the American experience, reflecting on the relative youth of the nation; global connections of customs brought by immigrants; mobility of residents and their relation to an indigenous, urbanized, and racialized population; and a varied landscape and settlement pattern. Edited by leading folklore scholar Simon J. Bronner, this handbook celebrates the extraordinary richness of the American social and cultural fabric, offering a valuable resource not only for scholars and students of American studies, but also for the global study of tradition, folk arts, and cultural practice.
In the first of these two plays, a group of English teenagers investigates the mysterious disappearance of a girl during an eclipse and, in the second, conflicts develop among friends as they face their sexuality.
Why do humans hold onto traditions? Many pundits predicted that modernization and the rise of a mass culture would displace traditions, especially in America, but cultural practices still bear out the importance of rituals and customs in the development of identity, heritage, and community. In Explaining Traditions: Folk Behavior in Modern Culture, Simon J. Bronner discusses the underlying reasons for the continuing significance of traditions, delving into their social and psychological roles in everyday life, from old-time crafts to folk creativity on the Internet. Challenging prevailing notions of tradition as a relic of the past, Explaining Traditions provides deep insight into the nuances and purposes of living traditions in relation to modernity. Bronner’s work forces readers to examine their own traditions and imparts a better understanding of raging controversies over the sustainability of traditions in the modern world.
Folklore: The Basics is an engaging guide to the practice and interpretation of folklore. Taking examples from around the world, it explores the role of folklore in expressing fundamental human needs, desires, and anxieties that often are often not revealed through other means. Providing a clear framework for approaching the study of folklore, it introduces the reader to methodologies for identifying, documenting, interpreting and applying key information about folklore and its relevance to modern life. From the Brothers Grimm to Internet Memes, it addresses such topics as: What is folklore? How do we study it? Why does folklore matter? How does folklore relate to elite culture? Is folklore changing in a digital age? With case studies, suggestions for reading and a glossary of key terminology, Folklore: The Basics supports readers in becoming familiar with folkloric traditions and interpret cultural expression. It is an essential read for anyone approaching the study of folklore for the first time.
Omega knowledge is the strongest kind of knowledge. When you omega know something, you know it. You know that you know it. You possess every iteration of knowledge regarding it. Iterated Knowledge is the first systematic treatment of omega knowledge. Skeptics say that we omega know hardly anything about the world, since infinite iterations of knowledge would require infinitely reliable belief forming methods. Simon Goldstein argues against the skeptics, on the basis that omega knowledge is required for rational assertion and action. For this reason, it is important to develop theories which allow us to have omega knowledge of ordinary claims about the world. The only existing theory that allows this is the KK principle, which implies that you omega know everything that you know. However, the KK principle faces a wide range of well-known counterexamples and theoretical challenges. The goal of this book is therefore to open up new space in epistemology by developing and critically comparing several new theories of omega knowledge. One of these theories says that you omega know everything that you know that you know. Another theory says that, whenever you know something, it is consistent with your knowledge that you omega know it. These theories avoid the classic challenges to the KK principle, while also making room for large amounts of omega knowledge. Along the way, Iterated Knowledge gives treatments of justified belief, rational certainty, and normative requirements on assertion and action. The discussion ends by developing mathematical models of knowledge that carefully lay out the differing predictions of the various theories developed in the book.
This book explores the application of Design Thinking in the automotive industry in order to explain which factors influence the innovativeness of Design Thinking teams. Seeking for innovation leadership, automotive manufacturers apply Design Thinking to enhance their competitiveness with customer-oriented products and services. Design Thinking is a multidisciplinary team-based methodology that adopts design principles to business management. In the literature and practice, however, it is not clear, what constitutes the relationship between the application of Design Thinking and team's innovativeness. A grounded theory and template analysis approach is used to develop a framework which explains this relationship. Managers and decision-makers of multinationals are provided with practical recommendations about how to implement Design Thinking to produce innovative products and services.
Rembrandt’s Passion Series is the name given to five paintings of similar size and format executed over a six year time-frame, 1633–39. The works were commissioned by Frederick Hendrick, Prince of Orange and Stadtholder of the United Provinces, for his gallery at The Hague. Although each of the paintings depicts a traditional scene from the Passion of Christ, they do not form anything like a complete Passion Cycle. Seven years later, Hendrick ordered a further two works of the same size and format of subjects from the Nativity of Christ. Six of the seven paintings now hang in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. As the works were executed between Rembrandt’s well-documented early Leiden period and his rapid rise to prominence as a portraitist in Amsterdam, the works have not attracted the scholarly attention they might, although the commission was undoubtedly the most prestigious of the young Rembrandt’s career. Rembrandt’s Passion Series is the first monograph to focus solely on this important group of paintings by the most famous artist of the Dutch Golden Age. In it, Simon McNamara traces the history of the commission by way of extant documentation, places the works in a seventeenth-century Dutch religious milieu, and shows how the series is both reflective of contemporary theological exegesis and embedded in theoretical artistic debates of the age. The book also highlights the extraordinary nature of the self-images seen in three of the paintings and discusses the legacy of the series in later graphic works by Rembrandt and in paintings by his pupils. In doing so, Rembrandt’s Passion Series presents a series of unifying factors, both stylistically and thematically, for the works that allows the Passion Series to be properly, and finally, called a “series”.
