Luis Sotelo. Mr. Ortiz. English 12. 27 February 2017. Macbeth

Luis Sotelo Mr. Ortiz English 12 27 February 2017 Macbeth vs Throne of Blood In â€Å"Tthe Tragedy of Macbeth† by William Shakespeare, there is a big focus on the character itself instead of the plot of the play. Each character is of high importance to the tragedy and the developing plot that leads to Macbeth’s downfall. Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo, and even minor characters such as the witches all mold and shape Macbeth’s fate and make it a tragic one. In the Throne of Blood (1957) by Akira Kurosawa, a reenactment of the play by Shakespeare, high value is also given to the character, as it is more important than the setting and events. Washizu (Macbeth), Asaji (Lady Macbeth), Miki (Banquo), and the forest spirit (three witches) display both†¦show more content†¦When Lordship is killed and Washizu heads to the castle to tell the news to Miki, he doesn t open the doors for Washizu and his men until they show the coffin with Lordship’s corpse. Miki, unaware of the truth, pushes the council to appoint his â€Å"honorable b est friend† Washizu as the new King. Miki is confident that Washizu will appoint his son Yoshiteru as heir to the throne once Washizu is King just like the prophecy promised. However, Washizu, believes Miki is out to spoil his plans so he sends a murderer to kill Mikki and Yoshiteru. (Throne of Blood) In the play, Macbeth orders two murderers instead of one to kill Banquo because Macbeth also believes that Banquo is too honest and too good of a man to not tell the truth or suspect that Macbeth is behind Duncan’s murder. (Shakespeare 367) Macbeth, once Banquo is killed and never makes it to dinner, sees his ghost sitting in his chair and begins to go insane. (3.4.47-107.) In the same way, in the movie, once Miki is killed his ghost appears and Washizu goes insane and Asaji has to tell the council he is drunk and order them to leave (Throne of Blood) In both pieces, it is easy to see that Macbeth (Washizu) is driven by ambition and greed, meanwhile Banquo (Miki) is honora ble and a good man making them foils of each other. When looking closely as the main characters, Macbeth (Washizu) and Lady Macbeth (Asaji), one will see that

Rights of Juveniles - 1267 Words

Describe the Legal rights juveniles have today To protect juveniles from self-incrimination, provisions were made to have the Miranda rights available before being questioned by the police. A 1979 us supreme court ruling found that juveniles should have a waiver and be old enough to understand the consequences of waiving their rights. The Miranda rights also protects juveniles against the unlawful search of their personal property, unless it is to maintain order and safety among other students and do not go beyond any suspicions one may have. Three important Juvenile court Decisions A) Kent v. U.S. - A young man by the name of Morris Kent, age 14 was charged with†¦show more content†¦Adults can be locked away for life if the offense they committed is serious, so this is definitely different. All these measures are in place to help with the special needs of young people to help change the course of their lives. The goals of sentencing The five goals associated with sentencing are: retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation, and restoration. Retribution is punishment based on vengeance on a criminal person. When a person was punished, it was seen as deserved or justified and this is viewed as retribution for their crime committed. Incapacitation is the imprisonment of a person who might not be able to control their behavior from harming others. Deterrence is a form of punishment that is based on people thinking twice before they commit a criminal act because of the fear of punishment. Rehabilitation is an attempt to help a criminal conform to society values so that he or she can be productive members of society by helping to change their behavior patterns through education or psychological treatment. Restoration is when help is extended to the victims after an emotional or traumatizing situation. The system would try and help victims get over their hurt and sorrows so that they can regain trust in thei r community. The sentencing goal I agree with the most is Deterrence. The reason I prefer deterrence is because if someone is convicted of rape and isShow MoreRelatedJuvenile Rights1125 Words   |  5 PagesJUVENILE RIGHTS 1 Juvenile Rights Kimberly Burrows CRJ 301 Farrell Binder April 11, 2011 JUVENILE RIGHTS 2 Juveniles have different rights at the time of arrest then adults have. There are also additional protections for juveniles that adults don’t have. In this paper I will compare and contrast the additional protections afforded to juveniles as compared to adult offenders, I will discuss a juveniles rights at the time of arrest, and my opinion on whether or notRead MoreRights of Juvenile Delinquency Essay1374 Words   |  6 PagesRights of Juvenile Delinquency couldn’t be as fair as it is today without the efforts made by reformers throughout history. During the late 18th and early century youths committing crimes has little to no rights given. Children as young as 7 years old can be put and trialed as an adult even have a chance with the death penalty. These punishments where so outrageous that even if you spoke against your parents’ wishes you will be put in jail. Something needed to be done about these cruel treatmentsRead MoreDue Process And Juveniles Righ ts1305 Words   |  6 PagesLindsey Angell Juvenile Delinquency Dr. Olson 2 October 2015 Chapter 7: Due Process and Juveniles’ Rights The U.S. Supreme Court on Juvenile Justice During the first sixty years of its existence, the practices and policies of the juvenile court went unchallenged. The original goal of the juvenile courts was to focus more on treatment instead of punishment. Kent v. United States (1966) In 1961, 16-year-old Morris Kent was charged with rape and robbery when he was on probation. Kent was sentencedRead MoreJuvenile Offenders And The United Nations Convention On The Rights Of The Child1464 Words   |  6 PagesConvention on the Rights of the Child. This report will evaluate Queensland’s criminal justice system’s ability to effectively balance the rights of juvenile offenders with the society’s need for order, as well as examine different stakeholder perspectives and make justified recommendations about legal issues and their outcomes. 2.0 Legislation The Youth Justice Act 1992 (QLD) contains laws for juveniles who commit offences, or are alleged to have committed offences. Under the law a juvenile is a personRead MoreJuvenile Right s Period : The Needs Of The Delinquents And Adult Offenders2154 Words   |  9 PagesJuvenile Right’s Period, meant less attention to the needs of the delinquents and adult offenders. It also meant more juveniles in detention institutions as well as in the adult justice system. Some positive aspects are seen with this approach. Most will agree that it is better for Juveniles to be put in a Juvenile Facility instead of being tried as adults. However, there are many good reasons as to why kids who commit horrendous crimes should be treated as criminals instead of troubled kids. Read MoreEssay on Adult Justice System vs. Juvenile Justice System1145 Words   |  5 PagesSystem vs. Juvenile Justice System Versus CJ150: Juvenile Delinquency Josh Skaggs There are many similarities and differences between the adult and juvenile justice systems. Although juvenile crimes have increased in violence and intensity in the last decade, there is still enough difference between the two legal proceedings, and the behaviors themselves, to keep the systems separated. There is room for changes in each structure. However, we cannot treat/punish juvenile offenders theRead MoreEntry Into The Court System, By Craig Hemmens, Benjamin Steiner, And David Mueller1726 Words   |  7 Pageschapter three,† Entry into the Court System† from the book â€Å"Criminal Justice Case Briefs, Significant Cases in Juvenile Justice† by Craig Hemmens, Benjamin Steiner, and David Mueller. I chose to write about the process of the pretrial or â€Å"intake† phase because it has not been determined by the Supreme Court as critical in juvenile proceedings. Consequently juveniles do not have the right to be represented by counsel during this meeting and if they chose to participate, any statements made to theRead MoreAre Curfews Fair to Juveniles?840 Words   |  4 PagesAre Curfews Fair to Juveniles? Cities across the United States have imposed curfews on juveniles for many years. Teen curfew laws restrict the hours that juveniles may be on the streets or in public places at night (Sutphen and Ford). Some people consider curfews infringing on people’s constitutional rights. Curfews are hard to implement by law enforcement, and, in fact, take law enforcement away from more serious crimes. More crimes occur during daytime hours and more children are victimizedRead MoreCrime And Juvenile And Adult Crimes1019 Words   |  5 PagesStates, there is a lot of dispute between what the qualifications are for juvenile and adult crimes. Some believe that the only difference is age. Others say it is the severity of the crime. It’s obvious that when adults commit crimes, whether they are a misdemeanor offense or a felony, they pay for it. The confliction comes when a juvenile commits a crime. What exactly determines if they are tried as an adult or a juvenile? Does it vary by state-to-state? Are there federal laws that govern that debateRead MoreHow Interrogation Worked Before Many Important Cases1575 Words   |  7 Pagesâ€Å"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.† These are the words every juvenile hears as they are being taken into custody. Many juveniles do not understand or misinterpret the Miranda warning they are given. Juvenile are treated with a lesser degree of harshness from wording to punishment when dealing with law enforcement in comparison to

Implementation of VANET

Question: Discuss about the Implementation of VANET. Answer: Introduction: The communication between different vehicles which are moving on the road can be implemented by the new technology known as VANET. The VANET works by exchanging of messages between different vehicles. The need of the VANET arises for the road safety, improved traffic management system, speed of the traffic, and many more. For the implementation of VANET cost, time, strategy, network communication, radio communication, vehicle positioning, recording of the latency time, system reliability, security of the vehicle, and etc. Geographical addressing, security, and privacy are the major challenges. DNS and GPS routing multicast routing is the relevant solution to the problem of geographical addressing, verification of the data is referred for privacy, and GPS is used for security purpose. VANET provides security to the vehicles and provides safety from road accident. New Idea: The efficiency of forwarding message in the VANET system can be improved by authentication, availability, and etc technique. Every message should be authenticated before sending, every time vehicular network should be available, identification of the attacker can be done by non repudiation, temporary keys should be used for improving the privacy, real time response should be improved, integrity of the messages should be improved, and encryption of the messages should takes place (Chaubey, 2016). Solution: The solution to the proposed idea is the implementation of Reliable Directional Greedy Routing Algorithm (RDGR) (Samara, 2015) which uses the system of positioning, direction of motion, speed of the vehicle, and stability of the link with the neighbor which in turn helps in selecting the next appropriate node. It makes use of the GPS system. References: Chaubey, Nirbhay Kumar. Security Analysis O F Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (Vanets): A Comprehensive Study. 1st ed. 2016. Web. 20 July 2016. Samara, Ghassan. Security Analysis Of Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks. 1st ed. 2014. Web. 20 July 2015.

