Monday, December 31, 2012

Social Networking - What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages?

Are you aware of the growing trend of people spending so many hours in front of their computers? Most probably, they might be spending so much time in Twitter or in Facebook. Without a doubt, social networking is one of the inevitable forces on the web right now. Let us explore the advantages and the disadvantages of these social networking sites.

Social networking sites opened the doors to faster and better communication. Here are the advantages of these sites:

Connection

Social Networking - What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages?

In today's fast-paced lives, social networking is being used in the corporate world because of its influence. It has the power to connect people and businesses. It can be employed to build relationships and connect with clients. A few years ago, people only stay in touch through email or phone calls. Now, they can connect through an easy medium that is more fun and interactive. And the great thing is that they can share photos and videos, update real-time news, and do all these in a simple and convenient manner. Thus, companies have used the power of Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites to promote their businesses.

Feedback
In today's fast mode of communication, social networking sites allow you to ask for feedback and receive it instantly. Thus, you can develop your site, your product, or your brand in a snap. This is truly a powerful way to conduct market research and improve one's business down the road.

Low Cost

Another advantage of social sites is that it allows us to communicate for both personal and business purposes in a cheap way, if not for free. In business, you can definitely find prospective clients through social networking sites without spending a fortune in the usual advertising platforms such as print or television. If your business is still small and you have limited budget, social network sites are definitely a must-try in promoting your products and services.

When there are advantages, the power of social networking sites has its own set of disadvantages too. Here are a few that you need to be aware of:

Time Consuming

Because it is free, campaigns can be really time-consuming. The key here is finding tools, software, and other solutions that will make the whole process simpler and faster.

Identity Theft

Because of the lack of anonymity, you are exposing your identity to the public. This may be used for other purposes that you may not have knowledge or permission. Thus, you need to be careful with scams and identity theft. There are a few ways to combat these problems though. With the use of the technology, you have to be aware of the risks and find the best solutions to prevent these problems from happening to you and your business.

Conclusion

There are advantages and disadvantages to the use of social networking sites. Nevertheless, it is paramount to make use of this technology to survive, especially in this time of cut-throat business promotions. When done right, it is cheap, effective, and can take your business to the next level. As far as the disadvantages are concerned, it is a matter of finding the right solutions to these drawbacks.

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Top Jobs For Convicted Felons - You Can Still Find a Great Job

Finding jobs for convicted felons can be quite a challenge. With a felony on your record, it is not straight forward to find a normal job. Unfortunately, most companies won't offer jobs for convicted felons and will refuse to hire a felon. The ones that do end up hiring will usually pay minimum wage, or only slightly higher. This leaves you with only a few options.

Option 1 is to wait it out. Most states do not allow background checks after seven years. However, if you are looking for jobs for convicted felons now, there are a few decent options out there.

One of the most popular jobs for convicted felons is to drive a truck. Driving a truck could incorporate a variety of jobs. Most delivery agencies are okay with hiring convicted felons, meaning you could work for UPS, DHL, or FedEx. You could also just be a normal truck driver and drive cross country carrying cargo. Most trucking companies supply jobs for convicted felons as long as you have a valid drivers license.

Top Jobs For Convicted Felons - You Can Still Find a Great Job

One of the most popular options for convicted felons is to start an online business. Many people are making a considerable income with their online business and many convicted felons choose to do this same. There are a number of websites to help you get started. The reason this is so popular is because you have the ability to be your own boss and do not have to constantly defend your past.

While finding jobs for convicted felons is not easy, it can be done. Best of luck to your success.

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Thursday, December 27, 2012

Social Psychology - The Myth of Kitty Genovese and Bystander Apathy

For several decades, Kitty Genovese has been famous to many psychology students, psychologists and anyone interested in psychology. Kitty was an American woman who became famous for her murder. She was stabbed to death in New York. What was so interesting about her murder was the reaction of her neighbours, which prompted the naming of a psychological phenomenon - the bystander effect or "Genovese syndrome."

On March 13th, 1964, Kitty was driving home around 3.15am. She parked about 30 metres from her front door. As she walked to her door, she was approached by Winston Moseley. Moseley overtook her and stabbed her twice in the back. Kitty screamed. Her screams were heard by several neighbours. But it was a cold night, many had their windows shut and few recognized it as a cry for help. One of the neighbours did shout at Moseley, "Let that girl alone". Moseley ran away and Kitty made her way to her apartment. Kitty was seriously injured, in full sight of her neighbours, but no one helped her.

Some called to the police, but it was not given a high priority, as it was thought she was "only" beaten up. Witnesses observed Moseley get into his car and drive away. He then returned ten minutes later and found Kitty barely conscious at the back of the building. Out of sight, he attached her again, stabbing her several more times. She tried to defend herself, as was shown by knife wounds on her hands. He sexually assaulted her as she lay dying. He also stole money from her and left her to die. The attacks spanned over half an hour.

Social Psychology - The Myth of Kitty Genovese and Bystander Apathy

A few minutes later, a witness did call the police. The police and ambulance arrived, but she died on the way to the hospital.

The media then reported that 38 people had witnessed or heard her attack. The New York Times printed an article - "Thirty Eight who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police." This led to a media frenzy and much psychological research. What had possessed these witnesses to do NOTHING whilst Kitty was being stabbed and murdered?

The murder of Kitty also led to psychological research. This psychological phenomenon became known as bystander apathy, the bystander effect or Genovese syndrome. It is basically a phenomenon where someone is less likely to intervene in an emergency situation when other people are present and able to help, than they would if they were alone.

An individual alone is more likely to intervene if someone needs help - bystander intervention. In 1968, John Darley and Bibb Latane studied the bystander effect in the laboratory. They left a participant alone in a room and told them to communicate with other participants via an intercom. He/she was actually just talking to a recording. During the study, one participant suddenly pretends to have a seizure. They found that the amount of time taken before the person seeks help varies according to how many other participants were perceived to be around. In other words, the more people we think are also witnessing an event, the slower the person will be in dealing with the situation themselves. So if you have a large group of people observing an emergency, we would expect they would be less likely to help - we expect others to do the helping!

