Ethnograph Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Ethnograph - Essay Example The researchers’ decision to use observational and qualitative research method directly addressed the research questions such that research interview is the best choice to determine what care is like from the patients’ point-of-view whereas observational method is the best choice in determining how a patient receives assistance from the unit staff aside from determining the nurses’ perception about the patient satisfaction and quality of care and how care on the unit was organized, pure observation method was used in the study. Upon going through how the researchers conducted the ethnographic study in evaluating the patient satisfaction with the quality of care they received from the health care professionals, readers are expected to have a better understanding about the factors that could significantly affect the quality of care each patient is receiving in the surgical-medical unit. Ethnography is a common research strategy used in the study of social sciences like description of individual cultures (Dictionary.com, 2010). By conducting participant observation, research interviews, distribution of research survey questionnaires, and the collection of supplementary data like photographs, measurements, and patient records, this particular research strategy gathers empirical data regarding the nature and issues about the history of human culture and societies in writing (Maynard & Purvis, 1994, p. 76). In terms of biological sciences, the use of ethnography is similar to a case report or field study except that the study focuses on the patterns of thoughts and behavior of the research participants (Berwick, 2004; Boaz & Wolfe, 1997, p. 150). In relation to the use of ethnography, the article â€Å"Dance of the Call Bells† which uses ethnography in evaluating patient satisfaction with quality of care will be evaluated in terms of its accuracy and efficiency in

Hotel Security Essay Example for Free

Hotel Security Essay Hotel Security Matthew Acevedo July 10, 2011 HTT/200 Hotel Security Security came forcefully to the attention of hotel operators in 1976 when a well-known singer, Connie Francis, was raped at knifepoint in a Long Island motel.(online reading, pg.309) Good security is what makes are breaks a good hotel. To insure that you have great security you have to address where its needed the most, where it might be an issue and what are the biggest threats to your guest. According to many different websites identity theft is becoming a major with hackers breaching computers in major hotel chains and gaining access to thousands upon thousands of guests personal information including; home addresses, credit card numbers and personal phone numbers. (Bates, 2008) To help reduce the risk of hackers it would be smart to make sure your database is secured through a well-known and respected company that deals with internet hackers. Though its impossible to fully stop hacking you can make sure you minimize the risk significantly with the right resources. A big issue with security would be fraud and theft. According to the U.S. Department of Justice Statistics, identity theft is now passing up drug trafficking as the number one crime in the nation. (Itrc, 2006) To solve some of these solution the easy steps would be to makes sure to check every guests ID and credit card against each other and have a fake ID decoder behind every desk to insure that no one gets away with using someone elses credit card. Theft is also a big concern with guests that stay in hotels. Many hotels have an open-door policy that lets maids prop open doors for hours on end while they clean that floor. That leaves room wide open for anyone to just walk into a room and take whatever they want or rack up huge bills on movie rental or minibar items. According to a study done in 2003 many hotels have not changes there policies after the attacks of 9/11. Many hotels that were rated higher with security had already established good security and didnt need to make changes. (Myers, 2003) There is no base-line for hotel security so its hard to say if the standard went up after the September 11 attacks of 2001. Conclusion Most of the security issue seems to be that of theft, either of personal items or identity. To help solve the ongoing issue there are dozens of companies working to shut down the cyber-attacks of hotel databases around the world. Until then it is the job of the hotel to take every precaution necessary to insure that guest feel as safe and comfortable as possible while staying in their establishment. References

Implementing Theories of Management in an Organisation

Implementing Theories of Management in an Organisation Organizations are a set of people arranged socially to perform and achieve a common goal. These organizations form the essential building blocks of modern society. Such organisations across the globe are constantly evolving and the rate of evolution changes from one country to another. Organisational Behaviour can be best explained as the study of the ways individuals and groups act at work, which also includes the analysis of interrelationships and interaction between individuals and groups with their environments (Cole, 1995). In this essay, I wish to explain certain behavioural practices that had existed in my previous organisation and implement two theories (motivation and organisational culture) to my work situations.   Ã‚   First let me give an insight into my background. I was born and educated in a city called Chennai in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in India. I graduated bachelor in Mechanical Engineering in the year 2013. After graduation, I was trying for job placement in various companies. During one of my interviews in a company called ETA General Private Limited, my answers were noticed by a silently observing gentleman who did not participate in the interview process. I had no idea who he was so but after my interview, he spotted me in the waiting room, asked for my CV and after a few minutes of going through it, offered me a job in Dubai. He introduced himself as Mr. HMT, head of a polymer division of ETA group of companies. Now I understood why he was present here, it is because General Air Conditioners is also a part of ETA group. I was surprised but I felt it was a very good offer and didnt want to miss it. Shortly thereafter, I received my offer letter which promised a good salary, decent accommodation and proper working condition. Despite being an engineer, I opted to do a non-engineering job as a sales assistant. Mainly because the salary package was compelling and moreover an opportunity to gain work experience in the Gulf was like a big deal for a fresher. Thus I landed my very first job. Emirates Trading Agency LLC, shortly known as ETA is a major corporate group headquartered in Dubai. ETA is a joint venture between UAEs Al Ghurair group and a South Indian company. ETA provides contracting, manufacturing, construction, property development, commodity trading services, power projects etc (Built on trust, 2017). It has operations in Middle East, Indian Subcontinent, South East Asia, Far East, North Africa, parts of Europe etc. ETA had approximately 70 individual divisions and each division has its own business unit heads. The particular business unit which I had the opportunity to work for is called Green Star Polymer. Green Star Polymer (GSP) was a commodity trading company which is the polymer trading wing of ETA. It was formed in 1998 by ETA to buy and sell polymer cargo all around the world. GSP had a 400,000 sq ft warehouse in Abu Dhabi for processing polymers. It also was doing waster paper business domestically. Mr. HMT