Theories and theorists with the causes and responses to problematic Literature review

Theories and theorists with the causes and responses to problematic behaviour in children - Literature review Example One of the most basic debates revolves around the respective importance of the features and qualities that a child is born with, and those that are acquired from the environment as a child matures in the company of other people. This is known as the nature/nurture debate (Eysenk, 1997, 305-309) and a number of psychologists have devised experiments to try and work this out, so that more can be understood about how a child learns to interact with others, absorbing the rules of society and finding ways to adapt to the demands of school. Clearly if scholars can understand how behaviour is acquired, then they have more chance of finding ways to intervene if problems arise in this process. Behaviourism is one of the most well-known theories of child development. The Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) conducted some very famous experiments on animals to research the way that learning takes place. He was primarily interested in physiology and his experiment with dogs showed that a random connection between a certain sound, and a reward of food, meant nothing to a dog at first, but with repeated association of the two, the dog could be trained to respond to the tone, in anticipation of the food, so that when the tone sounded, for the dog would salivate, even though there was no food in the room. Pavlov noted that this reflex action occurred spontaneously in the dog, whenever the stimulus was given, and this was called conditioning and it provided the basis for the theory of behaviourism. An example of the enduring truth of these theories can be observed in some typical behaviours in the context of education: â€Å"†¦ our actions may condition inappropriate a s well as appropriate behaviours, such as the automatic lack of attention to the lesson the moment the bell rings.† (Woollard, 2010, p. 12) Further work on this line of thinking was done by American psychologist Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949), based on the way that cats learn to solve puzzles. Thorndike focussed on repetition of tasks, showing that the more frequently an action is required, and the more often a reward is offered for completion of this action, the more likely it is that the animal will learn the action. The implications for child behaviour are that learning should be provided in well structured, rather repetitive ways, with consistency in the reward system so that the child over time learns to fit in with what is expected of him. The psychologist John Watson (1878-1958) used the tools of scientific experimentation to demonstrate the validity of behaviourism: â€Å"Based on his research on higher order animals, Watson strove to bring to psychology the same me asure of objectivity that marked some of the other traditional sciences such as physics and chemistry.† (Hart and Kritsonis, 2006, pp. 2-3) The empirical method, based on experiments and data analysis were a major part of Watson’s behaviourism and he is credited with establishing the credibility of Psychology as a discipline. Continuing in this same vein, B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) developed these ideas using rats initially, and then drawing parallels with child development. He devised experiments in which rats were required to push levers to obtain food, and this was called operant conditioning, because the rats had to actively operate the equipment to achieve the desired result. The important factor which he applied to child behaviour, was that rewards and punishments could be used to condition children to behave in certain ways. Skinner’s behaviour modification theories hold that positive reinforcements, such as praise and encouragement will work more effectivel y than negative reinforcements, such as punishment, because the associations of past experiences will gradually persuade the child

Criminological Theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 3

Criminological Theory - Essay Example People consider them as the founding fathers of the classical theories because they are the ones who started enlightening the community on classical thinking. Their aim was to reduce the harshness experienced in the judicial systems during the eighteenth century. The classical theory bases its arguments on the principle of maximum pleasure and minimum pain (Gottfredson, 1990). Bentham is the main contributor to this school of thought, being a utilitarian he was interested in the well-being and happiness of the population. In classicism, punishment is for the good of the criminal. He believes that human behavior is aimed at minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure. Bentham as one of the founders of the classical theorists believes that, it is better to prevent a crime than to let a person commit a crime and then punish him. This theory advocates for a punishment that is equal to the crime committed. Classical thinking has a big impact in criminological thinking and a greater influence in criminal justice. In America and Europe, the idea of giving punishment depending on the nature of crime has created a foundation to the criminal justice systems in the modern society. Classical thinking has led to the decline of torture, use of capital punishment and corporal punishment (Baron, 2003). Over the years since the second half of eighteenth century and nineteenth century, prisons have developed, and the whole concept and idea of prison was to punish the soul and mind and not the body. This was very important in changing a person’s criminal behavior. One of the strengths of the classical theory is that, although it was developed long ago, it has continued to be used in the present judicial system (Baron, 2003). Deterrence as one of the elements in classical thinking helps in reducing crime rate. Classical thinking might be in great use today, but it also has its weaknesses and one of the weaknesses is that, in the

The Royal Automobile Club business overview

