There was a serious risk factor when Michael Bay decided to take on this project. It is extremely difficult to grab hold of a cult favorite like Transformers and appease the obsessed fans by staying true to the original while modernizing and universalizing the theme to the point where non-fans of all ages can thoroughly enjoy it. This is a very thin tightrope Bay had to walk across. If the movie slips and falls toward the fans, then it will appeal solely to the action figure collectors and the only money made will be from special edition DVDs that feature a different colored robot on each case. If the movie falls to the other side, true fans in homemade robot costumes will revolt and they will only go see the 1st midnight showing instead of fourteen more times in the following weeks, bringing the ticket sales way down. This will also ruin any plans of a national convention for years to come. The worst case scenario would be a cheaply made hack-job inevitably turning out to be a failure and immediately sending the director down the road of making Lifetime Originals. This scenario was highly unlikely since Michael Bay requires an ungodly budget for every action movie he puts on screen.

In all, The Transformers succeeded at defining the quintessential summer blockbuster. With a steady of balance of fast-paced, eye popping action, a quenching amount of comic relief, and seamless computer-generated graphics, The Transformers is a beautiful piece of movie magic. It is definitely a refreshing alternative to all the pirate, spider, and wizard movies we’ve become accustomed to during the past few summers. If you’re looking for Academy Award winning performances, wait until The English Patient 2 comes out, but if you want to experience an action packed thrill ride for the whole family, take The Transformers for a spin.

House energy generation system is the answer if you want to cut those bills down & put to practical use of alternative energy around you just waiting to be tapped at any time. Home energy generation system gives you with the suitable way to grab the max financial freedom on house energy. Sure, you have to invest initially but it’s all worth every penny. You may spare yourself from the present cost of house energy and the future increases that may happen. & larger part of all, investing on home energy generation system will definitely assistance the environment for it only uses innocuous & neat source of energy.

Among all types of alternative energy that can be used, wind energy and solar energy are the mainly common.

Wind energy

Wind is extremely profuse in numerous parts of the country, therefore, many household can put to practical use the use of wind as a source of house energy. It’s also said the future’s primary source of energy would be the air. As the price energy production through fuel and oil grows to an increasing degree high for the last years, the neat, safe and free air would be the better choice of the future.

As a main source of power for your house, it provides the financial freedom on the use of energy sourced from the expensive oil. However, wind speed varies on a every day basis. 1 day, the wind will blow strong. The next day, wind may not be competent keep your turbine spin. & even on the breeziest places in the united states of america, you may in no case tell when will be the following powerful wind blow happens. This is one disadvantage of using wind power but wind patterns do exist. It is said that summer brings less wind while the winter brings strong gust of wind.

If you are planning to install wind turbines on your home, make sure that the local zoning allows wind waterwheel. You must not just make certain that there’s a nice source of wind on most days. A wide & open space, not less than one acre, would be perfect for wind turbines. &, if you are paying more than $150 on monthly electric bill, then it may be a excellent alternative for you.

There are 5 main components of wind power.

The rotor is the set of rotating blades modeled to capture air. The rotation brings power to the generator.

The turbine or the generation is the one attached on the rotor. It stores energy that the home will use.

The tail is placed contrarily of the rotor. It tracks the direction of the wind.

The tower raises the turbine, rotor and tail up to the air to obtain the most amount of wind possible.

The governor is the mechanism that controls the production of energy. This is like the transformer you may see on electric posts.

Solar power

Houses that are constructed below the sun will compensate on the free solar energy.

There are six main advantages in installing solar panels on your roof.

1. Solar baseboards are lightweight, safe and majority of all, easy to install. These are necessary in order to lay them upon your roof.

two. Roof is not just susceptible in Ultraviolet exposure. The solar panel removes this. Your roof will also be protected from weather.

three. Solar panel contributes in keeping your home well insulated. They provide extra covering & enable you to save as much as 30% on heating costs.

4. Boring holes in your roof is very risky. The interlocking solar panels remove this risk.

5. Solar panel remodel is perfect on any roof type & size. This means that, you can obtain the perfect solar panel never the size & shape of your roof is.

6. Solar wainscots are installed without requiring you to modify your roof. It will adapt immediately.

Solar power will with greatness aid you cut off the price of your electric bill. If you think you are in for this investment & if you think your location is most fitted to have this, then the choice is fully yours.

1. Privatization: the Definitions and raison d’être

Lane, a world wide economist has defined Privatisation as follows:

“The growing appeals of privatisation as a set of strategies for restructuring the public sector shoot from a dissatisfaction with the time-honoured organizational structure of the public sector. It is claimed that the customary agency replica originating in the Weberian approach to bureaucracy faces rigorous problems of control and efficiency”

The meanings of privatisation emanate from alternative public ownership with private sector to the preamble of private management techniques into the public sector. Although much awareness has been focused on the magnificent illustration of the first type of private sector phenomena as well as creating market, likewise, in the sale of public enterprises, the most extensive type of privatisation is the rummage around for internal reform within the public sector under the authority of private management style.

In respect of the expansion of private sector, creating markets by introducing variety of products are vitally important. In 1991, Hartley and Parker, has carried out research work on private sector and jointly defined privatisation in a wider perception as follows:

“Privatisation envisages denationalisation or selling-off state-owned assets, de-regulation like liberalization, competitive tendering, collectively with the introduction of private ownership and market arrangements in socialist states. Eastern Europe like USSR may be exemplified in due sense.”

Suffice it to say that privatisation is the choice of different plans premeditated to adjust the existing equilibrium between the public and private sector.