was heading all these operations and was the Senior General Manager (SGM) of ETA. He belonged to the family of the Indian partners so he was very influential within ETA. The Arab partner, Al Ghurair, invest money and the Indian partners run the business in ETA. Like most Arab and Asian companies, ETA is also a family run business. So the business unit heads are the Indian partners who predominantly belong to the same family. Around mid-2013, ETA was in a huge liability and there was difference opinion among the Indian Arab partners. To reduce cost, ETA was closing/selling many businesses and sacking several employees. Dozens of lawsuits were also filed between partners. This casted a very bad image on the entire company in the market. There was lot of uncertainty among employees and ultimately Mr. HMT was dismissed and GSP division was closed down in 2015. Mr. HMT began his own business in mid-2015 and I was the only one from GSP that he trusted and employed for his company. Sigmund Freud argued humans are provoked to act by unconscious forces within us. These forces within us make us act in a certain way to achieve a goal. Motivation is the cognitive decision-making process through which goal-directed behaviour is initiated, energized, directed and maintained (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2001). Work Situation I: Moving to Dubai for work was the first time moving away from family and the comfort of my home, so I was nervous and excited about my new venture. When I landed in Dubai, I was received from airport by my HR coordinator who dropped me at my accommodation. When I reached my new home, from the outside, I can easily say this is the oldest apartment I had seen in the brief time I was in Dubai. Inside was not good either. The HR guy handed me the key and left. When entered into the room, I was surprised to see 3 people asleep in 2 double cots with one lower cot left vacant for me. The room was half the size of my room in Chennai and 3 others with one bathroom/toilet to be shared. Anyway, I was tired so badly I went to sleep. Next morning, I had a conversation with my roommates as they informed me the rules of the accommodation, office directions, morning timings for using the single bathroom etc. They all worked for ETA but in different divisions. There was no kitchen or pantry available so food had to be purchased from outside. I soon learned the whole building belonged to ETA and occupied by its staffs and also it had been standing there for more than 35 years which is very old compared to UAE standards. All the staffs had been living in unpleasant conditions. I went to my new office that day. I was introduced to all staffs by the HR coordinator. We exchanged greetings and my immediate boss briefed me about the business activities of GSP and about my job. Later I met with Mr. HMT, who welcomed me to the company and handed my employment contract to me. I was shocked to notice that the contract had much lesser salary than what had been promised. It also stated my visa category as simply sales. No executive, no assistant, nothing. I later found out this category of visa is possibly the lowest, more or less equivalent to a clerk. Practically no company should employ me under that category owing to my qualification. I was even rejected to apply driving license with this visa. But my superiors were quick to convince me this is normal. Even though so much was not right, I still didnt express my disappointments to others (I usually dont). I was instructed to be trained for probation period of 6 months. In the very first week, I also learned GSP staffs are working more than 8 hours even after 6pm. I didnt have a clue so I left promptly at 6pm. My line manager called me one day and enquired about me leaving early. I was puzzled and tried to justify that I dont leave during office hours, but even though he advised me to stay until other staffs leave. Again I soon learned the reason behind it. Mr. HMT arrives office at 11am and stays in office till 8pm. He might need some staffs randomly after 6pm so most of them stayed in office till 8pm even though they arrive at 9am in the morning. No policy for overtime pay in place for staffs. Couple of managers quit their jobs within two months of my recruitment but their vacancies were not filled. So I was also assigned additional responsibilities in operations department as GSP was understaffed. Eventually I recognized I was deprived of all the promises made to me. No proper salary, no decent accommodation and no proper working condition. This is when I lost all hope and was very depressed. I was considering to quit my job and go back to India. Applying Motivation Theory: Abraham Maslow argued the content theory which aims to rectify the confusion between drives and motives. He claims that we have innate needs or motives (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2001). The Fig 1 shows the hierarchy which Maslow framed in detail. Figure 1: Maslows Hierarchy of Needs (Source: Maslow and Lewis, 1987) Physiological needs are to the basic elements to survive for any human being which needs to be satisfied before aspiring for the next need which is social and security. Then comes affiliation needs and self-esteem. If these needs are satisfied, we can feel confident whereas if not, we tend to feel inferior and helpless. Self-actualization is the ultimate goal for any individual (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2001). Recommendations: In my case, I began to feel de-motivated because I was cheated with false promise of better salary, accommodation and decent work condition. What I failed to understand initially was that I already have satisfied physiological and safety/security needs. I earned enough to feed myself and had a safe place to live and work. Secondly, I maintained good relationship with my colleagues and housemates, also made few friends. Moreover, I realised I was more confident in communication and analytics at work than my colleagues. All these factors combined, gave me a self-realisation that I am doing good for my age and the little experience I have gained. It motivated me to push harder. I felt proud and appreciated by Mr. HMT when I achieved the sales target the very first month I was given full responsibility when my boss was on holiday. Organisational Culture is the collective values, traditions and practices that are relatively similar among the employees of an organisation. Culture varies from one organisation to another and it is argued that the culture also affects the performance of an organisation. Therefore it is essential for managers to control organisations culture (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2001). Work Situation II: Although ETA is a MNC, its employees are predominantly South Indians. This is mainly because the South Indian business heads are more comfortable working with people from this region. I was also comfortable learning from those people since I am also a South Indian. But there are certain practices that I cannot agree with them. I noticed most of the employees of GSP were servile to Mr. HMT. It was obvious for me to notice these employees behaviour. They are so obsequious to please Mr. HMT. But I couldnt understand if Mr. HMT is not noticing this or if he is oddly comfortable with it. This behaviour of those employees (including few managers) can be attributed to their expectations to progress in work, pay etc. Some employees even degraded themselves to the level of doing household chores for Mr. HMT. There were even few cases where these managers tried to make me oblige to this custom which I had politely refused to do in multiple instances. This behaviour shocked and disgusted me. When