The Royal Automobile Club business overview The Royal Automobile Club was founded in 1897 to provide its members with roadside assistance. It is part of a hugely competitive market where it is involved in a continual tussle with The AA and Green Flag for market superiority. There are fundamental problems in RACs current operations. Customer service is vital aspect of the roadside recovery business and this is where RAC are failing. RAC have had a rising in the number of customer complaints coupled with poor retention of customers. The RAC has to supply its services and respond quickly to all callouts but faces difficulty dealing with the variation in demand. The problems were outlined by Martin Connor, the director of Operations who claimed the only big winners seemed to be the contractors who provide capacity during the night and during periods of overloading. This is a time while the RACs own patrol staff are earning more despite a decline in productivity. The RAC uses private contractors during weekends and at also at night times, they also supplement day patrols if the demand is unexpectedly high. As the contractors dont carry the full RAC branding, customer service was less of a priority to them. Market research had indicated that customers were less satisfied with the service provided by private contractors. The use of such contractors was also expensive, with the average price being  £36 plus. After working a standard forty hour week, at busy periods staff were offered overtime or the option of being on standby. Overtime was paid at time and a half and double on Sundays. Staff had no motivation to complete work as quick as possible as they would be paid however long jobs took. Similarly the standby system was fraught with problems, staff were paid a flat fee of  £6 per job completed. There was no difference in pay with regard to simple jobs that would take a few minutes and more difficult jobs which could take a long time. Staff could log off at any point and would frequently do so if they were offered time consuming jobs. This would force the RAC into delegating to contractors at the much higher cost The patrol attendance rate measures how many of the jobs the RAC undertakes were dealt with by their own staff. In 1999 the rate was averaging 80%. The importance of a high PAR is underlined in the costs which suggest that just a 1% decrease would cost about  £1 million per year in contractors fees. .The RAC has a reputation for offering high quality service a but at a high price. It faced losing its market share as a number of competitors surfaced. It was faced with the problem of improving its operations whilst keeping its membership costs at a competitive price. In an independent survey the RAC was ranked 2nd to the AA in terms of customer satisfaction. The critical customer service factors are in the call taking and how quickly patrols are on the scene and complete the job. Due to more advanced call taking technology the AA was able to offer its members better customer service than the RAC. The importance of a low membership costs could not be underestimated as Green Flag, which had poor customer service feedback from the survey was becoming a leading competitor due to its low costs. The SWOT analysis shows where the RAC need to improve. SWOT analysis Strengths Strong brand Large customer base Good profitability Weaknesses Old fashioned image Capacity easily overloaded. Opportunities Innovative technology New products Threats Competition Technology of cars improving reduction in breakdowns Increased customer expectation Workforce scheduling / Capacity management Literature Review In service industries the matching of capacity and demand is particularly difficult. Capacity management plays an important role in determining how effectively an organisation uses its assets to produce income. (Sun Services, 2007) Capacity management is the ability to balance demand from customers and the ability of the service delivery system to satisfy the demand. (Armistead et al, 1991) There is either too much demand for the capacity, putting a strain on resources, or too little demand, giving rise to unused capacity and a loss in revenue. This is known as the perishability factor. (Mudie et al, 2006) Both of these are an issue for the RAC due to the numerous factors that influence the demand on the patrols such as the weather. The manner in which workforce is deployed is a large determinant of the effectiveness of service organisations. Having more staff than is necessary to provide the desired level of customer service is costly and having fewer staff than is necessary risks poor customer service and the loss of current or future revenue. In an ideal scenario the company has just enough staff available to provide the desired level of service. Temporal variation in customer demand, even within a day, compounds the difficulty of providing the ideal number of staff. One solution is the use of planning intervals of an hour or less, in conjunction with overlapping shifts, and then allowing the number of employees scheduled to change from period to period. The task of providing the right number of employees at the right time is commonly known as workforce scheduling. (Thompson et al 2006) Rotating workforce scheduling is a typical constraint satisfaction problem which appears in a broad range of work places (Musliu, 2005). Poor workforce scheduling often leads to high personnel turnover, absenteeism, resentment, poor job performance and unfit mental and physical conditions situations that translate to loss of productivity, quality and even safety (Hung, 1992) One method to solve capacity issues is to address the schedules of the workers, a re-arranged workweek can be a great recruitment tool. Many people are enthusiastic about receiving one or more extra off-days per week and longer weekends (for the 4-day workweek, there are 52 extra off-days per year). Moreover, fewer work days means including less time and money on commuting and less expenses on meals and childcare. (Hung, 1992) Another factor that can affect capacity is motivation. This can be influenced by shift patterns dictated. Motivation can be increased by adapting work times to individual needs which can change over time, better working conditions (such as security and hygiene), creation of a team spirit or through professional mobility. For example, highly skilled staff can act as tutors to new employees. (Chan et al, 2006). Part time workers can increase the flexibility of operations. A common trend amongst the literature is to offer discounted prices at times to level off the demand. This is a possibility for the RAC who could offer breakdown