The underlying principle for privatisation, though quite versatile, has been aptly summarised by Minogue, Polidano and Hume in1998 as follows.

“Increasingly it is the private sector which is seen as having the managerial capacity, flexibility and competitive drive essential for the efficient and effective provision of many activities previously assumed to be the prefecture of public sector”.

Thus the disenchantment with the public sector set the educate of privatisation in motion by asserting that “In many countries the public sector has failed to be the engine of national development; in some countries it is even the main barrier to development”.

2. Approaches to Privatisation

In 1988, Cook and Kirkpatrick have identified three main approaches to privatisation:

Change in the ownership of an enterprise from the public to private sector. Denationalisation or divestiture can be the means to accomplish this.

Privatisation through liberalisation, or deregulation, of entry into activities previously restricted to public sector enterprises. It is argued that the removal of restrictions is intended to increase the role of competition in the hitherto protected market, a variant of privatisation will have occurred, even though no transfer of ownership of assets has been involved.

Where the provision of a good and service is transferred from the public to private sector, while the government retains ultimate responsibility for supplying the service. Franchising or contracting-out, of public services and the leasing of public assets to the private sectors are examples.

Privatisation as a policy has been allied with various objectives. Introduction or extension of market forces reflected in the profit motive, competition, greater efficiency and innovation are expected to benefit the consumers. Privatisation policy has also been linked with a longing for wider share ownership and a creation of share-owning democratic system; while in some cases, the policy aims to trim down the size of the public sector through denationalisation.

“Perspective Proposals have also been made that in some countries (for example, UK, Malaysia, China and South Africa); the real purpose of the policy is to reduce the monopoly power of the public sector trade unions”. But some of the above objectives may be in conflict. Reducing the size of the public sector by selling public assets may not be compatible with the goal of efficiency if it involves merely transferring monopoly power from the public to the private sector without ensuring competition and rivalry. Maximising the number of shareholders may be achieved by under pricing of share, which is in conflict with the aim to maximise the treasury income following the rules and perspectives of private sector phenomena.

3. Privatisation and Economic Efficiency

Although privatisation may be pursued for one or all of the above reasons, the central issue revolves around privatisation focuses on enterprise performance and efficiency. But gains in efficiency performance more likely to result from an increase in market competition than from a change in ownership. “If the principal objective of privatisation is to increase economic efficiency, the policy priority should be to increase competition, not to transfer productive activities to the private sector (Cook and Kirkpatrick, 1988).

A case study in Bangladesh on inter-temporal analysis of the fertiliser trade before and after privatisation has demonstrated that deregulation has allowed to run free market forces and increased competition. It has also increased the availability of fertiliser to farmers and enhanced efficiency and productivity (World Bank, 1996b). But changing for the better in economic performance depend not only on ownership, but also on competition and managerial freedom.

Besides the goal of efficiency, LDCs engaged in privatisation for a variety of reasons: to generate instantaneous cash income; encourage specific types of industrial development; encourage foreign investment; improve or develop capital markets; or implement a free market philosophy of economic and development case for privatisation is based on:

Public ownership is more extensive than can be justified in a mixed economy perspective

The performance of the public enterprises is relative to that of private firms, and

The inherent characteristics of public ownership – such as excessive government intervention – often cause inefficiency.

5. The Limits of Privatisation

For the developing countries, Turner and Hume (1997) have identified some constraints which limit the success of privatisation. They are shortage of sophisticated and specialised skills to needed to manage a privatisation programme; absence of developed stock market; inadequate attention to place the in the context of a broader programme of economic reform and the existing political environment.

“Resistance to public enterprises reform also comes from trade unions. These can be well organised, numerically strong and have good political connections”.

Thus successful reform, inter alia, privatisation, according to World Bank (1995), must qualify three political conditions:

Reform must be politically desirable to the leadership and its constituencies; political benefits outweigh political costs.

Reform must be politically feasible: leaders must be able to able to overcome opposition, either by compensating losers or compelling their compliance.

Reforms must be politically credible to significant stakeholders (for example employees, investors).

E. FOOD SECURITY: THE CENTRAL ISSUSES in Private Sector Perspectives

Defining and interpreting food security, and measuring it in reliable, valid and cost-effective ways have proven to be stubborn problems facing researchers and programmes intended to monitor food security risks. ‘Malthusian spectre of famine’ has obsessed the policymakers, over past few decades, to adopt a comprehensive food security policy to avert any crisis. Given its tremendous importance in the political – economy of a democratic society as such, attempts have been made to define food security.

1. Food Security : the Definitions

The sharp rise in world food prices in the preceding two years of World Food Conference in 1974 and fear that the world food system is running out of control, the UN emphasises these concerns in its final report to speak clearly enough and defines food security as:

Availability at all times of adequate world supplies of basic food-staffs to sustain a steady expansion of food consumption .and to offset fluctuations and prices.

Major components of the most common definitions of food security are summed up by Maxwell and Franken Berger (1992) as “Secure access at all times to sufficient food for a healthy life’ Summarising the conceptual literature on food security Maxell and Franken Berger finally conclude:

“First, “enough” food is mostly defined. With emphasis on calories, and on requirements ….. For an active, healthy life rather than simple survival – although this assessment may in the end be subjective. Second, access to food is determined by food entitlements, which are derived from human and physical capital, assets and stores, access to common property resources and a variety of social contracts at household, community and state levels. Third, the risk of entitlement failure determines the level of vulnerability and hence the level of food insecurity, with risk being greater, the higher the share of resources ….. devoted to food acquisition. And finally, food insecurity can exist on a permanent basis (chronic) or on a temporary basis (transitory) or in cycles”.