Other examples of this bystander effect have been shown. In 1972, Wolfgang Friedmann was murdered in broad day light and bled to death. In 1995, Deletha Word died after witnesses did not stop her attacker. James Bulger was also another well-publicized case, where James was abducted in a busy shopping centre.

Why does this happen? There is another psychological idea of diffusion of responsibility, which leads to social loafing. People may assume that others in the group are better qualified to help than they are eg. A doctor, a police officer etc, so they are not needed. They may not want to "lose face" in front of others in the crowd, when a "superior" helper offers assistance instead. Another suggestion is that people look at the reactions of others in a crowd to see how they are reacting to the emergency situation. They use this to decide whether to intervene. However, if everyone else in the crowd is doing the same things - is anyone going to help?

So what do you do if you are the one being attacked? The best suggestion is to pick a specific person in the crowd and ask them to "call the police" so they know it is THEIR responsibility.

So back to Kitty. Her death led to a reform in the New York Police Department's telephone reporting system. It led to a lot of media coverage on how we respond to emergencies. It led to a lot of psychological research. Kitty's Death also led to the formation of Neighbourhood Watch Schemes. So Kitty's death did lead to some good and useful outcomes.

However, new research has suggested that Kitty's murder was not as reported. There were actual only 12 witnesses, not the reported 38. In 2007, three British Researchers have investigated this murder again. Manning, Levine and Collins have disputed this iconic event. They have found no evidence of the presence of 38 witnesses, by examining documents from the time. They have not been able to find evidence that witnesses remained inactive.

The story of Kitty Genovese has become an urban myth or modern parable, telling us about coping with emergency helping. The research of Manning, Levine and Collins will be an interested addition to all psychology students and teachers alike - new textbooks out soon no doubt!!!!!!

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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

The Effects Of Single Parenting On Children

Times have really changed. Many old customs and traditions which were taught and practiced for several years are becoming obsolete now. The modern culture has changed and outgrown values and beliefs that were thought to be the core.

Even though moralists and conservative people are expressing disgust over the currently evolving belief and culture systems, the truth is, however, what has been unacceptable in the old world is now becoming fast and rapidly rising trends.

Some of the effects of single parenting have ranged from social to financial issues.

The Effects Of Single Parenting On Children

For decades and even centuries, one of the most concerning issues to conservative people is the issue of single parenting. Ancient social philosophies have often linked single parenting to adventurism and liberation of people.

The Catholic Church has always been the dominating mentor and guide of traditions, norms and living. The church is so adamant to advocate the sanctity of the sacrament of marriage of matrimony.

That is why the procreation outside wedlock is strictly considered a ground for excommunication. It is one of the greatest sins, according to the Catholic Church, to engage in pre-marital sex.

From the church's point of view, single parenthood can be considered as a punishment of some sorts, for those who disobey the teachings of the church. Obviously the fundamentalists think otherwise. So, is it?

Single parenting is already becoming a rapidly growing trend in the society. Studies show, that in the US alone, there are four single parents to every ten parents and there are two single parents for every 10 adults. Could you believe it?

The Child

Since the decision of single parenting is taken by the parent, one voice is often ignored and sometimes unheard of. It is that of the child's.

It has been found that single parenting has adverse mental, emotional and psychological effect on the child. This has been validated by psychologists and advocates from time to time.

The direct effect of being raised by a single parent is especially visible in child's thinking and mental mind set.

Although single parents must be commended for raising a child alone, he or she should not be blamed for any mental or psychological result of the situation to the child, as psychological assert.

Tests and observations have consistently concluded and found that single parenting makes children more aggressive and rebellious. Experts say the behavior could be the outcome of the angst and humiliation the child experiences while growing.

There are very obvious reasons to make the child feel abnormal, different and unaccepted. The traditional families have two parents, the mom and the dad, jointly raising kids with help and advice from each other. Whereas in single parenting, a single person decides what is best for the child and sometimes takes extreme measures to get it accomplished.

Neighborhood also plays an important role in the development of single parent raised children. Sometimes it treats them too cruelly, which can make things worse. Humiliation and awkward feeling of insecurity is dangerous if left untreated or undetected in the child. That child can take the burden for the rest of his or her life.

In some conditions, single parents and their children both may need professional help through counseling. Counselors can give reasonable advice to the child and the single parent to make sure every small issue and difficulty is ironed out.

Counseling from professionals can form or make up a support system that will make single parenting easier and more effective. Because single parenting is no ordinary parenting, the parent and the child must learn to accept the situation minus the negative feeling.

It's a difficult situation for any child to be raised with one parent, but surprisingly, not an impossible one anymore. Society has accepted the facts and has stopped looking at single parenting as an abnormal occurrence. There is a positive trend which is especially useful in reducing, if not nullifying, the adverse effects on single parents and their children.

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Free Work At Home Jobs - How To Get A Job Online Without Paying Money

If you are looking for free work at home jobs then you came to the right place because I got a step-by-step action plan for you on how you can make money working at home, and it won't cost you any money.

In this article I will show you the "secret" free work at home jobs ... are you ready for it?

Free lance writing.

Free Work At Home Jobs - How To Get A Job Online Without Paying Money

If you are not a professional writer, don't worry about it because there are plenty of people looking for freelance writer. All you have to do is write proper English without grammar mistakes. You do not need a college degree to make money at home as a freelance writer.

There are several ways to finding a job as a freelance writer. You could either do content writing or ghost writing.

Let me explain those two in depth ...

When you do content writing, a person will pay you around per 500 words article on whatever subject. You research the topic and you write the article. And then .. you get paid! As simple as that.

For ghost writing, it is the same playing except you don't get credit for your work -- hence the term "ghost writer" because your name doesn't go on the article. However you do get paid handsomely.