Mr. HMT was dismissed in 2015, none of the so-called loyal employees were willing to join him in his new company. They all wanted to transfer to different divisions within ETA for accumulating end of service gratuity and other reasons. After I and Mr. HMT quit from ETA, I brought this matter to his attention during a casual conversation. He confessed that he knew but was oblivious to it and this culture was prevailing within the organisation since he started working in ETA 27 years ago. His realisation about his employees was already too late. Applying Organization Culture Theory: Edgar Schein argued organisations have three levels of culture as depicted below in fig2. The first level is the surface manifestation of culture where the organisations culture is most visible to its customers, visitors and employees. This may include artefacts, ceremonies, norms etc. Second level are the organisations values which underpins the surface manifestations. Although not visible, individuals could be made aware and it distinguishes one organisation from another. The behaviour of all the employees are guided similarly and given a common direction by the values of the organisation.. These values affect the final level which is the basic assumption, which according to Schein is the culture of the organisation. Assumptions are the behavioural aspects which are preconscious, unseen and taken for granted (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2001). Figure 2: Scheins three levels of culture (Source: Schein, 1985) Recommendations: In case of GSP, many staffs sought benefits by other means, rather than by improving work performance, it also had an impact on the overall performance of the company. This behaviour can be attributed to Scheins theory as basic assumption of ETA employees were less than noble. Since I was new to the company, initially I could only see surface manifestation level of ETA and when I coped up to work with these people, I could clearly see what their basic assumption of working for this organisation was and how their values affected it. As the head of GSP, Mr. HMT needed to have addressed this culture at his level when he had the chance. Moreover it should have been controlled by the senior management of ETA and maintained a healthy culture before it infuriated the Arab partners and the companys reputation was damaged. Better work environment can be achieved by applying organisational theories. All employees are directly affected by whatever is happening in an organisation. It is all attributable to human behaviour. With better understanding of organisational behaviour, managers can effectively influence employee behaviours to do achieve better outcome as discussed in these above scenarios. References Built on trust (2017) Available at: http://www.etaascon.com/ (Accessed: 24 January 2017). Cole, G.A., 1995. Organisational behaviour: Theory and practice. Cengage Learning EMEA. Huczynski, A.A. and Buchanan, D.A. (2001) Organizational behaviour. 4th edn. Harlow, United Kingdom: Pearson Education. Maslow, A. and Lewis, K.J., 1987. Maslows hierarchy of needs. Salenger Incorporated, p.14. Schein, E.H. (1985) Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

The Spanish Flu in Remission :: Journalism Influenza Health Medical Essays

The Spanish Flu in Remission For many it appears like there is finally reason to take a deep sigh of relief. The deadly Spanish Flu, now believed to have begun on the battlefields and in the military hospitals of the war, appears to be in remission. In the previous two days the death tolls has gone from 302 down to 269, and it today reached a remarkable low of only 17. Still the business men's advisory committee and our local Health Commission say that we must "keep up the fight so long as there is a case of influenza." The eradication of this illness is the responsibility of every citizen and does not simply rest with the physician. Many are preparing to proclaim an end to this devastating illness which has already claimed the lives of millions world-wide, and has forced many Los Angeles residents to isolate themselves. The disease was known in the battlefields in which it originated as "three-day fever,". Since then the name stuck. It can attack in an instance without warning, and leave those it infects dead in less than a week. John C. Acker, a Sergeant within the 32nd Division American Expeditionary Force, described the course of the illness in greater detail: "It runs its course in a week or more. It hits suddenly and one's temperature nearly chases the mercury thru the top of the M.D.'s thermometer, face gets red, every bone in the body aches and the head splits wide open." The disease has been the source of enormous tragedy, and sadly has claimed the lives of some of our nation's greatest young men, who have successfully fought to push back imposing enemy armies despite tremendous difficulties. After these soldiers returned home a new battle confronted Uncle Sam, as the dark shadow of flu claimed countless the lives of countless civilians and military personnel. Fortunately Los Angeles' reaction to this scourge has been swift. Quarantine has been the official policy. This week such measures continue as nearly all downtown churches announce that they will not hold their regular Children's Sunday School classes since large meetings could endanger the lives of the youth. While the measures are only temporary it has been yet another sign of the inconveniences that quarantine measures have produced. The churches which made this decision hail from virtually every denomination.

My Big Break :: Personal Narrative Music Popularity Essays

My Big Break I'll never forget the time I made it into my high school's variety show during my freshman year. Every student has dreams of being the most popular kid in school. I was the quiet kid in school. I never caused any trouble, I never asked questions and I never started conversations. I wanted to be popular, but I knew that I needed a new image. I always enjoyed music; I always thought the drums were cool, so I began to play the drums. I formed a band with a few of my friends in hope to gain little popularity. In order for us to get our peer's attention, we had to try out for the variety show. I would have never imagined that playing in the variety show for my peers would transform me from a nobody into a somebody. I had two main goals that I wanted to get from being in the variety show: to gain recognition from the students and to play music on stage in front of a large audience. I formed a band with my friends from middle school. Matt Bochicchio, one of my best friends, played guitar. He was always the hardest to get to practice because he was on the high school soccer team so it was difficult for him to find any free time to practice. Matt was so good on guitar that we made him the lead guitarist. Ian Williams, who was a wanna be badass, played rhythm guitar. Ian was always getting himself into trouble with the teachers. Ian wasn't as good as Matt which I found ironic because Ian had been playing guitar a lot longer than him. Fritz played bass and he was the most terrible bass player that I had ever played with in my entire life. Fritz is his last name; his first name is Matt. We called him Fritz so there wouldn't be any confusion. He only wanted to be in a band so he could get chicks, but his plan didn't work out. Nick Naro, a lady's man in his time, was our singer. He wasn't a really good singer, but he had a PA system and back then, that's all that matte red. The band was originally mine and Matt's, but we lost control of it to Nick whom loved the spotlight. He let his ego go to his head and we would get the impression from him that we didn't matter.

