Week 1 Marketing an Example of the Topic Business Essays by

Week 1 Marketing The definition of marketing is rather vague; moreover, different professionals tend to define marketing, using different terms. Marketing should be a necessary element of the organizations sales function: it is the critical element that forms close business ties between customers and sellers, helps firms grow their customers and deliver critical customer value. Planning is integral to marketing; similarly, marketing is impossible without planning. Throughout the history of marketing, since the marketing department era, all marketing activities have been brought under control of one department or one marketing specialist. Planning in marketing was and is required to integrate all marketing activities with the firms obligations and strategic goals. The benefits of marketing are not limited to planning opportunities; organizations use marketing mix to deliver the benefits of their products to consumers and to monitor the effectiveness of various marketing procedures. With the need to ex pand our presence in the market, and with the need to promote continuous growth, marketing will link consumer needs to the strategic business goals, creating a cohesive business environment, expanding the benefits and increasing profitability of businesses and consumers. Need essay sample on "Week 1 Marketing" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed 1. The definition of marketing is rather vague; moreover, different professionals tend to define marketing, using different terms. Kotler and Keller (2006) state that marketing deals with identifying and meeting human and social needs. One of the shortest definitions of marketing is meeting needs profitably (Kotler & Keller, 2006). In other words, marketing turns economic and social needs of customers into material profits. Companies that are able to utilize the benefits of the marketing look at customers through the prism of their social needs, producing services and products that can further satisfy these needs. In this context, Kotler and Keller (2006) distinguish between the social and managerial definition of marketing: a social definition implies the role of marketing as the instrument for satisfying the needs of society, while a managerial definition implies the role of marketing as the instrument for increasing the quality of life. Incorporating marketing into the organizations sales has several benefits. First, marketing drives consumer interest toward the product or service. Second, marketing positively impacts the quality of life and the standards of economic growth (Perreault-McCarthy, 2004). Third, marketing involves a flow of need-satisfying offering from producer to a customer (Perreault-McCarthy, 2006); that means that marketing turns into favorable environment, where customer and producer are able to come to an agreement regarding the price, the quality and the type of the required product. The problem is that marketing is not visible to the public; as a result, not all customers feel that they are legally protected from the unfair marketing approaches. Despite these small inconsistencies, marketing should be a necessary element of the organizations sales function: it is the critical element that forms close business ties between customers and sellers, helps firms grow their customers and deliver criti cal customer value. 2. Planning is integral to marketing; similarly, marketing is impossible without planning. Throughout the history of marketing, since the marketing department era, all marketing activities have been brought under control of one department or one marketing specialist. Planning in marketing was and is required to integrate all marketing activities with the firms obligations and strategic goals. Now, in the marketing company era, it is a time when, in addition to short-run marketing planning, marketing people develop long-range plans sometimes five or more years ahead and the whole company effort is guided by the marketing concept (Perreault-McCarthy, 2004). As a result, planning has turned into a relevant and reliable approach to marketing. Planning helps companies concentrate their efforts and turn customers into potential sources of the companys profit. Marketing orientation substantially improves, when companies are able to integrate effective planning procedures with the companys daily activities. To make customers buy what the firm produces and offers means to develop reliable planning marketing tactics, which will help evaluate customer needs and tie those needs to the companys goals. Marketing is a logical process, and planning forms a complex strategic vision of marketing opportunities, target markets, marketing strategies, marketing programs, and marketing efforts. Planning is essential for creating and maintaining stable marketing environment that will help satisfy the critical needs of customers (Kotler & Keller, 2004). The companys department should produce formal marketing plans for several reasons. First, planning is the key to systematizing the knowledge and information about customers, needs, and companys marketing resources. Second, planning is the key to concentrating and utilizing the benefits of the various types of marketing forces, including demographic, technical, political, and social environment. Third, planning is the key to developing holistic marketing concepts, including relationship marketing, integrated marketing, socially responsible marketing, and internal marketing (Kotler everything matters, when customer needs should be satisfied. 