discuss technology convergence and content convergence

Measuring and evaluating performance is important to managers. They need to explore how individual and performance measures and other measures can be combined to create a better tool for measuring past performance and driving the future achievement of strategic goals. The book lists a few different methods of performance measures, which include Lagging indicators, Leading indicators, Non-financial measures, Bench-marking, and Best practices. If you had a choice, pick one of these 5 measures, explain why you would use it over the others, and how you would implement it.

The Problem

Facebook has long conducted digital experiments on various aspects of its website. For example, just before the 2012 election, the company conducted an experiment on the News Feeds of nearly 2 million users so that they would see more “hard news” shared by their friends. In the experiment, news articles that Facebook users' friends had posted appeared higher in their News feeds. Facebook claimed that the news stories being shared were general in nature and not political. The stories originated from a list of 100 top media outlets from the New York Times to Fox News. Industry analysts claim that the change may have boosted voter turnout by as much as 3 percent.

Next, Facebook decided to conduct a different kind of experiment that analyzed human emotions. The social network has observed that people's friends often produce more News Feed content than they can read. As a result, Facebook filters that content with algorithms to show users the most relevant and engaging content. For one week in 2012, Facebook changed the algorithms it uses to determine which status updates appeared in the News Feed of 689,000 randomly selected users (about 1 of every 2,500 Facebook users). In this experiment, the algorithm filtered content based on its emotional content. Specifically, it identified a post as “positive” or “negative” if it used at least one word previously identified by Facebook as positive or negative. In essence, Facebook altered the regular news feeds of those users, showing one set of users happy, positive posts while displaying dreary, negative posts to another set.

Previous studies had found that the largely positive content that Facebook tends to feature has made users feel bitter and resentful. The rationale for this finding is that users become jealous over the success of other people, and they feel they are not “keeping up.” Those studies, therefore, predicted that reducing the positive content in users' feeds might actually make users less unhappy. Clearly, Facebook would want to determine what types of feeds will make users spend more time on its site rather than leave the site in disgust or despair. Consequently, Facebook designed its experiment to investigate the theory that seeing friends' positive content makes users sad.

The researchers—one from Facebook and two from academia—conducted two experiments, with a total of four groups of users. In the first experiment, they reduced the positive content of News Feeds; in the second experiment, they reduced the negative content. In both experiments, these treatment conditions were compared with control groups in which News Feeds were randomly filtered without regard to positive or negative content.

The results were interesting. When users received more positive content in their News Feed, a slightly larger percentage of words in their status updates were positive, and a smaller percentage were negative. When positivity was reduced, the opposite pattern occurred. The researchers concluded that the emotions expressed by friends, through online social networks, elicited similar emotions from users. Interestingly, the results of this experiment did not support the hypothesis that seeing friends' positive content made users sad.

Significantly, Facebook had not explicitly informed the participants that they were being studied. In fact, few users were aware of this fact until the study was published in a paper titled “Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks” in the prominent scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. At that point, many people became upset that Facebook had secretly performed a digital experiment on its users. The only warning that Facebook had issued was buried in the social network's one-click user agreement. Facebook's Data Use Policy states that Facebook “may use the information we receive about you . . . for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, and service improvement.” This policy led to charges that the experiment violated laws designed to protect human research subjects.

Some lawyers urged legal action against Facebook over its experiment. While acknowledging the potential benefits of digital research, they asserted that online research such as the Facebook experiment should be held to some of the same standards required of government-sponsored clinical trials. What makes the Facebook experiment unethical, in their opinion, was that the company did not explicitly seek subjects' approval at the time of the study.

Some industry analysts challenged this contention, arguing that clinical research requirements should not be imposed on Facebook. They placed Facebook's experiment in the context of manipulative advertising—on the web and elsewhere—and news outlets that select stories and write headlines in a way that is designed to exploit emotional responses by their readers.

On July 3, 2014, the privacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission claiming that Facebook had broken the law when it conducted the experiment without the participants' knowledge or consent. EPIC alleged that Facebook had deceived its users by secretly conducting a psychological experiment on their emotions.

Facebook's Response

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg defended the experiment on the grounds that it was a part of ongoing research that companies perform to test different products. She conceded, however, that the experiment had been poorly communicated, and she formally apologized. The lead author of the Facebook experiment also stated, “I can understand why some people have concerns about it (the study), and my co-authors and I are very sorry for the way the (academic) paper described the research and any anxiety it caused.”

For its part, Facebook conceded that the experiment should have been “done differently,” and it announced a new set of guidelines for how the social network will approach future research studies. Specifically, research that relates to content that “may be considered deeply personal” will go through an enhanced review process before it can begin.

The Results

At Facebook, the experiments continue. In May 2015, the social network launched an experiment called Instant Articles in partnership with nine major international newspapers. This new feature allowed Facebook to host articles from various news publications directly on its platform, an option that the social network claims will generate a richer multimedia experience and faster page-loading times.