To get these kind of work at home jobs, I recommend you go to Elance and offer your service there. But whatever you do, you have to have a personal website. Because this shows that you have credibility and trust, which will increase your chance of landing a freelance job.

If you're reading this article, you should learn various ways to make money online, because freelance writing is not the only way to make cash online. In fact, the best income is passive income. Learn more about affiliate marketing.

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Disadvantages of Social Media

We are living in a world filled with the social media craze. From Facebook to Twitter, the world has embraced the new tools that help thousands interact each day no matter where they are. There are so many merits that come with social media and this is undeniable. However, what many forget are the down sides. All good things will have flaws and the following are insights into the disadvantages of social media. Statistics have shown that young people form the bulk of the fan base when it comes to social media outlets. However, those who are in all kinds of businesses are also avid users to further their cause. The following are some of the top cons that business people have to face when they employ the services of different social media.

The first disadvantage to speak about can also be an advantage. I'm talking about the viral potential of the media. In other words, when you have some news or item to share with an audience, it can spread like bushfire all around the world. When this news is negative or in bad taste, the same will happen. This is where the disadvantage comes in. It is hard to undertake damage control when you are dealing with social media and your good name might be soiled within hours.

Another one of the top disadvantages worth a mention is the need for intensive labor. If you intend to build a brand and a name through social media, you must be ready to spend time updating your audience on all the relevant issues. Once you become established, you will tend to have a bigger crowd and it can be difficult to meet the needs of all people increasing you labor greatly. However, to remedy this, you can put in place a networking campaign that is manageable and grow gradually.

Disadvantages of Social Media

Another thing to mention is that you must be ready to connect with your audience at all time. According to experts the law of reciprocity will apply. In other words, you need to give and take. If you have updated helpful information on a network, a person who is interested might respond and it is upon you to reply their queries and satisfy their curiosity. This is the essence of social media and if not done properly, your audience might loose faith in you. There are people who evade this and other disadvantages of social media by establishing themselves are entities that give updates that are promotional in nature. This way, the audience will take and run with what they have.

Finally on the disadvantages, you will be required to stay abreast with all upcoming sites and be ready to make the necessary change. If you are not adaptive, then you might be in trouble because social media in nature will change constantly. You need to keep in touch with all the latest in this industry because this is the sure way to safeguard the interests of your business. Remember, social networking for business gain will help you move to heights you have not been to before. Therefore, know the pitfalls discussed above and steer clear of them if you are to win in this game.

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Sunday, December 16, 2012

Direct Sales - Network Marketing Meeting Planning Template

Do you struggle when planning your monthly team meetings? Are your sales organization training meetings poorly attended? Is meeting time stressful?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, then this direct sales/network marketing direct sales meeting planning template will change your life. There is a simple formula for putting together interesting, fun, keep-'em-coming-back team trainings.

Network Marketing-Direct Sales-Party Plan trainings

Direct Sales - Network Marketing Meeting Planning Template

It does not matter whether you are a party plan, network marketing, or direct sales company, this template for planning meetings will work for you. Most companies have three services which vary from company to company. In any of those business models they are:

Bookings, prospecting, finding business Sharing the opportunity, recruiting Showings or presentations and/or product knowledge After you figure out what your three main meeting topics are, then you can apply them to this three-part template. For the purpose of this article we will talk about a home party plan company. If you are a network marketing company or a direct sales company that does not rely on the party plan for leads do not judge yourself out. This still applies to you. Just divide the meeting up into your appropriate skills as they relate to your business.

Every training meeting has the same 5 parts. In our example, the meeting will be divided into its 5 segments.
Networking time Part 1 Presentations: discuss presentation skills, sales skills, product knowledge Part 2 Opportunity: work on recruiting skills, interview questions, recognizing red flags, etc. Part 3 Bookings: dedicated discussion of finding business, leads or bookings and becoming better at it. Wrap-up
Plan Your Training Meeting
Plug one of your three meeting parts into the template each month. Then further define your training meeting by selecting one of the following presenters to apply to each segment.
An outside speaker A newbie A seasoned rep A consultant who is not that good but did something well Another leader in your organization You A video Home office representative
Now pick a format for each section of the training:
roundtable divide into groups lecture networking game theme combination of two of the aboveBy applying different presenter, different formats, and different material on the same topics that focus on the key skills necessary to be successful in your direct selling business, you will train everyone on what they need and not alienate the seasoned reps with boredom.

The beginning of the training is always networking. The end is a thank you and wrap-up and more networking. Delegate parts of these sections out at each training for the next training meeting. Utilize the skills of your organization to assist with the training meetings. If you have a very social person, then they should be the greeter. If there is an awesome recruiter, then that person may be the one in charge of taking the visitors and new consultants under her or his wing so that they do not feel left out. A sign up sheet for duties is always helpful. Have a routine of passing it around for sign up for the next training. Examples of what should be on it are: clean up, set up, paper products, snacks, beverages, carry stuff to car, and the like.

The networking portion at the beginning is very important. Incorporate networking games or activities into the arrival time so that everyone is forced to chat. Do not have chairs set out during set up. Force the mingling. (Everyone can grab a chair when it is time to sit down.)

Direct Sales Team Meeting Games

There are many networking games that are fun and encourage developing relationships. On colorful note cards jot down something about each person that you know that everyone else may not. As the consultants arrive, they pick a card and try to find their match. The cards may say things like:

Going to nursing school Husband installs carpet Has triplets Etc. "Another direct sales training game that is good for networking is what I call the peanut butter and jelly game. On colorful note cards write matching or complimentary items and people have to find the compliment that goes with their card. For example:

Peanut butter and Jelly Turkey and Stuffing Ham and Eggs
Keep The Comng To Meetings

These types of games are fun and will help people develop friendships. When you have friends at the training meeting, you keep coming back.

