Business Email (100 words) and Attachment (400 words) Essay

Business Email (100 words) and Attachment (400 words) - Essay Example We have already prepared several copies of our business card that has a Korean translation to help us communicate our official rank in the company. (Kwintessential Ltd. 2008)2 When it comes to exchanging business cards, our sales team has been informed to use both hands when giving or receiving a business card. We have also informed our team to read the business card first before keeping it in a case or a pocket. Unlike the typical handshake as a business practice in North America, our sales team have been taught that they should greet South Korean businessmen with their family name combined with a â€Å"slight bow† and a handshake while maintaining a good eye-contact with the other party upon the first meeting the Korean business people in an informal reception, just before the presentation and the evening meal starts. (Kwintessential Ltd. 2008) Calling them by their surname remain a practice until the Korean businessmen to tell us to simply call them with their first name. We have also made the sales presentation as short as possible so as not to avoid over-selling our expertise as a consultant company. (Movius et al. 2006) Instead, we aim to develop a stronger business relationship with them. "Communicaid." Doing business in South Korea| South Korean Social and Business Culture. 2008. http://www.communicaid.com/cross-cultural-training/culture-for-business-and-management/doing-business-in/South-korean-business-and-social-culture.php (accessed June 14,

England and the Colonies Essay Example for Free

England and the Colonies Essay The origins of the United States of America can be traced to the colonization of England in the 17th and 18th centuries. Thirteen of the states that are now part of the nation were initially English colonies. However, the relations between England and the colonies were severed when British policies proved to be too oppressive for the colonists. Eventually, the conflict led to the American Revolution, in which the colonies gained their independence from British rule. From the beginning, England and its colonies have differed in terms of social and political climate. These differences contributed in heightening the tension between the two. The colonies were established between the years 1607 and 1733 (Perry, 1989). The first colony was set up in Virginia in 1607. During that time, monarchy still existed in England, but the power of the Parliament in constricting royal authority had increased. This is the reason why the political climate in England was filled with tension. There was always a clash between the monarch and Parliament. When the first colony was founded, James I was the ruling monarch. He had constant disagreement with the Parliament, a disagreement which would eventually worsen with his successor and son Charles I. The tension between the monarch and the Parliament had become worse, prompting a civil war to occur in August 1642. The outcome of the war led to the execution of Charles I and the establishment of a republic. Royal rule was only restored in 1660, with Charles II as monarch (Perry, 1989). The social climate in England was also filled with tension. This was the result of the religious conflict which began during the reign of James I (Perry, 1989). When his predecessor Elizabeth I was the monarch, the Church of England dominated but many people embraced Protestantism. A group of Protestants known as Puritans wanted to remove what they thought was Roman Catholic influence on the Church of England. James I refused to acknowledge the Puritans’ clamor for religious change. During the rule of Charles I, the situation with the Puritans became more intense. William Laud was the archbishop of Canterbury and he promoted unjust treatment of Puritans. Because of his encouragement, many Puritans were fined and put in jail (Perry, 1989). The political climate in the colonies was significantly different from that of England. The colonists did not have a single, central government. They were not ruled by monarchy or Parliament. Those colonies located in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire had their own government and set of laws (Perry, 1989). In the Pennsylvania colony, William Penn even supported political freedom (Perry, 1989). This situation left no room for political conflict, as the colonies were left on their own to govern themselves. Hence, the political climate in the colonies was more calm and stable than that in England. It was not until the conflict with England that the colonies were forced to unite and fight the British in war. On the contrary, the social climate is somewhat similar to that in England. Most of the colonists were persecuted in England for their religious beliefs (Perry, 1989). The reason why some of them decided to move to America was because they sought to establish a community where they could freely practice their religion. Unfortunately, some colonists repressed religious preference the same way British leaders did. In the Massachusetts Bay colony, they refused to welcome people who did not embrace the Puritan religion. However, other colonies were more tolerant than others. For instance, the colony established by Roger Williams in Rhode Island permitted people to practice whatever religion they wanted. The same religious tolerance was extended by Penn (Perry, 1989). England and the colonies differed in terms of political and social climate. In England, there was tension due to political conflict and religious intolerance. In the colonies, individual governments avoided political unrest. Just like in England, religious freedom is also repressed in the colonies; nonetheless, this repression is not absolute. Some colonies tolerated differences in religion. These are the differences between England and the colonies. Reference Perry, M. (1989). A History of the World. Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin.