A full definition of food security thus includes the related concepts of access, sufficiency, security (or vulnerability), and sustainability.

Maxwell (1996) has identified three important and overlapping paradigm shifts in the history of thinking about food security since the world Food Conference in 1974. These shifts are:

1. from the global and the national to the household and the individual,

2. from a food first perspective to livelihood perspective, and

3. From objective indicators to subjective perception (ibid.).

He also identifies the evolution of food policy in historical perspective and observes that ‘The term has been applied more recently mostly at a local level and has been broadened beyond notions of food supply to include elements of access, vulnerability and sustainability”

Food security, thus, in true sense, encompasses a broad landscape implying

‘Access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life’ (World Bank, 1986, p. 1).But availability does not necessarily mean access to food. Working on the historical data, Pinstripe-Anderson and Pandya-Lorch (1999) has demonstrated that “Gains in availability of food have not been matched by corresponding gains in access to it” Between access and availability, various driving forces influence their relative position. While on the other hand, income levels and economic growth, human resource development, and population growth and movements constitute the factors influencing access. Thus a comprehensive food security policy must include availability, access and utilisation aspects. Unfortunately in an underdeveloped economy, food security discussions and planning it is often forgotten and have a narrower focus, over-emphasising the estimated ‘food gap’, the difference between a target level of availability and domestic production. But the ‘food gap’ analysis concentrates only on the availability of food grains, thus neglecting other foods. Moreover, focus on the ‘food gap’ has often diverted attention from other major aspects of food security: access and utilisation.

Policy Options for Food Security

Thus access and availability having been established as the most important pillar of food security, its due importance can be rationalised in terms of production stability. But one of the major features of agricultural production is production instability. Some of the main causes of this are climatic variations, and dynamic lagged reactions to farmers to previous instability or other shocks such as changes to government policy. In market economies the aggregate effects of production instability and the resulting variations in supply lead to price and income changes in the commodity markets directly affected and in related markets for other goods, services and resources. It is these changes in prices and/or incomes stemming from production instability that create problems for most groups in society. Equally, price instability dampens potential investments by the private sector in off-farm marketing and processing facilities. “Consumers, in general, will also be directly affected by agricultural production instability through its effect on the availability and price of food. These impacts are likely to be most severe in low income economies, and in low income households, where food represents a large proportion of total expenditure. In these circumstances, variations in food prices and/or availability induce changes in real income or real purchasing power and food security, in the sense that access to food, or its availability, is compromised”. Falcon (1987) while commenting on the food security have, however, identified both supply and demand side policy options at the national level. According to them supply side policy options include national buffer stocks, imports, and even the use of future markets, as well as increased domestic production. Consumption-side policy options include a host of direct measures designed to reach low-income consumers and, more recently, growing attention to the importance of food price policy. This implies that supply-side policies are concerned with macroeconomic efficiency – determining the set of aggregate food security policies that is the most efficient and therefore the least costly to the economy. On the other hand, consumption-side policies are implicitly concerned with maximising benefits – obtaining consumer equity for the most disadvantaged.

“Food price policy is the link between the supply and consumption objectives”. This further implies that to achieve food security, a policy prescription containing both supply and demand side options is necessary, and following Falcon et al (1987) food price policy, inter alia, stable food price plays a very dominant role in achieving food security. But Greenfield et al. (1996) contend that the task of price stabilisation, after the implementation of Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture will be lesser significance, for an important anticipated benefit accruing from the Uruguay Round was reduced price instability.

4. Food Security and Price Stabilisation

Though initially it was explained that ‘food availability decline’ caused famine, Sen (1981) has established that absence of ‘entitlement’ caused it. While discussing the cause of starvation he observed, “This is seen as the result of his inability to establish entitlement to enough food; the question of the physical availability of the food is not directly involved”. Introducing ‘exchange entitlement’, he argues that relative prices are very important in the explanation of famine, particularly a sharp rise in food prices and with a given money wage, his entitlement to food is reduced to a great margin. This further suggests, particularly in respect of food security, there is some intrinsic value in price situation.

But Smith (1997) attempts to relate price with food security by increasing the supply. In doing so he introduces the concepts of ‘spatial’ and ‘inter-temporal’ arbitrage. According to him,

“Of course, stabilizing prices in the face of a food shortage will not ensure food security. However, within a particular area, price instability can be reduced and food security enhanced either by spatial arbitrage, which is, by moving supplies from surplus to deficit areas, or by inter-temporal arbitrage, that is, storing supplies in periods of abundance to release in times of shortage”. Arbitrage, however, is a costly exercise and these costs can be clearly identified, though frequently ignored by the governments. Many of the benefits of stabilisation relate to producer, consumer and investor confidence that may have dynamic, non-quantifiable but valuable, effects on the growth of the economy.

Islam and Thomas (1996), on the other hand, have identified that the objectives of price stabilisation is something bigger than reducing the variability of real prices.

“These include ensuring a floor or an incentive price to producers and a ceiling price to consumers in order to protect them, especially the consumers, from a high or sudden rise in food prices; attainment of increased self-sufficiency in food grains and the highest possible foreign exchange earnings through maintenance of high and stable prices. Price stabilization per se, in the sense of reducing the variability of real prices by a certain percentage, was not the sole objective”.

