Book Samples
Making the Case
Professional education for the world of practice
by david a. garvin
All professional schools face the same di∞cult challenge: how to prepare students for the world of
practice. Time in the classroom must somehow translate directly into real-world activity: how to diagnose, decide, and act. A surprisingly wide range of professional schools, including Harvard’s law, business, and medical schools, have concluded that the best way to teach these skills is by the case method.
The Law School led the way. A newly appointed dean began to teach with cases in 1870, reversing a
long history of lecture and drill. He viewed law as a science and appellate court decisions as the “specimens” from which general principles should be induced, and he assembled a representative set of court
decisions to create the first legal casebook. To ensure that class time was used productively, he introduced the question-and-answer format now called the Socratic method.
The Business School followed 50 years later. Founded in 1908, it did not adopt cases until 1920, when
its second dean, a Law School graduate, championed their use. After convincing a marketing professor
to create the first business casebook, he then provided funding for a broader program of casewriting,
built around real business issues and yet-to-be-made decisions. That program produced cases in multiple fields and their use in virtually all courses by the end of the decade.
The Medical School began using cases only in 1985. All were designed to cement students’ understanding of basic science by linking it immediately to practical problems—typically, the case histories
of individual patients. These cases formed the foundation of the school’s revolutionary “New Pathway”
curriculum that shifted students’ pre-clinical years away from lectures toward tutorials and active
learning.
In each of these professions, Harvard faculty became evangelists for the case method, spreading this
educational innovation around the world. Now, through close study of case-method teaching in law,
business, and medicine at Harvard, we can see how the technique has been adapted for use in distinct
disciplines—and how it might evolve, and be modified, to better meet the needs of twenty-first-century students and teachers.
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I l l u s t ra t i o n s b y G re g S p a l e n k a
Learning to Think Like a Lawyer
Christopher columbus langdell, the pioneer of the case
method, attended Harvard Law School from 1851 to 1854—twice
the usual term of study. He spent his extra time as a research assistant and librarian, holed up in the school’s library reading legal
decisions and developing an encyclopedic knowledge of court
cases. Langdell’s career as a trial lawyer was undistinguished; his
primary skill was researching and writing briefs. In 1870, Harvard
president Charles William Eliot appointed Langdell, who had impressed him during a chance meeting when they were both students, as professor and then dean of the law school. Langdell immediately set about developing the case method.
At the time, law was taught by the Dwight Method, a combination of lecture, recitation, and drill named after a professor at Columbia. Students prepared for class by reading “treatises,” dense
textbooks that interpreted the law and summarized the best
thinking in the field. They were then tested—orally and in front
of their peers—on their level of memorization and recall. Much of
the real learning came later, during apprenticeships and on-thejob instruction.
Langdell’s approach was completely di≠erent. In his course on
contracts, he insisted that students read only original sources—
cases—and draw their own conclusions. To assist them, he assembled a set of cases and published them, with only a brief twopage introduction.
Langdell’s approach was much influenced by the then-prevailing inductive empiricism. He believed that lawyers, like scientists,
worked with a deep understanding of a few core theories or principles; that understanding, in turn, was best developed via induction from a review of those appellate court decisions in which the
principles first took tangible form. State laws might vary, but as
long as lawyers understood the principles on which they were
based, they should be able to practice anywhere. In Langdell’s
words: “To have a mastery of these [principles or doctrines] as to
be able to apply them with consistent facility and certainty to the
ever-tangled skein of human a≠airs, is what constitutes a true
lawyer….”1
This view of the law shifted the locus of learning from law offices to the library. Craft skills and hands-on experience were far
less important than a mastery of principles—the basis for deep,
theoretical understanding. Of the library, Langdell observed, “It is
to us all that the laboratories of the university are to the chemists
and the physicists, the museum of natural history to the zoologists, the botanical garden to the botanists.” 2
And because “what qualifies a person…to teach
law is not experience in
the work of a lawyer’s o∞ce…not experience in the trial or argument of cases…but experience in learning law,” instruction was
best left to scholars in law schools.3
This view of the law also required a new approach to pedagogy.
Inducing general principles from a small selection of cases was a
challenging task, and students were unlikely to succeed without
help. To guide them, Langdell developed through trial and error
what is now called the Socratic method: an interrogatory style in
which instructors question students closely about the facts of the
case, the points at issue, judicial reasoning, underlying doctrines
and principles, and comparisons with other cases. Students
prepare for class knowing that they will have to do more than
simply parrot back material they have memorized from lectures or
textbooks; they will have to present their own interpretations and
analysis, and face detailed follow-up questions from the
instructor.