A study of the language of Chaucerian manuscripts, printed editions and Chaucer's 15th century followers. Winner of the 2005 Beatrice White Prize for outstanding scholarly work in the field of English literature before 1590 The manuscript copies of Chaucer's works preserve valuable information concerning Chaucer's linguistic practices and the ways in which scribes responded to these. This book draws on recent developments in Middle English dialectology, textual criticism and the application of computers to manuscript studies to assess the evidence Chaucerian manuscripts provide for reconstructing Chaucer's own language and his linguistic environment. This book considershow scribes, editors and Chaucerian poets transmitted and updated Chaucer's language and the implications of this for our understanding of Chaucerian book production and reception, and the processes of linguistic change in the fifteenth century. Winner of the 2005 Beatrice White Prize for outstanding scholarly work in the field of English literature before 1590 SIMON HOROBIN lectures on English language at the University of Glasgow.
This book acknowledges that the reader of a novel looks at and sees the page before they begin to read any text placed upon it. Thus, any disruptions to how a traditional page 'should look' can have a large impact on the reading process. The book critically engages with the visual appearance of graphically innovative contemporary prose fiction.
American folklife is steeped in world cultures, or invented as new culture, always evolving, yet often practiced as it was created many years or even centuries ago. This fascinating encyclopedia explores the rich and varied cultural traditions of folklife in America - from barn raisings to the Internet, tattoos, and Zydeco - through expressions that include ritual, custom, crafts, architecture, food, clothing, and art. Featuring more than 350 A-Z entries, "Encyclopedia of American Folklife" is wide-ranging and inclusive. Entries cover major cities and urban centers; new and established immigrant groups as well as native Americans; American territories, such as Guam and Samoa; major issues, such as education and intellectual property; and expressions of material culture, such as homes, dress, food, and crafts. This encyclopedia covers notable folklife areas as well as general regional categories. It addresses religious groups (reflecting diversity within groups such as the Amish and the Jews), age groups (both old age and youth gangs), and contemporary folk groups (skateboarders and psychobillies) - placing all of them in the vivid tapestry of folklife in America. In addition, this resource offers useful insights on folklife concepts through entries such as "community and group" and "tradition and culture." The set also features complete indexes in each volume, as well as a bibliography for further research.
This book is intended to help advanced undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students in their daily work by offering them a compendium of numerical methods. The choice of methods pays significant attention to error estimates, stability and convergence issues, as well as optimization of program execution speeds. Numerous examples are given throughout the chapters, followed by comprehensive end-of-chapter problems with a more pronounced physics background, while less stress is given to the explanation of individual algorithms. The readers are encouraged to develop a certain amount of skepticism and scrutiny instead of blindly following readily available commercial tools. The second edition has been enriched by a chapter on inverse problems dealing with the solution of integral equations, inverse Sturm-Liouville problems, as well as retrospective and recovery problems for partial differential equations. The revised text now includes an introduction to sparse matrix methods, the solution of matrix equations, and pseudospectra of matrices; it discusses the sparse Fourier, non-uniform Fourier and discrete wavelet transformations, the basics of non-linear regression and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test; it demonstrates the key concepts in solving stiff differential equations and the asymptotics of Sturm-Liouville eigenvalues and eigenfunctions. Among other updates, it also presents the techniques of state-space reconstruction, methods to calculate the matrix exponential, generate random permutations and compute stable derivatives.
Delve into the intricacies of the human mind with this engaging and insightful guide to how the brain works. Written in a playful style and beautifully illustrated, this book is designed to support you as you embark on the beginning of your psychology degree. It provides an accessible guide to how the brain’s structures and functions determine how the mind works, and how this fits into the bigger picture of our evolution and biology as a species. From focus boxes that delve into specific topics to entertaining puzzles that bring the subject to life, this book will captivate your imagination while building your understanding of biological and cognitive psychology. This is an essential read for undergraduate psychology students. Michael S.C. Thomas is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Birkbeck, University of London. Simon Green is a Chartered Psychologist and retired Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London.
This pocket guide will introduce you to VeriSM key concepts and the VeriSM model and help you to understand how they can apply in your organization. VeriSM is an approach that offers value-driven, evolving, responsive, and integrated service management. VeriSM is designed to enable organizations and professionals understand how to create a flexible operating model using Governance, Service Management Principles and a Management Mesh to define, produce, provide and respond to consumer requirements for service. VeriSM is essential reading for anyone who works within a service organization. It will be of particular interest to: • Managers - who want to understand how to leverage evolving management practices; • Service owners and service managers - who need to bring their skills up to date and understand how service management has changed; • Executives - who are accountable for effective service delivery; • Graduates and undergraduates - who will be joining organizations and who need to understand the principles of service management.
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