Wangari Maathai Essay Essay Example for Free

Wangari Maathai Essay Essay Throughout history many people have devoted their life to promoting and protecting people’s human rights. One of whom was Wangari Maathai. She devoted her life towards bettering the environment of her native land, Kenya. Maathai was an environmentalist who developed the Greenbelt Movement. She was also known as a women’s rights advocate and she received many awards. Some of which were the Nobel peace prize in 2004, legion d’Honneur, France’s highest award in 2006 and in 2005 she was named one 100 most powerful women by Forbes Magazine. Some of the women in Kenya started to notice that the quality and quantity of their crops was going down due to environmental damage. One of those women was Wangari Maathai. She decided to try and help to fix the damage that had been done. Maathai did many things to improve the environment, one of which was founding the greenbelt movement. The green belt movement is an organization that promotes and awards the planting of â€Å"green belts† to stop soil erosion, provide shade and create a source of lumber and fire wood. Started on earth day in 1977 the movement has since planted over 15 million trees, produced income for 80 thousand people in Kenya alone, and has expanded its efforts to over 30 African countries, the U.S., and Haiti. Maathai was a very influential woman. Her success made a huge impact in the world. Through the greenbelt movement the vegetation in Africa greatly improved. This method then spread throughout the world. The impact Maathai had on the world will never be forgotten.