Langdell’s innovations initially met with enormous resistance.
Many students were outraged. During the first three years of his
administration, as word spread of Harvard’s new approach to
legal education, enrollment at the school dropped from 165 to 117
students, leading Boston University to start a law school of its
own. Alumni were in open revolt.
With Eliot’s backing, Langdell endured, remaining dean until
1895. By that time, the case method was firmly established at Harvard and six other law schools. Only in the late 1890s and early
1900s, as Chicago, Columbia, Yale, and other elite law schools
warmed to the case method—and as Louis Brandeis and other
successful Langdell students began to speak glowingly of their
law-school experiences—did it di≠use more widely. By 1920, the
case method had become the dominant form of legal education. It
remains so today.
Of course, there are modern-day refinements. Most instructors
assign multiple cases for class, typically selected because they appear to conflict with each other and require subtle, textured interpretation. Langdell’s approach, says professor of law Martha L.
Minow, “has been turned on its head.” Whereas Langdell believed
that cases not readily conforming to doctrine, or allowing for conflicting interpretations, were wrongly decided and not deserving
of study, law-school faculty today believe that these are precisely
the cases that warrant the most attention—because, Minow says,
“We have conflicting principles and are committed to opposing
values. Students have to develop some degree of comfort with
ambiguity.”
But preparation is little changed. There are, a second-year student observed, only a few “standard moves” among instructors.
Students prepare—with little or no collaboration—with these
moves in mind. Detailed questions are seldom assigned. Most professors expect students to be able to discuss each case’s facts, is-
Langdell’s innovations initially met with enormous resistance. Many students were outraged. During the first three
years of his administration, as word spread of Harvard’s
new approach to legal education, enrollment at the school
dropped from 165 to 117 students.
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H i s t o r i c a l p o r t ra i t s c o u r t e s y o f Ha r v a rd U n i v e r s i t y A rc h i v e s
sues, arguments, and holdings; they are especially interested in minimal and maximal interpretations of the associated doctrine and comparisons with holdings in other
assigned cases. This is called “briefing the case”—in many
ways the core skill in learning to think like a lawyer.
Professors prepare for class in much the same way.
They, too, brief the case; like their students, they prepare
largely without the support of others. But they also come
armed with questions. Most pay special attention to “hypotheticals”—one or more questions that involve madeup situations or that slightly change the facts or issues in
a case and so raise deeper, more fundamental tensions.
“Suppose Mr. Jones’s home was located by the ocean,
rather than along the highway. Would that change the
applicable zoning laws?” “Suppose Mrs. Smith had no
surviving relatives. Would her will still be valid?” There
is an art to framing thoughtful, stimulating hypotheticals—the late Langdell professor of law Phillip E. Areeda
argued that “the ideal hypothetical is one line long, often
focusing on a single, easily stated fact.”4
Most classes begin with a “cold call.” The professor
turns at random to a student and asks her to state the
facts or issues in the case. There is then considerable back
and forth, with the opening student and others, as the
professor follows up and guides the discussion by asking
a series of narrow, tightly focused questions. These questions lie at the heart of Socratic teaching. Often, responses require a very close reading of the case.
This entire process puts the instructor front and center. It is very much hub-and-spoke: the professor exercises a firm, controlling hand and virtually all dialogue
includes her. There are few student-to-student interchanges.
Eventually, the questions cease and the instructor brings class to
an end, but seldom with a conventional summary. There is limited
closure and little attempt to tie up loose ends: most summaries
have a strong dose of “on the one hand, on the other hand.” Students often leave class puzzled or irritated, uncertain of exactly
what broad lessons they have learned.
And that is precisely the point. Learning to think like a lawyer
means understanding and accepting the importance of small differences. Decisions often turn on matters of seemingly insignificant detail. Precedents may or may not apply in this particular set
of circumstances. Doctrines and rules are seldom unequivocal or
easy to apply.
Legal scholar Edward H. Levi, the late U.S. Attorney General
and president of the University of Chicago, long ago observed
that “the basic pattern of legal reasoning is reasoning by example…the finding of similarity or di≠erence is the key step in the
legal process.”5 But because not all examples or di≠erences are
relevant, lawyers must learn to distinguish appropriate from inappropriate analogies. The hallmark of a good lawyer, says Gottlieb professor of law Elizabeth Warren, is “the ability to make
fine discriminations, to think of two things that are closely interconnected but keep them separate from one another.” And,
equally important, to be capable of putting those di≠erences into
words: Byrne professor of administrative law Todd D. Rako≠,
dean of the school’s J.D. program, says, “We are trying to teach a
public language.” The ability to frame an argument or take a position is an essential legal skill. For litigators, the stakes are espe-
cially high, since they must be able to respond on their feet and
under fire when judges ask for further explanation or analysis.