Leadership. Group Analysis

Leadership is the act of guiding people through a certain activity (Werhane, 2011). In the group study, there was a combination of beginners, managers and executives in their professions. The group was made up of four intelligent members with different professional expertise in their working fields.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Leadership. Group Analysis specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More One of the members was a retired military commander, then there was a recently promoted vice president of the company who had worked for ten years, the third member was the youngest in the group and lastly me.   This combination of numerous professional stages gave the group a driving force to handle the presented challenges (Johnson Johnson, 2012). This led to proper management and running of the group because of leadership experience possessed by all group members; the leadership trait included proper delegation of duties and responsibilities.  In reference to the book written by Johnson and Johnson (2012), they argued that professional experience comes with age where elderly persons are deemed to have a higher professional experience as compared to the younger generation. Professionally, age is an indicator of authority, knowledge and experience. This is a simpler method of classifying professional titles and experiences.  The elder group members displayed a higher experience and knowledge in handling group’s conflicts and maintained the smooth flow of the work presented at hand. The combination of the old skills and new skills led to new ways of undertaking activities, which motivated members and as result increase overall performance. The conclusion that with age comes leadership abilities was drawn on the way the elderly group members handled their duties and responsibility assigned to them including offering guidance to junior members of the group (Johnson Johnson, 2012). Group membe rs carried out several interviews as part of the tasks assigned to them by the overall leader. They included collecting data using questionnaires and each group member compiled a report of which the two veterans in the group presented a more professional report as compared to our report. This indicated the importance of having more experienced professionals in a group handling a specific task (Werhane, 2011). Every member in the group acted as a leader even though we had an overall leader who was a retired military commander and me. According to the contingency leadership theories, styles of leadership are determined by several variables like the environment in which the leadership is carried in hence the best type of leadership is selected according to the environment (Werhane, 2011).Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This theory discredits a single leadership style of manage ment for all situations. A group’s success or failure depends on the available variables to be considered including style of leadership, nature of the situation, and the follower’s qualities (Johnson Johnson, 2012). The group was a formal group observing and obeying the set authority by the members even though most of the times we used to consult Jake and Julie on the way to approach some matters.  Leadership support offered to me by the veterans helped me up my leadership skills and courage. Groups tend to rely mostly on the members with adverse knowledge concerning matters affecting their management; this makes groups to be formal since they obey the authority vested in each member who is a leader. One of the youngest members created confusion between the retired military commander and I who were the authority holders by competing with us. Although informal authority is difficult to gain, it can easily be taken away. References Johnson, D. W., Johnson, F. P. (201 2). Joining Together: Group Theory and Group Skills. New Jersey, NJ: Pearson. Werhane, P. (2011). Leadership, Gender, and Organization. Netherlands: Dordrecht Springer. This essay on Leadership. Group Analysis was written and submitted by user Jaylyn B. to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Intercultural Communication in the Workplace Essays

Intercultural Communication in the Workplace Essays Intercultural Communication in the Workplace Paper Intercultural Communication in the Workplace Paper The growth of interdependence of people and ultras in the global society of the 21 SST century has forced us to pay even more attention to intercultural issues. In order to live and function in this multicultural environment as effectively and meaningfully as possible, people must be competent in Intercultural communication, which includes verbal and nonverbal communication. Communicating with people from other cultures can be challenging regardless of where one works. At the same time, ones ability to foster successful communication between people of differing cultures will bolster ones success in business and career. In order to overcome the cultural barriers to effective communication, one must first learn what culture means. Culture is a shared system of symbols, beliefs, attitudes, values, expectations, and norms for behavior. I do have a couple of specific example to discuss but working In human resources. I have to be sensitive to many different cultures and will focus on the different situations I have encountered. The first instance of intercultural communication that comes to mind is a situation where I was trying to explain a policy to an employee. The particular employee who s from India originally but has been in the United States for some time yet is difficult to understand with her strong accent. The employee sent me an e-mail with a question regarding the use of annual and sick leave time and the length she would be allowed to be on vacation and sick leave combined. The second part of the question involved the insurance coverage of a treatment she wanted to receive while visiting India called Arrived (arrived is a system of medicine that originated in India several thousand years ago. The term Arrived combines two Sanskrit words your, which means life, and Veda, which means science or knowledge. Arrived means the science of life). Although this might seem like a simple answer It was not and Involved discussion with her manager and some research to understand what this treatment was all about and if it would be covered. Situations such as this one make it difficult to decide if the best approach is to communicate via e-mail or to attempt to communicate face to face to make sure one understands. The second situation involves a Package employee who works in our building and is from the Somalia. This person came here as a refugee and speaks very little English yet is always friendly and has a smile on his face. At Characteristic, It was suggested to adopt a Tamely Ana someone suggested patting NV Ana Nils Tamely. I tongue It was a wonderful idea yet the group had individuals who objected and said what about one of our employees! I thought that was very selfish and it should not matter whether it was a Court employee or a Package employee. However, the decision was made we would not adopt this family through the Court but a group of us decided it as the right thing to do and worked with Catholic Social Services to make it a special Christmas for him and his family after all but did so anonymously. In the first situation I had to do some research to understand what exactly this treatment was for and why she was not receiving the treatment here in the United States. What I learned is the treatment mainly comprises of powders, tablets, and detections, and medicated oils prepared from natural herbs, plants and minerals. The medicines are from natural sources and not synthetic, they are accepted and assimilated in the body without creating any side effects. Because she was going to be in India visiting family she wanted to take the opportunity to get this treatment from someone she trusted in her own country. I have also learned about the certain comfort zone in this culture as well as weddings can go on for three to four days, which is what she was going there for, and the culture is not good with paperwork. Had I taken the time to explore her culture or even ask her about it I could have learned this and been able to understand where she was coming from instead of making assumptions and Judgments. The result was she was allowed to take her 6 ekes of annual leave but was not able to use sick leave because having the treatment there was a personal choice and the medical insurance would not cover it. Although I thought I was being open to the cultures of others I now recognize that one can take it a step further and take the initiative to learn on my own and ask questions to become educated on the cultures of others. The second situation which involved adopting the family was also very important and was happy that we went to Catholic Social Services for assistance. The biggest factor in this situation was the employees who wanted to participate in this particular nation could but it would have to be anonymous as opposed to the employees presenting the gifts. I was fine with this approach but we again had others who wanted to be recognized for their contribution and choose not to participate. Well, what I learned is the reason it had to be done anonymously is because it might cause humiliation and embarrassment to this Package employee if the group presented the gifts for him and his family. The other reason is the Package employee would have felt like he owed those who donated items something and would have created a ruder for him. All these factors are part of his culture and who he is and I think it would be wrong for anyone to invade those characteristics. Cultures can differ in several ways that affect communication such as; stability: conditions which may be stable or may be changing either slowly or rapidly; cultures vary in the accessibility of information which can make things more complex; composition: because some cultures are made up of many diverse subcultures and generally the fewer subcultures in ones background, the easier communication is because of the fewer attention differences to consider; Acceptance: cultures carry in his or her attitudes toward outsiders, some can be openly hostile, some have a detached aloofness, and others are very friendly and cooperative with strangers. If one can work to bridge the Deterrence antelope above en or seen can Is taking ten relent approach to canceling intercultural communication. It might be easier said then done but I found the following 10 Commandments to follow when trying to bridge intercultural communication: 1) Be aware of differing social values; 2) Be aware of differing status humbly and how to demonstrate them; 3) Be aware of decision making customs: not all people like to make decisions quickly and efficiently; 4) Be aware of concepts of time: not all people like to see time as money; 5) Be aware of personal space: people from different cultures have different comfort zones; 6) Be aware of cultural context: people from certain cultures (called high-context cultures) rely less on verbal communication and more on the context of nonverbal actions and environmental settings to convey meaning. People from low-context cultures like the USA rely more n verbal communication and less on circumstances and implied meaning to convey meaning; 7) Be aware of body language: learn the basic differences in the way people supplement their words with body movement; 8) Be aware of different etiquette rules or manners: what is polite in one culture may be considered rude in another; 9) Be aware of legal and ethical behavior; 10) Be aware of language barriers: English is the most prevalent language in international business, but a easy mistake to assume that everyone understands it. If one is willing to learn as much as possible about another ultra it will enhance ones ability to communicate more effectively with many individuals. I know it can be easy to disregard the cultures of others and think because we are in the United States each person should become accustom to the way things work here. However, I have to say that approach would be selfish and the reality is we can learn so much f rom other cultures that might do one some good!