Political Parties in South Africa

Political Parties in South Africa Abgenia Rivoningo Hlophe Unravelling the Political Ideologies Associated With ANC, DA and AGANG. South Africa is constituted by three main parties at the forefront of the political spectrum, namely: The African Nation Congress (ANC), The Democratic Alliance (DA) and Agang. These political parties have formed their policies based on ideologies and principles which they believe will make South Africa a more successful country. It is incumbent upon one, as a citizen of the republic, to analyze the ideologies associated with each of the aforementioned parties. In an effort to address the analysis thoroughly, this essay will closely evaluate the political ideologies associated the ANC, the DA and Agang respectively. Foremost, to adequately comprehend the nature of the ideologies upheld by the ANC, DA and Agang, one must begin by understanding the concept of political ideology itself. Renowned author Andrew Heywood defines ideology as â€Å"a social-scientific viewpoint, an ideology is a more or less coherent set of ideas that provides a basis for organized political action†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (2013:28). As it apparent in Heywood’s explanation of ideology, there is a close relation between the ideology of a political party and its actions. This relation will be evident in the party’s policies on matters ranging from service delivery to economic growth as well as building alliances. When the first democratic constitution of South Africa was set out in 1996, Section 19 clearly highlighted that any party that sets out to run for political office, must not infringe on the rights and freedom of the citizens of the country (Parliament South Africa, 2008). Primarily, this is a liberal ideological perspective. Specifically because liberalism views the individual as the most important element in society, thus stipulating that the freedom of the individual far exceeds the need for authority and control (Heywood, 2013: 32). Interestingly, one can note that all the political parties to be discussed display liberalism in their manifestos and policies. It must be observed that Liberalism will be an inherent ideology in light of these three political parties. The African National Congress (ANC)’s ideological stance As the Liberation movement that rose to ruling party, the ANC boasts on having conquered the struggle for the individual’s freedom from oppressive laws. They are fundamentally a liberal party even though they also portray socialist ideals. The ANC displays the main elements of Liberalism which Heywood lists as individualism, freedom, reason, equality, toleration, consent and constitutionalism. Apart for being the first Democratic Party, ANC takes pride in having been under the leadership of the father of freedom himself, Former President Nelson Mandela in 1994.Nelson Mandela, and the ANC at large believe in freedom to a great extent, this is evident in the historic event of Mandela’s imprisonment on Robben Island. Furthermore, the ANC asserts a necessity to uplift the individual through its programs such as the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) law that aims to place previously disadvantaged individuals in a position of management. They also promise to ensure a better life for the individual by creating 6 million jobs by 2019 so that each person can be able to fend for themselves (ANC, 2014) Another aspect is that they are attempting to provide equality of opportunity through opening a gap in the entrepreneurial sphere by ensuring that 75% of goods and service used by business and industry are bought within the South African manufacturing sphere (ANC, 2014). That way, each individual, regardless of background can be involved in the economic sphere. The introduction of free public education ensures an equality of opportunity for all citizens. Furthermore, the ANC outlined in their manifesto that they are â€Å"to work with [their] allies and the people to move South Africa forward†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (ANC, 2014). With the reasoning that an institution’s allies not only fund, but also influence its manner of governance, the ANC’s liberalism can further be accentuated by its alliance with the United States (US) leader of the Liberalist party – Barack Obama. In his visit to South Africa (SA) during 2012 and again in July 2013, the trade and investment opportunities between SA and the US were corroborated, resulting in an R7bn agreement towards renewable energy and a leadership program for the youth (News24, 2013). The ANC is also a socialist party. This ideology is characterized by six main issues which are community, fraternity, social equality, need, social class and common ownership (Heywood, 2013: 39). In layman’s terms, socialism involves economic efforts aimed at a group, specifically the entire populace of a country not individuals. ANC’s socialist ideas are revealed through their continuous emphasis on collaborative efforts towards community upliftment. In the National Development Plan (NDP), the main aim is to reduce the levels of poverty in South Africa (ANC, 2014). There are programs put in place such as the food for all programme, which aims to feed the people in poor communities, the National Health Insurance to provide free basic healthcare, HIV/AIDS programmes (Butler, 2008). All these ideals by their ANC align with their foundational principles to create a better South Africa for all those who live in it as a brotherhood, as stated by the Freedom Charter of 1955 (South African History,2005). The Democratic Alliance (DA) and its ideological stance As it was unequivocally expressed when the party was formed, the DA is a liberalist party. In the framework for their manifesto, DA places much emphasis on an effective form of governance which, although limit, will ensure a better life for the individuals of South Africa. Since standing as the Western Cape Minister in 2009, The DA has become a member of the Liberal International and the Africa Liberal Network, which are both have formed with the intention to persuade and propose Liberal principles so that they prevail (DA Abroad, 2011). The DA strives to achieve a limited amount of interference by the government, which is a crucial component of liberalism (DA, 2013). This will