Six Sales Meeting Tips
Do not be the presenter every time and do not "add on" when the other presenters are done. The networking segment is very important. Put time into making it different each training meeting. Use themes to generate interest. Keep them guessing by using the different formats and presenters. Delegate and be specific. Tell your presenter exactly what point you want covered, but not what format or how to say it. Chat with the presenters before the training meeting about their topic and what they are going to do.

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Where to Find Jobs Online: Hidden Sources for Employment

Search Engines
Job search engines are a good place to start when searching for jobs, because you can find jobs from a wide variety of sources with one simple search, but there are other types of sites that come highly recommended. Many niche sites, or sites that focus on a specific career field, industry or type of job, are one type of site that can have great results. Industry specific job boards such as healthcare, engineering and education produce better results than the bigger, broader job boards. Look beyond the obvious job posting boards and you might have better luck figuring out where to find jobs with the smaller, more specialized sites.

Professional Networks
Using a professional association works, as well. Many of these organization host websites and forum that can be a useful resource in networking and looking for otherwise overlooked opportunities. By posting your needs and qualifications among people who are already familiar with your field, you're doubling your chances of making a valuable contact.

Job Board Sites
While there isn't any one place that is best for finding jobs online, there isn't any site you shouldn't use. Use all available resources, and then stick with the sites where you get good responses and inquiries from hiring managers and recruiters. Also look for sites where you see an abundance of job postings in every field. It may take some work figuring out where to find jobs, but thinking outside the box and digging a little deeper will only help your search.

Where to Find Jobs Online: Hidden Sources for Employment

Smile and Dial
Another good way to find out about job listings is by cold-calling or contacting prospective employers directly. This will enable you to tap into the reservoir of numerous vacancies that are not advertised. In most cases, unadvertised jobs will be filled by family members, friends and other contacts of individuals already in the organization. If you don't already have an idea of which prospective employers you wish to contact, a good place to start would be online, in the Yellow Pages, as well as the vacancies and business section of your local paper.

Trade Journals/Career Expos
Other sources of job listings include professional and trade journals. Such journals can be purchased or even sourced from your local library or on the internet. Career expos are another good source of job vacancies. Recruitment agencies, industries, universities and colleges periodically hold job expos where employers can provide information about the opportunities available at their companies. It is often possible to apply for such positions at the expo, so be sure to take along with you several copies of your resume and be prepared for impromptu interviews.

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Langston Hughes - The Life, Times, Works as Well as Impact of a Versatile African-American Writer

Langston Hughes stands as a literary and cultural translation of the political resistance and campaign of black consciousness leaders such as Martin Luther King to restore the rights of the black citizenry thus fulfilling the ethos of the American dream, which is celebrated universally every year around February to April.

Hughes' overriding sense of a social and cultural purpose tied to his sense of the past, the present and the future of black America commends his life and works as having much to learn from to inspire us to move forward and to inform and guide our steps as we move forward to create a great future.

Hughes is also significant since he seems to have conveniently spanned the genres: poetry, drama, novel and criticism leaving an indelible stamp on each. At 21 years of age he had published in all four (4) areas. For he always considered himself an artist in words who would venture into every single area of literary creativity, because there were readers for whom a story meant more than a poem or a song lyric meant more than a story and Hughes wanted to reach that individual and his kind.

Langston Hughes - The Life, Times, Works as Well as Impact of a Versatile African-American Writer

But first and foremost, he considered himself a poet. He wanted to be a poet who could address himself to the concerns of his people in poems that could be read with no formal training or extensive literary background. In spite of this Hughes wrote and staged dozens of short stories, about a dozen books for children, a history of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured Peoples (NAACP), two volumes of autobiography, opera libretti, song lyrics and so on. Hughes was driven by a sheer confidence in his versatility and in the power of his craft.

Hughes" commitment to Africa was real and concretized in both words and deeds. The fact of his Negro-ness (though light-complexioned) has aroused in him a desire to challenge those from the other side of the color line that reject it:

My old man's a white old man

And my old mother's black

My old ma died in a fine big house

My mad died in a shack

I wonder where I'm gonna die

Being neither white nor black?

His search for his roots was given impetus when in 1923 Hughes met and heard Marcus Garvey exhort Negroes to go back to Africa to escape the wrath of the white man. Hughes then became one of the poets who thought they felt the beating of the jungle tom-toms in the Negroes' pulse. Their verse took on a nostalgic mood, and some even imagined that they were infusing the rhythms of African dancing and music into their verse like we could sense in the reading of this poem: 'Danse Africaine':

The low beating of the tom toms,

The slow beating of the tom toms,

Low ...slow

Slow ...low -

Stirs your blood.

Dance!

A night-veiled girl

Whirls softly into a

Circle of light.

Whirls softly ...slowly,

Born in Joplin, Missouri in 1902, Hughes grew up in Lawrence, Kansas and Lincoln, Illinois, before going to high school in Cleveland, Ohio in of which places, he was part of a small community of blacks to whom he was nevertheless profoundly attached from early in his life. Though descending from a distinguished family his infancy was disrupted by the separation of his parents not long after his birth. His father then emigrated to Mexico where he hoped to gain the success that had eluded him in America. The color of his skin, he had hoped, would be less of a consideration in determining his future in Mexico. There, he broke new ground. He gained success in business and lived the rest of his life there as a prosperous attorney and landowner.

In contrast, Hughes' mother lived the transitory life common for black mothers often leaving her son in the care of her mother while searching for a job.

His maternal grandmother, Mary Langston, whose first husband had died at Harpers Ferry as a member of John Brown's band, and whose second husband (Hughes's grandfather) had also been a militant abolitionist. instilled in Hughes a sense of dedication most of all. Hughes lived successively with family friends, then various relatives in Kansas.

Another important family figure was John Mercer Langston, a brother of Hughes's grandfather who was one of the best-known black Americans of the nineteenth century.