packages such as weekends only or off peak packages at substantially discounted prices. Competitive Analysis RAC The basic RAC policy starts at  £28. On average there patrols are able to fix 80% at the roadside. The RAC web-site has an active forum, where members can communicate with one another to give advice, this creates an online community. RAC will attend the first five callouts made by a member free of charge and offer priority for vulnerable motorists. Having over 2000 patrols and over 100 years experience are key selling points for the RAC. All labour and fittings costs are included in membership, so members only have pay for the part itself. RAC advertise offers worth over  £500 to try and lure in new members, they include discounts on health insurance, roadside restaurants and UK holidays. (RAC, 2010) Green Flag The Green Flag slogan is driven by performance, Green flag compare themselves to both the RAC and The AA by advertising its average time is under 30 minutes in contrast to their 40 minute average. The claim is backed up with data from 837,962 call outs. Its basic plan begins at  £20, they fix 86% of customers cars at the roadside. A key asset of green flag policies is the availability of the customer to adapt a policy to fit their own circumstances, you dont have to pay the price of other peoples problems . Green Flag offer no callout discounts to members and offer free, unlimited call-outs when you breakdown. They aim to answer calls within 20 seconds. Green flag operates solely through outside contractors, which has a negative affect on its customer service. (Green Flag, 2010) The AA The AA claim to fix more breakdowns by the roadside than anyone else they have strong customer satisfaction and boast 95% of members would recommend the firm to friends. On average the AA arrive within around 40 minutes of members calls. With 3500 patrols the AA has the largest dedicated breakdown patrol force in the UK,; they attend a breakdown on average every 8.7 seconds and repair around 8 out of 10 breakdowns by the roadside. Only the AA has VIxEN, a unique on-board computer to help diagnose faults. At night, as at other times of the day, the AA serves its members with its own patrols and, as with other breakdown providers and some garage agents, when appropriate. (The AA, 2010) Strategic performance objectives The Objective of the RAC is to provide a fast and quality service to its members who breakdown at the roadside. To do this they need to define what the key performance indicators are and what is the expected level. A key performance indicator is a metric that allows you to evaluate whether you are meeting a certain goal. The five kpis for breakdown companies are: Quality : the level of customer service and efficiency of the recovery Cost The cost the customer has to pay Dependability To always have patrols ready for jobs. Flexibility To adapt to unexpected rises in demand. Speed To answer calls quickly, patrol arrive quickly, job completed quickly Recommendations 1 in every 5 jobs completed are being outsourced to contractors costing the RAC a huge amount of money and risking its reputation from its members who have expressed dissastisfaction by the service they have received from such patrols. Clearly changes have to focus around ensuring more callouts are attended by RAC patrols. To do this firstly the RAC need to invest in new calling and dispatch process. More effective call technology can identify the patrol most suitable to undertake each job and can improve customer service relations. More effective utilisation of patrols will ease capacity issues. The overtime payments need to be re-structured so that is no longer based on a per job basis. The current system is open to abuse by patrols who would avoid difficult jobs by logging off. This a key reason for the excessive use of contractors. The pay structure needs to adjusted, Proposed would be a rating scale for the difficulty of jobs completed, patrols could then receive a monthly bonus based on there performance. changed to offer staff incentives and motivation to ensure customer service is top of their priority. These can include monthly bonuses or share schmes. In most cases it may be necessary to establish some scale of gradation of jobs based on some objective assessment and to relate jobs measured on this scale to rates of pay (Wild, 1991) The PAR is reducing by as much as 3% during peak holiday season. A 1% drop in PAR costs  £1 million per year in contractor fees. Holidays need to be re-reanged so that they are equally dispersed around the year. December and January are the busiest months so there must be a limt especially around this time. Monday is the busiest day of the week for the RAC with the weekend the quietist time Workforce schedules can also be adjusted, the current shift system doesnt work. One option would be to switch workers to a four day week. Workers could then have more social hours and capacity could be increased at peak periods. Needs to continue its investment in materials that help drivers fix there own faults, with a particular emphasis on problems caused by winter conditions. This can be the most effective measure to combat capacity problems. Phone operators can try an identify the causes of problems and offer the potential for the member to fix there own vehicle. The staff at RAC are approaching retirement and therefore RAC will need to attract new recruits. It is important that the knowledge built up by years of experience by the senior employees is utilised to enable the training of the new younger employers to be more effective. Staff should be encouraged to present any ideas to senior management that they believe would improve operations. With attractive incentives offered for any ideas that put into practice, the job satisfaction and motivation of employees would be likely to increase. There will be a resistance to change, particularly from the patrols who are seeking more social hours and a generally easier working schedule. The diagram above shows how the proposed changes could improve the operations of the RAC. The main advantage would be seen in the flexibility of the patrols. The RAC need to communicate more effectively with members who broke down. Breakdowns can be highly stressful situations and therefore knowing approximately how long it will take for a patrol to arrive will be a reassurance to the member.