promote the freedom of the individual above all other entities. They are a party that brings to the attention of the citizens, the flaws of government and regard this as a way to encourage people to give consent in issues that pertain to their government. Stated in their policy is that there should be â€Å"a limited number of political appointments† (DA, 2013). Which comes as a response to the fact that, much of government expenditure that could be used on citizen, is dedicated towards paying salaries of the 11151 executive members of government under the ANC (South African Reserve Bank, 2013). In an effort to promote equal opportunity, the DA has suggested measures such as putting in place an oversight committee to help reduce corruption and increase accountability to the people (DA, 2013). Also, they will start graduate recruitment programmes to help create opportunities for young people regardless of background and social standing. The apparent strong leadership by women within the political party comes to represent their feminist views. Feminism promotes gender equality. The mere fact that the DA is led by women in parliament namely Lindiwe Mazibuko, as well in office by Helen Zille becomes indicative of a feminist views of the party. AGANG and its ideological stance. On February 12 2013, South African politics witnessed the birth a new political party platform by esteemed academic and activist Dr. Mamphele Ramphele. From its birth, Agang showed Liberal intent. In her launch speech, Ramphele urged South African individual to work in conjunction with the government they have elected to â€Å"build the nation of our dreams† (Independent News, 2013) Being an academic herself, Ramphele appealed to all South African’s on the basis of reason, which is a deliberate liberal persuasion. She says â€Å"our rallying cry during the struggle for freedom was for the people to govern† showing that she recognizes the individual as being the one to give consent to government in how the country should be governed. In conjunction with that, she laments the fact that the greatest number of people who are unemployed, of the 60percent, the majority is youth. It is further suggested that opportunity for education should be created for all people by radically altering the education system. That can be done through the introduction of higher pass rates, eradication of mud schools and improvement of infrastructure (Agang SA, 2014) The empowerment of the individual is suggested through the plans to create incentives for companies who invest in rural communities, changing the tax system to favor entrepreneurship (Agang SA, 2014) Ultimately, Agang is purely liberal and classically appeals to the reason, consent and freedom of the individual while working with the government. In retrospect, the African National Congress (ANC), Democratic Alliance and Agang have great similarities in their approach to politics, all which are justified in terms of the constitution. The variation then exists in the implementation of their ideology when drafting policies. Thus, this solidifies the paramount importance of ideologies in a position of power. Proving that even though, it is all but a matter of perspective, whether it being liberal, socialist or capitalist, ideologies are the foundation of any political action by the ANC, DA and Agang. Bibliography Heywood, A. 2013. Politics. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillian. Butler, A.2005. How Democratic is the African National Congress? Journal of Southern African Studies Volume 31 (No. 4) : pp. 719 -736. Rowland C. Jones J. Recasting the American Dream: Barack Obama keynote address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Quarterly Journal of speech Volume 93 (No. 4): pp 238 – 250. ANC. 2014. ANC [online] Available from www.anc.org.za/list.php?t=Manifesto [ Accessed; 13 February 2014] Kondile, K. (2013) ANC: Obama visit strengthened US- SA ties. News24. [online] 01 July. Available from www.news24.com/SouthAfrica//ANC-Obama-visit-strengthened-US-SA. [ Accessed: 15 February 2014] South African History organization. 2005. [online] Available from www.sahistory.org.za [Accessed: 18 February 2013] South African Parliament. 2005.[online] Available from www.parliament.gov.za Democratic Alliance SA. 2014. [online] Available from www.da.org.za. [Accessed: 16 February 2014] South African reserve Bank. 2013. â€Å"Government finance statistics of South Africa; 1994 – 2013.† [online]. Available from www.resbank.co.za [Accessed: 18 February 2014] Independent Newspaper. (2013). Mamphele Ramphele full launch speech. Independent newspaper [online] 18 Feb 2013 15:44. Available from www. Independentnews.co.za [accessed; 18 February 2013] Agang SA. 2014. Policy. [online] Available from www.agangsa.org.za [Accessed; 18 February 2014] 1

Broken Lives Essay -- essays research papers

Broken Lives written by Estelle Blackburn is an expository text, which through research has presented that nineteen year old John Button was wrongfully convicted of killing his seventeen year old girlfriend Rosemary Anderson in a hit and run. I believe through my reading of Broken Lives that the key factor of expository texts is to explore awkward questions deeply and critically. In this case who was guilty of killing Rosemary Anderson in a hit and run, John Button or Eric Edgar Cooke, and the effect of Cooke’s crimes and murders had on people. John Button was a loving, caring, active and an innocent man. John’s relationship with girlfriend Rosemary Anderson was strong. They planed to get married and Rosemary’s family accepted John for who he was and was already thinking of him as a son in law. â€Å"She was all he could think of: he was in love and was still consumed by the beautiful night at the Skyline Drive-in†. John was caring and always thoughtful of other living things. â€Å"John was upset when he saw the first kangaroo die from Colin’s shot†¦ He was too soft hearted to shoot†. As a child and teenager John loved to keep active by attending ballroom dancing which he was in love with. Button was innocent of killing Rosemary, but fierce police questioning and the police failing to investigate the case thoroughly lead to his imprisonment. There was little physical evidence to prove John’s guilt. â€Å"†¦ looking for blood, flesh or human hair which was likely if the c ar had hit a human...