How are these habits of mind best developed? The answer,
most law professors agree, is through a combination of tough, relentless questioning by instructors and the careful study of
“boundary problems…[that] involve a clash of principles in which
as much, or nearly as much, may be said on one side or the other,”
in the words of Anthony T. Kronman, the dean of Yale Law
School.6 Easy cases teach students far less than complicated decisions, where distinctions are murky and lines are hard to draw.
Warren says, “You know the di≠erence between daylight and
dark? Well, we spend all of our time at the Law School on dawn
and dusk.”
Because this approach emphasizes legal process and judicial
reasoning, it prepares students to deal with the unknown, to engage emerging legal questions and apply their skills in changing
or unforeseen circumstances. Still, the Socratic method of teaching is all too easily abused. Typically, students show their displeasure by rationing their participation or staying silent. (There is
little penalty, since grades depend on anonymous final examinations, not class participation.) In many classes, only a few “gunners”—those who aggressively seek to ingratiate themselves with
faculty and speak on every possible occasion—are steady, reliable
contributors.
A second concern is that the method does not teach the full
complement of legal skills. Visiting professor of law Michael
Meltsner, director of the school’s First Year Lawyering Program,
says that the case method “does what it does very well. But what
Harvard Magazine
59
ingly detailed over time. Thirty years ago, the focus was on action,
and virtually the only question was, “What should Mr. Smith
do?” Today, as management has become more sophisticated, with
a wider array of technical theories and tools, detailed analytical
questions are the norm. Students still come to class with a recommended decision and implementation plan, but also with extensive supporting analysis. Because of the workload—most cases
take at least two hours to read and prepare, and two to three
classes are scheduled per day—students often form their own
three- to four-person study groups to share ideas and divvy up responsibilities.
Instructors prepare much as students do. They too read and
analyze the case and prepare answers to assignment questions.
But they attend equally to orchestrating class discussion most effectively. In this, they have help. All instructors who teach firstyear courses, a mix of newcomers and old hands, are organized
into teaching groups—collections of five to nine faculty members,
led by an experienced professor, who teach the same subject and
use the same cases. These groups meet regularly to analyze the
cases and discuss classroom management. Detailed teaching
notes present both the required analysis and likely discussion dynamics; most teaching notes even contain “blackboard plans”
showing the best way to organize students’ comments on the five
blackboards in the typical business-school classroom.
Classes begin either with a “cold call,” as at the law school, or a
“warm call,” in which a student is given notice a few minutes before class that he will be asked to speak. The opening question—
usually one from the assignment—typically requires taking a position or making a recommendation. Since as much as 50 percent
of their grade is based on class participation, most students come
well prepared. The opening student normally talks for five to 10
minutes with occasional interruptions by the instructor. Once he
is done, instructors typically throw the same issue or question
back to the class for further discussion.
Throughout the class, a primary goal
is to encourage student-to-student dialogue. For this reason, business-school
professors tend to pose broad, openended questions far more than their
law-school colleagues do, and to link
students’ comments by highlighting
points of agreement or disagreement.
They also are more likely to seek commentary from experts: students whose
backgrounds make them knowledgeable about a country, a company, or an
issue. Instructors are also more likely to
provide closure at the end of a class or
unit, with a clear set of “takeaways.”
In most classes, debate revolves
around a few central questions that
prompt conflicting positions, perspectives, or points of view. “There’s got to
be a plausible tension in the case,” says
W. Carl Kester, chair of the M.B.A. program and Industrial Bank of Japan professor of finance. “It’s what allows me
to build a debate and get the students
to talk with one another.”
The best questions involve issues where much is at stake, and
where the class is likely to divide along well-defined lines. At times,
they bring a di∞cult choice to life: “This new business requires
completely di≠erent marketing and manufacturing skills, even
though the exact same customers will purchase the product. Do
you want to set up an independent unit, or put the business within
an already established division?” Questions like these force students to take a stand on divisive issues and try to convince their
peers of the merits of their point of view.
That, of course, is how managers spend their time. They regularly size up ambiguous situations—emerging technologies,
nascent markets, complex investments—and make hard choices,
often under pressure, since delay frequently means loss of a competitive edge. They work collaboratively, since critical decisions
usually involve diverse groups and departments. And they discuss
their di≠erences in meetings and other public forums.