How to Plan a Marketing Calendar That Actually Works (Free Template)

How to Plan a Marketing Calendar That Actually Works (Free Template) Im going to be blunt. A lot of marketing calendars are really tough to use simply because they arent designed to be marketing calendar tools. And that makes it really tough to plan a marketing calendar that actually works: PDFs: Printing a free editorial calendar template like this one from   is  a great way to start  your  planning- to get the brainstorming going. From here, youll likely want a digital version thats a bit easier to update with your constant changes. Excel: Heres a free marketing calendar template from Content Marketing Institute to get you started on a digital version. But its a bit difficult to get  your team to use it when you have it locked all day as you plan. :/ Google Docs:  A spreadsheet in Google Docs/Sheets like this marketing calendar template from Crackerjack Marketing will help you solve the locking problem youd experience with Excel. This still doesnt feel like a marketing calendar, though, without a visual way to see your upcoming projects. Google Calendar:  You could also build a marketing calendar in Google Calendar. The thing is If youve followed our  advice on social media calendars, you  may schedule 30 or more social messages throughout the following weeks and months to share a single blog post  with your audience. Im sure you cant imagine copying and pasting all of those from Google Calendar into your different social networks- what a time suck! Not to mention copying and pasting all of your other content, too So What Will Help You Plan An Awesome Marketing Calendar? So where am I going with all of this? Ive read dozens of other posts on marketing calendars, editorial calendars, content marketing calendars, social media calendars- you get the picture. And I checked out  a  monster list of marketing calendar templates in a post on Crazy Eggs blog. There are tons of folks who have really good ideas of what  to include in your calendar, and starting with a template to get your brainstorming underway is a solid way to begin. So heres how to plan a marketing calendar that really works- with a few tips from us at , and a lot more from the other rock stars out there. How To Plan A #MarketingCalendar That Actually WorksStart With This Guide + Marketing Calendar Template, And Then You might just need a guide and a little something to  write on while you read this post. Ive got your back. Download the free guide that will help you implement all of this advice with actionable, step-by-step information. Youll also get a  free marketing calendar template  (plus bonus social + email marketing calendars) to help you plan all your content in advance. And when you're ready to use a tool designed to be your marketing calendar,  get started with 14 free days of . Now let's get to the good stuff. Step #1: Turn Your Marketing Strategy Into Real Content You'll Create Maybe writing a  30-page marketing strategy  isn't as important as  planning real content. It sounds harsh, but hear me out: For startups, business plans are no longer normal. In fact, they're now considered a faux pas and seen as a mere â€Å"business guess.† But that wasn’t always the case.  Before the lean startup, the business plan was a document that assumed we knew everything there was to know about our business, a plan set in stone. It was done, or so we thought. In reality, it was just a big huge guess.   Marketing plans and gigantic old strategy documents aren’t much different. They may sound novel and responsible, but the reality is that they are just guesses, too. What could content marketing strategy builders learn from the lean startup model? For a startup, business plans are no longer normal. @garrett_moonThe more time you spend strategizing, the less time you spend creating real content that will influence sales (which, let's face it, is the entire reason to plan your marketing calendar). Whether you have a marketing strategy already  or not, there are just a few things you need in your strategy to help you validate  what content to create: The now-infamous: Know your audience. This could start as simple as a customer survey, then possibly just bullet points you add into an Evernote note that help you stay in touch with your customers'  changing needs. The main point here is this: Keep it simple, especially at first. Create content. Content is data, and you get to know your customers  by creating content and measuring its impact. There's no way you will know everything about your audience until you put something out there, start communicating with them, and get their feedback. Start small. If you're thinking about doing an hourlong video or an e-book first, think again. Could you release a chapter of an e-book first to gauge its performance before you spend more time developing content on that topic? Could the same go for your monster video? If content is data, plan minimum viable content on your marketing calendar first to feel out what will truly "move the needle." (I had to sneak in a quip  like that since we're talking strategy!) That really looks like this: From here, turn your strategy into content. And  use the data from what you create to plan more: Create your content. Share it with your audience. Measure what's working. Learn what to create and where to share. Plan more content like your best-performing projects. Recommended Reading:  Here’s Why You Don’t Need A â€Å"Content Marketing Strategy† So now that you have a minimum viable marketing strategy to get started, the next step is looping in who'll help you create that content. This will help you define expectations for everyone- even if it's really only you as an all-in-one marketing team. To Do: Brainstorm  every question your audience has about your niche from knowing nothing to being an expert. From there, strategize the best forms of content  you'll use to answer their questions. This will serve as the foundation for your marketing calendar. I’d rather have a first-rate execution and second-rate strategy any time than a brilliant idea and mediocre management. - Jamie Dimon Step #2: Understand Who'll Do What Ann Handley has an awesome idea when it comes to who should be involved in your editorial flow, and thus, have access to your marketing calendar to understand when pieces will publish: A Simple Content Marketing Org Chart from Ann Handley She  says: These are roles not staff positions. Each role might be filled by one person or perhaps by a dozen, depending on the size and complexity of your own organization. Let's take a look at those roles quick: Team lead, or your strategist Editorial director Designers Content creators Curator Syndicator Analytics expert Site manager That's a pretty good list. And while that list works for Ann, it might not for you. For a small team, you  can narrow that list of roles down even further: Team lead who helps with planning, editing, publishing, and distributing Writer who turns a content idea into something your audience will love Designer (or videographer, podcaster, etc.) who takes  the writer's creation  to the next level Essentially, these folks are the ones who'll help you plan, create, and share the content  according to your marketing strategy. Get everyone on the same page now to make actually producing content a lot easier down the road. To Do: Narrow down the roles you need to create the different content types you explored in step #1. Brainstorm  who'll help you complete those projects (you're looking for names here). Get everyone on the same page to understand about how much content you can publish in a normal week. Find a marketing calendar tool that helps with project management, communication, and workflow that everyone will use. Now it's time work that marketing calendar:  Plan what topics you'll cover. Step #3: Define Your Topic Themes John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing plans out his marketing calendar based on themes. The themes help him look at a calendar that connects with topics  he wants to cover for his audience. Note that this isn't actual content yet- it's just a note of the topics he'd like to address in his content: The first step is to start making a list of your most important themes. I generally try to find three core themes and about nine supplemental themes. (Nice tidy 12 monthly themes.) Your core themes are the kinds of things that might be found on your homepage or even in the title attribute of your home page. Or, perhaps the main navigational elements of your site. While it scares me to plan 12 months ahead  because the data from your current content should help you plan new content,  this is an awesome way to plan strategically (and super efficiently) and keep your content on point. John shares exactly how he chooses themes: Start with brainstorming. Lock yourself away and start thinking about the kinds of things people ask about the most, where you make your most money, or where you see the greatest opportunities in your industry. This is often enough to create a good start to your list. Obviously, if you have a team, get them involved – they may actually know better than you. (Industry jargon that means nothing to the prospect must be left out here.) John mentions this is a nice way to get past staring at a blank marketing calendar without any clue of what content to add to it. I also love that about themes. To Do: Find the main themes from your list of customer questions in step #1. Define their biggest challenges, the areas of opportunity in your industry, and how you make the most money. Choose themes to flesh out your marketing calendar. You may want to plan a month ahead, a quarter, or the entire year.  It's whatever works for you. Personally, I'd choose weekly themes to repeat over the course of months to have tangible data as evidence to plan more content around a theme or less. This way, you'd avoid planning lots of content around a theme for an entire month without knowing if that theme is a dud. Plan those themes on your marketing calendar for your entire team to see. Remember, themes aren't content; themes direct the content your team will create. Step #4: Prioritize  Your Marketing Projects Marcus Sheridan from  The Sales Lion has a simple solution to help you plan your marketing calendar based on projects that will have the biggest impact on your business. He addresses prioritizing your marketing calendar  very simply: Remember, content marketing is about generating more sales. When all is said and done, that’s what matters. He suggests  prioritizing more "Buyer's Content" instead of so much top of the funnel, inbound content. By understanding this, the aim is  to plan content on your marketing calendar that will help prospects make purchase decisions instead of purely focusing on content that's great for the top of the funnel but just generating traffic. The team at The Sales Lion even have a  simple  algorithm they use to prioritize their projects that you can use, too: Essentially, we have every client rate their planned content (be it blog titles, videos, etc.) on a scale of 1-3. A â€Å"3† score means it’s â€Å"Buyer’s Content† and therefore marked as most urgent- moving it to the top of the calendar. If it’s a â€Å"1† grade, then we’ll wait to produce this content because it’s either a top of funnel question that a buyer may be asking or even an â€Å"outside of the funnel† question/subject- meaning that although it may be relevant to the business and buyer, it doesn’t necessarily represent someone who is seriously considering making a purchase right now. From here, you can plan a balance of content focused on selling and content focused on inspiring interest in your business on your marketing calendar. To-Do: For each theme, brainstorm content you could create for that topic. Don't limit yourself at first: When you think of an idea, write it down quickly and move to the next. For those content ideas, use Marcus' algorithm to rank them with good, better, best: 1 means inbound, 3  means looking to buy. Use your best judgement to rank these just to get started. Sift through the  content ideas for every  theme. Sort them according to 3, 2, 1 to prepare a prioritized list that you'll add to your marketing calendar. And when you start planning actual pieces of content on your calendar, there are a few things to keep in mind: Step #5: Plan Your Content On Your Marketing Calendar This is the fun part! And there are many ways to do this: The Best 2018 Content Calendar Template to Get Organized All Year 2018 Social Media Content Calendar: How to Organize a Year of Posts the Easy Way 5 Lessons From The Forbes Editorial Calendar That Will Make You Better At Blog Planning How To Use A Content Marketing Editorial Calendar To Save A Ton Of Time Seven Content Calendar Examples From Awesome Brands to Inspire Your Own While editorial  calendars work particularly well for managing blogs, you can use them to organize all of your marketing. So I wanted to know how the other pros out there plan more than just blog and social media content, but a true all-in-one marketing calendar that you can also do with . Here's what they had to say: Plan Actual Pieces Of Content To Target Specific Keywords Your Audience Uses You used Marcus' algorithm to prioritize your projects, so let's make those into actual pieces of content on your calendar. John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing had some more solid advice on planning projects as content: Now take that list to the Google Keyword Planner and see if you can find themes that have significant volume. You must balance key terms with being too generic though. A term like â€Å"marketing† wouldn’t make sense as a theme, even for a marketing consultant, but a term like â€Å"referral marketing tactics† might. To summarize: While all of your content may be connected to a theme, choose a keyword for every single piece of content you'll publish. These may be keywords all related to the same topic, but unique enough to help you connect your different content to the terms your audience is searching for. To Do: Read this: SEO Content Strategy: How to Skyrocket Your Traffic By 594%. Select a core  keyword for every single piece of content (and related keywords)  that will publish on the magical interwebs. Then add the keywords into  your projects on your marketing calendar according to the priority you defined through Marcus' scoring  exercise. Plan Content For A Week, Month, Or Year Out Joe Pulizzi from Content Marketing Institute has a lot of insight on  the content marketing process, and marketing calendars are a huge element of successful strategies turning into real content: One thing is certain: if you don’t keep an editorial/content calendar, the content doesn’t get done. - Joe Pulizzi Joe breaks it down into such a simple idea: An editorial calendar simply tracks what content you are going to cover, what tactic it’s for (blog, newsletter, etc.) and who’s responsible. [...] Best practice is to set up a master calendar for all your content initiatives, and then a separate content calendar for each initiative. Traditionally, we’ve set up editorial calendars 12 months out and then constantly change them as we tweak the marketing plan. The good news is that your themes are the year calendar, and now you're ready to plan real projects for each "initiative", as Joe calls them. So let's recap everything  you just learned, and use Joe's advice to get your projects on your marketing calendar. To Do: At this point, you have a marketing calendar with themes outlining the topics you'll cover every single month. Plan those themes on your marketing calendar for the entire year (and take seasonality into account, too, for big holidays or events in your industry). You  got the entire team on board to understand their roles. Now it's time to understand how much content you can actually produce in a given week or month. Sit down with the team to plan your publishing frequency,  taking into consideration all of the  marketing projects you'll complete. You have a list of prioritized projects to complete. Now that you know how much you can complete, and the entire team is on board, plan an achievable amount of projects.  