Identity: Wild Cat Falling by Colin Johnson, Pleasantville (1998)

Who am I? The question sounds cliche, but let’s be serious. Don’t you believe there is something inside you that you can’t describe, but seems to say, â€Å"This isn’t who I am, or who I planned to be†. The texts I have read emphasise the belief that socialization creates a mask, a false identity concealing the self and who we are to be. However, it is widely believed that identity is a product of socialization- that the self changes through our individual experiences. The persona of WCF is a victim of these processes. CJ’s use of shifting temporal frames allows us to review the persona’s past whilst retaining the present, demonstrating the impact of his childhood experiences on his identity. Jesse Duggan was an influential figure in protagonist’s formative years; her fear of the western culture lead her to condition her son into white society: â€Å"they belong to the white side of the fence. You’ve got to prove you do and don’t you forget it†. She isolates him from his traditional culture and instils in him the stigmas of the lesser breed. The persona’s frequent self derogatory remarks about being â€Å"a mongrel† and â€Å"born under the curse of Ham† indicate how society’s treatment of ‘Noongars’ has affected him. Socialization has isolated the protagonist, denying him his cultural identity and stifling his hopes. Throughout, the persona also remains anonymous, insinuating that his identity is amorphous. Yet we clearly see his mask; â€Å"I took a long look at him and sneered back in my best Hollywood crim voice†. His tone is satirical, as if he knows, his ‘crim’ act is not a true reflection of his identity. And in spite of this mask, his ‘core’ identity can also be seen: â€Å"I stood on the bed, face pressed to the bars, gulping the salt-sea tang until I became part of its crashing surf and soundless depths. † His mask hides his true nature, nonetheless it is revealed through his poetic sensibility. Eliot’s 1911 poem ‘Prufrock’ is a dramatic monologue of a middle-class English-man. For him, socialization demands his conformity to social norms, making him feel imprisoned by its mediocrity: â€Å"for I have known them all already, known them all; have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons†. The repetition of ‘known them all’ portrays life as routine without purpose. â€Å"my morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin; my necktie rich and modest† the detail of his dress elaborately conceals his identity and his true feelings about society. Ironically, the repetition of ‘my’ implies an illumination of identity, rather than its suppression. It seems the Prufrock is afraid reveal his identity may ‘disturb the universe’: â€Å"do I dare, and, do I dare? Avoiding this ultimate question, he seeks peace in oblivion: I should have been a pair of ragged claws; scuttling across the floors of silent seas†. We are gregarious creatures, and Prufrock’s desire for isolation is untenable to us. Socialization has trapped him in a rock and a hard place: he may choose the peaceful oblivion of a void anyday, but he is too scared to reject a mask that he despises in case it may change his world: oh the irony! The 1998 film Pleasantville explores the effects of stepping out of a uniform society. they just happen to see something inside themselves that’s different†. This shot is taken from below, establishing this as a powerful argument and putting David in a position of power over the crowd. He is persuading Pleasantville that embracing your core values defines you as unique; special. He also ‘colours’ George Parker, by revealing to him his intrinsic values: â€Å"don’t you think she looks just as beautiful as the first day you met her? Now don’t you wish you could tell her that? The proxemics in this shot exaggerates David’s emotions and influences his father’s reaction. A shot of David is taken from the court’s POV, which allows for tension to rise before he moves to the side to reveal his ‘coloured’ father. The diagetic tone of shocked voices, coupled with the non-diagetic, soft music that swells at this new revelation, is us ed to highlight the importance of this scene as unearthing your inner self. It seems to say: this is the moment of epiphany, the moment when you discover this universe holds something wonderful and rare, just for you. In David’s own words â€Å"if you just have the guts† to look inside yourself, you’ll find all that â€Å"who am I to be† crap alot easier to handle. WCF’s persona began to confront that ‘song’ or ‘dream’ that had always been with him. Prufrock decided he’d rather drown than face the vast emptiness of his identity. But by giving Pleasantville the choice of change, it instituted profound normative values in people: love, passion, knowledge, peace, expression. All the colours of the rainbow. Though the belief that socialization morphs a person into who they are is predominant in society, it is hard to say that this is truly the case. These texts seem to emphasise the belief that socialization creates masks to conceal our core identities. Of course, socialization can shape us. Would a beggar have the same choices as a rich man? From my perspective, socialization may have us prepare that â€Å"face to meet the faces that you meet† but it may never alter our core identity, which is inevitably revealed when we confront our true emotions.

DropBox it just works

I was searching for a new opportunity that was more Drop client software to a Windows, Mac, or Linux PC or to an phone, pad, Blackberry, or Android mobile device, the software created a local Drop folder for accessing files of any size or type via an encrypted Internet connection from other Drop-enabled devices or from any web browser. The client software tracked changes in real-time to any file in the user's local Drop folder, then instantly synchronized a copy of the file on Dropsy's servers, updating only the portions of he file that had changed, in order to save bandwidth and time.Likewise, within milliseconds, copies of the file were synchronized in local Drop folders on all other devices connected through the user's account. â€Å"We engineered Drop so it just worked, all of the time,† Drew explained, â€Å"We supported all the major operating systems and handled all kinds of obstacles, from flaky wireless connections to corporate firewalls, which was not an easy task. † The company adopted a fermium business model, that is, it offered both free and premium accounts.Users got 2 gigabytes of storage for free and had the option to ay $10 per month for 50 gigabytes or $20 per month for 100 gigabytes. Industry observers estimated that 2% to 3% of Dropsy's users were paying customers, which implied a $10 million to $15 million annual revenue run rate in mid 2010. 1 At that time, the company had 25 employees, most of whom worked in engineering or support functions. Drop had raised $7. 2 million in two rounds of venture capital funding from Sequoia Capital and Cell Partners.Market Overview Drop was a late entrant to the fiercely competitive online backup and storage services space. The first firms in the space, which had small companies as customers, ere launched in the late asses by startups offering outsourced storage at remote decanters. As costs declined, services also became available for consumers seeking to backup their data online. Most ear ly users were technically adept, for example, college students downloading music from peer-to-peer file sharing services.Few firms in this first wave of services survived the dot. Com crash, but by late 2006 the market was crowded again with new competitors. In July 2007, the tech blob Amassable published a list of more than 80 online backup and storage services. 2 Market research vendors like DC fueled the hype by predicting that the worldwide market for online backup services would grow to $71 5 million by 2011. 