Cases and case discussions thus serve three distinct roles. First,
they help students develop diagnostic skills in a world where markets and technologies are constantly changing. “The purpose of
business education,” a business-school professor noted more than
70 years ago, “is not to teach truths…but to teach men [and women] to think in the presence of new situations.”15 This requires a bifocal perspective: the ability to characterize quickly both the common and the distinctive elements of business problems.
Second, case discussions help students develop persuasive
skills. Management is a social art; it requires working with and
through others. The ability to tell a compelling story, to marshal
evidence, and to craft persuasive arguments is essential to success. It is for this reason that the business school puts such a
heavy premium on class participation. Beyond grading, students
also receive regular feedback from professors about the quantity,
quality, and constructiveness of their comments.
Third, and perhaps most important, a steady diet of cases leads
to distinctive ways of thinking—and acting. “The case system, ”
Harvard Magazine
61
Tosteson sought to connect science and medical practice.
CHRISTOPHER LITTLE
business school alumnus
Powell Niland, now of
Washington University,
has observed, “puts the
student in the habit of
making decisions.” 16
Day after day, classes revolve around protagonists who face critical
choices. Delay is seldom
an option. Both faculty
and students cite the
“bias for action” that results—what Fouraker professor of business administration Thomas Piper calls “courage to act under uncertainty.” That courage is essential for corporate leadership. “The
businessman’s stock in trade,” wrote two long-time faculty members, the late Walmsley University Professor C. Roland Christensen and Abraham Zalesnik, now Matsushita professor of leadership emeritus, “is his willingness to take risks, to decide upon
and implement action based on limited knowledge.”17 Cultivating
these attitudes is the raison d’etre of the case method.
But it also raises concerns. At times, courage is di∞cult to distinguish from foolhardiness. Competitive information may be un-
available; technologies may be underdeveloped; employees may be
untrained or unprepared. Sometimes the wisest course of action
is to wait and see.
The case method does little to cultivate caution. Decisiveness is
rewarded, not inaction. Students can become trigger-happy as a
result, committed “to taking action where action may not be justified or to force a solution where none is feasible.”18 Class discussions can easily polarize. Persuasiveness is valued—but not publicly changing one’s own mind. Few students do so in the course
of discussion; if anything, positions tend to harden as debate continues. Skilled managers, by contrast, try to stay flexible, altering
their positions as new evidence and arguments emerge.
Increasingly, the case method is being used to teach sophisticated techniques like valuation, forecasting, and competitive
analysis. These techniques are essential to modern business literacy and are required for employment at investment banks, consulting firms, and large corporations. But they come with a price.
“Too many of our cases,” says Kester, “are turning into glorified
problem sets. They have a methodological line of attack and a
single, preferred, right answer. They are exercises in applied
analysis.” Diagnosis, decision-making, and implementation—the
action skills the case method was originally designed for—receive much less time and attention. The challenge is com-
Casing the Future
For years, the “technology” of cases remained static. They were
written documents consisting of text, tables, and illustrations.
Today, however, information and communication technologies are
transforming cases—and with them, the processes of class preparation and discussion—in ways that produce greater realism, engagement, and interaction.
The business school has invested heavily in “multimedia” cases.
Faculty members, working closely with information-technology
experts, have produced approximately 35 to date, on subjects
ranging from the choice of an advertising strategy for Mountain
Dew to the launch of a new software product by Microsoft. In addition to text, these cases include videos, simulations, and animated exhibits, all available on-line and navigable in multiple
ways. Judy Stahl, the school’s chief information o∞cer, says, “Students love them because they’re di≠erent—even though they require more time to prepare.”
The school’s first multimedia case, “Pacific Dunlap,” developed
in 1996, examines the challenges of running a textile factory in
China; it includes a video tour of the manufacturing floor, video
interviews with case protagonists, and an interactive spreadsheet
that students use to explore possible changes in the production
process. The most recent multimedia case, “Paul Levy: Taking
Charge of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center,” contains
hours of video interviews with the hospital’s new CEO, recorded
during his first six months as he led a turnaround of the hospital,
which had been losing more than $50 million annually. Every two
to four weeks, Levy met with the casewriters and camera crew
for lengthy question-and-answer sessions, thus diminishing the
62
Se ptember - October 2003
usual problem of first-person narratives, which are infused with
the wisdom of hindsight. He also provided excerpts from his
daily calendar, selected e-mail correspondence, internal memoranda and reports, and news coverage, all of which are available
through a single website. Students access these materials through
a calendar of events that presents activities chronologically, as
Levy worked through problems. The students can also follow his
work by category—such as dealing with the board or formulating
the recovery plan. And they can retrieve supplemental material
on leadership style, managing diverse constituencies, and so on.