Experiment is to investigate the rate of reaction between hydrochloric acid and calcium carbonate :: GCSE Chemistry Coursework Investigation

Experiment is to investigate the rate of reaction between hydrochloric acid and calcium carbonate Hydrochloric acid + Calcium Carbonate Þ Calcium Chloride + Water + Carbon Dioxide 2HCl (aq) CaCo3 (s) CaCl2(s) H2O (aq) CO2 (g) There are a number of variables in this experiment and these are listed below as input variables and outcome variables. The input variables are the ones that I can change in order to affect the experiment and the outcome variables are the ones I will measure to see how the input variable has affected it. Input Variables --------------- Amount of calcium carbonate Amount of hydrochloric acid Surface area of calcium carbonate Concentration of hydrochloric acid Temperature of hydrochloric acid Introduction of a catalyst Outcome variables ----------------- Amount of calcium chloride released Amount of water released Amount of carbon dioxide released Change in weight Out of these variables I will use concentration as my input variable and amount of carbon dioxide released as my outcome variable. You can see how I will use and measure these variables in the method section of this investigation. My preliminary results can be found in appendix 1. These show what measurements of the input variables I decided to use and why I decided this. Prediction ========== I predict that as the concentration of the hydrochloric acid decreases the rate of reaction will decrease and therefore the time taken for 75ml of gas to be released will increase. The reason I believe this is that chemical reactions occur when particles of the reacting substances collide. Increasing the number of the particles increases the number of collisions per second and this increases the reaction rate. In the reaction between hydrochloric acid and calcium carbonate you can increase the number of particles in two ways. The first of these is to increase the surface area of the calcium carbonate. Although this does not directly increase the number of particles, it does increase the number of particles that are available for the H+ ions to react with. This is shown in diagram 1 of appendix 2. The second way to increase the concentration in my experiment is to increase the concentration of the hydrochloric acid. By doing this you increase the number of H+ ions available to react with the calcium carbonate and therefore the number of collisions per second between the two increase. If the number of collisions per second increases then the reaction rate will increase. This is demonstrated in diagram 2 of appendix 2. In order to gain perfect results I would have to use the following weights of each component of the formula and introduce nothing else into the equation. All of the weights are in grams CaCO3 + 2HCl Þ CaCl2 + H2O + CO2

Deforestation Causes Climate Change Essay -- Global Warming Essays

"Ladies and gentlemen, the world's forests need to be seen for what they are—giant global utilities, providing essential public services to humanity on a vast scale." -- Prince Charles on Deforestation Many development institutions and politicians regard population pressure as the major factor causing rainforest destruction. Nobody can deny the serious global problem of population growth. However, the belief that this is the main cause of rainforest loss is used by many governments and businesses to imply that there is little or nothing they can do about the problem of rainforest destruction. An examination of forest destruction on a regional basis reveals that this is not so. In fact it is large companies and the inequities of international trade which are the root causes of rainforest destruction. For instance, millions of hectares of primary rainforests are being destroyed in South East Asia by logging, and the driving force in this industry is not the local population but international demand for timber. Because landless people will follow logging roads into primary rainforest areas, it is the logging industry which is the main immediate factor responsible for colonisation of rainforest. In Central America, 40% of all the rainforests have been cleared or burned down in the last 40 years, mostly for cattle pasture to feed the export market (often for US beefburgers). This industry in particular, and the continuing consolidation of land ownership in general, force the poor into rainforest in their search for land. Latin American environment groups have cited skewed land distribution as the most important factor frustrating the conservation and sustainable use of rainforest areas. Throughout South East Asia there are the... ...an 7 per cent of the planet's surface. They generate the bulk of rainfall worldwide and act as a thermostat for the Earth. Forests are also home to 1.6 billion of the world's poorest people who rely on them for subsistence. However, forest experts say governments continue to pursue science fiction solutions to the coming climate catastrophe, preferring bio-fuel subsidies, carbon capture schemes and next-generation power stations. Putting a price on the carbon these vital forests contain is the only way to slow their destruction. Hylton Philipson, a trustee of Rainforest Concern, explained: "In a world where we are witnessing a mounting clash between food security, energy security and environmental security - while there's money to be made from food and energy and no income to be derived from the standing forest, it's obvious that the forest will take the hit." Deforestation Causes Climate Change Essay -- Global Warming Essays "Ladies and gentlemen, the world's forests need to be seen for what they are—giant global utilities, providing essential public services to humanity on a vast scale." -- Prince Charles on Deforestation Many development institutions and politicians regard population pressure as the major factor causing rainforest destruction. Nobody can deny the serious global problem of population growth. However, the belief that this is the main cause of rainforest loss is used by many governments and businesses to imply that there is little or nothing they can do about the problem of rainforest destruction. An examination of forest destruction on a regional basis reveals that this is not so. In fact it is large companies and the inequities of international trade which are the root causes of rainforest destruction. For instance, millions of hectares of primary rainforests are being destroyed in South East Asia by logging, and the driving force in this industry is not the local population but international demand for timber. Because landless people will follow logging roads into primary rainforest areas, it is the logging industry which is the main immediate factor responsible for colonisation of rainforest. In Central America, 40% of all the rainforests have been cleared or burned down in the last 40 years, mostly for cattle pasture to feed the export market (often for US beefburgers). This industry in particular, and the continuing consolidation of land ownership in general, force the poor into rainforest in their search for land. Latin American environment groups have cited skewed land distribution as the most important factor frustrating the conservation and sustainable use of rainforest areas. Throughout South East Asia there are the... ...an 7 per cent of the planet's surface. They generate the bulk of rainfall worldwide and act as a thermostat for the Earth. Forests are also home to 1.6 billion of the world's poorest people who rely on them for subsistence. However, forest experts say governments continue to pursue science fiction solutions to the coming climate catastrophe, preferring bio-fuel subsidies, carbon capture schemes and next-generation power stations. Putting a price on the carbon these vital forests contain is the only way to slow their destruction. Hylton Philipson, a trustee of Rainforest Concern, explained: "In a world where we are witnessing a mounting clash between food security, energy security and environmental security - while there's money to be made from food and energy and no income to be derived from the standing forest, it's obvious that the forest will take the hit."