It's not worth stressing yourself out with an unrealistic amount of projects to complete. Actually Create The Content I couldn't say this better than Rebecca Lieb from (who's brilliant, by the way, and worth following) on combining your marketing calendar with a content production  process: Many editorial calendars also incorporate the production process into the mix, which is a great way to ensure content creation is on track. This can include who’s responsible for individual content elements, the due date of a first draft, who conducts the copyedit, and a date (often, with a specific time) for receiving and proofing the final draft, entering it into the CMS system (or newsletter template, or blog platform), and when it will be pushed live, or published. Where Rebecca started, Jodi Harris from Content Marketing Institute provides a  few more details to help you set up your marketing calendar: The date the piece of content will be published The topic or headline of the content piece The author of the content The owner of the content – i.e., who is in charge of making sure the content makes it from ideation to publication and promotion The current status of the content (updated as it moves through your publishing cycle) Jodi continues with a few more items to include: The channels where your content will be published: This can include only your owned channels (such as your blog, Facebook Page, website, YouTube page, email newsletters, etc.), or you can expand your tracking to include paid and earned channels, as well. Content formats: Is it a blog post? A video? A podcast? An infographic? An original image? To get more mileage from the content you create, you might want to consider repurposing it into other formats at some point. So it’s handy to keep tabs on the types of assets you have on hand right from the start. Visuals: Speaking of assets, it’s important that you don’t overlook the appeal that visuals can lend to your content, both in terms of social sharing potential and overall brand recognition. Tracking the visual elements you include in your content efforts – such as cover images, logos, illustrations, charts – will make it easier to ensure that your work has a signature look and cohesive brand identity. Topic categories: This helps make your calendars more searchable when you are looking to see about which target topics you already created a lot of content – or which you haven’t covered often enough. Keywords and other meta-data, such as meta-descriptions and SEO titles (if they differ from your headlines), which will help you keep your SEO efforts aligned with your content creation. URLs: This info can be archived as an easy way to keep your online content audits updated, or to link to older pieces of content in the new content you create. Calls to action: This helps you ensure that every piece of content you create is aligning with your company’s marketing goals. So it makes sense to simply include all of this advice  right  in your marketing  calendar as you create it. Here's how:All the actionable advice in this post will work with any format your marketing calendar takes. It's just that is actually designed to be your all-in-one marketing calendar, and helps you do all of this way more efficiently. What would your marketing  look like if you could manage all of this in one tool? Are you ready to get started? How to Plan a Marketing Calendar That Actually Works (Free Template) Im going to be blunt. A lot of marketing calendars are really tough to use simply because they arent designed to be marketing calendar tools. And that makes it really tough to plan a marketing calendar that actually works: PDFs: Printing a free editorial calendar template like this one from   is  a great way to start  your  planning- to get the brainstorming going. From here, youll likely want a digital version thats a bit easier to update with your constant changes. Excel: Heres a free marketing calendar template from Content Marketing Institute to get you started on a digital version. But its a bit difficult to get  your team to use it when you have it locked all day as you plan. :/ Google Docs:  A spreadsheet in Google Docs/Sheets like this marketing calendar template from Crackerjack Marketing will help you solve the locking problem youd experience with Excel. This still doesnt feel like a marketing calendar, though, without a visual way to see your upcoming projects. Google Calendar:  You could also build a marketing calendar in Google Calendar. The thing is If youve followed our  advice on social media calendars, you  may schedule 30 or more social messages throughout the following weeks and months to share a single blog post  with your audience. Im sure you cant imagine copying and pasting all of those from Google Calendar into your different social networks- what a time suck! Not to mention copying and pasting all of your other content, too So What Will Help You Plan An Awesome Marketing Calendar? So where am I going with all of this? Ive read dozens of other posts on marketing calendars, editorial calendars, content marketing calendars, social media calendars- you get the picture. And I checked out  a  monster list of marketing calendar templates in a post on Crazy Eggs blog. There are tons of folks who have really good ideas of what  to include in your calendar, and starting with a template to get your brainstorming underway is a solid way to begin. So heres how to plan a marketing calendar that really works- with a few tips from us at , and a lot more from the other rock stars out there. How To Plan A #MarketingCalendar That Actually WorksStart With This Guide + Marketing Calendar Template, And Then You might just need a guide and a little something to  write on while you read this post. Ive got your back. Download the free guide that will help you implement all of this advice with actionable, step-by-step information. Youll also get a  free marketing calendar template  (plus bonus social + email marketing calendars) to help you plan all your content in advance. And when you're ready to use a tool designed to be your marketing calendar,  get started with 14 free days of . Now let's get to the good stuff. Step #1: Turn Your Marketing Strategy Into Real Content You'll Create Maybe writing a  30-page marketing strategy  isn't as important as  planning real content. It sounds harsh, but hear me out: For startups, business plans are no longer normal. In fact, they're now considered a faux pas and seen as a mere â€Å"business guess.† But that wasn’t always the case.  Before the lean startup, the business plan was a document that assumed we knew everything there was to know about our business, a plan set in stone. It was done, or so we thought. In reality, it was just a big huge guess.   Marketing plans and gigantic old strategy documents aren’t much different. They may sound novel and responsible, but the reality is that they are just guesses, too. What could content marketing strategy builders learn from the lean startup model? For a startup, business plans are no longer normal. @garrett_moonThe more time you spend strategizing, the less time you spend creating real content that will influence sales (which, let's face it, is the entire reason to plan your marketing calendar). Whether you have a marketing strategy already  or not, there are just a few things you need in your strategy to help you validate  what content to create: The now-infamous: Know your audience. This could start as simple as a customer survey, then possibly just bullet points you add into an Evernote note that help you stay in touch with your customers'  changing needs. The main point here is this: Keep it simple, especially at first. Create content. Content is data, and you get to know your customers  by creating content and measuring its impact. There's no way you will know everything about your audience until you put something out there, start communicating with them, and get their feedback. Start small. If you're thinking about doing an hourlong video or an e-book first, think again. Could you release a chapter of an e-book first to gauge its performance before you spend more time developing content on that topic? Could the same go for your monster video? If content is data, plan minimum viable content on your marketing calendar first to feel out what will truly "move the needle." (I had to sneak in a quip  like that since we're talking strategy!) That really looks like this: From here, turn your strategy into content. And  use the data from what you create to plan more: Create your content. Share it with your audience. Measure what's working. Learn what to create and where to share. Plan more content like your best-performing projects. Recommended Reading:  Here’s Why You Don’t Need A â€Å"Content Marketing Strategy† So now that you have a minimum viable marketing strategy to get started, the next step is looping in who'll help you create that content. This will help you define expectations for everyone- even if it's really only you as an all-in-one marketing team. To Do: Brainstorm  every question your audience has about your niche from knowing nothing to being an expert. From there, strategize the best forms of content  you'll use to answer their questions. This will serve as the foundation for your marketing calendar. I’d rather have a first-rate execution and second-rate strategy any time than a brilliant idea and mediocre management. - Jamie Dimon Step #2: Understand Who'll Do What Ann Handley has an awesome idea when it comes to who should be involved in your editorial flow, and thus, have access to your marketing calendar to understand when pieces will publish: A Simple Content Marketing Org Chart from Ann Handley She  says: These are roles not staff positions. Each role might be filled by one person or perhaps by a dozen, depending on the size and complexity of your own organization. Let's take a look at those roles quick: Team lead, or your strategist Editorial director Designers Content creators Curator Syndicator Analytics expert Site manager That's a pretty good list. And while that list works for Ann, it might not for you. For a small team, you  can narrow that list of roles down even further: Team lead who helps with planning, editing, publishing, and distributing Writer who turns a content idea into something your audience will love Designer (or videographer, podcaster, etc.) who takes  the writer's creation  to the next level Essentially, these folks are the ones who'll help you plan, create, and share the content  according to your marketing strategy. Get everyone on the same page now to make actually producing content a lot easier down the road. To Do: Narrow down the roles you need to create the different content types you explored in step #1. Brainstorm  who'll help you complete those projects (you're looking for names here). Get everyone on the same page to understand about how much content you can publish in a normal week. Find a marketing calendar tool that helps with project management, communication, and workflow that everyone will use. Now it's time work that marketing calendar:  Plan what topics you'll cover. Step #3: Define Your Topic Themes John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing plans out his marketing calendar based on themes. The themes help him look at a calendar that connects with topics  he wants to cover for his audience. Note that this isn't actual content yet- it's just a note of the topics he'd like to address in his content: The first step is to start making a list of your most important themes. I generally try to find three core themes and about nine supplemental themes. (Nice tidy 12 monthly themes.) Your core themes are the kinds of things that might be found on your homepage or even in the title attribute of your home page. Or, perhaps the main navigational elements of your site. While it scares me to plan 12 months ahead  because the data from your current content should help you plan new content,  this is an awesome way to plan strategically (and super efficiently) and keep your content on point. John shares exactly how he chooses themes: Start with brainstorming. Lock yourself away and start thinking about the kinds of things people ask about the most, where you make your most money, or where you see the greatest opportunities in your industry. This is often enough to create a good start to your list. Obviously, if you have a team, get them involved – they may actually know better than you. (Industry jargon that means nothing to the prospect must be left out here.) John mentions this is a nice way to get past staring at a blank marketing calendar without any clue of what content to add to it. I also love that about themes. To Do: Find the main themes from your list of customer questions in step #1. Define their biggest challenges, the areas of opportunity in your industry, and how you make the most money. Choose themes to flesh out your marketing calendar. You may want to plan a month ahead, a quarter, or the entire year.  