Philippa Foots Hypothetical Imperatives Essays -- Ethics Kant Philoso

Philippa Foot's Hypothetical Imperatives Philippa Foot finds trouble with the arguments of Kant, who said that it was necessary to distinguish moral judgments from hypothetical imperatives. Although this may have become an unquestionable truth, Foot says that this is a misunderstanding. Kant defined a hypothetical imperative as an action that addresses what "should" or "ought" to be done. He believed that the necessity of performing a certain action was based on other desires. This particular action would only be important if it was beneficial for another reason. It is prudent that a man feel the responsibility to achieve his own wants. However, Kant speaks of a second group of imperatives known as "categorical imperatives." These are actions which are important in themselves, without considerations of any other matter. At a glance it appears that Kant is accurate in saying that moral judgments are categorical imperatives. Perhaps the best way to analyze this is to break down the uses of the words "should" and "ought." For example, consider a man in a business suit looking lost a railroad station on a Friday afternoon. One would point the man to the train that will take the man home, assuming the man in the business suit was on his way home. If however, that man is headed somewhere else, then the statement should be withdrawn. Our should is unsupported. However, the use of should and ought in moral contexts is different. The situation changes if the man being advised is receiving suggestions regarding a moral judgment. An opinion on a moral judgment does not need to be backed up because in essence it is not an opinion. Rather, it is a strict rule in which the considerations of the man do not matter. One need not ... ...w a matter of etiquette or moral judgment without questioning why he must do it, this same man can refuse to follow the rules until a reason to follow is stated. This leaves us with one conclusion, which is best stated by Philippa Foot: Kant and his followers defend having morals in the group of categorical imperatives "are relying on an illusion, as if trying to give the moral `ought' a magic force." Society is losing grip as a result of lacking explanation of moral law. There is no hard evidence backing moral judgment and society is losing touch with doing "what's right." Foot claims that we maintain moral judgments to be categorical imperatives simply because in doing so we are forced to care about the issue. Analyzing this from a broader stance, we are conditioning ourselves to believe in something that will hopefully influence the betterment of society.

Extraction of Eugenol from Cloves Oil

Isolation of Acetyleugenol (Clove Oil) from Cloves Purpose In this experiment, you will obtain the essential oil from cloves by steam distillation. You will then separate a component (acetyleugenol) from the oil by liquid-liquid extraction. Finally, you will isolate the acetyleugenol by using a rotovap for reduced pressure distillation, which will remove the organic solvent (dichloromethane). Background Whole cloves contain between 14% and 20% by weight of essential oils, but only half of that can be isolated as acetyleugenol. Clove oil contains two basic compounds: eugenol and acetyleugenol.As a result of Dalton’s Law and Raoult’s Law, both of these substances can be removed from the cloves with a steam distillation. Eugenol is polar due to the acidic hydroxyl (OH) group, but acetyleugenol is not polar. As a result, they can be separated by extraction from a 5% aqueous NaOH solution. Acetyleugenol will dissolve in the organic CH2Cl2 layer, while eugenol remains in the aqueous base layer as a phenoxide. This can be seen in the reaction below (where ArOH is eugenol), because dissolved ions prefer the aqueous phase. ArOH(aq) + OH-(aq) ? ArO-(aq) + H2O(Liq)Acetyleugenol has no acid proton, and cannot ionize. So, it prefers the organic phase. Essential oils from plant materials are used today for medicinal and other purposes. Among these oils are camphor, quinine, oil of cloves, cedarwood, turpentine, cinnamon, gum benzoin, and myrrh. The U. S. FDA has declared clove oil to be the most effective remedy for a toothache. Substances 25 g whole cloves (350 g per lab section) 100 ml DI water (1. 