Even World Bank (1996a), while commenting on the food security scenario in Bangladesh, contends that a decline in the domestic price of rice thus making it more inexpensive

“Such flexible criterion is the most effective way of improving the welfare of poor households since, on balance, the majorities of such households are net consumers of rice rather than producers, and rice dominates their food consumption”. Economist Benham says,” This criterion of food security influences the living standard of human beings virtually and tentatively”

Reasons for creating private sector market in terms of public sector perspectives:

Timmer (1985), while justifying the role of government, have advocated for a dual market i.e. a second market through public distribution system and the other market through private sector distribution phenomena. Their point of argument is that if some poor are excluded from the system (i.e., they are denied food grains from the public distribution system), they are doubly disadvantaged. For not only are they denied cheap grain from the ration shops, but the free market price is now substantially higher than it would have been in the absence of the dual price system. But the rationale of government intervention, particularly the role of price policy pursued by the government, is a matter of great importance and ongoing debate. In this respect, Timmer (1989) has identified a three-way debate in this area. The first promoter of this debate is the free market school. According to this school, agricultural prices should reflect their opportunity costs at their border, independent of international market processes as well as price levels. This pricing strategy would ensure optimal efficiency of resource allocation and minimal rent-seeking activity. The border price paradigm is the intellectual foundation of this approach. The second supporter, the structuralism approach, argues that the border price paradigm is misdirected, at least, for the domestic price determination of basic foodstuffs, for they have important roles in the macro economy and welfare of consumers. Supply and demand elasticity of these commodities is very small, so the triangles of allocating losses, due to domestic prices not equalling the marginal prices, are trivial. They argue that the marginal prices are heavily influenced by gross distortions in agricultural policies in the developed world and a poor indicator on resources should be allocated in the long run.

“Accordingly, prices should be set to favour income distribution objectives in conjunction with macroeconomic stability”. The third approach, the emerging ’stabilization’ school competes that “By following short-run price movements in international markets an economy incurs significant efficiency losses, but the economy incurs equally significant efficiency losses by not following longer-run trends in international opportunity costs (whatever the market processes that determine them). Optimal efficiency thus calls for some degree of market intervention to stabilize short-run prices, but there must be sufficient flexibility to allow domestic prices to reflect international price trends. Rent-seeking behaviour is constrained, if not eliminated, by using competitive market agents to carry out most marketing activities following the private sector phenomena, but within government-established price bands”.

6. Food Security: The Role of Private Sector

In the developing countries, one of the factors determining the legitimacy and survival of a government is its ability to provide food security to its citizen. Governments are affected, in a variety of ways, by production instability and the resulting food insecurity. Governments have to respond to electoral concerns and pressure group activities from a varied group of stake-holders like farmers, consumers, industrialists and above all, rent-seekers. Therefore in virtually every country the government assumes a major responsibility for coping with the problems of production instability and the provision of food security. But Smith (1997) contends that though several reasons exist for government intervention to relieve the effects of production instability, many forms chosen in the past have proved to be ineffective or costly ways of achieving this aim. He concludes that

“The private sector, allowed to trade, freely at world prices with a little tweaking of border levies, can provide all the food security and stability that is required”

5. Role of Private Sector in Bangladesh

Dorosh (1999a) has proved the above contention and demonstrated that private sector rice imports have helped to stabilise the market supplies, benefiting the consumers of rice and saving the Government of Bangladesh the purchase and distribution costs of importing the rice. Needless to say, this helps the government to avert a mini food crisis, and introduced a new dimension in the concept of food security in Bangladesh. Subsequently Dorosh (1999b) has identified that that trade liberalisation played a very important role behind the success of private sector involvement and concludes that “Trade liberalization can enhance national food security. By providing an automatic mechanism to increase domestic supply and stabilize prices, the trade liberalization in Bangladesh helped to ensure availability of food grain and stabilize prices.” Though increased food security may not be a primary objective of trade liberalization, the Bangladesh experience shows that the two can in fact be compatible.

8. Food Security: the Overall Strategies

The two extreme solutions to a food strategy can be as follows:

Food self – sufficiency

Application of pure theory of comparative advantage

But Janvry (1987) considers both of them as unacceptable. Because in the first one the cost is too high, while in the second, the risks are too great and it has negative effects on some groups that have very low income. Janvry finally concludes, “most countries have therefore tried to formulate food security strategies that judiciously balance these extremes. The main problem is, however, not to formulate an optimum national strategy but to formulate a strategy that ensures food security for all population groups”

Maxwell (1996b), basing on the works of World Bank (1988), Dreze and Sen (1989) and Maxwell (1992), compiles a list of consensus strategy for food security in Africa. Though Africa is notoriously prone to internecine civil war and resultant chronic famines widely, the strategies, with exception of relevant two or three, are universally pertinent.

A primary focus on supplying vulnerable people and households with secure access to food; individual and household needs take precedence over issues of national food self-sufficiency or self-reliance.

The importance of poverty-reducing economic growth; poor rural and urban people need secure and sustainable livelihoods, with adequate incomes and reasonable buffers against destitution.

A balance between food and cash crops is likely to be the best route to food security, following the principle of long-term comparative advantage rather than of self-sufficiency for its own sake.

Finally, food security planning should follow a ‘process’ rather than a ‘blue-print’ approach, with large-scale decentralisation, a bias to action over planning, the encouragement of risk-taking and innovation, and the fostering of task cultures not role cultures in multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral planning teams.