It's whatever works for you. Personally, I'd choose weekly themes to repeat over the course of months to have tangible data as evidence to plan more content around a theme or less. This way, you'd avoid planning lots of content around a theme for an entire month without knowing if that theme is a dud. Plan those themes on your marketing calendar for your entire team to see. Remember, themes aren't content; themes direct the content your team will create. Step #4: Prioritize  Your Marketing Projects Marcus Sheridan from  The Sales Lion has a simple solution to help you plan your marketing calendar based on projects that will have the biggest impact on your business. He addresses prioritizing your marketing calendar  very simply: Remember, content marketing is about generating more sales. When all is said and done, that’s what matters. He suggests  prioritizing more "Buyer's Content" instead of so much top of the funnel, inbound content. By understanding this, the aim is  to plan content on your marketing calendar that will help prospects make purchase decisions instead of purely focusing on content that's great for the top of the funnel but just generating traffic. The team at The Sales Lion even have a  simple  algorithm they use to prioritize their projects that you can use, too: Essentially, we have every client rate their planned content (be it blog titles, videos, etc.) on a scale of 1-3. A â€Å"3† score means it’s â€Å"Buyer’s Content† and therefore marked as most urgent- moving it to the top of the calendar. If it’s a â€Å"1† grade, then we’ll wait to produce this content because it’s either a top of funnel question that a buyer may be asking or even an â€Å"outside of the funnel† question/subject- meaning that although it may be relevant to the business and buyer, it doesn’t necessarily represent someone who is seriously considering making a purchase right now. From here, you can plan a balance of content focused on selling and content focused on inspiring interest in your business on your marketing calendar. To-Do: For each theme, brainstorm content you could create for that topic. Don't limit yourself at first: When you think of an idea, write it down quickly and move to the next. For those content ideas, use Marcus' algorithm to rank them with good, better, best: 1 means inbound, 3  means looking to buy. Use your best judgement to rank these just to get started. Sift through the  content ideas for every  theme. Sort them according to 3, 2, 1 to prepare a prioritized list that you'll add to your marketing calendar. And when you start planning actual pieces of content on your calendar, there are a few things to keep in mind: Step #5: Plan Your Content On Your Marketing Calendar This is the fun part! And there are many ways to do this: The Best 2018 Content Calendar Template to Get Organized All Year 2018 Social Media Content Calendar: How to Organize a Year of Posts the Easy Way 5 Lessons From The Forbes Editorial Calendar That Will Make You Better At Blog Planning How To Use A Content Marketing Editorial Calendar To Save A Ton Of Time Seven Content Calendar Examples From Awesome Brands to Inspire Your Own While editorial  calendars work particularly well for managing blogs, you can use them to organize all of your marketing. So I wanted to know how the other pros out there plan more than just blog and social media content, but a true all-in-one marketing calendar that you can also do with . Here's what they had to say: Plan Actual Pieces Of Content To Target Specific Keywords Your Audience Uses You used Marcus' algorithm to prioritize your projects, so let's make those into actual pieces of content on your calendar. John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing had some more solid advice on planning projects as content: Now take that list to the Google Keyword Planner and see if you can find themes that have significant volume. You must balance key terms with being too generic though. A term like â€Å"marketing† wouldn’t make sense as a theme, even for a marketing consultant, but a term like â€Å"referral marketing tactics† might. To summarize: While all of your content may be connected to a theme, choose a keyword for every single piece of content you'll publish. These may be keywords all related to the same topic, but unique enough to help you connect your different content to the terms your audience is searching for. To Do: Read this: SEO Content Strategy: How to Skyrocket Your Traffic By 594%. Select a core  keyword for every single piece of content (and related keywords)  that will publish on the magical interwebs. Then add the keywords into  your projects on your marketing calendar according to the priority you defined through Marcus' scoring  exercise. Plan Content For A Week, Month, Or Year Out Joe Pulizzi from Content Marketing Institute has a lot of insight on  the content marketing process, and marketing calendars are a huge element of successful strategies turning into real content: One thing is certain: if you don’t keep an editorial/content calendar, the content doesn’t get done. - Joe Pulizzi Joe breaks it down into such a simple idea: An editorial calendar simply tracks what content you are going to cover, what tactic it’s for (blog, newsletter, etc.) and who’s responsible. [...] Best practice is to set up a master calendar for all your content initiatives, and then a separate content calendar for each initiative. Traditionally, we’ve set up editorial calendars 12 months out and then constantly change them as we tweak the marketing plan. The good news is that your themes are the year calendar, and now you're ready to plan real projects for each "initiative", as Joe calls them. So let's recap everything  you just learned, and use Joe's advice to get your projects on your marketing calendar. To Do: At this point, you have a marketing calendar with themes outlining the topics you'll cover every single month. Plan those themes on your marketing calendar for the entire year (and take seasonality into account, too, for big holidays or events in your industry). You  got the entire team on board to understand their roles. Now it's time to understand how much content you can actually produce in a given week or month. Sit down with the team to plan your publishing frequency,  taking into consideration all of the  marketing projects you'll complete. You have a list of prioritized projects to complete. Now that you know how much you can complete, and the entire team is on board, plan an achievable amount of projects.  It's not worth stressing yourself out with an unrealistic amount of projects to complete. Actually Create The Content I couldn't say this better than Rebecca Lieb from (who's brilliant, by the way, and worth following) on combining your marketing calendar with a content production  process: Many editorial calendars also incorporate the production process into the mix, which is a great way to ensure content creation is on track. This can include who’s responsible for individual content elements, the due date of a first draft, who conducts the copyedit, and a date (often, with a specific time) for receiving and proofing the final draft, entering it into the CMS system (or newsletter template, or blog platform), and when it will be pushed live, or published. Where Rebecca started, Jodi Harris from Content Marketing Institute provides a  few more details to help you set up your marketing calendar: The date the piece of content will be published The topic or headline of the content piece The author of the content The owner of the content – i.e., who is in charge of making sure the content makes it from ideation to publication and promotion The current status of the content (updated as it moves through your publishing cycle) Jodi continues with a few more items to include: The channels where your content will be published: This can include only your owned channels (such as your blog, Facebook Page, website, YouTube page, email newsletters, etc.), or you can expand your tracking to include paid and earned channels, as well. Content formats: Is it a blog post? A video? A podcast? An infographic? An original image? To get more mileage from the content you create, you might want to consider repurposing it into other formats at some point. So it’s handy to keep tabs on the types of assets you have on hand right from the start. Visuals: Speaking of assets, it’s important that you don’t overlook the appeal that visuals can lend to your content, both in terms of social sharing potential and overall brand recognition. Tracking the visual elements you include in your content efforts – such as cover images, logos, illustrations, charts – will make it easier to ensure that your work has a signature look and cohesive brand identity. Topic categories: This helps make your calendars more searchable when you are looking to see about which target topics you already created a lot of content – or which you haven’t covered often enough. Keywords and other meta-data, such as meta-descriptions and SEO titles (if they differ from your headlines), which will help you keep your SEO efforts aligned with your content creation. URLs: This info can be archived as an easy way to keep your online content audits updated, or to link to older pieces of content in the new content you create. Calls to action: This helps you ensure that every piece of content you create is aligning with your company’s marketing goals. So it makes sense to simply include all of this advice  right  in your marketing  calendar as you create it. Here's how:All the actionable advice in this post will work with any format your marketing calendar takes. It's just that is actually designed to be your all-in-one marketing calendar, and helps you do all of this way more efficiently. What would your marketing  look like if you could manage all of this in one tool? Are you ready to get started? How to Plan a Marketing Calendar That Actually Works (Free Template) Im going to be blunt. A lot of marketing calendars are really tough to use simply because they arent designed to be marketing calendar tools. And that makes it really tough to plan a marketing calendar that actually works: PDFs: Printing a free editorial calendar template like this one from   is  a great way to start  your  planning- to get the brainstorming going. From here, youll likely want a digital version thats a bit easier to update with your constant changes. Excel: Heres a free marketing calendar template from Content Marketing Institute to get you started on a digital version. But its a bit difficult to get  your team to use it when you have it locked all day as you plan. :/ Google Docs:  A spreadsheet in Google Docs/Sheets like this marketing calendar template from Crackerjack Marketing will help you solve the locking problem youd experience with Excel. This still doesnt feel like a marketing calendar, though, without a visual way to see your upcoming projects. Google Calendar:  You could also build a marketing calendar in Google Calendar. The thing is If youve followed our  advice on social media calendars, you  may schedule 30 or more social messages throughout the following weeks and months to share a single blog post  with your audience. Im sure you cant imagine copying and pasting all of those from Google Calendar into your different social networks- what a time suck! Not to mention copying and pasting all of your other content, too So What Will Help You Plan An Awesome Marketing Calendar? So where am I going with all of this? Ive read dozens of other posts on marketing calendars, editorial calendars, content marketing calendars, social media calendars- you get the picture. And I checked out  a  monster list of marketing calendar templates in a post on Crazy Eggs blog. There are tons of folks who have really good ideas of what  to include in your calendar, and starting with a template to get your brainstorming underway is a solid way to begin. So heres how to plan a marketing calendar that really works- with a few tips from us at , and a lot more from the other rock stars out there. How To Plan A #MarketingCalendar That Actually WorksStart With This Guide + Marketing Calendar Template, And Then You might just need a guide and a little something to  write on while you read this post. Ive got your back. Download the free guide that will help you implement all of this advice with actionable, step-by-step information. Youll also get a  free marketing calendar template  (plus bonus social + email marketing calendars) to help you plan all your content in advance. And when you're ready to use a tool designed to be your marketing calendar,  get started with 14 free days of . Now let's get to the good stuff. Step #1: Turn Your Marketing Strategy Into Real Content You'll Create Maybe writing a  30-page marketing strategy  isn't as important as  planning real content. It sounds harsh, but hear me out: For startups, business plans are no longer normal. In fact, they're now considered a faux pas and seen as a mere â€Å"business guess.† But that wasn’t always the case.  Before the lean startup, the business plan was a document that assumed we knew everything there was to know about our business, a plan set in stone. It was done, or so we thought. In reality, it was just a big huge guess.   