Steve Jobs : Book Review

STEVE JOBS BY WALTER ISAACSON Dear all dignitaries and peers present here, Welcome to this hall, where we are all presented with the rarest opportunity on hearing about various respected and popular members of this world. On given an opportunity, I wondered what should be the theme of my speech. Should I go for the Nobel laureates or the most popular figurines or people who changed this world? Nobel laureates are historic, and popular people as noted are already quite popular. So, let’s hear about a person who changed the way we look at technology now. The way he drove a multibillion dollar company, the way he became a symbol of youth GOD!Yes, I’m here to talk about the authorised biography, the i-bio of the master, STEVE JOBS by Walter Isaacson. ‘Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography' was one of the most eagerly awaited books of the year 2011. The book is a journey into the life of a legend who revolutionized the way people saw technology. Walter Issacson brings to life, the innovator, the dreamer and the devil within Steve Jobs. An absolutely must read! In my mind the sole purpose of reading non-fiction is to learn, and if you learn something, by definition you will be changed. So, what did I learn from this book? 1.I have a better understanding of Apple products and understand why they enjoy premium pricing. 2. Jobs ability to focus on only 2-3 things at once with absolute intensity. I, like many, have too many interests and hobbies and could benefit from a tighter focus on just a few. 3. Jobs was able to get the most from his employees, but sometimes with tactics that I wouldn’t be comfortable using, including intimidation and tearing down of others. 4. His goal was to surround himself with  Grade A minds. Surrounding yourself with the best is not a bad motto. 5. Life is short-treat time with your family as if you are aware of your short time on earth.So, How does the author portray the genius Was he unbiased? Well, to the authorà ¢â‚¬â„¢s credit, Walter Issacson  is a biographer and a writer. He is also the director of Aspen Institute and has been the Managing Editor of TIME. Issacson has previously written the biographies of Henry Kissinger and Albert Einstein. As a  biographer of Albert Einstein  and Benjamin Franklin, Mr. Isaacson knows how to explicate and celebrate genius: revered, long-dead genius. But he wrote â€Å"Steve Jobs† as its subject was mortally ill, and that is a more painful and delicate challenge. He had access to members of the Jobs family at a difficult time.Mr. Isaacson treats â€Å"Steve Jobs† as the biography of record, which means that it is a strange book to read so soon after its subject’s death. Some of it is an essential Silicon Valley chronicle, compiling stories well known to tech aficionados but interesting to a broad audience. Some of it is already quaint. Mr. Jobs’s first job was at Atari, and it involved the game Pong. (â€Å"If youâ€⠄¢re under 30, ask your parents,† Mr. Isaacson writes. ) Some, like an account of the release of the  iPad  2, is so recent that it is hard to appreciate yet, even if Mr. Isaacson says the device comes to life â€Å"like the face of a tickled baby.    And some is definitely intended for future generations. â€Å"Indeed,† Mr. Isaacson writes, â€Å"its success came not just from the beauty of the hardware but from the applications, known as apps, that allowed you to indulge in all sorts of delightful activities. † One that he mentions, which will be as quaint as Pong some day, features the use of a slingshot to launch angry birds to destroy pigs and their fortresses. So â€Å"Steve Jobs,† an account of its subject’s 56 years (he died on Oct. 5), must reach across time in more ways than one. And it does, in a well-ordered, if not streamlined, fashion.It begins with a portrait of the young Mr. Jobs, rebellious toward the parents who raised him a nd scornful of the ones who gave him up for adoption. (â€Å"They were my sperm and egg bank,† he says. ) Although Mr. Isaacson is not analytical about his subject’s volatile personality (the word â€Å"obnoxious† figures in the book frequently), he raises the question of whether feelings of abandonment in childhood made him fanatically controlling and manipulative as an adult. Fortunately, that glib question stays unanswered. As far as the making of the book, that in itself is a wondrous story.During the summer of 2009, Walter Isaacson got a phone call from Steve Jobs. It so turned out that Jobs wanted Isaacson to write a biography of him. After  Steve Jobs  anointed  Walter Isaacson  as his authorized biographer in 2009, he took Mr. Isaacson to see the Mountain View, California, house in which he had lived as a boy. He pointed out its â€Å"clean design† and â€Å"awesome little features. † He praised the developer, Joseph Eichler, who bu ilt more than 11,000 homes in California subdivisions, for making an affordable product on a mass-market scale. And he showed Mr.Isaacson the stockade fence built 50 years earlier by his father, Paul Jobs. â€Å"He loved doing things right,† Mr. Jobs said. â€Å"He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn’t see. † Mr. Jobs, the brilliant and protean creator whose inventions so utterly transformed the allure of technology, turned those childhood lessons into an all-purpose theory of intelligent design. He gave Mr. Isaacson a chance to play by the same rules. His story calls for a book that is clear, elegant and concise enough to qualify as an iBio. Mr. Isaacson’s â€Å"Steve Jobs† does its solid best to hit that target.Mr. Jobs promised not to look over Mr. Isaacson’s shoulder, and not to meddle with anything but the book’s cover. (Boy, does