The Future of Customer Experience Essay Example for Free

The Future of Customer Experience Essay Frowareness, discovery, attraction, interaction, purchase, use, cultivation and advocacy. It can also be used to mean an individual experience over one transaction; the distinction is usually clear in context. Analysts and commentators who write about customer experience (CX) and  customer relationship management  have increasingly recognized the importance of managing the customers experience. Customers receive some kind of experience, ranging from positive to negative, during the course of buying  goods  and  services. BlackBerry takes a look into the future of customer experience. This video depicts what the future of retailing could look like in the near future. A young woman uses mobile technology to identify, search and buy an outfit for a wedding and to interact with retailers in the online and physical worlds. This video also details how retailers can use mobile technology in the future to collaborate, and respond faster to trends and customer demand. This video shows how businesses could use integrated social networking to better serve customers and to improve employee collaboration and engagement. A fictional utilities company uses social networking to track, respond and improve their customer experience and service levels whilst increasing staff productivity. In this video, existing technologies have been  re-imagined  with smarter devices and better experiences. It showcases device integration, sharing and social networking, e-commerce, retail management systems, GPS tracking, mobile payment systems and augmented reality. BlackBerry takes a look at the impact mobile technology could have in the future of customer service. Analysis of the case The Future of Customer Experience? Its Getting Personal No matter what business, a growing percentage of customers are nearly always connected, with instant access to more advanced tools and detailed information than many enterprises had just a few years ago. These smart, digitally empowered consumers and businesses have the power to behave in a far smarter and better-informed manner than ever before. This power has also radically changed customer expectations, driving demand for better, more innovative, and personalized products, services, and experiences. This should come as no surprise to any executive. Given a choice, each of us (as well as our customers) prefers experiences tailored to our unique wants and needs. Firms that are best able to do so have significant competitive advantage over those that cannot. Though the promise–and power–of personalization has been at the forefront of marketing theory for some time, its widespread application to customer experience is only just beginning. Today, disruptive digital innovation is changing the ways companies serve their customers, as well as the ways these customers expect to be treated. Personalization is the Foundation Of Innovative Customer Experience. In the age of smart customers, personalization is the future of experience. Mass production and consumption of news, entertainment, products, and services have already lost the battle, giving way to personalization and customization. Apps such as  Zite  and  Flipboard  allow each of us to totally personalize the ways we consume news. Amazon has personalized the ways we shop, and Netflix and Hulu how we watch movies, TV, and other media programming. Pandora serves up increasingly personalized musical streams based on a listener’s taste (â€Å"thumbs up; thumbs down†), continuously learning about users’ musical preferences based on real-time customer feedback. There are hundreds of examples, with more coming every day. The point is these increasing levels of digitally driven personalization allow customers to choose what they consume, from whom, and how they interact with and consume it. These digital experiences are training smart customers to expect everything, from every company–product, services, experiences, and more–to be customized in a similar manner. When it comes to innovative customer experience, this all leads to one word: personalization. ‘One Size Fits All’ Simply Doesn’t Fly Anymore. And It Doesn’t Have To. No company can afford to or needs to deliver a fully customized â€Å"ideal experience† to each individual customer across the range of digital, human, and static touchpoints and interactions. The fact is, some customers are simply worth more than others, and it takes a great deal of intelligence for companies to figure out what the â€Å"right† experiences are for any given group of customers, much less how to personalize them. The good news is, â€Å"smart touchpoints† and the data they can produce, combined with the ability to analyze the digital breadcrumbs and data that surrounds almost every customer, means that any firm of any size has the tools for intelligent personalization at hand. Starting with what can be the biggest step, a firm needs to be willing to adjust its offerings to the needs of individual customers based on an understanding of what those individual customers (or the smallest possible groups they represent) want, and how that’s different from others. The more effectively a company uses customer information to understand and acknowledge both the differences and similarities, the easier it will be to provide benefits uniquely suited to those customers. In ways never before possible, you can approach them with truly personalized, highly customized offers, through relevant channels, in ways that drive stronger, more profitable relationships, better serving your customers by giving them exactly what they want, when they want it. Result: Customer experiences that are not only highly differentiated, but that cannot be easily duplicated by others. It is infact the hardest thing for competitors to copy. For many companies, it isn’t obvious to executives how or why they should provide meaningful personalization. Their customers have been satisfied with the existing product lineup. Their products may be commodities, or perhaps their firms are in a regulated utility. While the desire to create a â€Å"differentiated customer experience† is high on the list of objectives when it comes to customer experience strategy, they do not yet grasp that the most effective customer experiences are those tailored in a significant manner to meet the needs of that particular customer. They simply dont realize how fast customer expectations are changing, and what this means to the design of forward-looking customer experience strategies today. Companies that do realize this–and take action as a result–will create truly differentiated, category-leading experiences that make interacting with them so relevant, so much more convenient, and so perfectly suited to customers’ wants and needs that they won’t even  consider switching to a competitor. Points to consider while designing a customer experience The world has changed and the balance of power has shifted to the customers. The speed with which consumers have shifted to all things  digital/social/mobile  has taken many companies by surprise. â€Å"It’s like skating to a ping-pong ball 1. PERSONALIZATION AND CONTEXT With consumers adopting evermore numerous channels and devices to access information and interact with brands, businesses are scrambling to figure out how to deliver a more unified customer experience. In the wake of this, two new mantras are on the lips of every marketer: personalization and context. As a larger number of users become more familiar with social/mobile technologies, they’ll likely use them in more complex ways: sophistication breeds heightened expectation. Consumers will favor brands that provide context and relevance to their daily lives. Businesses can accomplish this by  producing quality content  that is not only relevant to their brand’s target audience, but promoted (and optimized) over multiple channels such as web, mobile and social, and accessible to them on demand. For many, this presents a daunting challenge that will likely put a strain on existing resources. If this is the case for a brand, they may want to consider outsourcing to an  inbound marketing services agency  that specializes on all aspects of digital marketing. Key Inferences * An explosion of customer touchpoints is at hand. Digital customer experience today is defined primarily by websites, with mobile applications on smartphones not far behind, and the future will include as many as 10 additional customer touchpoints. Deciding which channels to incorporate into your strategy is crucial to defining your organization’s future in digital customer experience. A unified experience requires the right people, process, and technology foundations. Customers love their devices but also want consistency across the devices and apps they use. Unified experiences that cross touchpoints demand improved yet common designs, common content assets and application code, and delivery processes tuned for speed and harmonized skills and roles. * Investments in unified experience founda tions will pay off now. Investments in foundations for unified customer experiences will pay dividends in the short term.