3 Investor interest in online storage surged when Muzzy was acquired by EMCEE for $76 million in late 2007.Houston was confident that Drop could succeed in the face of intense competition. He reasoned that Drop would be able to collect revenue from some users, because consumers generally understood that storage cost money, whether it came in the form of a physical drive or an online service. When challenged by endure capitalists to explain why the world needed another clou d backup company, Houston asked them, â€Å"How many of those services do you personally use? † The answer from Vs. was almost invariably, â€Å"None of them. 4 Houston asserted that direct experience with rival services, which often failed to transfer data across firewalls and sometimes balked with big files or large numbers of files, was helpful in innovations that contributed to these advantages: 2 The first generation of cloud storage services was based on a simplistic model, where file accesses were redirected over the Internet instead of to your computer's hard rive. Your operating system and all your applications assume that accessing your hard drive is cheap and fast, but when these requests are instead routed to a server thousands of miles away, they can take an order of magnitude longer.This subtle but critical distinction explains why when working remotely, even simple actions like browsing a directory can freeze your computer for seconds at a time. We needed to t ake a completely different approach by storing files locally and updating the cloud copy in the background using a number of time- and vindications optimizations. Launching Drop It's hard to imagine Tom Cruise in Minority Report sending himself files via Gamma or lugging around a USB thumbprint. Ђ? Drew Houston After his frustrating experience on the bus, Houston started working on Drop full time in late 2006. He said: I needed it badly. I worked on multiple desktops and a laptop and could never remember to keep my USB drive with me. I was drowning in email attachments trying to share files for my previous startup. My home desktops power supply literally exploded one day, killing one of my hard drives, and I had no backups. I tried everything I could find but each product inevitably suffered problems with Internet latency, large files, bugs, or Just made me think too much. To help with the project, Houston recruited Rash Overdose, who dropped out of MIT and later became Dropsy's co-founder and chief technology officer. The pair spent the next four months coding a prototype in a tiny Cambridge apartment. With a working prototype in hand, Houston came up with an innovative approach for testing demand for a minimum viable product. He had produced various recruiting videos for his college fraternity; with this know-how he created a three-minute crassest of a product demo and uploaded it to Hacker News, a popular forum for developers. â€Å"l did this out of necessity.There was no way I could ask for people's files before we were 100% sure our code was reliable. But I had a prototype that showed off the product's best features. â€Å"7 Houston used the screens to recruit beta testers and to solicit feedback on features that Drop might include. He added, â€Å"Not launching is painful, but not learning can be fatal. We got a lot of feedback through that video, so we were learning while we were building. † Houston had another reason for posting the video on Hacker News: he hoped to ND selective Y Combinatory seed fund and incubator program.He recalled, â€Å"l had Just submitted my application to Y Combinatory and as a gambit to get their attention, I submitted the video to Hacker News. I hoped it would work. â€Å"8 It did: in April 2007, Drop received $15,000 in funding from Y Combinatory (see Exhibit 1 for excerpts from Dropsy's Y Combinatory application). In exchange for a small percentage of a startup's common equity-?usually 2% to 10%-?Y Combinatory provided up to $20,000 of seed capital as well as mentoring, workspace, and introductions to other advisors ND investors over a three-month period.Many startups applied to Y Combination's program, which had a track record for matching strong technical teams with elite venture capital firms. 3 Upon conclusion of the Y Combinatory program in September 2007, Drop raised $1. 2 million of convertible debt from Sequoia Capital. â€Å"We fit into Sequoia's sweet spot: we were two youn g technical founders, working out of an apartment, targeting a big market. It helped that we were ranked at the top of our Y Combinatory cohort,† Houston recalled.He and Overdose moved to San Francisco to continue building the many, but despite the capital infusion, they continued to run lean. Drop delivered its service through Amazon's SO cloud storage platform, avoiding the need for infrastructure investments and positioning the company to scale rapidly. The co- founders created a private beta program for a limited group of users who registered through a simple landing page. The page contained a short description of Drop and requested an email address from visitors interested in participating in the beta test (Exhibit 2).Houston commented: There's a spectrum of well-informed opinions about when to launch your product. At one end, Paul Graham tells entrepreneurs, â€Å"Launch early and often† to accelerate learning. At the other end, [respected software guru] Joel Spoo ky says, â€Å"Launch when your product doesn't completely suck. † We were managing people's files, and it's a big deal if you lose or ruin them. That meant moving toward Spooky end of the spectrum and keeping our beta test small. Next, Houston devised ways to generate demand for the beta service.In a guerilla marketing move, he produced another short demo video and posted it in March 2008 on Dig, a site that showcased web content deemed popular by Digs users. Houston felt it was essential to communicate in an authentic manner with the tech enthusiasts who frequented Dig. He sprinkled â€Å"Easter eggs† into the video, for example, references to Chocolate Rain (a Youth phenomenon), TIPS reports used in the movie Office Space, Mitt's Gillian Hall, and the 09 IF key for decrypting Blurry disks (dissemination of which, in the face of movie studio legal threats, was a hacker crusade).With this tongue-in- cheek nod to its tech-sway audience, the Drop video soared to the top of Dig, few days. Overnight, the list for Dropsy's private beta Jumped from 5,000 to 75,000 Ames, far exceeding the team's expectations. Building the Company Make something people want. -? Y Combinatory motto Based on consumer response to the second video, it appeared that the promise behind Drop-? â€Å"It Just works†-?resonated with potential early adopters, especially those who were familiar with the performance limitations of existing online backup/ storage services. Houston shifted his focus to product development.The Drop team was comprised almost entirely of engineers during the first two years of the firm's existence. Early on, board members tasked Houston with hiring a reduce manager to help coordinate engineering efforts and prioritize features. Houston reflected: If you ask ten people what a product manager is, you'll get ten different answers. They tend to fall on a continuum with the end points being â€Å"poet† and â€Å"librarian. † A librarian i s focused on blocking and tackling, coordination, and facilitating communication. This type of PM is inherently organized and follows up relentlessly.A poet PM listens to the voice of the customer during usability tests and focus groups and based on that insight formulates an aesthetic vision, a grand strategy, and a product roadman. Our first product manager was 4 more of a librarian than a poet, because we needed a librarian's discipline: even today we don't have enough of that DNA in the company. But he Just drove people nuts. It was painful, but we had to let him go after six months. For the next year, until Drop hired another product manager, the company relied on Houston and Overdose to drive the product roadman.Development proceeded more slowly than Houston had originally expected. In his April 2007 Y Combinatory application, Houston had projected availability of a version that he could charge for thin 8 weeks, but launching Drop to the public actually took 18 months. Houston said, â€Å"As a result of doing a few things well, we left a lot of other things behind. We had no business people, we were terrible at getting mainstream PR, and running fast and loose didn't make for the most predictable engineering organization. 