Marketing plans and gigantic old strategy documents aren’t much different. They may sound novel and responsible, but the reality is that they are just guesses, too. What could content marketing strategy builders learn from the lean startup model? For a startup, business plans are no longer normal. @garrett_moonThe more time you spend strategizing, the less time you spend creating real content that will influence sales (which, let's face it, is the entire reason to plan your marketing calendar). Whether you have a marketing strategy already  or not, there are just a few things you need in your strategy to help you validate  what content to create: The now-infamous: Know your audience. This could start as simple as a customer survey, then possibly just bullet points you add into an Evernote note that help you stay in touch with your customers'  changing needs. The main point here is this: Keep it simple, especially at first. Create content. Content is data, and you get to know your customers  by creating content and measuring its impact. There's no way you will know everything about your audience until you put something out there, start communicating with them, and get their feedback. Start small. If you're thinking about doing an hourlong video or an e-book first, think again. Could you release a chapter of an e-book first to gauge its performance before you spend more time developing content on that topic? Could the same go for your monster video? If content is data, plan minimum viable content on your marketing calendar first to feel out what will truly "move the needle." (I had to sneak in a quip  like that since we're talking strategy!) That really looks like this: From here, turn your strategy into content. And  use the data from what you create to plan more: Create your content. Share it with your audience. Measure what's working. Learn what to create and where to share. Plan more content like your best-performing projects. Recommended Reading:  Here’s Why You Don’t Need A â€Å"Content Marketing Strategy† So now that you have a minimum viable marketing strategy to get started, the next step is looping in who'll help you create that content. This will help you define expectations for everyone- even if it's really only you as an all-in-one marketing team. To Do: Brainstorm  every question your audience has about your niche from knowing nothing to being an expert. From there, strategize the best forms of content  you'll use to answer their questions. This will serve as the foundation for your marketing calendar. I’d rather have a first-rate execution and second-rate strategy any time than a brilliant idea and mediocre management. - Jamie Dimon Step #2: Understand Who'll Do What Ann Handley has an awesome idea when it comes to who should be involved in your editorial flow, and thus, have access to your marketing calendar to understand when pieces will publish: A Simple Content Marketing Org Chart from Ann Handley She  says: These are roles not staff positions. Each role might be filled by one person or perhaps by a dozen, depending on the size and complexity of your own organization. Let's take a look at those roles quick: Team lead, or your strategist Editorial director Designers Content creators Curator Syndicator Analytics expert Site manager That's a pretty good list. And while that list works for Ann, it might not for you. For a small team, you  can narrow that list of roles down even further: Team lead who helps with planning, editing, publishing, and distributing Writer who turns a content idea into something your audience will love Designer (or videographer, podcaster, etc.) who takes  the writer's creation  to the next level Essentially, these folks are the ones who'll help you plan, create, and share the content  according to your marketing strategy. Get everyone on the same page now to make actually producing content a lot easier down the road. To Do: Narrow down the roles you need to create the different content types you explored in step #1. Brainstorm  who'll help you complete those projects (you're looking for names here). Get everyone on the same page to understand about how much content you can publish in a normal week. Find a marketing calendar tool that helps with project management, communication, and workflow that everyone will use. Now it's time work that marketing calendar:  Plan what topics you'll cover. Step #3: Define Your Topic Themes John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing plans out his marketing calendar based on themes. The themes help him look at a calendar that connects with topics  he wants to cover for his audience. Note that this isn't actual content yet- it's just a note of the topics he'd like to address in his content: The first step is to start making a list of your most important themes. I generally try to find three core themes and about nine supplemental themes. (Nice tidy 12 monthly themes.) Your core themes are the kinds of things that might be found on your homepage or even in the title attribute of your home page. Or, perhaps the main navigational elements of your site. While it scares me to plan 12 months ahead  because the data from your current content should help you plan new content,  this is an awesome way to plan strategically (and super efficiently) and keep your content on point. John shares exactly how he chooses themes: Start with brainstorming. Lock yourself away and start thinking about the kinds of things people ask about the most, where you make your most money, or where you see the greatest opportunities in your industry. This is often enough to create a good start to your list. Obviously, if you have a team, get them involved – they may actually know better than you. (Industry jargon that means nothing to the prospect must be left out here.) John mentions this is a nice way to get past staring at a blank marketing calendar without any clue of what content to add to it. I also love that about themes. To Do: Find the main themes from your list of customer questions in step #1. Define their biggest challenges, the areas of opportunity in your industry, and how you make the most money. Choose themes to flesh out your marketing calendar. You may want to plan a month ahead, a quarter, or the entire year.  It's whatever works for you. Personally, I'd choose weekly themes to repeat over the course of months to have tangible data as evidence to plan more content around a theme or less. This way, you'd avoid planning lots of content around a theme for an entire month without knowing if that theme is a dud. Plan those themes on your marketing calendar for your entire team to see. Remember, themes aren't content; themes direct the content your team will create. Step #4: Prioritize  Your Marketing Projects Marcus Sheridan from  The Sales Lion has a simple solution to help you plan your marketing calendar based on projects that will have the biggest impact on your business. He addresses prioritizing your marketing calendar  very simply: Remember, content marketing is about generating more sales. When all is said and done, that’s what matters. He suggests  prioritizing more "Buyer's Content" instead of so much top of the funnel, inbound content. By understanding this, the aim is  to plan content on your marketing calendar that will help prospects make purchase decisions instead of purely focusing on content that's great for the top of the funnel but just generating traffic. The team at The Sales Lion even have a  simple  algorithm they use to prioritize their projects that you can use, too: Essentially, we have every client rate their planned content (be it blog titles, videos, etc.) on a scale of 1-3. A â€Å"3† score means it’s â€Å"Buyer’s Content† and therefore marked as most urgent- moving it to the top of the calendar. If it’s a â€Å"1† grade, then we’ll wait to produce this content because it’s either a top of funnel question that a buyer may be asking or even an â€Å"outside of the funnel† question/subject- meaning that although it may be relevant to the business and buyer, it doesn’t necessarily represent someone who is seriously considering making a purchase right now. From here, you can plan a balance of content focused on selling and content focused on inspiring interest in your business on your marketing calendar. To-Do: For each theme, brainstorm content you could create for that topic. Don't limit yourself at first: When you think of an idea, write it down quickly and move to the next. For those content ideas, use Marcus' algorithm to rank them with good, better, best: 1 means inbound, 3  means looking to buy. Use your best judgement to rank these just to get started. Sift through the  content ideas for every  theme. Sort them according to 3, 2, 1 to prepare a prioritized list that you'll add to your marketing calendar. And when you start planning actual pieces of content on your calendar, there are a few things to keep in mind: Step #5: Plan Your Content On Your Marketing Calendar This is the fun part! And there are many ways to do this: The Best 2018 Content Calendar Template to Get Organized All Year 2018 Social Media Content Calendar: How to Organize a Year of Posts the Easy Way 5 Lessons From The Forbes Editorial Calendar That Will Make You Better At Blog Planning How To Use A Content Marketing Editorial Calendar To Save A Ton Of Time Seven Content Calendar Examples From Awesome Brands to Inspire Your Own While editorial  calendars work particularly well for managing blogs, you can use them to organize all of your marketing. So I wanted to know how the other pros out there plan more than just blog and social media content, but a true all-in-one marketing calendar that you can also do with . Here's what they had to say: Plan Actual Pieces Of Content To Target Specific Keywords Your Audience Uses You used Marcus' algorithm to prioritize your projects, so let's make those into actual pieces of content on your calendar. John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing had some more solid advice on planning projects as content: Now take that list to the Google Keyword Planner and see if you can find themes that have significant volume. You must balance key terms with being too generic though. A term like â€Å"marketing† wouldn’t make sense as a theme, even for a marketing consultant, but a term like â€Å"referral marketing tactics† might. To summarize: While all of your content may be connected to a theme, choose a keyword for every single piece of content you'll publish. These may be keywords all related to the same topic, but unique enough to help you connect your different content to the terms your audience is searching for. To Do: Read this: SEO Content Strategy: How to Skyrocket Your Traffic By 594%. Select a core  keyword for every single piece of content (and related keywords)  that will publish on the magical interwebs. Then add the keywords into  your projects on your marketing calendar according to the priority you defined through Marcus' scoring  exercise. Plan Content For A Week, Month, Or Year Out Joe Pulizzi from Content Marketing Institute has a lot of insight on  the content marketing process, and marketing calendars are a huge element of successful strategies turning into real content: One thing is certain: if you don’t keep an editorial/content calendar, the content doesn’t get done. - Joe Pulizzi Joe breaks it down into such a simple idea: An editorial calendar simply tracks what content you are going to cover, what tactic it’s for (blog, newsletter, etc.) and who’s responsible. [...] Best practice is to set up a master calendar for all your content initiatives, and then a separate content calendar for each initiative. Traditionally, we’ve set up editorial calendars 12 months out and then constantly change them as we tweak the marketing plan. The good news is that your themes are the year calendar, and now you're ready to plan real projects for each "initiative", as Joe calls them. So let's recap everything  you just learned, and use Joe's advice to get your projects on your marketing calendar. To Do: At this point, you have a marketing calendar with themes outlining the topics you'll cover every single month. Plan those themes on your marketing calendar for the entire year (and take seasonality into account, too, for big holidays or events in your industry). You  got the entire team on board to understand their roles. Now it's time to understand how much content you can actually produce in a given week or month. Sit down with the team to plan your publishing frequency,  taking into consideration all of the  marketing projects you'll complete. You have a list of prioritized projects to complete. Now that you know how much you can complete, and the entire team is on board, plan an achievable amount of projects.  It's not worth stressing yourself out with an unrealistic amount of projects to complete. Actually Create The Content I couldn't say this better than Rebecca Lieb from (who's brilliant, by the way, and worth following) on combining your marketing calendar with a content production  process: Many editorial calendars also incorporate the production process into the mix, which is a great way to ensure content creation is on track. This can include who’s responsible for individual content elements, the due date of a first draft, who conducts the copyedit, and a date (often, with a specific time) for receiving and proofing the final draft, entering it into the CMS system (or newsletter template, or blog platform), and when it will be pushed live, or published. Where Rebecca started, Jodi Harris from Content Marketing Institute provides a  few more details to help you set up your marketing calendar: The date the piece of content will be published The topic or headline of the content piece The author of the content The owner of the content – i.e., who is in charge of making sure the content makes it from ideation to publication and promotion The current status of the content (updated as it moves through your publishing cycle) Jodi continues with a few more items to include: The channels where your content will be published: This can include only your owned channels (such as your blog, Facebook Page, website, YouTube page, email newsletters, etc.), or you can expand your tracking to include paid and earned channels, as well. Content formats: Is it a blog post? A video? A podcast? An infographic? An original image? To get more mileage from the content you create, you might want to consider repurposing it into other formats at some point. So it’s handy to keep tabs on the types of assets you have on hand right from the start. Visuals: Speaking of assets, it’s important that you don’t overlook the appeal that visuals can lend to your content, both in terms of social sharing potential and overall brand recognition. Tracking the visual elements you include in your content efforts – such as cover images, logos, illustrations, charts – will make it easier to ensure that your work has a signature look and cohesive brand identity. Topic categories: This helps make your calendars more searchable when you are looking to see about which target topics you already created a lot of content – or which you haven’t covered often enough. Keywords and other meta-data, such as meta-descriptions and SEO titles (if they differ from your headlines), which will help you keep your SEO efforts aligned with your content creation. URLs: This info can be archived as an easy way to keep your online content audits updated, or to link to older pieces of content in the new content you create. Calls to action: This helps you ensure that every piece of content you create is aligning with your company’s marketing goals. So it makes sense to simply include all of this advice  right  in your marketing  calendar as you create it. Here's how:All the actionable advice in this post will work with any format your marketing calendar takes. It's just that is actually designed to be your all-in-one marketing calendar, and helps you do all of this way more efficiently. What would your marketing  look like if you could manage all of this in one tool? Are you ready to get started?