9. Food safekeeping and Policy Change

In identifying the ‘dynamics and politics of policy change’ in the food sector of Bangladesh, Chowdhury and Haggblade (1997) point out that policy reforms in the food sector is a long drawn out process and more political in nature. They further identify that ‘two fundamental changes paved the way for Bangladesh’s major downsizing of its government food programs’: first, is a productivity-led surge in food grain production and secondly, and equally important, is the defusing of major potential opposition groups. The first suggests integrating the food security with a viable agriculture development policy. The second, naturally, has a political overtone and needs a very careful and crafty manoeuvre vis a vis the ‘extraordinary alliance – of millers, rent seekers with DG food, and idealists who genuinely distrust private markets.

In view of the above, it is evident that by way of integrating the food security with a viable agriculture development policy, following Streeten (1987), is exposed to the ‘fundamental dilemma’ of food policy. Food prices high enough to encourage agricultural production as it is universally accepted that farmers are ‘price responsive’ is obviously, in contrast with the purpose of food price low enough to protect poor food buyers. Pinstrup-Anderson (1987) points out the obvious reality that policies that attempt to strengthen incentives to expand food production through higher food prices may result in reduced incomes and severe hardships for the poor. As stated above, Private Sector Development: Creating market and transforming life are the basic criteria for which a comprehensive change is possible to promote the standards of life of the people virtually.

This might be in the form of an affiliate program, it might be a link-trade, or it might be some other type of arrangement – but one thing’s for certain – it will be partnership (or Joint Venture) of some kind. This is the only way to drive hordes of traffic without paying through your nose for it!

But let’s take it a step further…

The Pareto Principle states that 20% of your actions will produce 80% of your results. This “formula” can also be applied to your marketing partners, because only a handful of your affiliates, JV partners and sites that you trade links with will actually provide you with any substantial results.

In fact, the time you spend setting up deals with the “lesser” partners is almost always a complete waste of time. And the fact of the matter is that it takes the same amount of effort to form an alliance with a “player” in your industry as it does to partner with a small site or resource that really can’t help you when it comes to producing real results…

What it comes down to is that if you want to generate a tsunami of traffic in record time – you’re going to have to go for the gold right from the start. This means that you need to form partnerships with the “players” in your industry right from day one.

And this is how you do it:

1. Use a “primer email” when you contact potential joint venture partners. Instead of simply nailing them with a pitch/proposal right off the bat (without any formal introduction), introduce yourself, address the them personally by name, and ask if they’d be interested in discussing an idea that would benefit them directly.

Get their attention, pique their interest and initiate a conversation. Don’t just jam a proposal in their face. Chances are, they probably receive multiple partnership proposals daily…

2. When you approach prospects that have large mailing lists and lots of traffic, always emphasize the exclusivity of your offer.

Make them a unique offer that only they’ll get. Do whatever it takes to make it totally irresistible – even if that means giving up most (or all) of your profits, or offering other incredibly lopsided incentives.

You have to remember that you’re getting free traffic from this – along with the opportunity to build a client base that you can leverage again and again by selling them additional products, and having them evangelize your business for you as time goes on…

Think long-term, and view joint ventures as a way to build a business for free – not so much as a “quick cash” strategy (even though that’s often a part of it).

3. Get their complete attention by sending a “hard copy” of your proposal. Not just another email cramming up their inbox (which is all to easy to delete…)

Instead, try using Fed/Ex (or even a fax message) instead of simply firing off an email. You’ll be surprised with your results.

Also, once you’ve received some kind of response, take it to the next level as soon as possible by arranging a time to speak on the phone. When your partner hears your voice audibly, it will be much easier for them to get a feel for who you are – which will make them feel more comfortable in dealing with you.

Rapport goes a long way…

4. Set up the deal and make it happen. Make things as easy as possible for your partner.

Have mailings, articles, banners, links and other promo tools built and ready-to-go in advance. The less your partner has to do, the better.

Additionally, make sure that you set a date for the promotion to begin. If possible, solidify a start-date as soon as you can. Most deals end up evaporating because there is no deadline or schedule in place.

5. Before your JV partners start promoting you – and before their traffic hits your site like hurricane and your sales start flying off the charts – make sure you have a plan in place to maximize their traffic as much as possible.

There are hundreds of ways to do this, but this is what you need to consider doing for the most part:

a) Have a system in place to capture leads that aren’t ready to buy your offer yet – but that want more information. (This is typically done by offering a free mini-course, a free demo, or something similar in exchange for a newsletter subscription)

b) Consider using an “exit-popup” to try and salvage visitors that are leaving your site. (Make sure this doesn’t conflict with your ordering process)

c) Find (or develop) numerous products and services to promote after people buy your product, or subscribe to your newsletter. Remember that this is the whole point of setting the deal in the first place – you’re trading upfront profits in exchange for long-term revenues from an active customer base…

d) Have a backup payment processor, web host and other “pick and shovel” necessities in the event that the sudden spike in traffic and sales causes problems with your host or your merchant account.

(This happens frequently in larger-scale product launches where several “super affiliates” promote a single offer. You need to be prepared…)

6. When the deal is done and over with, make sure to stay in contact with your partner regularly. One partnership can lead to several, and by building a relationship with the key players in your niche, you’ll literally be holding the “keys” to all the traffic in your market.

And then you’ll be able to generate massive traffic on demand – whenever you want – just by leveraging your current relationships.

This is how you can go from being a “nobody” to being an internet all-star in a matter of days. It takes planning, motivation and the will to actually follow-through, but it is well worth doing.
Big time.
In fact, you’re only one successful partnership away from transforming your online business from being a “bill payer” into a cash-spewing powerhouse that will support a ridiculous lifestyle.