5 L per lab section) 10 ml 5% NaOH (150 ml per lab section) 45 ml CH2Cl2 (650 ml per lab section) Mg SO4 or Na2SO4 (anhydrous) Apparatus Items in kit 50-ml round-bottomed flask distillation head thermometer adapter large bore condenser Claisen adapter 125-ml separatory funnel Items not in kit Plastic funnel 100-ml graduated cylinder stands and clamps aluminum foil heating mantle (for 250-ml flask) 250-ml separatory funnel 125-ml Erlenmeyer flask w/ stopper Rotovap Procedure 1. Place 25 g of whole cloves in a 250-ml round-bottomed flask, and add 100 ml of DI H2O. A plastic funnel can be used if necessary to transfer the cloves into the flask. 2. Set up a well-clamped simple distillation apparatus with the large bore condenser.Insert a Claisen adapter with a 125-ml separatory funnel between the flask and the distillation head, similar to Fig. 23. 4 of Zubrick. Ensure the valve on the separatory funnel is closed. Then cover the flask, distillation head, and the bottom of the heating mantle with aluminum foil to insulate for a faster distillation rate. 3. Collect 60 ml of distillate. Also, simultaneously heat distilled water to ~90oC on a hot plate for addition in step 4. 4. Add 60 ml of hot H2O to the separatory funnel, then open the stopcock to add the water to the flask. Be sure to remove stopper from funnel before opening its valve.Also, be s ure to close the valve after adding the water. 5. Collect another 60 ml of distillate. 6. Add 10 ml of 5% NaOH solution to the distillate to neutralize (deprotonate) the eugenol. 7. Acetyleugenol is not very soluble in H2O, and is easily extracted from the distillate with CH2Cl2. Place the 130 ml of distillate solution in a 250-ml separatory funnel and remove the acetyleugenol with three 15-ml portions of CH2Cl2. Gently shaking the separatory funnel will fail to remove the acetyleugenol, however vigorous shaking will produce a boundary layer that is a visible organic- aqueous emulsion.Therefore, shake vigorously, and remove the lower layer up to, and not including, the emulsion. Caution -Pressure typically builds inside separatory funnel when shaken! Be sure to vent stopcock frequently while shaking! Do not vent towards yourself or any other individual! 8. Combine the CH2Cl2 extracts in a 125-ml Erlenmeyer flask and add just enough anhydrous magnesium sulfate or sodium sulfate (dryi ng agents) so that the solid no longer clumps together. Stopper the flask, and let stand 5 minutes. (Note that stopper size is printed on the flask. ) 9.Decant the organic solution into a weighed 250- or 500-ml round-bottom flask. Leave solid drying agent behind. 10. With the instructor’s assistance, evaporate the solvent with the â€Å"rotovap† to isolate the liquid acetyleugenol. Obtain product mass. Waste Disposal The used cloves can be discarded in the trash. The aqueous waste can be neutralized, and then emptied into the sink. Place used drying agent in the waste jar. Lab techs will place collected solvent from the rotovap in the waste jar as well. Recommended Reading Small Scale Syntheses, pp 25-26 (steam distillation) and 28-29 (extraction).McMurry, J. , Organic Chemistry, pg 626 in 8e, or pg 603 in 7e (phenoxides). Zubrick, J. W. , The Organic Chem Lab Survivor Manual, 6th Ed, pp 183-7 (steam dist), 196-9 (rotovap) and 321-2 (steam dist theory). www. chemfinder . com en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Clove Data To Collect Determine mass of Acetyleugenol after evaporating the solvent in the rotovap. Theoretical Yield Basis: See background section for maximum obtainable quantity. Actual Yield Basis: Report the recovered mass divided by the theoretical yield. Also report recovered mass divided by the initial mass of cloves.For the compounds isolated section, find systematic names, as well as tabulated MP’s and BP’s, for both compounds. Post-Lab Q’s 1. Why is eugenol soluble in aqueous base while acetyleugenol is not? (Hint: McMurry describes some important properties of phenols) 2. How can the eugenol be separated from the aqueous base layer? (after the acetyleugenol has been removed) 3. What properties of clove oil make it an effective remedy for a toothache? 4. How does steam distillation extract water-insoluble oils from the cloves? (Hint: What do Dalton’s Law and Raoult’s Law tell us? ) 5. How does the rotovap fun ction?