The Strategies To Maintain Building Efficiently Construction Essay

The Strategies To Maintain Building Efficiently Construction Essay Introduction Building maintenance management has always been seen as the Cinderella activity in the construction industry where we shall be continuously done the maintenance work. The maintenance work has always been seen and carried out by the architects, surveyors, engineers or facilities managers in term of function or discipline (Allen, 1993). The maintenance has been required starting from the construction work at the first stage, where the significance of maintenance was not recognized because most early structures were massive, overdesigned, made from natural materials, in an unpolluted atmosphere and wore out very slowly (Allen, 1993). When the maintenance was required, the individual owner was carried out and the maintenance was executed but in term of management is not properly done. The maintenance management was necessary when the advent of landlord-tenant relationships and together with the growth and spread of the population (Allen, 1993). Normally, property owners always endeavor to keep their building maintenance expenditure in the minimum cost but the building must be in good condition and well-maintained (Seeley, 1976). The building maintenance is highly desired but hardly achievable to produce where the maintenance-free, although many work can be done during design stage to minimize the cost of maintenance work. According to the Building Maintenance by Seeley, the building deteriorates at a greater or lesser rate depending on the materials and methods of construction, environments and the use of the building (Seeley, 1976). 2.0 Definition of efficiency and building maintenance The word of efficiency can be defined as an important quality because all ideas are scarce such as time, money and raw material, so they try to keep them while maintaining an acceptable level of output or a general production level. The efficiency would be reducing the amount of waste inputs (n.n. 2012). There many definition of maintenance can be defined. British Standard (BS 3811: 1964) defines maintenance as work undertaken to keep or reinstate every facility that is every part of a site, building and contents to an acceptable standard (British Standards Institution 1964) . Besides that, maintenance can be defined as the improvement of any facilities including every part of a building, services and surrounding according to an adequate standard in order to sustain the value of building facility (Allen, 1993). 3.0 Types of maintenance According to British Standard Institution, maintenance divided into planned and unplanned maintenance where there have preventive and corrective in planned maintenance and unplanned same as an ad-hoc basis because uses when necessary. Planned preventive maintenance is working direct in order to prevent the failure of facility where the maintenance done within the expected life of facility to ensure the facility can be operation continuously (Seeley, 1976) . Planned corrective maintenance where the work performs in order to restore any facility to operation or acceptable standard and unplanned maintenance where we were unpredicted the unforeseen breakdowns or damage occurred by external causes (Seeley, 1976). 4.0 Strategies to maintain building efficiently Building maintenance is an important thing where to preserve the building in its initial stage of the construction. Furthermore, the execution of building maintenance allows the building to operate effectively. The building shall be maintain in order to make sure the building can be retain investment value, an acceptable condition and required standard, looking good appearance of building, generate income for building owner and conserve historical and architectural values of building (Ali et al. 2010). There are some strategies to ensuring the efficiency in building maintenance practices which is; Work schedule Computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) Involvement of Building Maintenance Profession during Design Stage Outsourcing 4.1 Work Schedule In future, more people are demanding in term of building care where they are wants their building facility always in good condition and well-maintain. For more efficiency in building maintenance, any property management shall be having work schedule for contractor to maintain each of equipment or building facility. In the building maintenance management process, every organization has their objective in order to success in maintenance work and they were determines the effectiveness of implementation in term of maintenance plans, schedules, controls and improvements (MÃ ¡rquez et al. 2009) Besides that, any organization also can produced checklist for building maintenance such as checklist for air-conditioner, mechanical and electrical, water supply and others. So, when there have several checklists at the particular area, the maintenance workers are easy to do their job where they were just going to the particular area and check any equipment through the checklist whether there have equipment breakdown or not. With have a checklist, the maintenance workers will know when the next checking for that building to do maintenance. Checklist schedule can be done in