(A brief video clip from the Levy case is available at www.harvard-magazine.com/on-line/03so/levy.html.)
Multimedia materials add richness and depth to cases, bringing
students that much closer to reality. The medical school has carried the idea a step further, using technology to mimic real life. An
experiment named ICON (“interactive case-based online network”) puts all case materials, research papers, and associated references on the Web for ready access and includes a module called
“Virtual Contact” that allows students to interact directly with
the protagonists in the case, who are played by medical-school faculty. Students pose questions, and the faculty members respond—
true to form and wholly in character. A renowned specialist might
curtly dismiss a naive question, while a family member might provide intimate details about a patient’s condition. Students in one
tutorial were paged in the middle of class and told that their patient had been admitted unexpectedly to the emergency room at
two the previous morning. How did they plan to respond?
E≠orts like these bring students into the case problem, causing
improved retention. The method draws heavily on the findings of
modern cognitive science: learning and retention improve
markedly when students are motivated, when prior knowledge is
activated by specific cues, and when new knowledge is linked to
a specific context.25 Vivid, evocative cases featuring patients and
their illnesses serve these purposes admirably.
They also lead to a more cooperative spirit, which is essential to
modern team-based medicine. Students in tutorials are forced to
listen carefully and work together closely because their independent reading leads them in di≠erent directions. As one student put
it, “In a traditional curriculum, you hope
your classmates don’t study, so you can appear brilliant; in the New Pathway, you
hope your classmates do study, because we
learn from each other.”26 Only by pooling
their findings can the students fully explain the phenomenon being studied.
But the method has its detractors. The
biggest problems are accountability and
rigor. When students are unmotivated or
tutors are unskilled, participation can
quickly evaporate. Faltering discussions
lead nowhere and are di∞cult to redirect.
Because tutorials are ungraded and tutors are discouraged from taking students through the preferred reasoning
process, there is little they can do to command involvement or attention, or to ensure disciplined, e∞cient analysis.
Still, many medical schools are moving
rapidly in Harvard’s direction, even if few
have made the same curriculum-wide
commitment to cases. (In part, the reason
is cost. Because discussion groups are so
small, sta∞ng is an issue. Harvard, with
165 students per class, requires 300 tutors to lead the tutorials in
the first two years of its program.)
Moreover, the superiority of this approach is not yet fully documented. Careful studies comparing the performance of the pilot
group of New Pathway students—who were randomly selected
and could thus be compared scientifically with their traditionally
taught peers—found comparable scores on board certification
tests. There were no significant di≠erences in biomedical knowledge, and New Pathway graduates reported being more committed to careers in primary care and psychiatry, more comfortable
interpersonally, more competent dealing with psychosocial issues, and more likely to display humanistic attitudes.27 But studies of problem-based learning at other medical schools have
shown some fall-o≠ in performance on basic science examinations, despite high levels of student and faculty satisfaction and
equal or better performance on clinical examinations.28
Broadening the Portfolio
The case method is now firmly established at Harvard’s
law, business, and medical schools. Each school has tailored the
method to its own ends, focusing on distinctive aptitudes and
skills. Each has selected a di≠erent center of gravity—diagnosis
or decision making, competition or collaboration, analytical pre-
cision or courageous action. Each has also recognized the limitations of its chosen approach and begun to explore alternatives.
At the law school, a dozen junior and senior faculty members
have been meeting for nearly a year in a teaching workshop,
formed originally to deal with issues of diversity and race. The
group soon broadened its agenda to include other pedagogical issues: how faculty members approach their teaching, how their
approach compares with those at the business and medical
schools, how they could better engage and stimulate students. A
few participants videotaped their classes and then presented
them for collective discussion. Teaching practice became a topic
of shared intellectual interest—routine for business and medical
school faculty members, but a rarity for law professors. According
to a participant, “We learned that teaching is a collaborative enterprise, and that a culture of talking about teaching is incredibly
invigorating. We all became more experimental and made major
changes in our teaching.” The group is now sharing its observations with faculty colleagues and the new dean (who is interested
in curricular reform; see page 74) in the hope of stimulating further change.