Hughes later joined his mother even though she was now with his new stepfather in Cleveland, Ohio. At the same time, Hughes struggled with a sense of desolation fostered by parental neglect. He himself recalled being driven early by his loneliness 'to books, and the wonderful world in books.' He became disillusioned with his father's materialistic values and contemptuous belief that blacks, Mexicans and Indians were lazy and ignorant.

At Central High School Hughes excelled academically and in sports. He wrote poetry and short fiction for the school's literary magazine and edited the school year book. He returned to Mexico where he taught English briefly and wrote poems and prose pieces for publication in The Crisis the magazine of the NAACP.

Aided by his father, he arrived in New York in 1921 ostensibly to attend Columbia University but really it was to see Harlem. One of his greatest poems, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" had just been published in The Crisis. His talent was immediately spotted though he only lasted one year at Columbia where he did well but never felt comfortable.

On campus, he was subjected to bigotry. He was assigned the worst dormitory room because of his color. Classes in English literature were all he could endure. Instead of attending classes which he found boring he would frequent shows, lectures and readings sponsored by the American Socialist Society. It was then that he was first introduced to the laughter and pain, hunger and heartache of blues music. It was the night life and culture that lured him out of college. Those sweet sad blues songs captured for him the intense pain and yearning that he saw around him, and that he incorporated into such poems as "The Weary Blues".

To keep himself going as a poet and support his mother, Hughes served in turn as: a delivery boy for a florist; a vegetable farmer and a mess boy on a ship up the Hudson River. As part of a merchant steamer crew he sailed to Africa. He then traveled the same way to Europe, where he jumped Ship in Paris only to spend several months working in a night-club kitchen and then wandering off to Italy.

By 1924 his poetry which he had all along been working on showed the powerful influence of the blues and jazz. His poem "The Weary Blues" which best exemplifies this influence helped launch his career when it won first prize in the poetry section of the 1925 literary contest of Opportunity magazine and also won another literary prize in Crisis.

This landmark poem, the first of any poet to make use of that basic blues form is part of a volume of that same title whose entire collection reflects the frenzied atmosphere of Harlem nightlife. Most of its selections just as "The Weary Blues" approximate the phrasing and meter of blues music, a genre popularized in the early 1920s by rural and urban blacks. In it and such other pieces as "Jazzonia" Hughes evoked the frenzied hedonistic and glittering atmosphere of Harlem's famous night-clubs. Poetry of social commentary such as "Mother to Son" show how hardened the blacks have to be to face the innumerable hurdles that they have to battle through in life.

Hughes' earliest influences as a mature poet came interestingly from white poets. We have Walt Whitman the man who through his artistic violations of old conventions of poetry opened the boundaries of poetry to new forms like free verse. There is also the highly populist white German Émigré Carl Sandburg, who as Hughes' " guiding star," was decisive in leading him toward free verse and a radically democratic modernist aesthetic

But black poets Paul Laurence Dunbar, a master of both dialect and standard verse, and Claude McKay, the black radical socialist an emigre from Jamaica who also wrote accomplished lyric poetry, stood for him as the embodiment of the cosmopolitan and yet racially confident and committed black poet Hughes hoped to be. He was also indebted to older black literary figures such as W.E.B. Dubois and James Weldon Johnson who admired his work and aided him. W.E.B. Dubois' collection of Pan-Africanist essays Souls of Black Folks has markedly influenced many black writers like Hughes, Richard Wright and James Baldwin.

Such colour-affirmative images and sentiments as that in "people": The night is beautiful,/So the faces of my people and in 'Dream Variations: Night coming tenderly,/ Black like me. endeared his work to a wide range of African Americans, for whom he delighted in writing,.

Hughes had always shown his determination to experiment as a poet and not slavishly follow the tyranny of tight stanzaic forms and exact rhyme. He seemed, like Watt Whitman and Carl Sandburg, to prefer to write verse which captured the realities of American speech rather than "poetic diction", and with his ear especially attuned to the varieties of black American speech.

"Weary Blues" combines these various elements the common speech of ordinary people, jazz and blues music and the traditional forms of poetry adapted to the African American and American subjects. In his adaptation of traditional poetic forms first to jazz then to blues sometimes using dialect but in a way radically different from earlier writers, Hughes was well served by his early experimentation with a loose form of rhyme that frequently gave way to an inventively rhythmic free verse:

Ma an ma baby

Got two mo' ways,

Two mo' ways to do de buck!

Even more radical experimentation with the blues form led to his next collection, Fine Clothes to the Jew. Perhaps his finest single book of verse, including several ballads, Fine Clothes was also his least favourably welcomed.

Several reviewers in black newspapers and magazines were distressed by Hughes' fearless and, 'tasteless' evocation of elements of lower-class black culture, including its sometimes raw eroticism, never before treated in serious poetry.

Hughes expressing his determination to write about such people and to experiment with blues and jazz wrote in his essay "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain." Published in the Nation in 1926

'We younger artists...intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves Without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they Are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful, And ugly too.'

Hughes expressed his determination to write fearlessly, shamelessly and unrepentantly about low-class black life and people inspite of opposition to that. He also exercised much freedom in experimenting with blues as well as jazz.

The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If coloured people are pleased we are glad. If they are not their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how and we stand on top of the mountains, free within ourselves.

With his espousal of such thoughts defending the freedom of the black writer Hughes became a beacon of light to younger writers who also wished to assert their right to explore and exploit allegedly degraded aspects of black people. He thus provided the movement with a manifesto by so skillfully arguing the need for both race pride and artistic independence in this his most memorable essay,

In 1926 Hughes returned to school in the historically black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania where he continued publishing poetry, short stories and essays in mainstream and black-oriented periodicals

In 1927 together with Zora Neal Hurston and other writers he founded Fire a literary journal devoted to African -American culture and aimed at destroying the older forms of black literature. The venture itself was short-lived. It was engulfed in fire along with its editorial offices.