daily, weekly and monthly based on type of maintenance facility or equipment. It will be more efficiently to the maintenance workers to do their job. 4.2 Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) Next, strategies to maintain the building efficiently is using the computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) where this system is software that contains the information about companys maintenance operations. This system is useful to the company because it will help their maintenance worker to handle the maintenance job become more efficiently (Herbert W. Stanford III, 2010). Other than that, CMMS also can help them to saving the data about maintenance operations where the maintenance worker will alert on the schedule for their inspection on the building maintenance area such as mechanical and electrical equipment, air conditioner, water supply and others. They are also will know when there have some equipment were breakdown or who the maintenance worker was responsible for the job (Ruud, 2009). Normally, CMMS used by companies which have high standard for their maintenance work. In CMMS, there have some package offer included which are a work orders, preventive maintenance, asset management and inventory control. All programs will be easily for maintenance workers to do their job such as scheduling maintenance procedures, tracking relevant information, keeping track of preventive maintenance components and procedures, recording data about equipment, management of tools, materials and others (Herbert W. Stanford III, 2010). 4.3 Involvement of Building Maintenance Profession during Design Stage The design of building structures is an important thing because at initial stage of the construction, the building maintenance profession shall be involved in order to make sure the suitable building design to be designed by architect. The building maintenance profession is not only involved during the construction completed but they shall be involved before the construction start. So, they can consult with the architect to do the suitable design in term of long-term planning and a long-term maintenance on which are predicted by them (Allen, 1993). After the construction is completed, the building maintenance profession is easily to do their maintenance works because the architect are design the building structure according to their planning. When the design of structure is an efficiently, its required to be understands the way how to be used and maintained the building structure. 4.4 Outsourcing Any organizations in the world try looking for new approaches in outsourcing to maintain the building facility or equipment or develop competitive advantage (Campbell, 1995). By outsourcing a particular area of building maintenance to other organization, the in-house organization can maximize their return because their management will be more efficient. Outsourcing also will be an effective way in order to reduce costs, free-up capital and improve quality and service, but outsourcing cannot be seen as an automatic way to be success (Campbell, 1995). Outsourcing also known as contract maintenance where there have a survey done by FM Link, the contracting for unskilled or semi-skilled services such as landscape services and housekeeping was very high which is 65-75%, the use of outsourcing for preventative maintenance was much lower which is 50% or less and for public owners, public schools, universities and others the use preventive maintenance was below 20% (Herbert W. Stanford III, 2010). There are some benefits of outsourcing because these benefits are related to the quality of the products and services provided to the customers (Campbell, 1995). There are some benefits enjoy by organizations which are: Contractors will be performed a good services where they were might be has more specialized the equipment and allowed the contractor to provide a good quality and service at a lower price. When do the outsourcing, the organization may provide a greater flexibility because the outsourced organization are able to operate their maintenance works according to their own plan. The supplier will enjoy personnel depth and sophistication in technical knowledge in particular area and support more specialized proficiencies. When the outsourcing strategy in well-planned, the approaches which can deliver a competitive advantage by allowed company to focus its resources on their business. 5.0 Conclusion As a conclusion, to ensuring the efficiency in building maintenance practices, the approaches will be used in this building maintenance management is expected to reduce the building maintenance costs, to improve the health, safety and satisfaction by the users. All strategy or approaches in building maintenance are easily to the maintenance workers do their job and become more efficiently. When they are doing their maintenance works according to the schedule, then the works become more save the time, the equipment always in good condition, the checklists will be done by the maintenance workers and others. Other than that, the strategy will be used in building maintenance management to ensure the performance of the maintenance works is well-maintained. The maintenance works must be effective and the most important thing is efficient.