3. The benefits of marketing are not limited to planning opportunities; organizations use marketing mix to deliver the benefits of their products to consumers and to monitor the effectiveness of various marketing procedures. For example, the promotion element is the key to developing effective advertising strategies and identifying the needs of consumers. The use of marketing mix is very important in consumer electronics: for example, to advertise its PlayStation 2 and 3, Sony used non-personal media approaches (sports, series, and personal Sony TV). In this way, Sony was targeting consumers, who would be interested in purchasing its new game products (Dru, 2007). Marketing mix has led Sony to the development and implementation of highly efficient distribution channels: customers were and are encouraged to purchase Sony products from the companys direct and recognized retailers (Dru, 2007). Marketing mix forms the basis for turning quantifiable elements for evaluating the quality of the companys performance and its business progress (e.g., the number of new customers may help interpret the effectiveness of place and price elements within the companys marketing mix). As long as marketing mix involves the four essential components (product, place, price, and promotion), marketing itself will remain one of the most powerful elements impacting our daily lives. With the need to expand our presence in the market, and with the need to promote continuous growth, marketing will link consumer needs to the strategic business goals, creating a cohesive business environment, expanding the benefits and increasing profitability of businesses and consumers. References Dru, J.M. (2007). How disruption brought order: the story of a winning strategy in the world of advertising. Palgrave Macmillan. Kotler, P. & Keller, K.L. (2006). Marketing management. 12th edition. Prentice Hall. Perreault-McCarthy. (2004). Basic marketing: a global-managerial approach. 15th ed. The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Bob Dylan and Intertextuality Essay Example

Bob Dylan and Intertextuality Essay Example Bob Dylan and Intertextuality Essay Bob Dylan and Intertextuality Essay Tangled Up in New Bob Dylan and Intertextuality Appropriation has always played a key role in Bob Dylans music. Critics and fans alike have found striking similarities between Dylan’s lyrics and the words of other writers. On his album â€Å"Love and Theft,† a fan spotted many passages similar to lines from â€Å"Confessions of a Yakuza,† a gangster novel written by Junichi Saga. Other fans have pointed out the numerous references to lines of dialogue from movies and dramas that appear throughout Dylan’s works. He has stolen words from Shakespeare, F. Scott Fitzgerald and more recently, Henry Timrod in his latest album, Modern Times (Rich 1). Culturally, we have reached a point in time where revisiting past movements and styles have become the norm in music, literature and other media. The challenge for all creative works in this era has become more of an exercise in borrowing from ones influences rather than drawing from ones invention or original thought. And you know what? Its okay. We cannot help but be influenced by what we see; thats just being human. Tracing influence is a very hard task, one that can never be complete because of the countless stimuli encountered every time anyone opens his or her eyes and ears, something true for both author/artist and reader. Dylan could not possibly be aware of all of the ideas that influenced him over his lifetime. But from the influences he is aware of, why should he be expected to report every single line he has appropriated into his lyrics? According to Motoko Richs article, Scott Warmuth, a disc jockey in Albuquerque and a former music director for WUSB, a public radio station in Stony Brook, Long Island, discovered the similarities between Dylan’s lyrics and Henry Timrod’s poetry.. Mr. Warmuth said he wasn’t surprised to find that Mr. Dylan had leaned on a strong influence when writing his lyrics. â€Å"I think that’s the way Bob Dylan has always written songs,† he said. â€Å"It’s part of the folk process, even if you look from his first album until now† (Rich 1). More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours,† the 65-year-old Dylan sings in â€Å"When the Deal Goes Down,† one of the songs on â€Å"Modern Times. † Compare that to these lines from Timrod’s â€Å"Rhapsody of a Southern Winter Night†: A round of precious hours Oh! here, where in that summer noon I basked