Power point use in work envirnoment Essay

Cynthia Computer Application-205 Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Microsoft Word-Microsoft Corporation was founded in 1975 lead global in the development and production of software and software-related services and solutions. Initially known for home computers, Microsoft, headquartered in Washington, now offers various operating systems and software for desktop computers. This multinational company strives to help the worldwide business community improve efficiency and productivity. In recent years, this company has battled criticism concerning what some consider monopolistic, anti-competitive business practices. Despite legal setbacks including antitrust violations sanctioned by the US Department of Justice, Microsoft remains a major player in its field. In today’s business environment demands the sharing of data, mobile technology and speedy communication. Microsoft provides tools enabling business to be productive and communicate effectively regardless of location. Outlook serves as the portal for e-mail, tasks, calendar and contacts. Microsoft office line workspace, boasting online storage space, enables users to save access and share documents throughout the world. Mobile Technology like smartphones, which supply the user with advanced computing options allow you to stay connected to businesses. Microsoft office Accounting Express 2008 offers small start-up or at home businesses a resource for accounting processing and procedures. The software includes invoices, budget and finance template and profit and loss statements. Office Excel surpasses manual, paper-based spreadsheets in terms of ease of use and accuracy. Businesses confront an ever-growing number of security threats. Many businesses elect to use Microsoft Vista operating system as a measure to protect their data. Vista boasts account control, troubleshooting and diagnostic features and spyware blocker. Microsoft Security Essentials, introduce in 2009, offers antimalware solutions at no cost to consumers who use Genuine Windows-based PCs. Large business may choose Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate; Ultimate offers Bit Lockers Drive Encryption for maximum data protection. Microsoft lost its standing as the leading global software company in May 2010. Apple, once on the verge of extinction focused on innovative, new consumer products to generate growth; a popular line of hand-held devices contributed to the company’s surge in profitability. In contrast, Microsoft, despite sporadic new systems releases, primarily lies mainly on preserving the existing business. Although Microsoft remains a strong player in the market, the company continues to face stiff competition. PowerPoint is an excellent tool for employee training and online learning. Business owners and company managers can use the programs to create compelling and interactive slide shows to demonstrate new products, train new workers and help existing customers get the most out of the products they buy. In fact there are a great many advantages to using PowerPoint as an online learning tool. One of the most powerful things about PowerPoint is the fact that it can corporate animation features and clip art. Its ability to incorporate sound is another powerful benefit of PowerPoint as an online learning tool. The sound functions of this program can make the slide show more interactive and less boring, and too can encourage visitors to stay with the training. Companies can use this interactive feature of PowerPoint to overcome problems and make their training sessions compelling. PowerPoint contains a number of powerful interactivity tools that makes it easy for users to engage the attention of the entire online audience. The improvement done to Excel 2007 and Excel 2010 is the ability to group the dates in the dropdown list into years and months. That means you don’t have to create a new column to identify the years and months of each row using Excel formulas. In Excel 2010, you can customize your own Ribbon tab. It can be used as commands in one place. In this way you do not have to click from one tab to another to find your commonly used command. In the earlier years of Excel (2003 and below), sorting can only be done based on the color coding in the cell, Not only that, you can also sort the records by the font color. That’s new in Excel 2002 and 2010. Multiple conditional is not made easy Excel 2007 and 2010. In the older Excel version 2003 and below, we are to count based on one single condition. When using Excel 2003, multiple conditions sum has to be done using the formula SUMPRODUCT or combining all the conditions into one before applying the formula SUMIF to data. With the new Excel 2007, you can now easily sum up the values based on more than one condition by using the SUMIF’s fomula.

How To Use Marketing Performance Metrics To Improve

How To Use Marketing Performance Metrics To Improve Peter Drucker once said, â€Å"What gets measured gets managed.† And he was right. When you  have numbers and data, you  study them; you  wonder how you can make them better, especially if they involve sales. And in the world of content marketing, measuring blogging productivity has become a critical piece of any strategy that results in visits, return visits, lead generation, and, ultimately, conversion. The marketing performance metrics- or tools you  use to measure the value of the content you  write- have become quite sophisticated. And you  can use  them to inform all of the decisions you  make about the content on your blog. This is exciting stuff to help you reach your goals and improve  the content youre already publishing. Lets take a look! How To Crush Your Goals With Marketing Performance Metrics via @AndyPreislerBonus! Get your free Google Analytics dashboard  custom-built to complement this post to help you quickly spot many of these marketing performance metrics at a glance. It's complete with tons of links to related reports to explore your data even more in-depth to help you understand how your marketing is performing today and how you can improve your blog. Begin With Your Marketing Goals You users are publishing content because you have big goals to reach.  