Friday, January 24, 2020

Jerry Garcia And The Grateful Dead :: essays research papers fc

Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead Rock Legends of the 60s and 70s   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jerry Garcia’s life was filled with wonderful things, many of which he never expected in the first place. After an almost fatal heroin overdose in 1986, â€Å" Garcia philosophically stated, ‘ I’m 45 years old, I’m ready for anything, I didn’t even plan on living this long so all this shit is just add-on stuff.’ † (â€Å"Garcia†) This attitude shows why Garcia did all of the things he did and even how some of them came about. Garcia, who â€Å"functioned as the preeminent pied piper of the rock era,† led a life of great artistic ability which he used in many ways(â€Å"Grateful Dead_ Rockhall†).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jerry Garcia was born as Jerome John Garcia on 1 August, 1942 in San Francisco, California (â€Å"Garcia†/’Grateful Dead†). Garcia learned to play folk and rock & roll when he was 15 even though the third finger on his left hand was missing because of an accident as a child. In 1959 he served in the U.S. Army for a very short period of time (â€Å"Garcia†/Erlewine_). J.J. Garcia, also known as Captain Trips, was a diabetic heroine addict and was arrested on charges of heroine possession in 1985(Erlewine_/†Grateful Dead_ Rockhall†/†Garcia†). While in a Forest Knolls, California drug treatment center, Garcia died on 9 August 1995(â€Å"Grateful Dead†). Some of his ashes were scattered in the Ganges River not long after he died, and the rest were scattered into the San Francisco Bay in the second week of April 1996(â€Å"This Is the Week That Was†E7). The effect of his death was equivalent to those of J ohn F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Elvis Presley, and John Lennon. When Garcia died â€Å"The press was largely in agreement, concerning that a major talent in the world of music had passed on (either that or all the news editors on daily newspapers are all 40-something ex-hippies.)†(â€Å"Grateful Dead†) The â€Å"pied piper† was and is now no more than a legend in many people’s eyes. The band name as well went down with Jerry as a unanimous agreement among the band members(â€Å"Grateful Dead†).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Captain Trips first played with Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions who became the Warlocks in 1965 and later became the â€Å"seminal ‘60s rock & roll band the Grateful Dead† for which Garcia is most known(â€Å"Jerry Garcia_†). Grateful Dead is a name that was randomly chosen from an open copy of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Decisions: Good and Bad

Decisions: Good and Bad Introduction In the news today, it seems as though everything we hear is negative. While I was searching for an organization that recently made a good decision, it appears that most of the things we read and/or hear about these days are the bad. I found plenty of information on bad decisions made recently, however talk about positive decision-making seems to be scarce. In this paper, I will discuss my views of a former CEO of a global conglomerate and the positive decisions he has made, as well as a recent poor decision made by another large corporation.A Good Decision For decades, we have heard the brand names Apple or Macintosh. If one were to judge the decision-making skills of Steve Jobs based on the success of Apple, one would have to say that he had to possess some of the best decision-making skills possible. Over the past few years, we have seen the MacBook, iPods, iPhones and the iPad. With the competition of Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq and Microsoft to name a few, the Apple organization has made great strides to maintain its place at the top of the consumers list.One of the best decisions ever made by Steve Jobs was to return to Apple as CEO and take the market by storm with innovative technology and a selection unsurpassed by any other company. Through dedication, hard work and a vision, he has brought technology to a completely new level and others are left to catch up. With the desire to provide consumers with products that they were not even sure that they wanted, Jobs has made his place in corporate America.Through his decisions to take the world by storm and develop the ideas that seemed nearly impossible, he has left quite a challenge in trying to surpass the advancements in technology that he has achieved. A Bad Decision Over the past few years, there has been a vast growth in technology and the variety of products offered to consumers. One of the most popular novelties in entertainment today is the services offered by Netflix. The company began as a mainstream DVD rental provider and later transformed into an online movie-streaming leader.Recently, Netflix experienced an exceptional growth in subscriptions and demonstrated a high customer demand. However, due to terrible management decisions, the image of the company would soon become tarnished. It seems as if the decision-makers of the company misunderstood the reason behind its success and imposed a steep increase in price for the DVD plus streaming subscribers. Offering no rational explanation behind this decision, Netflix quickly experienced a momentous downfall.They did not have content that would make the company indispensable, and since most customers used the services because of the low subscription rates, stock prices would fall and consumers were looking elsewhere. This has now opened up a window of opportunity for newcomers such as Blockbuster, Amazon and Redbox. Conclusion While decisions are made within organizations each day, the l evel of research and the motive behind the decision may be the most important factor.The good decision that I described above was driven by the desire to succeed and to create innovative products and making them available to a large group of consumers. The bad decision seems to have been made out of greed and should never be a factor in making decisions at such high level. I believe that as long as the people making decisions stay focused on what is truly important to the organization, major pitfalls or obstacles may be avoided.