And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers. (Timrod, qtd. in Rich 1) To Warmuth, who found ten phrases echoing Timrod’s poetry on â€Å"Modern Times,† Dylan’s work is still original. â€Å"You could give the collected works of Henry Timrod to a bunch of people, but none of them are going to come up with Bob Dylan songs† (Rich 1). The Bible has been another important resource for Dylans writing (Gilmour 8), but it is still only one of many influences for his music. The interaction of these influences with one another is extremely significant, for this is essentially how Dylans ideas came to flourish in the music industry. This is brought about in the subject of intertextuality. At its simplest form, the term intertextuality has been used to mean source identification. The word is credited to Julia Kristeva, who recognized the influence of different texts on writing, reading and interpretation of literature (ODay 259). It developed out of concern about the relationship of the classical literary tradition with contemporary works of literature. It was also concerned with the role that culture and society played in the construction of literary meaning and expression. Although the term is important to consider when identifying an authors influences, it has often been viewed as an oversimplification. Julia Kristeva once referred to the word as the banal sense of study of sources' (qtd. in Gilmour 14) and Harold Bloom described it as the wearisome industry of source-hunting, of allusion-counting (qtd. n Gilmour 14). What is at issue here is interpretation. Does the reconstruction of all the sources for an essay make up the meaning of the text? Most certainly not. We may be able to offer particular ways to interpret and understand the lyrics of a song or the words of a poem, but we still cannot claim to have discovered the true meaning of the influences to create that text. This is something not even the author/artist can do. How can an author fully explain the meaning of a text when so many influences have been fed into it? This is a reality that Dylan is fully aware of: You have to have seen something or have heard something for you to dream it. It becomes your dream then. Whereas fantasy is just your imagination wandering around. I dont really look at my stuff like that. Its happened, its been said, Ive heard it; I have proof of it. Im a messenger. I get it. It comes to me so I give it back in my particular style. (Dylan, qtd. in Williams 267-68) Artists cannot escape the continuous barrage of new influences brought to them by each new life experience they encounter. An ongoing conversation with these influences occurs as a result, and writers inevitably draw inward from that growing experience for inspiration. The text produced by a writer is a processing of other texts and also a reply to other texts, with which the writer is maintaining a living dialogue (Wolde, qtd. in Gilmour 16). T. S. Eliot is acknowledged as the originating influence on later intertextual studies. In his 1919 essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent, Eliot challenged the assumption that poetic inspiration was solely the fruit of the poets genius and inspiration. Poetic meaning, he argued, was not only personal, but also communal: We shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of [the poets] work may be those in which the dead poets, [the] ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously. (Eliot 4) Eliots point is that the meaning of a poem is influenced by the writers predecessors, and that the meaning of a text is not confined to the time of its creation. Its meaning develops even beyond the death of its writer. Texts do not stand alone or in isolation; they are interrelated to other texts. It is a living whole, and is dependent on what preceded. Literature is the fruit of interrelated texts (ODay 546). Dylan is a master at intertexuality, rewriting earlier songs, both his own and borrowed traditional blues and folk material, but always with a new twist, sometimes by incorporating Biblical and classical mythology or by transforming current idioms. Dylan’s ancestry stretches back to Old Testament Prophets and to political progressives, but also musically to African-American gospel and blues singers and to the old English and Appalachian troubadours. Dylan has shown respect for the sources of the transcendence as he refines from the old blues and folk traditions by singing a vast array of classic songs, from Copper Kettle and Alberta to Delia and Froggy Went A-Courtin, with such a depth of feeling that a casual listener would not suspect they were not his own writings (Heine 8). Perry Glasser believes that intertextuality as a form of homage, done without acknowledgement, permission or credit, is stealing. Intertextuality, like permanently borrowing, is a rhetorical dodge to avoid the word theft. When your neighbor mows his lawn with your mower that he borrowed 3 years before, you are not receiving an homage. No one in the neighborhood recalls the good old days when you mowed your own lawnnow overrun with weeds (Glasser 5). Because Timrod is long dead and his work has fallen out of copyright - you can find his collected poems on the Internet - there is no legal claim that could be made against Dylans use of his works. And thatà ¢â‚¬â„¢s exactly what bothers Chris Dineen, a middle school Spanish teacher and casual fan of Dylan. â€Å"It seems kind of duplicitous,† he said of Dylans borrowing from poet Henry Timrod. Even casual fans know that Dylan has a history of doing this and it’s part of what makes him great, but this is different. This is one poet who’s used over and over and over again† (Rich 2). Mr. Dineen said he would have been happy if Mr. Dylan had just given Timrod credit for the lines. â€Å"Maybe it’s the teacher in me. If I found out that he had done this in a research paper, he’d be in big trouble† (Rich 2). But James Kibler, a professor of English at the University of Georgia who teaches the poetry of Timrod in his Southern literature classes, was delighted to hear of Dylan’s use of the verse. If I were Timrod, I would love it. I would say he’s doing a great honor to Timrod and let’s celebrate that (Rich 2). If youre an av id reader who also writes, you will often find yourself using lines floating around in your head only to later realize that you did indeed read them somewhere else. I know Ive repurposed a line from Cormac McCarthy taking his idea and putting the sentiment into my own words and voice. This is my most conscious example of thievery, but even then, nobody but me would know the truth (Krozser 35). In many ways, the line between using anothers work as a jumping-off point and plagiarism comes in the execution. Art has always borrowed from previous works. Thank goodness for the cavemen. Where would we be today if someone hadnt taken the initiative to draw and sing and tell stories? All writers, to an extent, borrow or repurpose pieces of others works. In some cases, its taking a well-known story and modernizing it or retelling the tale in a fresh way (see each and every version of Pride Prejudice). In others, its borrowing a phrase or notion, creating a homage to someone you admire (see just about every Martin Luther King speech). The acceptability of the text lies in its execution. Martin Luther King borrowed from texts he assumed people already knew, such as quotes from the Bible and the Declaration of Independence. Pride Prejudice has been recreated many times, but the title and themes are still accredited to the original text. Current copyright laws do not protect artists in the way the original copyright laws were envisioned. The original goal was that the laws would protect the works of an artist for a limited period of time. In return, the artist would give back to the world in the form of allowing their work to enter the public domain. This changed with the imminent entry of Mickey Mouse in the public domain, with the irony lost only on Disney (Lethem 65). This change is causing us not only to re-evaluate our concepts of copyright, but also our notions of fair use and even borrowing. All literature is being brought down by the individuals rights of ownership, whatever they may be. We all want to be recognized for our talent, for the greatness we all envy in others, waiting for the perfect sentence or stanza to leap out. We want to own our words, but we have forgotten that they already own us. Literature is organic by nature, and attempts to make it anything but organic are, perverse, in the truest sense of the word. Long ago, literature was, to the body of society, the lifeblood; today, it is the mustache, the fake fingernails, and the Versaci belt. It was the meat; it has become the garnish. Lafferty 27) Literature has been transformed from a means of survival into a means of pure expression. When literature conveyed information, lessons, morals, etc. , that were essential to survival, no one cared if the ideas were original. Now, when literature is simply a way of exploring the intricacies of existence, and especially now that our every word can be recorded for posterity, every person who picks up a pen or sits at a keyboard feels inherently entitled to unil ateral ownership of anything original (Lafferty 27). Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different (Eliot 5). Homer stole, but he made it beautiful, useful and original. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion (Eliot 5). Shakespeare stole, but he perfected borrowed material to such an extent that the result was his own. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest (Eliot 5). Bob Dylan stole from the ancient times to create the Modern Times. The world is shrinking, yes, but the amount of information available to us continues to expand at an exponential rate. Literature must be community-based, freely exchanged, and, effectively, open-source. We all want to decide which version of our own words are greatest, but that should not be our concern. History decides, posterity decides, the community decides; we merely contribute our part. Eliot, Thomas Stearns. Selected Essays: 1917-1932. London: Faber, 1951. 