At the business school, a faculty committee recently explored
the possibility of adding small-group discussions to the core curriculum. Those groups would still be rather large—the cuto≠ was
set at 25 students—but the goal is to foster new behaviors, encouraging students to work together more closely than in their
typical 80- to-100-person classes. The M.B.A. program’s Carl
Kester notes the obvious parallels to the New Pathway: “I’m particularly interested in the medical-school model and how it might
be adopted here in a small-group setting. I’d like to see our students working together more collaboratively, focusing on diagnosis, data collection, and problem identification by asking, ‘What
information do we need, and how should we go about getting it?’”
In Kester’s view, “Students need something more open-ended at
the beginning. They need to learn
(please turn to page 107)
Harvard Magazine
65
Retail in an
Omnichannel World
I. Retail Fundamentals
Retail Fundamentals
Chapter 1: Demand Forecasting
Introduction to Forecasting
The ultimate goal of the Retail Fundamentals course is to learn
how to make better decisions in key retail areas, such as inventory
management, assortment selection, and pricing. Before retailers can
make decisions like these, they need to learn about the underlying
demand. That’s the role of demand forecasting. This module covers
both the challenges associated with forecasting demand in different
situations and some techniques retailers can use—how The Home
Depot can predict how many tiles it will sell, for example, or how
Apple can estimate demand for each new iPhone.
So, what exactly is demand forecasting and why is it important?
Forecasting is the process of predicting the future based on past
and present data. We need to make forecasts because the world is
uncertain. Say you are The Home Depot and you want to know how
many red tiles you’ll sell at one of your stores. You don’t know how
many customers will want to buy tiles. You don’t know how popular
the color red will be this year. And you don’t know what your local
competitors are going to do; one or several of them may have a sale
on red tiles, and that could reduce your own sales. There are too
many unknowns, and the problem is that you must make decisions
before these unknowns become known. You have to decide which
tiles to carry, how many to order for each Home Depot store, and
what price you’ll charge. You need a forecast for all these decisions.
The weather forecast offers a useful parallel. Meteorologists study
past and present data and tell us what kind of weather we can
expect. We can then use those forecasts to try to make better
decisions, such as whether to bring an umbrella when we leave home
in the morning.
One important distinction made during this module is between
products that have historical sales data and products that don’t.
The problem is more structured when there is past sales data.
v
1v
Retail in an Omnichannel World | Chapter 1: Demand Forecasting
Beer monthly sales in the United Kingdom (UK-
Monthly beer sales volume in the United Kingdom (UK) from
January 2013 to May 2016 (in 1,000 hectolitres-
4.776
Sales volume in thousands devices
-
3.911
3.445
-
2.806
3.663
3.829
3.840
-
3.554
3.972
3.918
3.859
-
3.386
-
-
2.960
-
4.418
4.369
-
2.580
2.195
-
2.414
1000
May
2
Apr 016
2
Mar 016
2
Feb 016
2
Jan 016
2
Dec 016
2
Nov 015
2
Oct 015
2
Sep 015
2
Aug 015
20
Jul 2 15
Jun 015
2
May 015
2
Apr 015
2
Mar 015
2
Feb 015
2
Jan 015
2
Dec-
Nov
2014
Oct
2
Sep 014
2
Aug 014
20
Jul 2 14
Jun 014
2
May 014
2
Apr 014
2
Mar 014
2
Feb 014
2
Jan 014
2
Dec 014
2
Nov 013
2
Oct 013
2
Sep 013
2
Aug 013
20
Jul 2 13
Jun 013
2
May 013
2
Apr 013
2
Mar 013
2
Feb 013
20
Jan2 13
013
0
Figure 4. Beer sales in the U.K.
Some other products have even stronger seasonal patterns. In the
United States, a large proportion of video game sales happen during
the months of November and December. This may not be surprising
because video game sales are related to a holiday season where
people give presents to their children, and if you look at video game
sales over time, you see a seasonal pattern—a spike in sales during
November and December—that repeats every year.
v
6v
CHAPTER TEN
THE GLOBALIZATION OF MARKETS
AND COMPETITION
Win in China, win anywhere.
— Emerson Snippet
Emerson today is a global leader in most of its businesses. Just over
half of our employment, 40 percent of our revenues, and 30 percent
of our investment in property, plant, and equipment are outside of the
United States (see Exhibit 10.1). These statistics reflect Emerson’s
anticipation of and response to the evolution of the global economy,
and we expect all of these percentages to grow as the economy continues to evolve. We pushed overseas initially because we wanted to
engage in new markets and serve more customers while also serving
our existing customers better. As we saw in Chapter 6, we also pushed
overseas because we had to: to remain cost competitive in our businesses, we had to build capacity overseas, initially in production operations and more recently in engineering and services.