Should Service Learning Be a Requirement for College Graduation Essay

Should Service Learning Be a Requirement for College Graduation - Essay Example In such programs, students work with communities to solve real-life problems, which not only helps them learn their role as citizens but also inject a sense of social responsibility in their minds. Service learning is of two types, which include directly concerned and not directly concerned service learning programs. In directly concerned programs, students are engaged in activities, which are related to the educational major whereas in not directly concerned programs, students need to provide their services in such programs, which have no direct concern with the educational majors of the students. Let us come to the point that whether service learning should be a requirement for college graduation or not. I firmly believe that it should be a part and a requirement for college graduation due to a number of reasons. One of the major reasons is that service-learning programs enhance learning abilities of the students. Such programs not only improve students’ critical thinking an d decision-making abilities but also prepare them for future because students may need to do such work at some point in future. Through participating in such programs, students learn the ways to apply their skills and knowledge to real life problematic situations, which they may encounter in their professional lives. Service learning makes students prepared for their future professional roles and responsibilities. Such programs make students aware of the workplace environment at an early stage, which helps them adjust in any workplace environment in a very short span of time. Such programs enhance personality development of the students and improve their workplace skills and abilities. Service-learning programs allow students to translate their theory learning into practice, which is a very positive aspect of service learning. Service learning not only provides opportunities to the students to get experience of real work but also help them enrich learning and renew communities. Coll eges and universities should maintain such resources, which they can use to provide learning opportunities to the students. Service learning has become a necessity for the success of students in professional life. Today, many of the students struggle when they enter their professional lives because sometimes they are not mentally equipped with the workplace environment that is provided to them and sometimes they take a lot of time being trained for the job. Service learning eliminates all such possibilities by preparing students mentally for work. One more thing, for which service learning seems essential at college level, is that it enables students identify the roles, which they will need to play in society in future. When students engage in community activities, they become aware of their social roles and responsibilities in a very young stage of life. It is a fact that a society can sustain its existence only if its citizens, both young and adults, are aware of their roles in th e society. Service-learning programs serve this purpose very well. Opponents of service learning say that such programs are unnecessary because they are not relevant to the educational majors of the students. They say that sometimes students who have selected management as their major are selected for the service-learning programs in which they have to take care of patients is the hospitals. Similarly,