All you have to do now is find the super affiliates in your niche and use the 6-step formula you just read to generate as much traffic as you can handle…

This is a movie about giant robots beating the living daylights out of other giant robots, so anyone who goes in expecting to get anything more than a lot of big robots hitting other big robots shouldn’t be so foolish. It’s also a Michael Bay film for heaven’s sake, so nobody should be expecting anything as sophisticated as believable characters, a plot that can’t fit on the back of a stamp or dialogue that wouldn’t make it through any decent editing process. That said, anybody who does go in expecting only to see giant robots hitting other giant robots is going to find themselves well catered for.

In the absence of a stamp, here’s the plot. A cube of immense power is hidden on earth and two races of giant robots want it. One will destroy the human race, the other will try to protect it. The kid who holds the secret to the location of the cube is targeted by both.

That’s it, let the demolition begin.

There’s very little point talking about the human cast as they are all very pretty and are required to be little else (with the exceptions of John Turturro and Jon Voight who both resort to scenery chewing on a scale that would make Jaws’ shark envious). What the audience are going to see are the robots and it is fair to say that they are impressively rendered. They don’t seem to have personalities, but then they are giant alien robots so what do you expect?

They also move very fast. When these things transform from their car/lorry/plane/helicopter/wha tever alias there are thousands of moving parts all moving at the same time and moving quickly. It’s too much for the human eye to assimilate all in one go. As a result, you can’t really appreciate it. The Peugeot TV ads that convinced director Bay and producer Spielberg that the technology was finally here to transform robots provided much simpler, slower transformations that were more effective. A bigger budget brings faster computers able to move more objects and so that’s what we get.

It’s also a problem in the action scenes where everything is moving so fast that it’s hard to tell which robot is doing what to which other robot. Not that you really care much.

Suffice to say that TRANSFORMERS is crafted for the kind of kids who were brought up on MTV and anime. Action, destruction on an epic scale and lowbrow humour are all that they’re looking for and TRANSFORMERS provides all of that in spades.

If you can switch off your mind and go with it, you’ll have a good time, but if you want more than giant robots hitting giant robots go look elsewhere.

It was a lot of fun for me to play with his Transformer Toys though. It was fun to watch how they work as they change from one thing to the other. They were quite interesting. The Transformer Toys that he received as gifts were the very same that we used to watch on television every week. They were mostly trucks and cars that turned into something else, though there were also other types you could buy. He knew he would not get every single one of them that he wanted because some of those transformers toys were very expensive.

A few years ago, I noticed that Transformers toys are making a comeback, but not at the point they existed when my brother was crazy about them. I don’t know if they have a new cartoon or not, but there must be some way that children are getting interested if the Transformers toys are making a comeback. Once a cartoon is successful, the toys will soon follow. You are almost guaranteed success in merchandise if you can get a cartoon made that kids will love.

If you look in your attic and find some of the older Transformers toys, you may want to get them out to give to your kids. They will love the older ones, but you may still have to buy some of the newer ones that are in stores if that is something they are into. You could also sell the old Transformers toys, if you don’t have children, to those who are now collecting them because they loved them as a child. There are always people out there who fondly remember something from their childhood, and they often like to find these things to bring home with them.

The computer and thinking
The thinker and pioneer computer developer Douglas C. Engelbart said of the computerization revolution, that he sees in its development so far the beginning of a road that does not foretell its continuance. We have used computers thus far as instruments of control, says Engelbart. The real revolution, to his mind, will occur when we succeed in moving from governing devices to accelerating devices. The REFRAMER software was developed with this vision in view.

The introduction of computers to organizations, school, universities and private homes has brought about technical improvements in processes of data gathering and processing – but not to a breakthrough in modes of thinking and learning that precede the gathering and processing. The most dramatic development occurred in the availability of information. The link of every organization, home and office to Intranet or Internet has made information available in a way unknown in the past. Anyone can now search for information suitable to his or her specific needs and to the exact context that interests him or her, without limitation of time or space.

Yet we must distinguish between refining the methods of transmission and utilization of information and improving the processes of “knowledge generation.” Information is not knowledge. It is possible to package information and to distribute it separately from the process and context in which it is created. Knowledge is not separable form context. Knowledge is a process of interpretation and not a definitional outcome. Knowledge is always “in being” in the mind of the thinking individual or group. As soon as it is packaged, it loses its quality as knowledge and becomes information (Brown & Duguid, 2000; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). Knowing is qualitatively different from the processes of the management of information, and at the same time is not separate from them. Knowledge, on the one hand, draws on information for relating it to the state of the world, and on the other hand creates a setting of coherence and preservation of relevance, upon which processes of information gathering may be carried out.

The processes of gathering and processing of information that we carry out in our intensive daily framework encourage very specific thinking processes. These are not necessarily the same thinking processes we need for coping with the issue of the main managerial and individual thinking of our time, i.e. the need to cope with rapid changes in our environment that force us to reexamine and change the overt and covert concepts and models by which we think about ourselves in relation to this environment.

We may learn this from the business and management domain, that uses and applies very advanced technologies and computer programs, and even tries to develop an integral management concept, “knowledge management” for use in the organization. Even in organizations applying the most advanced processes in these areas, it was found that they aided in improving the quality of managerial decisions only in quite specific areas, mostly of secondary importance for the survival and development of the organization. As a whole, they did not improve the organizational insights needed for handling the conceptual race with the rapid basic changes occurring in the business environment and with the increase in their complexity. The basic gap in this race was increased rather than decreased.