The following month Facebook began experimenting with its Trending sidebar, which groups news and hashtags into five categories among which users can toggle: all news, politics, science and technology, sports, and entertainment. Facebook maintained that the objective is to help users discover which topics they may be interested in. This experiment could be part of Facebook's new effort to become a one-stop news distributor, an approach that would encourage users to remain on the site for as long as possible.

A 2016 report asserts that Facebook's list of top trending topics is not quite objective. For example, one source stated that Facebook's news curators routinely excluded trending stories from conservative media sites from the trending section. Facebook strongly denied the claim.

Questions

1. Discuss the ethicality and legality of Facebook's experiment with human emotions.
2. Was Facebook's response to criticism concerning that experiment adequate? Why or why not?
3. Consider the experiments that Facebook conducted in May and June 2015. Is there a difference between these two experiments and Facebook's experiment with human emotions? Why or why not?
4. Should the law require companies to inform their users every time they conduct experiments? Why or why not?

You have decided that the Fit Stop would be well suited to Organizational Performance Pay. Select the specific organizational performance pay plan that would seem to work best; then design it, describing specifically how you would deal with various design issues. When you are done, the plan should be ready for implementation.

What is contract termination? Under what circumstances can a contract be terminated? What are contract amendments? How can a contract be amended?

Please no hand-written answers.

What in your opinion are the 5 elements that absolutely must to be included in a Final Business Idea Presentation?

Q3: Conduct a five forces analysis of the social media industry. Where do we, the public who use social media products, fit? Are we consumers or suppliers (or its workers)?

We often think of ourselves as consumers of Facebook, Google, Instagram and other Internet services. In reality, we are also their suppliers – or more accurately, their workers.

The book is Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility CSR chapter#9

It all began at a small bridal shower at Margaret River when Max brought some wine from Woodstown Wines Pty Ltd. Had he known the wine he purchased had plastic corks, he would not have bought that brand! Usually, after removing the wire cage, a firm twist is all that is needed to start easing the stopper out. That day was different. Max twisted, pushed up with his thumbs, twisted with all his strength and the stopper did not budge. There were no instructions or warnings on the bottle. Anna, the chief bridesmaid advised that usually all local manufacturers provide instructions on the bottle for the consumers who are unfamiliar with the type of wine and the removal of its cap. Max spent almost ten minutes giving it his best shot. Being unfamiliar with the plastic stopper, he turned the bottle up to see why the stopper did not come out. All of a sudden, the stopper discharged from the bottle into his eye and injured him.

What does Max need to establish in order to succeed in an action of negligence against Woodstown Wines Pty Ltd? Your response should consider and apply all the essential elements in proving a case in negligence, the remedies applicable if successful, and any defences that might be available to the defendant. You should consider the relevant legal rules, principles, tests, guidelines and propositions applicable under the common law and do not consider any matters beyond the law of negligence. Give full reasons for your answer and cite relevant case authorities wherever possible.

Define Strategic CSR in your own words. What are the signs you would look for to indicate that a firm has implemented a Strategic CSR perspective?

The book is Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility CSR chapter#10

Discuss the tradeoffs between the following concepts:

• coordination and control
• centralization and decentralization
• Hierarchal vs. network and virtual organizational forms

A university has implemented a new enrollment system. The scenario below outlines the steps to enroll a new student in the university. Perform a system analysis based on the scenario and respond to the questions below. Note-some requirements might not be explicitly stated in the scenario. List all assumptions used for this analysis.

Scenario: Enroll new student in the University

1. An applicant wants to enroll in the university.
2. The applicant hands a filled-out copy of University Application Form to the registrar.
3. The registrar inspects the forms.
4. The registrar determines that the forms have been filled out properly.
5. The registrar clicks on the Create Student icon.
6. The system displays Create Student Screen.
7. The registrar inputs the name, address, and phone number of the applicant.
8. The system checks whether the applicant is on the applicants list and whether they already exist within the system.
9. If the student is on the applicants list but not already on the system, then a record is created.
10. The student enrolls in courses.
11. The system calculates the required initial payment.
12. The system displays Fee Summary Screen.
13. The student pays the initial fee.
14. The system prints a receipt.
15. The registrar validates and gives the student the receipt.
16. The process ends.

1. Discuss the stakeholders and users of the system and indicate how you would collect requirements from them
2. Identify the business, stakeholder, and solution requirements for the system.
3. Create a use case diagram to verify the functional requirements of this system.
4. Diagram the business workflow (process) for the system.
5. Using any analysis class technique(s), develop a high-level class diagram to validate the requirements and components of the problem domain.

I need a SWOT Bivoriate strategy Matrix for Chipotle

1. Discuss differences between Corporate Strategy and Business Strategy

2. Reasons for diversification and challenges of diversification