it look great. ) Steve Jobs asked for no right to read it before it was published and had no control over what was being written before it was published. He also encouraged people to speak honestly. In the book Jobs sometimes speaks brutally and candidly about the people he worked along with and also his competitors. And he expressed approval that the book would not be entirely flattering. But his legacy was at stake. And there were awkward questions to be asked.At the end of the volume, Mr. Jobs answers the question â€Å"What drove me? † by discussing himself in the past tense. His friends, colleagues and foes offer an unparalleled view of the perfectionism, passion, artistry, obsessions, compulsions and devilry that shaped his approach to the innovative products and business that resulted. Within hours of Steve Jobs's death in October, impromptu shrines began to appear outside Apple Stores – flowers, half-eaten apples and iPhones and iPads with images of flickering candles. The man whose company had always attracted a cult following was fast becoming a saint.But, no more than a day later, the backlash began. Jobs was not a saint or even a genius, just, in the words of AN Wilson, ‘a clever backroom boy who got lucky'. What Walter Isaacson's masterful biography reveals is that both the true believers and the cynics got Jobs wrong. In a warts-and-all portrait that continually had this reader recoiling in disgust at the petulant pioneer's behaviour, he shows that Apple's co-founder was very far from being a saint. As a teenager, he browbeats his kindly parents into sending him to a college they cannot afford – then drops out after a year. After teaming up with the rilliant but naive engineer Steve Wozniak he cheats him out of his share of a bonus they get for designing a game. ‘Ethics matter to me,' the always tolerant Wozniak tells the author, ‘but, you know, people are different. ‘ And as a tyrannical leader, he is either screaming at Apple staff about their appalling inadequacies or stealing their ideas and taking the credit for them before an adoring public. Throughout, we see the cranky food habits, the misguided belief that a fruit diet means you only need to shower once a week and an almost wilful disregard for the feelings of others, including those of his family.But, hey, Henry Ford was not the world's nicest man and Thomas Edison was apparently a ruthless egomaniac. Those who aspire to change the world are almost always difficult people, and Isaacson, while obeying the instructions of Jobs's wife not to whitewash his life, presents a compelling case for his genius. Yes, he was a magpie, snatching the idea for the graphical user interface from Xerox Parc, the iPod concept from other MP3 players, the iPad from Microsoft's tablet computer. But, as he said: ‘Picasso had a saying – â€Å"good artists copy, great artists steal† – and we've always been shameless about stealing great ideas. It was what he did with those ideas that proved his genius f or spotting where technology might head next and shaping it to his will. The perfectionism meant driving his executives to distraction with constant demands for tiny adjustments – a different font, a paler shade of green – before anything could be shipped. Jobs was not a quarter the engineer that Wozniak was or as gifted artistically as Jony Ive, the designer whose close but somewhat tortured relationship with his boss is an interesting subplot in the latter half of the book.But his creative imagination changed a series of industries – computers, mobile phones, music and, with Pixar, the movie business. His greatest creation, though, was Apple itself, a company that always wanted to be about more than technology. ‘It is in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough,' he said at the unveiling of the iPad 2. ‘We believe that it's technology married with the humanities that makes our hearts sing. ‘ Cynics would say that it has been not the hu manities or the arts but a ruthless attention to marketing and margins that has enabled Apple to put more than $70bn in the bank.But the Jobs strategy of management remained pretty constant throughout his career, and it was always centred on product not profit. At its core was complete control over hardware and software and of every stage of the product's life cycle, from conception through to the retailer. We see that strategy triumph as early Apple products define home computing, then fail as Microsoft's rival philosophy of licensing its software prevails. Then in 1996, with Apple on the ropes, its co-founder returns.This amazing book takes you on a rollercoaster ride into the ferociously intense personality of a passionate and creative entrepreneur whose powerful drive and vision revolutionized six industries: music, personal computers, phones, animated movies, digital publishing and tablet computing. Steve Jobs also re-imagined and tried to revamp retail stores, but it did not t urn out to be as revolutionary. Instead, he paved the way for an entirely new market for app based digital content. This is a book that's mainly about innovation.Steve Jobs stands tall as the sole icon of imagination, sustained innovation and inventiveness. His vision was very clear; if you want to create value in the industry, connect technology with creativity. A company called Apple was built on this vision, which changed the entire face of technology with its imagination blended with remarkable feats of engineering. Often driven by his demons, Jobs could make those around him lurch in despair and fury. His products and personality were interrelated and his life was cautionary and instructive at the same time.Apple's rise to that position has been