The Truth About Orthodox Christianity :: essays research papers fc

As described in The Grand Inquisitor by Dostoevsky The writings of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Helen Ellerbe show substantial evidence that the orthodox Christians did in fact steal from humanity the divine freedom it was promised by Jesus Christ. This thesis is supported in Dostoevsky's "The Grand Inquisitor" from his book The Brothers Karamazov. The dark side of Christian history by Helen Ellerbe also supports this theory. The Inquisition itself shows credibility to the theory that orthodox Christianity was established to conquer and control the freedom of humans. 2. Orthodox Christianity has a history of trying to deceive humanity. In her book, Ellerbe proclaims that: "Orthodox Christianity fostered humanity's shift towards a world view that pays little heed to the idea of divinity." (Ellerbe 165). In addition, the Grand Inquisitor "...claims it as a merit for himself and his Church that at last they have vanquished freedom and have done so to make men happy." (Dostoevsky 1081). 3. Reading "The Grand Inquisitor" while considering the history of early Christianity, the question can be asked, "Did orthodox Christians really believe in God?" Or is the God they believed in a guise that Christianity has put forward to have humanity believe in Him through its teachings only. The Roman Church had taken God's celebrations of nature and converted them to Christian celebration. In The dark side of Christian history, Ellerbe supports this when she writes "Unable to convince people of the absence of God in nature, the early Church instead incorporated aspects of the very nature worship it condemned..." (Ellerbe 143). 4. The Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478. King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I requested the Inquisition. At first, The concern of the Inquisition in Spain was over the conversion of Marranos: Marranos were Jews that were converted to Christianity using force and pressure by society. It is estimated that by the end of the 14th century about 100,000 Jews had become Marranos, although the greater number of Jews openly adhered to their faith even at the risk of expulsion. Some Marranos actually accepted Christianity, but most of them practiced Judaism in secret, while others waited only for an opportunity to throw off their Christian disguise (Encarta 99). Later, the Inquisition turned to people of Islam and attempted to convert the in the same way they had done to the Jews. And, even later, to those suspected of being Protestants. The Spanish Inquisition was similar to the first inquisition that was started in France.

Listeners :: Essays Papers

Listeners My hands were dirty. I was playing in the mud with the Dolinger’s up the street when I heard the bell ringing faintly in the distance. It was time to go home. A sweet soft summer breeze pushed me down Delaware Av. to my house on the corner. This same warm fresh breath of air then gracefully passed through the windows of my living room and finally escaped my home overflowing with music. I walked into a dark and cool living room, my sisters not far behind me. We were immediately greeted with the pleasantly pungent odor of cigar smoke and the powerful music of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. My dad was lying on the couch, his eyes closed, listening. Only the light above the kitchen stove was on. He would invite and encourage us to listen with him. Since we were only 5 and 6 we would naturally prefer to mindlessly watch the Brady Bunch. But on occasion, I remember sitting and listening with him. I remember dancing around the room or lying on cool hardwood floors. I remember feeling the vibrations of the speakers through the floor, tickling my body, imprinting the notes on my soul. My dad provided an environment in which we might learn to appreciate the enriching sounds of various musical genius’s from Copland to the Grateful Dead. He gave me an amazing gift, the opportunity to learn how to simply listen. Sweets sounds, melodies, rhythms and beats, have been changing and growing for as long as man has walked the earth. Music is not just a pastime or entertainment, but a method of communication, of identification, of bonding, and learning about other people and cultures around the world. As I grew older, I learned that music or rather the listeners of such enrapturing sounds, make up a very powerful and unique community. Music has always been apart of my life. However, it did not begin to recognizably contribute to my own personal development until sixth grade when my then best friend of six years, Colleen, and I began to â€Å"travel down two different paths†.