Then a 70 - year old wealthy white patron entered his life. Charlotte Osgood Mason, who started directing virtually every aspect of Hughes' life and art. Her passionate belief in parapsychology, intuition and folk culture was brought into supervising the writing of Hughes' novel: Not Without Lauqhter in which his boyhood in Kansas is drawn to depict the life of a sensitive black child, Sandy, growing up in a representative, middle-class.mid-western African-American home.

Hughes' relationship with Mason came to an explosive end in 1930. Hurt and baffled by Mason's rejection, Hughes used money from a prize to spend several weeks recovering in Haiti. From the intense personal unhappiness and depression into which the break had sunk him.

Back in the U.S., Hughes made a sharp turn to the political left. His verses and essays were now being published in New Masses, a journal controlled by the Communist Party. Later that year he began touring.

The renaissance which was long over was replaced for Hughes by a sense of the need for political struggle and for an art that reflected this radical approach. But his career, unlike others then, easily survived the end of that movement. He kept on producing his art in keeping with his sense of himself as a thoroughly professional writer. He then published his first collections, the often acerbic and even embittered The Ways of White Folks.

Hughes' main concern was now, the theatre. Mulatto, his drama of race-mixing and the South was the longest running play by an African American on Broadway until Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun appeared in the 1960's. His dramas - comedies and ramas of domestic black American life, largely - were also popular with black audiences. Using such innovations as theatre-in-the-round and invoking audience participation, Hughes anticipated the work of later avant-garde dramatists like Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez. In his drama Hughes combines urban dialogue, folk idioms, and a thematic emphasis on the dignity and strength of black Americans.

Hughes wrote other plays, including comedies such as Little Ham (1936) and a historical drama, Emperor of Haiti (1936) most of which were only moderate successes. In 1937 he spent several months in Europe, including a long stay in besieged Madrid. In 1938 he returned home to found the Harlem Suitcase Theater, which staged his agitprop drama Don't You Want to Be Free? employing several of his poems, vigorously blended black nationalism, the blues, and socialist exhortation. The same year, a socialist organization published a pamphlet of his radical verse, "A New Song."

With the start of World War II, Hughes returned to the political centre. The Big Sea, his first volume of his autobiography work with its memorable portrait of the renaissance and his African voyages written in an episodic, lightly comic style with virtually no mention of his leftist sympathies appeared.

In his book of verse Shakespeare in Harlem (1942) he once again sang the blues. On the other hand, this collection, as well as another, his Jim Crow's Last Stand (1943), strongly attacked racial segregation.

In poetry, he revived his interest in some of his old themes and forms, as in Shakespeare in Harlem (1942).the South and West, taking poetry to the people. He read his poems in churches and in schools. He then sailed from New York for the Soviet Union. He was amongst a band of young African-Americans invited to take part in a film about American race relations.

This filmmaking venture, though unsuccessful, proved instrumental to enhancing his short story writing. For whilst in Moscow he was struck by the similarities between D. H. Lawrence's character in a title story from his collection The Lovely Lady and Mrs Osgood Mason. Overwhelmed by the power of Lawrence's stories, Hughes began writing short fiction of his. On his return to the U. S.. by 1933 he had sold three stories and had begun compiling his first collection.

Perhaps his finest literary achievement during the war came in writing a weekly column in the Chicago Defender from 1942 to 1952. the highlight of which was an offbeat Harlem character called Jesse B. Semple, or Simple, and his exchanges with a staid narrator in a neighborhood bar, where Simple commented on a variety of matters but mainly about race and racism. Simple became Hughes's most celebrated and beloved fictional creation. and one of the freshest, most fascinating and enduring Negro characters in American fiction Jesse B Simple, is a Harlem Everyman, whose comic manner hardly obscured some of the serious themes raised by Hughes in relating Simple's exploits in the quintessential "wise-fool' whose experience and uneducated insights capture the frustrations of being black in America.. His honest and unsophisticated eye sees through the shallowness, hypocrisy and phoniness of white and black Americans alike. From his stool at Paddy's Bar, in a delightful brand of English, Simple comments both wisely and hilariously on many things but principally on race and women.

His bebop-shaped poem Montage of a Dream Deferred (1991) projects a changing Harlem, fertile with humanity but in decline. In it, the drastically deteriorated state of Harlem in the 1950s is contrasted to the Harlem of the 20s. The exuberance of night-club life and the vitality of cultural renaissance has now gone. An urban ghetto plagued by poverty and crime has taken its place. A change in rhythm parallels the change in tone. The smooth patterns and gentle melancholy of blues music are replaced by the abrupt, fragmented structure of post-war jazz and bebop. Hughes was alert to what was happening in the African-American world and what was coming. This is why this volume of verse reflected so much the new and relatively new be-bop jazz rhythms that emphasized dissonance They thus reflected the new pressures that were straining the black communities in the cities of the North.

Hughes' living much of his life in basements and attics brought much realism and humanity to his writing especially his short stories. He thus remained close to his vast public as he kept moving figuratively through the basements of the world where his life is thickest and where common people struggle to make their way. At the same time, writing in attics, he rose to the long perspective that enabled him to radiate a humanizing, beautifying, but still truthful light on what he saw.

Hughes' short stories reflect his entire purpose as a writer. For his art was aimed at interpreting "the beauty of his own people," which he felt they were taught either not to see or not to take pride in. In all his stories, his humanity, his faithful and artistic presentations of both racial and national truth - his successful mediation between the beauties and the terrors of life around him all shine out. Certain themes, technical excellencies or social insights loom out.

"Slave in the Block" for example, a simple but vivid tale reveals the lack of respect and even human communication, between Negroes and those patronizing and cosmetic whites.

Hughes also took time to write for children producing the successful Popo and Fifina (1932), a tale set in Haiti with Arna Bontemps. He eventually published a dozen children's books, on subjects such as jazz, Africa, and the West Indies. Proud of his versatility, he also wrote a commissioned history of the NAACP and the text of a much praised pictorial history of black America The Sweet Flypaper of Life (1955), where he explicated photographs of Harlem by Roy DeCarava, which was judged masterful by reviewers, and confirmed Hughes's reputation for an unrivaled command of the nuances of black urban culture.