9 Public Launch Drop opened its beta to the public in September 2008 at Outstretched, an annual competition showcasing high-potential startups. Drop was one of 50 startups selected to present at the event from a pool of over 1,000 applicants. ND also provide a product development deadline for the team. Houston mused that since Drop was following a tried-and-true blueprint for launching a consumer Internet service, his next step would have to be devising a marketing plan. Drop retained an online marketing consultant to help with this task.Houston said, â€Å"What do most web companies do? Apply to Outstretched, check. Buy Towards, check. Get real marketing people, check. â€Å"10 Early on, Drop attempted to acquire new customers throu gh paid search advertising. However, incumbents had bid up the cost per click for obvious search keywords. As a result, it cost Drop more than $300 to acquire a paying customer (Exhibit 3). This was not sustainable, since an annual subscription for 50 KGB service was priced at $99. Drop had tweaked its sign-up process to increase the conversation rate from free user to paying customer.The company also experimented with hiding the free service option for visitors who arrived via search ads. Houston recalled, â€Å"Our average acquisition cost per paying customer went from thousands of dollars to hundreds, but we still had a problem with our economics. And we didn't feel good about doing sneaky things to our users to get them to pay. 11 Sequoia Capital and Cell Partners subsequently led a $6 million Series A round of financing in October 2008, but even with additional capital in the bank, relying on paid search would not be a viable long- term option.In addition, the team had experim ented with display ads and affiliate programs, but these efforts also yielded unacceptably high acquisition costs per paying customer. Houston realized that with a fermium strategy, optimization of marketing messages and pricing would be critical to Dropsy's success; consistent with this priority, the company hired an analytics engineer as its eighth employee. Inspired by the Backbone â€Å"growth† team dedicated to user acquisition and engagement, Houston later assigned 30% of engineering resources to optimizing customer acquisition efforts.This team closely tracked metrics across Dropsy's conversion funnel by cohort,a for example: the percent of landing page visitors who registered as free users; the percent of registrants who still were active free users after X months; and the percent of free users who upgraded to paid subscribers after Y months. Houston said, â€Å"We run our business based on the ‘Startup Metrics for Pirates' framework developed by investor Dave McClure. He says firms should a A cohort was a set of prospects or users acquired at the same time and/or via the same marketing method. Closely track metrics around the acquisition of landing page visitors; activation of those visitors into users; retention of users; referral of new visitors by satisfied users; and revenue earned from users. † The team used A/B testing to fine tune page layouts free storage given to users. Analytics showed that gigabytes were not necessarily the best measure of value for Drop users. â€Å"We had all kinds of people paying us for Drop but not even bumping against their quota,† Houston said. Analytics likewise revealed that few users were accessing past versions of their files, all of which-?including deleted files-?were being permanently stored by Drop at a significant and rapidly growing cost. The company modified its policy, offering 30 days of undo history free of charge and making unlimited undo history a premium option. Houston sai d, â€Å"Just a tenth of a percent improvement in conversion rates, or a small decrease in the cost of serving a customer can have a huge impact on profitability. Premium is a spreadsheet game-?one you win with lots and lots of little moves . â€Å"13 Fourteen Months to the EpiphanyDespite improvements through analytics, Houston and his colleagues struggled to make the company marketing programs profitable. Nevertheless, the service grew rapidly, reaching 200,000 users ten days after launch and 1 million users seven months later. The vast majority of these users were acquired through word-of-mouth referrals and viral marketing efforts, rather than paid advertising. A relentless focus on ease of use and reliability had paid dividends in the form of loyal users who encouraged friends, family, and co-workers to try Drop. Houston commented, â€Å"The power of focus can't be understated.If you look at a feature matrix of Drop versus everyone else, we would never come in first. We woul d rather do a few things well rather than present Drop in a confusing way. â€Å"14 To identify ways to improve ease of use, the Drop team tracked support forums closely. Houston said, â€Å"We get feature requests for things we already have. These are particularly bad because it means that even though we've implemented something, our users can't find it. We pay close attention when that happens. â€Å"1 5 The company also maintained a â€Å"Vote† on its site, allowing users to vote and comment on treasures they would like to see added.Since the team gained insight on users' preferences through support forums and the Vote, the company did not conduct regular consumer surveys, but it did conduct occasional usability tests. In one instance, the entire team watched as not one of five typical consumers recruited from Scraggliest could successfully install and interact with the application. Houston recalled: Watching them fail was excruciating. Imagine if your coffee maker Just spit coffee all over the counter every third time you used it or your car stopped in the middle of the road. That's the computer experience for a normal person.The PC is always conspiring against you to lose your stuff or break in some weird way. You have no idea what happened or what you did wrong. Watching those five consumers struggle to try to figure out how to use our product was probably the most painful day we ever had as a team, but afterward, we created a list of 70 things to fix. B A/B tests divided a set of similar individuals into a control group that experienced a status quo product and a test group that experienced a product with one modified element, to determine if the modification yielded a statistically significant DropBox it just works I was searching for a new opportunity that was more Drop client software to a Windows, Mac, or Linux PC or to an phone, pad, Blackberry, or Android mobile device, the software created a local Drop folder for accessing files of any size or type via an encrypted Internet connection from other Drop-enabled devices or from any web browser. The client software tracked changes in real-time to any file in the user's local Drop folder, then instantly synchronized a copy of the file on Dropsy's servers, updating only the portions of he file that had changed, in order to save bandwidth and time.Likewise, within milliseconds, copies of the file were synchronized in local Drop folders on all other devices connected through the user's account. â€Å"We engineered Drop so it just worked, all of the time,† Drew explained, â€Å"We supported all the major operating systems and handled all kinds of obstacles, from flaky wireless connections to corporate firewalls, which was not an easy task. † The company adopted a fermium business model, that is, it offered both free and premium accounts.Users got 2 gigabytes of storage for free and had the option to ay $10 per month for 50 gigabytes or $20 per month for 100 gigabytes. Industry observers estimated that 2% to 3% of Dropsy's users were paying customers, which implied a $10 million to $15 million annual revenue run rate in mid 2010. 