4. Eliot, Thomas Stearns. The Sacred Wood. London: Methune, 1920. ;www. bartleby. com/200/;. 4-5. Gilmour, Michael J. Tangled Up in the Bible. New York: Continuum International, 2004. Glasser, Perry. Interview: Intertextuality. Emerging Writers Network. 27 Dec. 2005. 22 Apr. 2008 http://emergingwriters. typepad. com/emerging_writers_network/2005/12/intertextuality. html. Heine, Stephen, and Taigen D. Leighton. Dylan and Dogen Masters of Spirit and Words. Kyoto Journal 1999. 24 Apr. 2008 mtsource. org/articles/dogen_dylan. html. Krozser, Kassia. Interview: Intertextuality. Emerging Writers Network. 27 Dec. 2005. 22 Apr. 2008 ;http://emergingwriters. typepad. com/emerging_writers_network/2005/12/intertextuality. html;. Lafferty, Matt. Interview: Intertextuality. Emerging Writers Network. 27 Dec. 2005. 22 Apr. 2008 http://emergingwriters. typepad. com/emerging_writers_network/2005/12/intertextuality. html. Leth em, Jonathan. The Ecstasy of Influence. Harpers Magazine Feb. 2007. ; harpers. org/archive/2007/02/0081387;. ODay, G. R. Intertextuality. Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation. Vol. A-J. Nashville, TN: Abingdon P, 1999. 546-548. Rich, Motoko. Who’s This Guy Dylan Who’s Borrowing Lines From Henry Timrod? New York Times 14 Sept. 2006. 20 Apr. 2008 nytimes. com/2006/09/14/arts/music/14dyla. html? _r=1ref=booksoref=slogin. Williams, Paul. Performing Artist: The Music of Bob Dylan, the Middle Years: 1974-1986. Novato, CA: Underwood-Miller, 1992. 267-68.

Online class is better than in class Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Online class is better than in class - Essay Example One can decide the timing of their sessions and can also have the classes wherever they feel comfortable. With an in class, the timelines are specific, and it is for the learner to fix their schedule to fit the schedule of the school. With an online class, one chooses what is convenient for them. The model also saves on cost especially for the foreign students. Technology has made the world a global village and at the touch of a button, one can access services that would have cost a lot more to acquire. More students are enrolling for classes in the best schools in the world despite them not being in those countries where the schools are located. This is important as it facilitates the dissemination of information and imparting knowledge to a greater number that would otherwise not have afforded it. Studying overseas is expensive in terms of maintenance and transport costs, but with an online course this problem is solved. According to Scott Gibby, in the online class, the students become more knowledgeable (Gibby 174). In the in class, extension of classes is a challenge because most likely one would be interfering with another class. In the online class however, through the agreement of the course instructor and student, the class can be extended for the benefit of the student. The students in an online class take better advantage of the learning tools than students in the in class. In the long run, the students in an online class end up being knowledgeable. In the online class, every student participates actively in class. Critics of this model argue that this mode would affect the performance and esteem of the student. We find that in the in class, there are always students raising their hands to take part in the class discussions. In the online class, every student has to participate in the discussions. Those against the online classes state that forcing a student to take part in a class can be dangerous to their performance. In my opinion, the

Product Costing - Traditional Methods and Activity Based Research Paper

Product Costing - Traditional Methods and Activity Based - Research Paper Example By doing this they maintain zero inventory of building parts or what is called as raw materials (RM). Dell enjoys a loyal customer trust globally. One of the reasons for this is that the base prices of their laptops and other products are practically the same across continents. Product pricing at Dell is a serious and well thought over process through strong market research and consumer inputs. Based on the marketing debrief the research and development (R&D) center starts developmental activities on the consumer centric product. The engineers work under the strict constrict of the product cost based on the marketing requirement. The first level of product cost brainstorming is between the marketing, sales and engineers at the R&D. All quality cost parameters namely prevention, appraisal and failure (both internal and external) are considered. In the six sigma jargon another cost is considered, cost of poor quality (Juran, 1988). Dell as an organization completely negates this hidden quality cost. The costing activity of consumer goods in my organization follows the above mentioned steps towards deciding pricing of a bathing soap. The main ingredients of a bathing bar are soap noodles, fragrance, permitted colors and fillers. The cost of a 100 g net weight of bathing bar is $1.5.