characterised by a management style that is now right out of fashion – the egomaniac CEO, the obsessive secrecy, the total disregard for market research, the suspicion of collaborative ventures. Walter Isaacson has written an ent hralling history of the birth of our modern digital world and the company that may have done more than any other to shape it. And, in his obnoxious, smelly, ranting, impatient, intuitive, creative and inspirational Steve Jobs, he has presented us with the greatest business genius of the past 30 years. Mr.Jobs, who founded  Apple  with Stephen Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976, began his career as a seemingly contradictory blend of hippie truth seeker and tech-savvy hothead. â€Å"His Zen awareness was not accompanied by an excess of calm, peace of mind or interpersonal mellowness,† Mr. Isaacson says. â€Å"He could stun an unsuspecting victim with an emotional towel-snap, perfectly aimed,† he also writes. But Mr. Jobs valued simplicity, utility and beauty in ways that would shape his creative imagination. And the book maintains that those goals would not have been achievable in the great parade of Apple creations without that mean streak.Mr. Isaacson takes his reade rs back to the time when laptops, desktops and windows were metaphors, not everyday realities. His book ticks off how each of the Apple innovations that we now take for granted first occurred to Mr. Jobs or his creative team. â€Å"Steve Jobs† means to be the authoritative book about those achievements, and it also follows Mr. Jobs into the wilderness (and to NeXT and Pixar) after his first stint at Apple, which ended in 1985. With an avid interest in corporate intrigue, it skewers Mr. Jobs’s rivals, like John Sculley, who was recruited in 1983 to be Apple’s chief executive and fell for Mr.Jobs’s deceptive show of friendship. â€Å"They professed their fondness so effusively and often that they sounded like high school sweethearts at a Hallmark card display,† Mr. Isaacson writes. Of course the book also tracks Mr. Jobs’s long and combative rivalry with Bill Gates. The section devoted to Mr. Jobs’s illness, which suggests that his canc er might have been more treatable  had he not resisted early surgery,  describes the relative tenderness of their last meeting. â€Å"Steve Jobs† greatly admires its subject. But its most adulatory passages are not about people. Offering a combination of tech criticism and promotional hype, Mr.Isaacson describes the arrival of each new product right down to Mr. Jobs’s theatrical introductions and the advertising campaigns. But if the individual bits of hoopla seem excessive, their cumulative effect is staggering. Here is an encyclopedic survey of all that Mr. Jobs accomplished, replete with the passion and excitement that it deserves. Mr. Jobs’s virtual reinvention of the music business with iTunes and the  iPod, for instance, is made to seem all the more miraculous (â€Å"He’s got a turn-key solution,† the music executive Jimmy Iovine said. ) Mr. Isaacson’s long view basically puts Mr.Jobs up there with Franklin and Einstein, even if a tiny MP3 player is not quite the theory of relativity. The book emphasizes how deceptively effortless Mr. Jobs’s ideas now seem because of their extreme intuitiveness and foresight. When Mr. Jobs, who personally persuaded musician after musician to accept the iTunes model, approached Wynton Marsalis, Mr. Marsalis was rightly more impressed with Mr. Jobs than with the device he was being shown. Mr. Jobs’s love of music plays a big role in â€Å"Steve Jobs,† like his extreme obsession with Bob Dylan. (Like Mr. Dylan, he had a romance with Joan Baez.Her version of Mr. Dylan’s â€Å"Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word† was on Mr. Jobs’s own iPod. ) So does his extraordinary way of perceiving ordinary things, like well-made knives and kitchen appliances. That he admired the Cuisinart food processor he saw at Macy’s may sound trivial, but his subsequent idea that a molded plastic covering might work well on a computer does not. Years from now , the research trip to a jelly bean factory to study potential colors for the  iMac  case will not seem as silly as it might now. Skeptic after skeptic made the mistake of underrating Steve Jobs, and Mr.Isaacson records the howlers who misjudged an unrivaled career. â€Å"Sorry Steve, Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work,† Business Week wrote in a 2001 headline. â€Å"The iPod will likely become a niche product,† a Harvard Business School professor said. â€Å"High tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product,† Mr. Sculley said in 1987. Mr. Jobs got the last laugh every time. â€Å"Steve Jobs† makes it all the sadder that his last laugh is over. Perhaps the funniest passage in Walter Isaacson's monumental book about  Steve Jobs  comes three quarters of the way through.It is 2009 and Jobs is recovering from a liver transplant and pneumonia. At one point the pulmonologist tries to put a mask over his face when he is deeply s edated. Jobs rips it off and mumbles that he hates the design and refuses to wear it. Though barely able to speak, he orders them to bring five different options for the mask so that he can pick a design he likes. Even in the depths of his hallucinations, Jobs was a control-freak and a rude sod to boot. Imagine what he was like in the pink of health. As it happens, you don't need to: every discoverable fact about how Jobs, ahem, coaxed excellence from his co-workers is here.As Isaacson makes clear, Jobs wasn't a visionary or even a particularly talented electronic engineer. But he was a businessman of astonishing flair and focus, a marketing genius, and – when he was getting it right, which wasn't always – had an intuitive sense of what the customer would want before the customer had any idea. He was obsessed with the products, rather than with the money: happily, as he discovered, if you get the products right, the money will come. Isaacson's book is studded with mome nts that make you go â€Å"wow†. There's the  Apple  flotation, which made the 25-year-old Jobs $256m in the days when that was a lot of money.There's his turnaround of the company after he returned as CEO in 1997: in the previous fiscal year the company lost $1. 