What is the reason for this? Are the hopes we pin on technologies as possible tools for improving thinking processes fundamentally unsound? Are we impatient, and must realize that the suitable technologies have not yet ripened, and we must simply wait for them? Or is the potential already there, and the main technologies already exist, but what is lacking is the conceptual framework – including theories and methodology – needed in order to harness these innovations to the areas of improvement of human thinking in the context of reinterpretation (and not only improving the efficiency) of the old? It is our belief that the answer lies mainly in the third possibility – in not harnessing existing technologies to cognitive coping with the growing changeability and complexity of the human action milieu.

The assumption that there is complementarity between computational thinking and human thinking, and that computational thinking enhances human thinking, is comfortable and even partially true. But the thinking capabilities we develop from the computational point of view are very specific, and may be included in the domain of “problem-solving” processes, or “lower order thinking capabilities” (Resnick, 1987). These are the capabilities that enable us to do what we already know how to do in a more reliable way, faster and more accurate, but within our existing thinking patterns and frameworks. Coping with a changing environment requires the breaking of frameworks and the establishment of new patterns. When we are faced with a new reality or with the necessity to reinterpret an existing reality in a different way a different kind of thinking activity is needed: restructuring of the problems or the operation of “higher order thinking capabilities.”

The “lower order thinking capabilities” include the skills of information retrieval and organization, and drawing both simple and complex causal inferences about the interrelations between variables. We also employ our “lower order thinking capabilities” to deal with new complex problems (e.g. strategic changes in the competitive environment, technological innovations, implementation of advanced systems etc). By doing that, we refer to such complex problems (that in essence cannot be reduced) as if they were compound problems that can be reduced into their components. We then gather information about them, and perform inference drawing processes. Then we reconstruct what we believe to be the “factual truth” updated for the various components of what we assume to be “the whole”, in a thinking process of graded causal connection. Thus we solve problems in the world.

By “higher order thinking capabilities” we mean those cognitive skills needed for identifying a significant organization in what did not previously seem so – the ability of conceptual thinking with the use of analogies and metaphors – in order to clarify the essence of the problem that is in need of clarification as a whole, without reducing it into components. This is a thinking process that develops associatively and is not based on an assumption of a pre-existing model. The “higher order thinking capabilities” are those enabling us to conduct in the course of the thinking process also that thinking which controls and directs its own thought processes – what is termed “thinking about thinking.” “Higher order thinking capabilities” are those by which we develop knowledge about context, that is always beyond general information. We do it by our ability to identify the tension between existing information and what we know through our own experience in context; yet we are still unable to formulate its meanings and implications. “Higher order thinking capabilities” are those by means of which we as human beings conceptualize our own condition in order to generate new knowledge – thus we reformulate the problems we are faced with, in order to try later to solve the problem. The implementation will thus be coherent, and the result will be relevant.

Each of us has “higher order thinking capabilities” in one level and shape or another; but most of us are unaware of them, and are not skilled in their application.

The use of computer technology directs and develops in us mainly the “lower order thinking capabilities.” REFRAMER is the first software to be constructed from the start in order to change this state of affairs.

REFRAMER – computer applications for enhancing “higher order thinking capabilities”

Management theory conceives of the managerial problem as “problem-solving” that motivates the optimization of organizational processes. It identifies the issue of thinking with a “decision-making process” – a rational process of information processing in order to reach the decision with the highest payoff. The people of the organization are the “decision-makers” and “problem-solvers” through processing information. The organization as a whole is seen as an “information-processing machine.” In this thinking context, high hopes were placed on the application of computer technologies for the improvement of “decision-making” capabilities in organizations. These hopes were based on the advantage of the computer in doing computations that are more rapid than anything the human brain can do, and its superiority in logical analysis of information and causal contexts. Indeed, a whole industry was developed of software offering “thinking solutions” based on these assumptions. Also belonging to this family of computer “solutions” for “thinking” problems are the Data Analysis and Mining Software Tools and the Expert Systems. These tools, among others – are based on the assumption that it will be possible to improve decision-making in various domains by constructing software for “problem-solving” that will include rational thinking algorithms “taken from the minds” of specialists and their “implantation in expert systems.” Computer technology has also been applied to the construction of “decision-support systems” that offer logical ways of coping with complex decision problems, by pointing to the logical causal interrelations between multi-dependent variables.

These systems, sophisticated as they may be, are still based on the “lower thinking capabilities” – reducing complex problems into their components according to given criteria, drawing inferences of cause and effect relations about each of the “components,” and reconstructing of the components into a whole, in a graded causal connection. In spite of all the sophistication invested in them, their contribution to the development of “higher thinking capabilities” is minimal. Simon described the large gap between the complexity of the problems the organization has to deal with on the one had, and the limitations of human thinking when examined as an information-processing machine on the other hand, in view of this complexity (Simon, 1969).

The starting point of PRAXIS was that one has first to invest in researching the theory, the methodology and the ways of imparting of “higher thinking capabilities,” both in the individual and the organizational context. Only after clarification of the difficulties encountered by individuals and groups in performing thinking processes that require the use of “higher thinking capabilities”, and on the basis of this knowledge, did the company develop applications based on computer technology in order to assist the individual or groups to surmount these difficulties. These are embodied in the REFRAMER software.

REFRAMER?S new innovations and possibilities for individuals and organizations

We shall present below the main innovations of the software and the new possibilities it enables, on both the individual and organizational level.