1 At that time, the company had 25 employees, most of whom worked in engineering or support functions. Drop had raised $7. 2 million in two rounds of venture capital funding from Sequoia Capital and Cell Partners.Market Overview Drop was a late entrant to the fiercely competitive online backup and storage services space. The first firms in the space, which had small companies as customers, ere launched in the late asses by startups offering outsourced storage at remote decanters. As costs declined, services also became available for consumers seeking to backup their data online. Most ear ly users were technically adept, for example, college students downloading music from peer-to-peer file sharing services.Few firms in this first wave of services survived the dot. Com crash, but by late 2006 the market was crowded again with new competitors. In July 2007, the tech blob Amassable published a list of more than 80 online backup and storage services. 2 Market research vendors like DC fueled the hype by predicting that the worldwide market for online backup services would grow to $71 5 million by 2011. 3 Investor interest in online storage surged when Muzzy was acquired by EMCEE for $76 million in late 2007.Houston was confident that Drop could succeed in the face of intense competition. He reasoned that Drop would be able to collect revenue from some users, because consumers generally understood that storage cost money, whether it came in the form of a physical drive or an online service. When challenged by endure capitalists to explain why the world needed another clou d backup company, Houston asked them, â€Å"How many of those services do you personally use? † The answer from Vs. was almost invariably, â€Å"None of them. 4 Houston asserted that direct experience with rival services, which often failed to transfer data across firewalls and sometimes balked with big files or large numbers of files, was helpful in innovations that contributed to these advantages: 2 The first generation of cloud storage services was based on a simplistic model, where file accesses were redirected over the Internet instead of to your computer's hard rive. Your operating system and all your applications assume that accessing your hard drive is cheap and fast, but when these requests are instead routed to a server thousands of miles away, they can take an order of magnitude longer.This subtle but critical distinction explains why when working remotely, even simple actions like browsing a directory can freeze your computer for seconds at a time. We needed to t ake a completely different approach by storing files locally and updating the cloud copy in the background using a number of time- and vindications optimizations. Launching Drop It's hard to imagine Tom Cruise in Minority Report sending himself files via Gamma or lugging around a USB thumbprint. Ђ? Drew Houston After his frustrating experience on the bus, Houston started working on Drop full time in late 2006. He said: I needed it badly. I worked on multiple desktops and a laptop and could never remember to keep my USB drive with me. I was drowning in email attachments trying to share files for my previous startup. My home desktops power supply literally exploded one day, killing one of my hard drives, and I had no backups. I tried everything I could find but each product inevitably suffered problems with Internet latency, large files, bugs, or Just made me think too much. To help with the project, Houston recruited Rash Overdose, who dropped out of MIT and later became Dropsy's co-founder and chief technology officer. The pair spent the next four months coding a prototype in a tiny Cambridge apartment. With a working prototype in hand, Houston came up with an innovative approach for testing demand for a minimum viable product. He had produced various recruiting videos for his college fraternity; with this know-how he created a three-minute crassest of a product demo and uploaded it to Hacker News, a popular forum for developers. â€Å"l did this out of necessity.There was no way I could ask for people's files before we were 100% sure our code was reliable. But I had a prototype that showed off the product's best features. â€Å"7 Houston used the screens to recruit beta testers and to solicit feedback on features that Drop might include. He added, â€Å"Not launching is painful, but not learning can be fatal. We got a lot of feedback through that video, so we were learning while we were building. † Houston had another reason for posting the video on Hacker News: he hoped to ND selective Y Combinatory seed fund and incubator program.He recalled, â€Å"l had Just submitted my application to Y Combinatory and as a gambit to get their attention, I submitted the video to Hacker News. I hoped it would work. â€Å"8 It did: in April 2007, Drop received $15,000 in funding from Y Combinatory (see Exhibit 1 for excerpts from Dropsy's Y Combinatory application). In exchange for a small percentage of a startup's common equity-?usually 2% to 10%-?Y Combinatory provided up to $20,000 of seed capital as well as mentoring, workspace, and introductions to other advisors ND investors over a three-month period.Many startups applied to Y Combination's program, which had a track record for matching strong technical teams with elite venture capital firms. 3 Upon conclusion of the Y Combinatory program in September 2007, Drop raised $1. 2 million of convertible debt from Sequoia Capital. â€Å"We fit into Sequoia's sweet spot: we were two youn g technical founders, working out of an apartment, targeting a big market. It helped that we were ranked at the top of our Y Combinatory cohort,† Houston recalled.He and Overdose moved to San Francisco to continue building the many, but despite the capital infusion, they continued to run lean. Drop delivered its service through Amazon's SO cloud storage platform, avoiding the need for infrastructure investments and positioning the company to scale rapidly. The co- founders created a private beta program for a limited group of users who registered through a simple landing page. The page contained a short description of Drop and requested an email address from visitors interested in participating in the beta test (Exhibit 2).Houston commented: There's a spectrum of well-informed opinions about when to launch your product. At one end, Paul Graham tells entrepreneurs, â€Å"Launch early and often† to accelerate learning. At the other end, [respected software guru] Joel Spoo ky says, â€Å"Launch when your product doesn't completely suck. † We were managing people's files, and it's a big deal if you lose or ruin them. That meant moving toward Spooky end of the spectrum and keeping our beta test small. Next, Houston devised ways to generate demand for the beta service.In a guerilla marketing move, he produced another short demo video and posted it in March 2008 on Dig, a site that showcased web content deemed popular by Digs users. Houston felt it was essential to communicate in an authentic manner with the tech enthusiasts who frequented Dig. He sprinkled â€Å"Easter eggs† into the video, for example, references to Chocolate Rain (a Youth phenomenon), TIPS reports used in the movie Office Space, Mitt's Gillian Hall, and the 09 IF key for decrypting Blurry disks (dissemination of which, in the face of movie studio legal threats, was a hacker crusade).With this tongue-in- cheek nod to its tech-sway audience, the Drop video soared to the top of Dig, few days. Overnight, the list for Dropsy's private beta Jumped from 5,000 to 75,000 Ames, far exceeding the team's expectations. Building the Company Make something people want. -? Y Combinatory motto Based on consumer response to the second video, it appeared that the promise behind Drop-? â€Å"It Just works†-?resonated with potential early adopters, especially those who were familiar with the performance limitations of existing online backup/ storage services. Houston shifted his focus to product development.The