151
152 | PROFITABILITY IS A STATE OF MIND
Exhibit 10.1
How we moved from a heavily domestic company to a truly global one is the subject of this chapter. Once again—as with becoming a
technology leader and an effective acquirer—there is no magic about
it. We did it through the Emerson management process, through planning and execution, just as we did in meeting other key business challenges. We identified the need, defined new measurements, and
installed a corporate officer to lead our growth. We started modestly,
learned and applied our learning, and continued to make steady
progress. (See Exhibit 10.2.)
Contents
The Missing Credits. .
Introduction. . . . . . . .
PartI
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
vii
. 1
Getting Started and Reading
Chapter 1
Out of the Box: Setting Up, Taking a Tour..
Parts and Ports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Turning the Fire On, Making It Yours.
Rotation and Orientation. . . . . . . . .
Turning the Fire Off.. . . . . . . . . . . .
The Home Screen. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tapping, Touching, Typing. . . . . . . .
Installing Apps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Cloud vs. Device. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Chapter 2
Reading Books..
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Grab a Book.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Page Turning and Navigation. . . . .
Playing Page Designer.. . . . . . . . .
Notes and Highlighting. . . . . . . . .
Bookmarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Reading on Multiple Devices.. . . . .
Audiobooks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Browsing and Buying. . . . . . . . . .
Borrowing and Lending. . . . . . . . .
-
Chapter 3
The Newsstand.
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Apps vs. Kindle Editions. . . . . . . .
Reading and Navigation.. . . . . . . .
Browsing and Buying. . . . . . . . . .
book.indb 3
2/2/12 2:28 PM
Kindle
Fire
The book that should have been in the box
®
Peter Meyers
Beijing | Cambridge | Farnham | Köln | Sebastopol | Tokyo
book.indb 1
2/2/12 2:28 PM
Parts and Ports
Amazon has made a serious commitment to minimalist hardware design—no
small feat for a firm whose first device, the original Kindle, had more buttons
than a tailor’s shop. There’s the 7-inch screen, of course; a black border and rubberized backside for gripping the gadget; and a mere five buttons, openings,
and exits:
• Combo charging and USB port. On the bottom of the device is where you
insert the one and only accessory that comes in the box—the power cord.
Should you wish to transfer digital files directly from a Mac or PC to the
Fire (a strictly optional maneuver covered in detail starting on page 77),
you can stick a USB cable here. If you’re like most people, most of the time,
you’ll use this port for battery refills.
• On/off switch. This nubbin, right next to the power port, is about as big as
a candy dot. In addition to letting you turn the Fire on and off, it’s also how
you put it to sleep (a power-saving mode that’s quicker to rejuvenate than
a cold start).
Tip
A common criticism of this first Fire is the placement of its power button. Down there on the
bottom of the device, it’s way too easy to hit accidentally, say the complainers. If you agree, here’s a
simple fix: rotate the Fire 180 degrees. What’s onscreen shifts to match how your Fire is oriented, and
the offending button is on top, safely away from unintentional turnoffs.
12
book.indb 12
Chapter 1
2/2/12 2:28 PM
Parts and Ports
Amazon has made a serious commitment to minimalist hardware design—no
small feat for a firm whose first device, the original Kindle, had more buttons
than a tailor’s shop. There’s the 7-inch screen, of course; a black border and rubberized backside for gripping the gadget; and a mere five buttons, openings,
and exits:
• Combo charging and USB port. On the bottom of the device is where you
insert the one and only accessory that comes in the box—the power cord.
Should you wish to transfer digital files directly from a Mac or PC to the
Fire (a strictly optional maneuver covered in detail starting on page 77),
you can stick a USB cable here. If you’re like most people, most of the time,
you’ll use this port for battery refills.
• On/off switch. This nubbin, right next to the power port, is about as big as
a candy dot. In addition to letting you turn the Fire on and off, it’s also how
you put it to sleep (a power-saving mode that’s quicker to rejuvenate than
a cold start).
Tip
A common criticism of this first Fire is the placement of its power button. Down there on the
bottom of the device, it’s way too easy to hit accidentally, say the complainers. If you agree, here’s a
simple fix: rotate the Fire 180 degrees. What’s onscreen shifts to match how your Fire is oriented, and
the offending button is on top, safely away from unintentional turnoffs.
12
book.indb 12
Chapter 1
2/2/12 2:28 PM
FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
INTERNATIONAL STUDENT GUIDEBOOK
GLOBALFIU.COM
Be Worlds Ahead | 3
GLOBALFIU.COM
Miami
Global. Entrepreneurial.