Hughes's suffered constant harassment about his ties to the Left. In vain he protested he had never been a Communist having severed all such links. In 1953 he was subjected to public humiliation at the hands of Senator Joseph McCarthy, when he was forced to appear in Washington, D.C., and testify officially about his politics. Hughes denied that he had ever been a communist but conceded that some of his radical verse had been ill-advised.

Hughes's career hardly suffered from this. Within a short time McCarthy himself was discredited. Hughes now wrote at length in I Wonder as I Wander (1956), his much-admired second volume of autobiography. about his years in the Soviet Union. He became prosperous, although he always had to work hard for his measure of prosperity. In the 1950s he turned to the musical stage for success, as he sought to repeat his major success of the 1940s, when Kurt Weill and Elmer Rice had chosen him as the lyricist for their Street Scene (1947). This production was hailed as a breakthrough in the development of American opera; for Hughes, the apparently endless cycle of poverty into which he had been locked came to an end. He bought a home in Harlem.

By the end of his life Hughes was almost universally recognized as the most representative writer in the history of African American literature and also as probably the most original of all black American poets. He thus became the widely acknowledged "Poet Laureate" of the Negro Race!

According to Arnold Rampersad, an authority on Hughes:

Much of his work celebrated the beauty and dignity and Humanity of black Americans. Unlike other writers Hughes basked in the glow of the obviously high regard of his primary audience, African Americans. His poetry, with its original jazz and blues influence and its powerful democratic commitment, is almost certainly the most influential written by any person of African descent in this century. Certain of his poems; "Mother to Son" are virtual anthems of black American life and aspiration. His plays alone... could secure him a place in AfroAmerican literary history. His character Simple is the most memorable single figure to emerge from black journalism. 'The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain' is timeless, "it seems as a statement of constant dilemma facing the young black artist, caught between the contending forces of black and white culture'

Liberated by the examples of Carl Sandburg's free verse Hughes' poetry has always aimed for utter directness and simplicity. In this regard, is the notion that he almost never revised his work seeming like romantic poets who believe and demonstrate that poetry is a 'spontaneous overflow of emotions".

Like Walt Whitman, Hughes's great poetic forefather in America's poetry..., Hughes did believe in the poetry of Emotion, in the power of ideas and feelings that went beyond matters of technical crafts. Hughes never wanted to be a writer who carefully sculpted rhyme and stanzas and in so doing lost the emotional heart of what he had set out to say.

His poems imbued with the distinctive diction and cadences of Negro idioms in simple stanza patterns and strict rhyme schemes derived from blues songs enabled him to capture the ambience of the setting as well as the rhythms of jazz music.

He wrote mostly in two modes/directions:

(i) lyrics about black life using rhythms and refrains from jazz and

blues.

(ii) Poems of racial protest

exploring the boundaries between black and white America. thus contributing to the strengthening of black consciousness and racial pride than even the Harlem Renaissance's legacy for its most militant decades. While never militantly repudiating co-operation with the white community, the poems which protest against white racism are boldly direct.

In "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" the simple direct and free verse makes clear that Africa's dusky rivers run concurrently with the poet's soul as he draws spiritual strength as well as individual identity from the collective experience of his ancestors. The poem is according to Rampersad "reminding us that the syncopated beat which the captive Africans brought with them "that found its first expression here in "the hand clapping, feet stamping, drum-beating rhythms of the human heart (4 - 5), is as 'ancient as the world."

But what Hughes is better known for is his treatment of the possibilities of African-American experiences and identities. Like Walt Whitman, he created a persona that speaks for more than himself. His voice in "I too" for instance absorbs the depiction of a whole race into his central consciousness as he laments:

I, too, sing America

I am the darker brother.

I, too, am America.

The "darker brother" celebrating America is certain of a better future when he will no longer be shunted aside by "company". The poem is characteristic of Hughes's faith in the racial consciousness of African Americans, a consciousness that reflects their integrity and beauty while simultaneously demanding respect and acceptance from others as especially when: Nobody '/I dare Say to me, Eat in the kitchen.

This dogged resistance and optimism in facing adversity is what Hughes' life centred on.thus enabling him to survive and achieve in spite of the obstacles facing him. as Rampersad affirms:.

'Toughness was a major characteristic of Hughes' life. For his life was hard. He certainly knew poverty and humiliation at the hands of people with far more power and money than he had and little respect for writers, especially poets. Through all his poverty and hurt, Hughes kept on a steady keel. He was a gentleman, a soft man in many ways, who was sympathetic and affectionate, but was tough to the core.

Hughes's poetry reveals his hearty appetite for all humanity, his insistence on justice for all, and his faith in the transcendent possibilities of joy and hope that make room as he aspires in 'I too', for everyone at America's table.

This deep love for all humanity is echoed in one of his poems: 'My People" some lines of which were earlier referred to:

The night is beautiful,

so the faces of my people,

the stars are beautiful,

so the eyes of my people

Beautiful, also, is the sun

Beautiful also, are the souls of my people

Arnold Rampersad's last word on Hughes's humanity, is anchored on three essential attributes: his tenderness; generosity and his sense of humour.

Hughes was also tender. He was a man who lovse other people and was beloved. It was very hard to find anyone who had known him who would say a harsh thing about him. People who knew him could remember little that wasn't pleasant of him. Evidently, he radiated joy and humanity and this was how he was remembered after his death.

He loved the company of people. He needed to have people around him. He needed them perhaps to counter the essential loneliness instilled in his soul from early in his life and out of which he made his literary art.

Hughes was a man of great generosity. He was generous to the young and the poor, the needy; he was generous even to his rivals. He was generous to a fault, giving to those who did not always deserve his kindness. But he was prepared to risk ingratitude in order to help younger artists in particular and young people in general.