Figure out  your general marketing goals first, something like: Grow your trafficGrow your leadsGrow your customer base Once you have your foundation- the understanding of what you want to achieve with your marketing- you can then look into the  marketing performance metrics that will guide you toward actual data you will use to measure those goals. A super effective and easy way to define your goals is with the SMART goal setting process: Specific: What, when, and why.Measurable: This is where your marketing performance metrics come in to help you know when you accomplish your goal.Attainable: Requirements necessary to achieve your goal.Realistic: Acknowledge the road blocks that would prevent you from reaching the goal.Time-sensitive: Start and (most importantly) end dates. So, a format like this is what you're looking for: Beginning, January 1, 2016, we will increase our blog and website traffic to 1 million monthly page views by December 1, 2016, to help marketers plan better content while establishing ourselves as  an authority in our niche. The rest of this guide will walk you through choosing the marketing performance metrics you’ll use to measure your progress toward your goals. Recommended Reading:  How To Leverage Your Best Content To Meet Your Marketing Goals Understand The Basic Marketing Performance Metrics Your content creator should be an expert in two things: Creative and engaging writing.Using  analytics tools to measure the effectiveness of content that is created and published on your blog that will help you reach your goals. The basic metrics are all available through Google Analytics, a free tool that will provide huge amounts of data and deep insight into how your  content is really doing. Pro Tip: Setting up Google Analytics is pretty easy. Just follow this handy guide brought to you by the search engine itself. These are all about quantity and can be used to tell a big story in the following ways: Users: This number is a total of how many separate visitors come to your blog over a set period of time. The same visitor is not counted twice. This is the first step in a longer process of analyzing what you are doing right and wrong- the more, the better.Number of pageviews: Once a visitor lands on your blog, are they accessing other pages of your site from your blog? This is important information to have because it demonstrates that a visitor is impressed enough with a post to then check out your site as well.Bounce rate: When someone visits your blog and opens a post, do they stay or do they bounce out within the first 10 seconds? If the number is high, at least the first part of that post content is  not what they expected to see- an opportunity for you to improve.Inbound links: How many visitors are coming in from outside places via an external link? This means people think your content is important enough that they have provided a link to it in something they have written. All of these metrics give you important data that should tell you if your posts are doing the job or not. And Google Analytics does a great job of generating this kind of data for you, although some content marketers use other tools that may go a bit deeper, such as Whoopra or Clicky. The data should tell you specific things.  Low traffic and low â€Å"staying power†- as seen through pageviews and bounce rate- means that your content may need  a major facelift. Either you are not capturing visitors with your titles and first 100 words, or the content in the remainder of the post is not engaging them enough to stay, read, and, ultimately, share. On the other side, if traffic is good and there is high â€Å"staying power† and movement from a post to other pages, you have a winner. The content is good and is well suited to be  repurposed and recycled. Recommended Reading: 3 Hidden Google Analytics Reports To Help You Understand Your AudienceHow To Unlock Quality Content From Your Low-Performing Posts Create Better Content With Audience Performance Metrics These metrics are often called the â€Å"feel good† or â€Å"vanity† measurements. It’s nice to see good numbers of views and comments, because you feel like  other awesome folks appreciate your content. Yay for us! Numbers of views within a set period of time:  Track the number of views (usually in a month), along with the amount of time spent once a post is opened. You could also combine the number of comments a post receives or the decline of views as a post ages.Comments per views:  If, for example, you are getting a comment for every 50 views of a post, you have a winner. That content should be used again, in a different way.Views vs. users: You will also want to know who among your visitors are unique repeat visitors. The repeat visitor number is an important one, because research shows that conversions often come from visitors who view between 5–9 times. These people are highly active- the visitors you have managed to engage well. It's a solid goal to increase the numbers of your  highly engaged audience. You can determine the type of content they enjoy and plan for more of it by analyzing the posts that your highly engaged visitors view.Number of shares per article:  When you get the data on share numbers from each post, and even better, to which social media sites those shares are going, you have some pretty valuable information. Now you can choose the networks where you may want to expand your presence because your audience is clearly using certain networks more than others. It also gives you  an understanding of what content is the most popular  so you can replicate your success. Your marketing calendar shows you which blog posts are getting the most shares right in your top posts page. shows the social shares for every blog post you publish. Find ways to build upon the popular  blog posts you publish that  generate tons of long views and comments, and engage your visitors. You could possibly: Publish  new posts covering related ideas.Repurpose the blog posts  into different media.Optimize that existing content with better graphics  to increase time on page.Add  downloads  into your posts to convert that traffic  into email subscribers. Google Analytics does a fine job of generating vanity data, although some marketers prefer to use Mint, a tool that can also tell you from where your viewers are coming. A Word Of Caution: There is a growing group of content marketing experts who believe that bloggers spend too much time (and money) and give too much importance to vanity metrics analysis. Jason Amunwa is the director of products at Filament, who warns: Vanity metrics do nothing for your actual website objectives, but make your marketing efforts look good. This is problematic, because oftentimes they siphon effort and focus away from the things that could really move the needle for you. Engagement metrics tell you what content is truly performing for you, what’s just â€Å"meh†, and what’s ripe for enrichment and optimization;  in short, engagement metrics tell you where the real