Drop team was comprised almost entirely of engineers during the first two years of the firm's existence. Early on, board members tasked Houston with hiring a reduce manager to help coordinate engineering efforts and prioritize features. Houston reflected: If you ask ten people what a product manager is, you'll get ten different answers. They tend to fall on a continuum with the end points being â€Å"poet† and â€Å"librarian. † A librarian i s focused on blocking and tackling, coordination, and facilitating communication. This type of PM is inherently organized and follows up relentlessly.A poet PM listens to the voice of the customer during usability tests and focus groups and based on that insight formulates an aesthetic vision, a grand strategy, and a product roadman. Our first product manager was 4 more of a librarian than a poet, because we needed a librarian's discipline: even today we don't have enough of that DNA in the company. But he Just drove people nuts. It was painful, but we had to let him go after six months. For the next year, until Drop hired another product manager, the company relied on Houston and Overdose to drive the product roadman.Development proceeded more slowly than Houston had originally expected. In his April 2007 Y Combinatory application, Houston had projected availability of a version that he could charge for thin 8 weeks, but launching Drop to the public actually took 18 months. Houston said, â€Å"As a result of doing a few things well, we left a lot of other things behind. We had no business people, we were terrible at getting mainstream PR, and running fast and loose didn't make for the most predictable engineering organization. 9 Public Launch Drop opened its beta to the public in September 2008 at Outstretched, an annual competition showcasing high-potential startups. Drop was one of 50 startups selected to present at the event from a pool of over 1,000 applicants. ND also provide a product development deadline for the team. Houston mused that since Drop was following a tried-and-true blueprint for launching a consumer Internet service, his next step would have to be devising a marketing plan. Drop retained an online marketing consultant to help with this task.Houston said, â€Å"What do most web companies do? Apply to Outstretched, check. Buy Towards, check. Get real marketing people, check. â€Å"10 Early on, Drop attempted to acquire new customers throu gh paid search advertising. However, incumbents had bid up the cost per click for obvious search keywords. As a result, it cost Drop more than $300 to acquire a paying customer (Exhibit 3). This was not sustainable, since an annual subscription for 50 KGB service was priced at $99. Drop had tweaked its sign-up process to increase the conversation rate from free user to paying customer.The company also experimented with hiding the free service option for visitors who arrived via search ads. Houston recalled, â€Å"Our average acquisition cost per paying customer went from thousands of dollars to hundreds, but we still had a problem with our economics. And we didn't feel good about doing sneaky things to our users to get them to pay. 11 Sequoia Capital and Cell Partners subsequently led a $6 million Series A round of financing in October 2008, but even with additional capital in the bank, relying on paid search would not be a viable long- term option.In addition, the team had experim ented with display ads and affiliate programs, but these efforts also yielded unacceptably high acquisition costs per paying customer. Houston realized that with a fermium strategy, optimization of marketing messages and pricing would be critical to Dropsy's success; consistent with this priority, the company hired an analytics engineer as its eighth employee. Inspired by the Backbone â€Å"growth† team dedicated to user acquisition and engagement, Houston later assigned 30% of engineering resources to optimizing customer acquisition efforts.This team closely tracked metrics across Dropsy's conversion funnel by cohort,a for example: the percent of landing page visitors who registered as free users; the percent of registrants who still were active free users after X months; and the percent of free users who upgraded to paid subscribers after Y months. Houston said, â€Å"We run our business based on the ‘Startup Metrics for Pirates' framework developed by investor Dave McClure. He says firms should a A cohort was a set of prospects or users acquired at the same time and/or via the same marketing method. Closely track metrics around the acquisition of landing page visitors; activation of those visitors into users; retention of users; referral of new visitors by satisfied users; and revenue earned from users. † The team used A/B testing to fine tune page layouts free storage given to users. Analytics showed that gigabytes were not necessarily the best measure of value for Drop users. â€Å"We had all kinds of people paying us for Drop but not even bumping against their quota,† Houston said. Analytics likewise revealed that few users were accessing past versions of their files, all of which-?including deleted files-?were being permanently stored by Drop at a significant and rapidly growing cost. The company modified its policy, offering 30 days of undo history free of charge and making unlimited undo history a premium option. Houston sai d, â€Å"Just a tenth of a percent improvement in conversion rates, or a small decrease in the cost of serving a customer can have a huge impact on profitability. Premium is a spreadsheet game-?one you win with lots and lots of little moves . â€Å"13 Fourteen Months to the EpiphanyDespite improvements through analytics, Houston and his colleagues struggled to make the company marketing programs profitable. Nevertheless, the service grew rapidly, reaching 200,000 users ten days after launch and 1 million users seven months later. The vast majority of these users were acquired through word-of-mouth referrals and viral marketing efforts, rather than paid advertising. A relentless focus on ease of use and reliability had paid dividends in the form of loyal users who encouraged friends, family, and co-workers to try Drop. Houston commented, â€Å"The power of focus can't be understated.If you look at a feature matrix of Drop versus everyone else, we would never come in first. We woul d rather do a few things well rather than present Drop in a confusing way. â€Å"14 To identify ways to improve ease of use, the Drop team tracked support forums closely. Houston said, â€Å"We get feature requests for things we already have. These are particularly bad because it means that even though we've implemented something, our users can't find it. We pay close attention when that happens. â€Å"1 5 The company also maintained a â€Å"Vote† on its site, allowing users to vote and comment on treasures they would like to see added.Since the team gained insight on users' preferences through support forums and the Vote, the company did not conduct regular consumer surveys, but it did conduct occasional usability tests. In one instance, the entire team watched as not one of five typical consumers recruited from Scraggliest could successfully install and interact with the application. Houston recalled: Watching them fail was excruciating. Imagine if your coffee maker Just spit coffee all over the counter every third time you used it or your car stopped in the middle of the road. That's the computer experience for a normal person.The PC is always conspiring against you to lose your stuff or break in some weird way. You have no idea what happened or what you did wrong. Watching those five consumers struggle to try to figure out how to use our product was probably the most painful day we ever had as a team, but afterward, we created a list of 70 things to fix. B A/B tests divided a set of similar individuals into a control group that experienced a status quo product and a test group that experienced a product with one modified element, to determine if the modification yielded a statistically significant