Hughes was a man of laughter, although his laughter almost always came in the presence of tears or the threat of the surge of tears. The titles of his first novel Not Without Laughter and a collection of stories Laughing to Keep from Crying. indicate this. This was essentially how he believed life must be faced - with the knowledge of its inescapable loneliness and pain but with an awareness, too, of the therapy of laughter by which we assert the human in the face of circumstances. We must reach out to people, and one should not only have an astounding tolerance of life's sufferings but should also exuberantly complete the happy aspect of life.

His sense of humour is again credited by a writer from Africa who was like Hughes also faced with fighting racial discrimination and deprivation, Ezekiel Mphahlele.

Here is a man with a boundless zest for life... He has an irrepressible sense of humour, and to meet him is to come face to face with the essence of human goodness. In spite of his literary success, he has earned himself the respect of young Negro writers, who never find him unwilling to help them along. And yet he is not condescending. Unlike most Negroes who become famous or prosperous and move to high-class residential areas, he has continued to live in Harlem, which is in sense a Negro ghetto, in a house which he purchased with money earned as lyricist for the Broadway musical Street Scene.

In explaining and illustrating the Negro condition in America as was his stated vocation, Hughes captured their joys, and the veiled weariness of their lives, the monotony of their jobs, and the veiled weariness of their songs. He accomplished this in poems remarkable not only for their directness and simplicity but for their economy, lucidity and wit. Whether he was writing poems of racial protest like "Harlem" and "Ballad of the Landlord" or poems of racial affirmation like' Mother to Son' and 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers,' Hughes was able to find language and forms to express not only the pain of urban life but also its splendid vitality.

Further Reading:

Gates, Henry, Louis and Mc Kay Nellie, Y. (Gen. Ed) The Norton

Anthology of African American Literature, N.W. Norton & Co; New York & London 1997

Hughes, Langston, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" 1926. Rpt

in Nathan Huggins ed. Voices from the Harlem Renaissance Oxford

University Press, New York, 1976

Mphahlele, Ezekiel, "Langston Hughes," in Introduction to African

Literature (ed) Ulli Beier, Longman, London 1967

Rampersad, Arnold, The life of Langston Hughes Vol. 1 & 11 Oxford

University Press, N. York, 1986

Trotman, James, (ed), Langston Hughes: The Man, His Art and His

Continuing Influence Garland Publishing Inc. N.

York & London 1995

Black Literature Criticism

The Oxford Companion to African American Literature., Oxford University Press,.1997

Langston Hughes - The Life, Times, Works as Well as Impact of a Versatile African-American Writer
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Arthur Smith was born and was schooled in Freetown, Sierra Leone. He has taught English since 1977 at Prince of Wales School and, Milton Margai College of Education. He is now a Senior Lecturer at Fourah Bay College where he has been lecturing English language and Literature for the past eight years.

Mr Smith's writings have been appearing in local newspapers as well as in various international media like West Africa Magazine, Index on Censorship, Focus on Library and Information Work. He was one of 17 international visitors who participated in a seminar on contemporary American Literature sponsored by the U.S.State Department in 2006. His growing thoughts and reflections on this trip which took him to various US sights and sounds could be read at lisnews.org

His other publications include: Folktales from Freetown, Langston Hughes: Life and Works Celebrating Black Dignity, and 'The Struggle of the Book' He holds a PhD and a professorship in English from the National Open University, Republic of Benin.

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Saturday, December 8, 2012

Elevator Speech Template Examples - Basic 30 Second Introduction Scripts

An elevator speech remains one of the most important networking and marketing tools you have at your very disposal. Of course every business is different and it is all very well talking to people at networking events and so on, but how do you make sure you grab their attention? Is there a template that can be followed that allows you to come up with a 30 second introduction for YOUR business?

Actually there is a format that has proven success and can be applied to pretty much any business that aspires to have clients! Hopefully that is every business that wants to stay solvent!

There are some pre-requisites to achieving success with this approach and the main one is developing a clear idea of your ideal client and the issues with which they are struggling. Closely related is how you help them - what does your company do that solves the chosen challenges of your ideal client base.

Elevator Speech Template Examples - Basic 30 Second Introduction Scripts

Armed with that information, the more detail you have the better, here is the template to follow for any business:

Part 1: Who You are

Hi, My name is... from (company name)

That is all you need. Obviously if you are in a conversation already and someone asks you what you do you don't need to reintroduce yourself! You can also vary this along the lines of: "I'm Jerry and my company is..."

Most importantly, resist the temptation to expand this into a long explanation of where your office is located, when the business was founded, how many employees you have and so on. Shorter is better

Part 2: Who you help

We help (this target audience)...

Again, as short and targeted as possible. Avoid the temptation here to think everyone is your IDEAL client. Messages such as: "We work with anyone who owns a car" is too broad. There is leeway here to change the words as well of course. Pick a variation with which you are comfortable - we work with, we help, I am focused on etc.

Part 3: What problem do you address

Who have (this problem, issue or challenge)

You don't need to elaborate for minutes on end. Define the main problem you solve - not the solution at this stage.

Part 4: What they get

So they get (this particular solution)

The best way to couch these parts is using language that speaks to the emotions of your ideal client - frustration, anger, annoyance, fear, worry and so on.

For example:

Hi, I'm Jerry from Acme Insurance. We help home owners in Leawood who are worried they don't have adequate coverage or even that they are over-covered. With us they get over the frustration of not knowing and get the peace of mind they want by knowing they are insured appropriately.

Elevator Speech Template Examples - Basic 30 Second Introduction Scripts
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Jerry Smith is the co-founder of Marketing Action Club, focusing on small service based businesses and independent professionals who want to grow but struggle to attract quality clients consistently.

Visit http://www.30SecondElevatorSpeech.com for a step by step, online program to lead you through producing an effective, attention grabbing introduction for you and your business.