Fashionable. Warm.
People come from all over the world to experience Miami’s beaches, culture, food, and festivals. At FIU, you’ll
take classes and make friends with students from all over the world in the spectacularly lush settings of our
Modesto A. Maidique and Biscayne Bay campuses. You’ll do it while being 30 minutes from South Beach and
the Atlantic Ocean, the Everglades National Park, and downtown. Plus, you’re only a three-hour flight from
New York City and a short flight to both Central and South America.
More than 1,000 multinational companies call Miami home, and it is consistently recognized as the “Best City for
Doing Business in Latin America” by América Economía. Miami is the hub of the hospitality industry and hosts
the four-day, star-studded Food Network and Cooking Channel South Beach Wine & Food Festival presented by
FOOD & WINE, which our students help plan and execute.
Most important, don’t forget to pack your flip-flops — you’ll need them for the beaches all year. Experience the
best of all worlds: a vibrant international community, a thriving business hub, and year-round tropical weather.
Be Worlds Ahead | 7
GLOBALFIU.COM
What Is the FIU Global First Year?
FIU’s Global First Year (G1Y) is created specifically
for international students. As a G1Y student, you will
enjoy 24/7 support services, intensive English courses
tailored to your class schedule and a curriculum that
combines requirements from your chosen major with
courses about your new university’s culture, history,
and traditions. The G1Y sets you up for success
from your first day on campus all the way through
graduation — and beyond.
In the G1Y, you are given all the tools you need
for academic, social, and professional success.
Along with classmates from around the globe,
you will form a tight-knit community and
integrate seamlessly into life on campus. Have a true
American university experience, from cheering on the
FIU Panthers at an American football game to interning with Fortune 500 companies — your possibilities
are endless. The G1Y sets you up for success.
During the G1Y, you will earn college credits during
your first year and progress directly into the second
year of your degree in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Progression into other degrees may require additional
prerequisites. Please visit GlobalFIU.com for more
information.
Be Worlds Ahead | 9
GLOBALFIU.COM
Degrees
College of Architecture and
the Arts
Bachelor of Arts in:
Art
Art History
Communication Arts
Music
Theatre
Bachelor of Fine Arts in:
Art*
Theatre*
Painting*
Photography*
Bachelor of Music*
College of Arts
and Sciences
Bachelor of Arts in:
Asian Studies
Chemistry
Earth Sciences
Economics
English
French
Geography
History
Interdisciplinary Studies
International Relations
Liberal Studies
Mathematics
Mathematics Education
Philosophy
Physics
Political Science
Portuguese
Psychology
Religious Studies
Sociology/Anthropology
Spanish
Sustainability and the Environment
Women’s and Gender Studies
Bachelor of Science in:
Biological Sciences
Chemistry
Criminal Justice
Environmental Studies
Geosciences
Marine Biology
Mathematics
Physics
Statistics
College of Nursing
and Health Sciences
Bachelor of Public Administration
Robert Stempel
College of Public Health
and Social Work
College of Business
Bachelor of Accounting
Bachelor of Business
Administration in:
Finance
Human Resources
Management
International Business
Logistics and Supply Chain Management
Management Information Systems
Marketing
Real Estate
College of Education
Bachelor of Science in:
Art Education
Early Childhood Education/ESOL
Elementary Education/ESOL
Physical Education
Recreation and Sport Management
Special Education/ESOL
College of Engineering
and Computing
Bachelor of Arts in:
Information Technology
Bachelor of Science in:
Biomedical Engineering
Civil Engineering
Computer Engineering
Computer Science
Construction Management
Electrical Engineering
Environmental Engineering
Information Technology
Material Science and Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Bachelor of Health Services
Administration
Bachelor of Science in:
Dietetics and Nutrition
Social Work
Chaplin School of
Hospitality and Tourism
Management
Bachelor of Science in:
Hospitality Management with majors in:
Beverage Management
Culinary Management
Event Management
Hotel/Lodging Management
Restaurant/Foodservice Management
Travel and Tourism Management
School of Journalism and
Mass Communication
Bachelor of Science in:
Advertising
Broadcast Media
Digital Media Studies
Journalism
Public Relations
Pre-Professional Programs:
Pre-Law, Pre-Med, and Pre-Health
(Veterinary, Optometry, Dentistry)
FIU majors are subject to change.
Please visit www.globalfiu.com/degrees
for the most current information.
*Restricted Major — requires additional application
and audition. These require additional prerequisites
that students will take after their first year in G1Y.