Music Therapy for Autistic Children :: Music, Music Therapy

When a child is diagnosed with autism, one thing that is noted is the lack of eye contact. Music therapy works to help this in numerous ways. When the therapist starts at the child’s level, according to the British Colombian Music therapy association, they can base what needs to be done and how to do it off of where the child is and after many sessions, where they are now (M-7). According to a report in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, â€Å"Eye contact – this refers to an event where child looks at therapist while playing, manipulating† (E-7). A way that in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders is using music therapy instead of play therapy as it increases turn taking and eye contact more than when play therapy is used (E-4). Eye Contact was even proved to be held longer during this study when the child was participating in music therapy activities than when they were in regular play activities(E-1). When a mother was quoted on the British Columbian Music Therapy website, she stated that the â€Å"skills and abilities acquired in the music therapy setting generalize widely across situations. VII. Turn Taking The music therapist has to reach the child to be able to interact with them and help them. When the child feels free and unthreatened, the British Colombian Music Therapy association says that they get more out of the session. When they are not being told don’t this, don’t do that, and NO for everything they do to express themselves. Music therapy gives them that way to express themselves without being yelled at and told NO (M-8). The Tympo and Rhythm of the instruments is not just a way for the children express themselves, it even stops reminding them of when they were in the womb. The British Colombia MTA states that the tympo and Rhythm gets the child to progress from the rocking motion when they were in the womb and as a baby. It gives them a new independent feel (M-6). As music therapy is one of the cutting edge therapies according to Ken Siri and Tony Lyons, this helps develop motor skills for the child to interact with the instruments (A-2). According to an article in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, â€Å"Turn Taking – This refers to an event involving a sequence of turns to play alternating between the child and Therapist.