Program as an English Teachi Essay Example for Free

Program as an English Teachi Essay The most meaningful goal in my life at this time is to be granted the honor of participating in the Fulbright program as an English Teaching Assistant in Poland. Through all of my academic and professional activities up to this date, I have proven to be an exemplary member of my community, devoting focused care, time and energy to fostering understanding and authentic expression among people. My deep appreciation of what it means to be an effective communicator, through words and body language, is a main part of the reason why I believe that I would be a highly successful and noteworthy Teaching Assistant. I have a strong background of training in the field of language, theater and communication, and my expressive and artistic nature would be an asset in my being able to offer the experience to other people of learning something new. I have proven to be able to work well as a leader and director as well as a listener and team player, and I have great confidence in my ability to impart knowledge as well as learn from others. The reasons for my choice of Poland as a target location center on my own personal ancestry, meaningful experiences in the Polish American community, and my heartfelt desire to work as a cultural ambassador to Poland. As a curious boy of 11, I became interested in genealogy and traced our family back to Poland in the 1700s. I learned that I have distant relatives who live in Poland, including a cousin in Lublin who owns a school where English is taught. I have visited Poland twice before, once with my grandmother when I was 17 years old and once with a friend when I was 25. The church I attended growing up, St. Hedwig Catholic Church in Gary, Indiana, had a Polish Mass that I attended regularly. I was the organist at church and played during Mass. Although I did not understand everything that was being said, I truly enjoyed engaging in the Polish songs, even more than the English ones. I was only 14 years old when I became the organist there, and the memories of Midnight Mass, sunrise Easter services and the traditions carried over from Poland left distinct impressions on me. It would be personally enriching for me to spend time in Poland, learning as much as possible about the Polish culture and sharing insight about my own Polish American culture. In my spare time, I would like to observe or assist at a local theater company in Poland. I have several years of professional experience in theater, and it would be interesting to examine the difference between American styles of directing and Polish styles of directing. There are many past achievements and personal characteristics which qualify me for the opportunity of being honored as a Fulbright scholar. My current major in English and work towards my Bachelor degree at Purdue University is the most prominent demonstration of my high level academic understanding of the English language. This experience is supported by my leadership as President of the Alpha Mu Pi chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, English Honor Society, and awards as Consistent Semester Honors and Chancellors List Recipient. In addition to my university experience, I have been engaged as a professional director and actor in the Indiana theater community. I have performed in over 60 productions, served as the Vocal Director of nine productions, choreographed three productions and served as the Director of seven award winning productions. My membership experience includes the Ball State University Singers, Americas #1 Collegiate Entertainment Organization, and Indianas Official Goodwill Ambassadors. I have also engaged in leadership positions, serving as the Membership Chair, Marketing Chair and President of Portage Community Theatre and Development Chair for the Northwest Indiana Excellence in Theatre Foundation. Various awards received include Winner of Best Director, Best Actor, Best Vocal Director Awards, and Musical and Play Viewer for the Northwest Indiana Excellence in Theatre Foundation. Upon returning to the United States, it is my intention to enter a Master degree program and continue on to the doctorate level.