04bn, but he returned it to profit in his first quarter. There's the  launch of the iTunes store: expected to sell a million songs in six months, it sold a million songs in six days. When  Jobs died, iShrines popped up all over the place, personal tributes filled Facebook and his quotable wisdom – management-consultant banalities, for the most part – was passed from inbox to inbox. Thisbiography  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ commissioned by Jobs and informed by hours and hours of interviews with him – is designed to serve the cult.That's by no means to say that it's a snow-job: Isaacson is all over Jobs's personal shortcomings and occasional business bungles, and Jobs sought no copy approval (though, typic ally, he got worked up over the cover design). But its sheer bulk bespeaks a sort of reverence, and it's clear from the way it's put together that there's not much Jobs did that Isaacson doesn't regard as vital to the historical record. We get a whole chapter on one cheesy ad (â€Å"Think Different†). We get half a page on how Jobs went about choosing a washing machine – itself lifted from an interview Jobs, bizarrely, gave on the subject to  Wired.Want to know the patent number for the box an iPod Nano comes in? It's right there on page 347. Similarly, the empty vocabulary of corporate PR sometimes seeps into Isaacson's prose, as exemplified by the recurrence of the word â€Å"passion†. There's a lot of passion in this book. Steve's â€Å"passion for perfection†, â€Å"passion for industrial design†, â€Å"passion for awesome products† and so on. If I'd been reading this on an  iPad, the temptation to search-and-replace â€Å"passionâ €  to â€Å"turnip† or â€Å"erection† would have been overwhelming.Isaacson writes dutiful, lumbering American news-mag journalese and suffers – as did Jobs himself – from a lack of sense of proportion. Chapter headings evoke Icarus and Prometheus. The one on the Apple II is subtitled â€Å"Dawn of a New Age†, the one on Jobs's return to Apple is called â€Å"The Second Coming†, and when writing about the origins of Apple's graphical user interface (Jobs pinched the idea from Xerox), Isaacson writes with splendid bathos: â€Å"There falls a [sic] shadow, as TS Eliot noted, between the conception and the creation. † But get past all that pomp and there's much to enjoy.Did you know that the Apple Macintosh was nearly called the Apple Bicycle? Or that so obsessed was Jobs with designing swanky-looking factories (white walls, brightly coloured machines) that he kept breaking the machines by painting them – for example bright bl ue? As well as being a sort-of-genius, Jobs was a truly weird man. As a young man, he was once put on the night-shift so co-workers wouldn't have to endure his BO. Jobs was convinced his vegan diet meant he didn't need to wear deodorant or shower more than once a week. His on-off veganism was allied to cranky theories about health.When he rebuked the chairman of Lotus Software for spreading butter on his toast â€Å"Have you ever heard of serum cholesterol? â€Å", the man responded: â€Å"I'll make you a deal. You stay away from commenting on my dietary habits, and I will stay away from the subject of your personality. † That personality. An ex-girlfriend – and one, it should be said, who was very fond of him – told Isaacson that she thought Jobs suffered from narcissistic personality disorder. Jobs's personal life is sketchily covered, but what details there are don't charm.When he got an on/off girlfriend pregnant in his early 20s, he cut her off and aggres sively denied paternity – though he later, uncharacteristically, admitted regretting his behaviour and sought to build a relationship with his daughter. Jobs himself was adopted, and seems to have had what Americans call â€Å"issues around abandonment†. He cheated his friends out of money. He cut old colleagues out of stock options. He fired people with peremptoriness. He bullied waiters, insulted business contacts and humiliated interviewees for jobs.He lied his pants off whenever it suited him – â€Å"reality distortion field† is Isaacson's preferred phrase. Like many bullies, he was also a cry-baby. Whenever he was thwarted – not being made â€Å"Man of the Year† by Time magazine when he was 27, for instance – he burst into tears. Nowadays we are taught that being nice is the way to get on. Steve Jobs is  a  fine counter-example. In 2008, when  Fortune magazine  was on the point of running a damaging article about him, Job s summoned their managing editor to Cupertino to demand he spike the piece: â€Å"He leaned into Serwer's face and asked, ‘So, you've uncovered the fact that I'm bad.Why is that news? ‘† Well.. that’s the story. Sorry if I had given out a few spoilers on the book.. but they were essential to bring out the nature of an awesome personality! The book is well written and an easy read. To tell the story of Jobs’ complete life, the cast of characters is large. Mr Isaacson identifies the importance of those he included and what influence they had on Jobs. So, in a nut shell, this book, to use a few words from Job’s dictionary, is a ‘Must read! ’