An Ethical Dilema Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

An Ethical Dilema - Essay Example The person spent hours using the company phone lines in setting up of doctor’s appointment or making phone calls to their friends who are from different side of business on company time. Even when the person was in state of using internet in office computer, he had an interest in surfing to different social networking sites on company’s valuable time. His friend was obsessed with his behavior because it resulted in low performance. The same colleague used to have longer conversations with other colleagues which were irrelevant and had nothing to do with business. The situation did not offered his friend to report this unethical behavior to his supervisor because the person was his dearest friend and he did not wanted the company to take actions against his colleague. Due to his positive nature, the colleague started to continue the behavior excessively and always made his friend involved in his conversations. This also had a negative impact on his performance as he was unable to meet deadlines with the work. Answer 2: If I put myself in the role of an employee that had to deal with his colleague’s unethical behavior, I would have reviewed code of conduct and the company’s philosophy regarding the attitude of that employee. I would consult with my other colleagues the particular situation without revealing the name of any person in the scenario. This would help me understand rules of the company regarding an unethical behavior to conduct personal business on company’s time. Then simply I would pay visit to my colleague and let him know of his unethical behavior which is ruining the culture and philosophy of the organization. I would make him understand that his particular behavior is inflicting my performance curve with greater margins. I would make him realize that the company pays its employees for the work they have performed instead of doing personal business (Rhodes, 1986). If still the matter persisted with consistency, I would approach an ombudsperson that is charged with the duty of handling informal complaints from the working staff. This would allow me to make complaints against any employee regarding their behavior without revealing my name. These complaints are made confidential and the company assures employees’ anonymity in the case. This is also considered as the whistle blowing concept in which an employee has a right to share the wrongdoing practices happening within the firm to his manager and supervisor. This act would only be possible if actions made by a colleague are recognized as an unethical behavior. I would not be taking actions if the behavior would not have resulted in decrease in my performance (Garber, 2008). Answer 3: Ethical dilemmas often do not have clear responses unless the person has broken the law or regulations that are governed by the organization. The concept of integrity is to make correct choice between right and wrong. Individuals can make good decisions in this case if they have been prepared for the particular situation or their ethical base is strong. A person who commits to integrity will find himself in a right situation before it requires action against an ethical dilemma. In the above case of ethical dilemma, an employee had to make corrections with the colleague’s behavior. He had to make up his mind that the behavior he was pursuing was unethical and is resulting in low

Discrimination Against Biracial Children Essay Example for Free

Discrimination Against Biracial Children Essay Biracial children face a myriad of concerns on a daily basis. Research reveals what common sense suggeststhat all these problems are rooted in racist, biased, and discriminatory social attitudes, attitudes which children encounter from their first moments of pre-school. The sense of injustice that they instinctively feel when they sense these biases will manifest out of discrimination towards one or both of their racial backgrounds, as well as towards the fact that they have more than one racial background. Examples of these concerns, and manifestation of racist attitudes, are concerns shared by parents of bi-racial children, who also suffer the emotional brunt of discrimination against their children. An understanding of the suffering of parents, as well as bi-racial children, can provide for us not only a comprehensive perspective on the challenges and concerns that bi-racial children and their parents experience on a daily basis, but a means of providing the proper environment thereof. Sample of Sources Used: * Black Women with Biracial Children. 2007:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blackwomenwithbiracialchild/ * Delle, Margaret. Raising Biracial Children: Still a Difficult Subject after all These Years. 2007: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/107661/raising_biracial_children_still_a_difficult.htmlIdentity Issues and Concerns of Biracial Children.2007: http://members.aol.com/lacillo/biracial.html * Jones Frank and Gibbs Staff. Parenting Biracial Children: Issues for Black/White Biracial Child- Rearing. 2007: http://www.gibbsmagazine.com/Parenting%20Biracial%20Children.htm * Nakazawa, Donna Jackson. Does Anybody Else Look Like Me?: A Parents Guide to Raising Multiracial Children. Da Capo Press; Reprint edition March 30, 2004. * Pattnaik, Jvotsna. Learning about the other: Building a Case for Intercultural Understanding among Minority Children. Childhood Education Vol 79 2003. P NA

Americans Will Never Accept a License to Drink Law :: Argumentative Persuasive Argument Essays

Americans Will Never Accept a License to Drink Law Mike Brake’s â€Å"Needed: A License to Drink† has many claims, but the thesis is anything but qualified. In my opinion, this is a story that explains the desperation of a man who had family members close to him pass away due to alcoholism. The author believes everyone must take a course and a final test to see whether they should be allowed to purchase alcoholic beverages or not, with a certain alcohol license issued when they pass the course. Even if this so-called drinking license were to become a law, the truth still remains that people will always find ways to get alcohol. Do you honestly believe such a ludicrous idea would work in today’s society? When I read this article, I was astonished to find out somebody would even think of such an outrageous idea like making people take tests to get an alcohol license. â€Å"Addiction to alcohol is one of the primary public-health problems in the United States. It causes more than 19,000 auto fatalities each year and it is responsible for more than a third of deaths from drowning and fire† (135). Any one of those people could have simply been at a wedding or casual get together in which they had alcohol. I know that does not mean they have an alcohol addiction problem and should be required to have a drinking license. Even though nobody close to me has ever died due to alcoholism, like the author’s past experiences, I simply cannot see anything this strict going into effect, especially here in America. This is still America where people come to live for our freedom. This plan would definitely fail due to people’s constitutional rights. This country’s backbone was built on people’s freedoms, and this idea of having a license to drink would definitely try to restrict far too many people that should not be restricted. What says every single person of the 19,000 had an alcohol addiction problem? In addition, even back when prohibition was taking place, people got around that obstacle by making their own alcohol behind the walls of their houses. If people were to do that today, it could become very dangerous. People could mix the wrong amount of ingredients together and come up with a deadly concoction, or neighbors could fight for their alcohol when people become desperate and try to steal each other’s alcohol.

How Lennie Is Portrayed in the First Chapter Essay

To begin with, Steinbeck describes Lennie’s physical features to be very animal-like. He states that he walked â€Å"the way a bear drags his paws†. The use of animal imagery in this quote illustrates an image of a huge man heavily dragging himself, not only suggesting his size but also suggesting his immense strength. Due to his physicality, he is unable to carry out tasks normal people would be able to do. He is unable to control himself, specifically his strength—thus easily breaking things. Steinbeck emphasizes this as he brings up incidents of Lennie having killed mice and other small, fragile animals, while petting them. Lennie is also described to have an animal’s mental state, leaning towards animal instincts rather than human instincts. Steinbeck states he’d â€Å"drink out of a gutter if [he] was thirsty†, displaying Lennie’s rash behaviour. His urge to satisfy his immediate desire would overpower the need to be cautious and aware of his surroundings. Many people think before they act. In Lennie’s case however, he doesn’t think at all as George does it for him. Lennie was â€Å"snorting into the water like a horse† which also proves his uncivilized manner. Furthermore, Lennie’s animal instincts prevent him from being able to learn. Like wild animals, he is uncontrollable and unpredictable; though he may be trained and taught not to do some things, they are bound to commit the same mistakes over and over again. Steinbeck states that George had â€Å"hopelessly† warned Lennie about the water he was drinking, proving that George’s warnings will not affect Lennie in any way as he is bound to forget—he will never learn. Not only is Lennie’s mental behaviour similar to an animal, but it is also similar to a child. Lennie is described to be â€Å"puzzled† and thathe â€Å"giggled happily† at some parts of their conversation, showing that he is unaware and immature. He constantly forgets everything very easily and doesn’t sense the seriousness in some of their conversations—showing that his maturity is like of a 6 year-old, who needs constant reminding and explaining of almost every matter discussed. Steinbeck states that after Lennie created ripples in the water with his fingers, he said â€Å"Look George, look what I done. He is easily impressed at the ripples he made and notifies George of his work to make him proud. Lennie’s child-like character also depicts a father/son relationship between Lennie and George. Earlier in the book, it is stated that â€Å"Lennie’s closed hand slowly obeyed† after George had commanded Lennie to hand over a dead mouse. The adverb â€Å"slowly† shows that though Lennie was reluctant to follow George’s orders, he had no choice but to obey him. Like an obedient son who must follow his father, Lennie fears George—the paternal figure—conveying George’s authority over Lennie. Supporting this, Lennie’s timid behaviour towards George is constantly portrayed as he is described to be speaking â€Å"slowly† and â€Å"cautiously† to George—indicating Lennie’s high level of respect for George. As a son would look up to his father, Lennie also sees George as his role model and a leader. Steinbeck portrays Lennie as submissive—giving him the role of the follower between the two main characters. Lennie is said to have â€Å"imitated George exactly† proving that he sees George as a role model. He â€Å"imitates† George, depicting his respect for him. Lennie also prioritizes him and whatever he says. This is seen when he tries to recall a memory from the past saying, â€Å"and you says†¦you says†. It is conveyed through this quote that he is dependent on George as he values George’s opinions more than his opinions. Supporting the fact that Lennie is dependent on George, George says, â€Å"think I’d let you carry your own work card? † This proves that George is much more responsible than Lennie, who constantly forgets things. Steinbeck also states in the beginning of the book that they walked in a â€Å"single file†, conveying that one is the leader and the other is the follower. Their relationship evidently highlights George’s authority over Lennie.