Personal Narrative: My Experience in College Prep II Writing Essay

For the entirety of my undergraduate career I had the distinct ability to successfully write research papers, critical essays and journal entries. On the whole I feel that my writing was successful due to the fact that I received excellent grades as well as glowing comments of support from my professors. Please understand that I am not boasting about my grade point average, class rank or even attempting to claim that I am a good writer. However, I do feel confident in my abilities to write papers that speak directly to the question at hand while simultaneously addressing, although not necessarily adhering to, the professor’s point of interest. I must credit much of my success as an undergraduate to Mr. M of the High School English Department. My outlook on academic writing was drastically altered during the fall of 1997 with the help of Mr. M and a writing course entitled College Prep II. Any High School Senior who wishes to matriculate at a four-year college or university can enroll in College Prep II. The purpose of the course, as if it weren’t obvious from the title, is to adequately prepare outgoing seniors to write effective research papers and essays at the college level. Before I delve into the specifics of the course itself, I must briefly acquaint you with the quirky Irishman mentioned above. Mr. M came across as the type of wise old Irishman you might run into in a quaint pub and spend hours sipping Guinness, telling jokes and exchanging personal experiences with. Perhaps the reason why College Prep II became such a welcomed challenge for my classmates and I had something to do with the high level of respect Mr. M showed us. Although we were nothing more than scared, immature high school seniors, he talked to us as if... ...ard sentence structure or maybe even a few contradictory ideas would take our paper from a B+ to a C-. However, no one knew that Mr. M was not grading us solely upon our final draft, but on our ability to embrace writing as a continuous process where there is always room for improvement. Whatever the case, the methods Mr. M taught carried me through four years of college writing with relative ease, yet I never realized that I was adhering to his school of writing until I began to ponder this writing assignment. He did an excellent job emphasizing the technical structure of the process, while focusing intently on the personal or humanistic side to writing. Will my outlook on writing change during my future as a graduate student, straying from the ways of Mr. M? Probably, but I think a part of that process will always be in the back of my head, for better or for worse.

Cyber Attacks

The rising threat of terrorism has led to unprecedented levels of security at Indian airports, railway stations, hotels, ports etc. But the government does not seem to see the bigger threat, which will not come from AK-47s, bombs and rifles. The next big attack will be come from terrorists in the cyber world. We live in a technologically interconnected world. Most of us cannot imagine even a single day without our cell phones, internet and ATMs. There is hardly any distinction between where our bodies end and technology begins. Would it be surprising then, if terrorists choose to attack India via the internet? Let me share some facts about how real and damaging that threat can be If a terrorist group were to attack our stock market and financial infrastructure, it would cause widespread panic and losses to millions of people and organizations. Imagine yourself running helplessly from one ATM to another, trying to withdraw money from your account, only to find that the attack has forced banks to suspend online transactions. Likewise, our telecom infrastructure. If it were flooded with malicious data, business and personal life would grind to a standstill. Terrorists could also target India's top businesses, hacking into their systems, stealing valuable intellectual property, sensitive information and company secrets. Even military networks can be targeted. These scenarios are not from a Bollywood flick, but tangible threats that loom large. In May 2007, Estonia — a small but technologically sophisticated Baltic country — fell victim to a cyber attack. The unidentified terrorists bombarded the country's network with data traffic, clogging it and rendering major services unusable. People were not able to access financial utilities, communications and data services for several hours and some, for days together. What stops cyber terrorists from launching similar attacks in India? Very little because, despite being an infotech power, India lags on cyber security. Neither the government, nor the private sector is adequately prepared to face a cyber attack. We have the necessary laws in place, but they are futile in the absence of trained security experts and police officials to enforce them. Recently, I was at a conference in the Capital, attended by numerous Delhi Police officials. During the question-answer session, one police official asked me: â€Å"All this is fine Mr Ankit, but yeh internet ki building kidhar hai? † According to him, the internet was a huge building and, in order to protect it from cyber terrorists, the police had simply to stand all around it, holding rifles and lathis to fight off viruses, worms and criminals! If this is the state of affairs in the police department of the national capital, one can't even begin to imagine the way it is in other cities. The fact that few engineering colleges in India offer courses on cyber security is a major reason for the lack of cyber experts. The result is that when a private company website gets hacked, the incident is brushed under the carpet lest its brand image is tarnished. Worse, it's considered normal for most Indian government websites to get hacked regularly. But the lack of trained professionals and a lax attitude are the least of India's concerns. The internet has no boundaries and allows cyber terrorists to hide behind geographic, political and diplomatic clouds. It is easy for a criminal to hide behind proxy servers and bounce off systems in unfriendly countries to stop security agencies from tracing the culprits. The dynamic nature of cyber security, coupled with the obsolete techniques used by the Indian forces, means it is a losing battle for India. Let's not wait for a cyber 26/11 to happen. A willingness to make changes, a proactive approach with some nimble execution can fix the chinks in India's cyber security and drastically improve our preparedness to fight a cyber war.