opportunities are for growth. Consider  your vanity audience metrics as a learning tool to understand what is popular to create better content. That said, if your main goal is to grow your customer base, let conversions be the metric that influences your content creation process the most. Recommended Reading:  What Really Is Your Social Media ROI? Optimize For Conversion With  Content Performance Metrics This is the truly actionable part of your marketing performance metrics, because you will get invaluable information about how your blog is doing and what you specifically need to do to improve your blogging productivity. Check out three types of marketing performance metrics for your content- content life, content engagement, and content conversions. Content Life (Longevity) Every post has a shelf life. You need to track this so you know how long each post continues to receive views. How many views do you get the first 6 hours, the first day, the first week, and the first month? And what times and days are are you getting the most views?  With the right analytics, you can understand  the longevity of individual posts and an average longevity of all of your posts combined. This kind of information can drive your decisions about what content ideas work well and how to flesh out your blog schedule and social media promotion: Which posts are the most popular? The style and content is obviously right, so you will want to mimic that as much as possible.Which posts are the least popular? You know what style and content not to post again.Which posts have the greatest longevity? Is there a particular common aspect of those? Do you have embedded videos, infographics, etc. on those with a longer shelf life? Again, this tells you what to mimic in future posts.What is your average longevity number?  Your average longevity number is the number of days your posts typically have a lot of interaction before fading. If  your posts  are getting the most views within the first three days, and then viewership is dropping off, you know you need to post every three  days to keep your  blog filled with fresh content. Alternatively, you could use  a tool like to share your content more on social media to extend the life of your content. You can use these Google Analytics reports to understand when you are getting the most pageviews, visits, and leads to help you publish  and share content at the best times when your audience is most engaged. Do you look at content longevity? The metric can help you plan  a better #blogschedule.Recommended Reading: When Is The Best Time To Publish A Blog Post?What 10 Studies Say About The Best Times To Post On Social Media Content Engagement Part of evaluating engagement, of course, includes some of the vanity metrics you just learned about. How many comments and shares are you getting? High numbers indicate that your viewers are actually taking the time to check out  your entire post and are so  engaged that they want to comment or to share that content with others. Which  types of media  complement your posts the best?  So you're blogging, but you're probably including different types of content into your posts. When you share that advanced media like infographics and videos to your social networks, what is performing better for your audience?  This kind of information will tell you which types of posts you want to link to which social media.Measure the time spent on each post by each visitor. If a visitor stays 3 minutes or more, that visitor will most likely return, and studies show that you need to capture a visitor within the first 10 seconds if they're going to stay. If you're getting lots of bounces within that first 10 seconds, you need to do something about your headlines  and your blog post introductions.  You can also get data on whether a visitor is actively engaged with your content or whether the page is open by sitting on a background tab right in Google Analytics.Are viewers scrolling through other posts  after they spend time reading one? This is clearly engagement, and the longer they spend doing this, the more likely they are to come back again. And if you really want to dig deeper, you can track the specific posts a visitor views and collect data on that, so that you know which posts of the past are still piquing interest- review that content and see how you can repurpose it. Personalized content is trending now, so this is a great way to prepare for it!Viewer Loyalty: Google Analytics calls this â€Å"frequency† or â€Å"recency.† How often does the same viewer come and how many days before they come back? Chartbeat  conducted a loyalty study and found that anyone who comes 5 times in a month will keep returning regularly after that.Recommended Reading: 4 Lessons From Psychology That Will Help You Grow Your Blog Content Conversions Conversions are any action  you want a viewer to take, whether that is a sale or an action that may funnel that conversion to an eventual sale. You need to know the percentage of visitors that take some action after having been on your blog- giving an email address signing up for a newsletter, taking a free trial, etc. Lead generation metrics: Are they converting before they read your content or afterward? This will tell you if your posts are productive or not. If conversions are occurring after your content is read, your inbound blog posts are doing their job.Sales generation metrics: If specific content is generating purchases on the part of viewers, you will know that you want to get that type of content into as many posts as possible. Google Goal Analytics can give you great data through conversion reports, and these are pretty critical, because, after all, marketing exists for one purpose- to sell. Create your goals in Google Analytics now: Create, edit, and share goalsCreate and customize dashboards You can request conversion rates per page on your entire site, which will include your blog, and then compare the percent  of conversions for each page. And, if you dig deeper, you can get a report that shows the page that was the original view of that conversion. If you find that a healthy percentage of conversions begin with a view of a blog post, then these posts are paying off well. If you have lots of views, comments, and shares but not a good conversion rate, then all you have are vanity views. Analytics tools are sophisticated, rather amazing, and can really help you make some big  decisions about  your blog content. Turning your marketing performance  metrics into actionable ways to improve your blog will help you create better content and focus that content on achieving your goals.