On the individual level

? Advanced technologies of graphic representation have been applied, in order to enable the thinker to represent the advancement in his thinking as it is formed. Thus, rendering the process more visible to the thinker himself or herself, and enabling him or her to perform “thinking about thinking” as it is taking place.

? The software encourages the user to be aware of concepts by which and through which he or she thinks. It forces him or her to elicit concepts and uses of them as he or she did before in an implicit manner, and to make them conscious and explicit. Rendering the concepts explicit enables a new bridging between them and other concepts, and raising new concepts not hitherto considered, which connected to the meaning of the context. This conceptual development enables on its part the elicitation of previously tacit experiential knowledge, and to turn it into overt knowledge.

? The software enables and encourages simultaneous use of both the verbal and the visual dimensions of thinking. These different but complementary representations serve as additional means stimulating the thinker to “observe” his thinking through processes that are difficult to perform or even to deem possible without the feeling obtained from experiencing thinking by means of the software.

? In the course of structuring thinking, the software creates a drawing of a seemingly spatial map of the structure formed by the thinking process, thus enabling a broad and multi-contextual spatial vision of the development of associative thinking in the thinker, with all its complexities. Thus, the software affords the thinking a self-view and self-criticism that would be impossible without this support.

? The computer technology is applied in REFRAMER also to expand the limits of the “focused associations” of thinking. The main block to the development of thinking in “focused associations” is the difficulty of the “brain” to follow each process and to remember the associative shifts and their connections to the topic. The associative process tends to “run away” from the topic, and the thinker finds it difficult to maintain the necessary complementary contradiction between freedom in maintaining “associative thinking” and the discipline needed to focus on the problem. He also finds it difficult to follow this complex process, which is beyond the “natural” human memory capabilities. This difficulty also precludes the possibility to examine the associative process and to develop the skill for achieving it. The REFRAMER contains the necessary aids to assist thinkers to overcome these difficulties.

? The software’s attributes of multi- dimensional representations of the development of thinking afford many possibilities for thought interactions, while the user is constantly negotiating the meanings of ideas and concepts. It thus assists the user to construct a broad and thick-precision thinking construct about his thinking.

By means of these attributes, REFRAMER succeeds in acting upon the user as a facilitator, guiding the user in the utilization of his higher thinking capabilities in order to examine the validity of his or her present thinking construct, in its adaptation to the context of the problem before him or her, and in changing and enriching it according to the context. All this – without any assumptions in the software about the contents of the thinking or any model about the problem itself.

On the group and organizational level

The software was designed in such a way, that it enables the integration of thought accelerating processes, both for individual and groups.

? The software enables the user to maintain both the “image of his or her thinking process” – in what is termed “Deliberation-Space Maps”, and the “conceptual image” that he or she created – in what is termed “Setting Maps.” The representation of the thinking process parallel to a rich representation of the concept creates what may be called a “memory” of the thinking process, and enables “connecting” and referring to it at any time. A memory of the thinking processes themselves along with the associative passageways and their contexts, and not only the outputs of thinking, aids in turning the whole process into an overt process to him or her who created it, as well as sharing it with others in the organization. It is also possible to examine it post facto, in order to learn its attributes and improve upon it.

? In the organizational context, the maps representing the concept create a new tool for inter-personal and organizational transmission of concepts, deliberation spaces, considerations and conceptions. This tool aids in preventing the familiar organizational failure of continuing to hold on to decisions long after the reasons for them have been deleted from the organizational “memory,” and in many cases – long after the logic that has led to them no longer exists.

? In contrast to the organizational communication of commands and directions that are in many ways the completion of the process of investigation, transmission of concepts through the maps representing them makes it possible to continue and maintain – along with the transmission of directions – an additional channel of understanding and discourse inside the organization, about the meaning and interpretation of these directions.

? Since the process of creating new concepts is mainly a group process that takes place through discourse, REFRAMER utilizes computer technology in order to enable maintenance of structured discourse processes within a group as well as between groups who develop a common conception from different perspectives of observation and experience. The software demands of its users a discipline of conceptual precision, aiding in the processes of learning through discourse by preventing the familiar failures of useless debates about similar ideas expressed in different words. Alternatively, they prevent false beliefs about the existence of common understandings where they do not exist.

Thus, through the REFRAMER, it is possible to maintain in the organization a level of innovative development of ideas before and beyond the familiar processes of planning and decision-making, and maintain this level of molded thinking parallel to them. The software enables the maintenance of a continuous complementary tension between the processes of control that ensure the application of the program and an adequate operation of the decision-making process according to present concepts, and the examination of the concepts upon which they are based. On the other hand, such a combination bolsters the understanding of the concept behind the commands and directions, thus supplying an answer to their major inherent limitation – that they never suffice to describe the complexity of reality.

These attributes of the software place it in a position not only of an aid to individual and group thinking, but as a platform to change in organizational culture. REFRAMER enables to generate in the organization accelerated processes of creating and developing knowledge, while no longer placing the person in the organization as a information-absorbing individual who receive orders from an outside source in a given world, but as one who actively participate in molding and transforming world.

References

Brown, J. S. & Duguid, P., The social life of information. Harvard Business Press, 2000.

Nonaka, I. & Tskeuchi, H., The knowledge – creating company. Oxford University Press, 1995.

Resnick, L., Education and learning to think. National Academy Press, 1987.

Simon, H., The science of the artificial. M.I.T Press, 1969.

Engelbart, D. C. web site (one of many) – http://unrev.stanford.edu/index.html

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