Jerry Maguire Essay

Students must secure (purchase, rent, or borrow) and view a copy of Jerry Maguire to answer the following questions 1. Describe Jerry Maguire’s job and describe what this type of position entails. Jerry Maguire is a sports agent a person who negotiates employment and endorsement deals for an athlete. For their services, the agent receives a commission, which usually runs between 4 and 10 percent. The agent also may assist in public relations and all aspects of his client’s finances. Our text states a few of the other responsibilities of the agent are; †¢ Determines the value of the players services †¢ Convinces a club to pay the player the aforementioned value †¢ Develops the package of compensation to suit the player’s needs †¢ Protects the player’s rights under contract †¢ Counsels the player about post career security, both financial and occupational †¢ Finds a new club upon the player’s free agency †¢ Assists the player in earning extra income from endorsements, speeches, appearances, and commercials †¢ Advises athletes on the effect of their personal conduct on their career (p 26) According to Wikipedia, a sports agent helps market athletes or products associated with that athlete to promote an athlete’s career. Agents are responsible for communications with team owners, managers, coaches, and other individuals. Primarily, agents are used to broker and negotiate contracts for their clients. Also, they are responsible for making recommendations in regards to the athlete’s options. In addition to finding income sources, agents often handle public relations matters for their clients. In some large sports agencies, such as IMG, Creative Artists Agency, and Octagon, agents deal with all aspects of a client’s finances, from investment to filing taxes. Sports agents may be relied upon by their clients for guidance in all business aspects, and sometimes even more broadly. For example, hockey agents start recruiting clients as young as 15, allowing the agent to guide the athlete’s career before the NHL draft, which happens usually at 18 years of age. Due to the length and complexity of contracts, many sports agents are lawyers or have a background in contract law. Agents are expected to be knowledgeable about finance, business management, and financial and risk analysis, as well as sports. It is important for a sports agent to follow trends in sports. Other skills an agent must possess are excellent communication and negotiation skills. Agents must be highly motivated, willing to work long hours, and have the ability to multitask. It is very common for agents to be in negotiations on behalf of several clients at one time. Some agents are part of large companies, and some are on their own. The number of clients an individual agent can handle and how many clients his or her employing agency can handle in total are interdependent variables. Before the 1990s, most soccer players did not use agents. In some cases, they used their fathers as agents. Due to most parents’ naivetà © about the football business, these young footballers were often given less-than-stellar contracts by football clubs, which yielded lower salaries than they thought they deserved. In Sweden, there were only three licensed agents in 1995. As of 2002, there were 33. According to FIFA, there were 5,187 licensed association football agents world-wide, with 600 agents in Italy alone. Since 2001, agents have not been licensed by FIFA. Instead, agents are now licensed directly by each association. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_agent 2. Why has the bargaining power of athletes increased so much in the past 40 years? The sports industry is experiencing tremendous growth, and sports’ marketing  is playing an important role in this emerging industry. Sports marketing will continue to grow in importance as sports become more pervasive in the U.S. culture and around the globe. The growth is identified in a number of ways; the number of spectators, the growth of media coverage, increase in sport participation, rising employment opportunities, and the growth in sports internationally. (p31) Based on this it is my opinion that the bargaining power of athletes have increased because demand has increased. 3. The competitive nature of the sports agency business is real. Name five of the top agencies and show the source of your information (i.e. www†¦). †¢ Creative Artists Agency: â€Å"CAA† – acquired various pieces of the sports agency business of SFX (see below), starting with football. †¢ IMG – International Management Group – corporate agency established by entrepreneur Mark McCormack, originally with a specialization in golf and tennis. After the death of McCormack the company was acquired by private equity group Forstmann Little. †¢ International Sports Management – British sports agency run by former European Tour golfer Andrew â€Å"Chubby† Chandler.[27] †¢ Octagon Worldwide – Full-service sports agency and event marketing group, traded with advertising and marketing companies in the Interpublic Group. †¢ Priority Sports and Entertainment- Agency representing the most NBA players, run by Mark Bartelstein. †¢ Rosenhaus Sports- sports agency run by Drew Rosenhaus. †¢ Sports Management Worldwide – (SMWW) – global sports agency founded by Dr. Lynn Lashbrook. †¢ Wasserman Media Group: acquired Arn Tellem’s basketball agency from SFX, and usually represents the most players in NBA lottery draft each year. I don’t know if these are the top five but there are quite a few of these names that keep popping up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_agent 4. Complete an Internet search of the Sports Agent career and describe how one could/should build a career in this industry (include source). Instructions 1. Pick an undergraduate degree program in sports management. These courses will prepare you for most jobs in the sports agent field. Most professional leagues require at least a four-year degree from an accredited university. Take as many business management and entertainment or sports law courses as you can during your education. 2. Determine what sport you want to be an agent in. Understand that the National Football League requires that sports agents hold a post-graduate degree in sports management, human relations, business management, personal finance or a related field. Check with the league or professional sports organization you aspire to work for to understand specific qualifications. 3. Find out about the various qualifications for sports agents in your preferred field. Each potential agent should have information regarding educational requirements, sports league rules, salary information, recruiting information, certification fees and membership costs. 4. Seek certification information on the league or professional organization in which you wish to work. Most leagues require some kind of certification, including the National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB). 5. Study for the certification test for the league or organization you wish to join. Each organization will have resources for certification courses that can help you prepare for the exam. 6. Pay the certification fee and take the respective exam of the organization you aspire to be certified in. 7. Obtain liability insurance, as this will be extremely important in your sports agent career. Some organizations require this of agents, while others do not specify it. Having it will be beneficial in searching for clients and ensure your own legal security on the job, 8. Meet as many agents, players, coaches and media figures as you can. Networking is a huge part of the sports industry and the best agents know how to sell themselves to players to gain clients. Get a good business card and give it to anyone that could be a potential client or lead you to a potential client. 9. Search for internships or entry-level positions at an agency or at the sport organization where you wish to work. Internships can be an excellent way to meet potential clients and since you will already be certified, you can immediately start to network yourself as a potential representative. 10. Start attending college and even high school sporting events in your area and scouting potential clients who may be in need of representation. Securing a client early will (if they are talented) help you build a name. Make sure you stay within the guidelines of district or National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) regulations for scouting. Read more: Steps for How to Be a Sports Agent | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_6755412_steps-sports-agent.html#ixzz2AWCVixFe 5. Locate and list five of the top sports agents (include source). Scott Boras – Scott Boras Corporation Arn Tellem – WMG Management Tom Condon – CAA Sports Drew Rosenhaus – Rosenhaus Sports Don Meehan – Newport Sports Management The top five that I found were from askmen.com but I do not know trustworthiness of this information. I did read on these five and they do have some big names behind them. http://www.askmen.com/top_10/sports/top-10-sports-agents_10.html Another site I visited had Arn Tellem, Bill Duffy, Tom Condon, and Tom Reich as the top agents. http://www.become-a-sports-agent.com/career.asp Shank, D. Matthew. Sports Marketing, A Strategic Perspective. 4th Ed. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009. Print.