Detailed Analysis Of Silent Hill Two Media Essay

Detailed Analysis Of Silent Hill Two Media Essay Silent Hill 2 is a 2001 survival horror/puzzle game released for the playstation 2 by Konami. It is the sequel to the first Silent Hill game released in 1999 for the original playstation. Silent Hill 2 is seen by many as landmark game, which capitalised on elements of game design previously ignored or seen as of secondary importance. It is difficult to categorise the appeal of Silent Hill 2, as at first glance its gameplay could appear primitive or certainly repetitive, while its subject matter and storyline are nothing new to the horror genre. To put it in more prosaic terms Silent Hill 2 is very much more than the sum of its parts, and this makes it a particularly interesting candidate for in depth analysis. For the greatest part of this essay I will refer to the game via the shorthand reference: SH2. Gameplay in SH2 revolves around a mixture of puzzle solving and simple combat. As the main protagonist progresses through the town of Silent Hill, he must fight various monsters using a variety of weapons. These range from a simple plank to a hunting rifle. In keeping with the survival horror nature of the game, ammunition is quite scarce as are the supplies necessary for healing, and individual enemies can take significant time and effort to kill. The player will find him/herself conserving ammunition for the stronger enemies and bosses, and thus any encounter with a monster brings with it a sense of trepidation and anxiety. Even the least powerful of the monsters becomes formidable if the players health and ammo is low, and he/she is forced to use the wooden plank. This is compounded by the fact that the enemies in SH2 are extremely resistant to damage and take a considerable time to kill outright (though they may be knocked to the ground for a temporary immobilisation). All of the se elements combine to nurture a sense of extreme reluctance to progress through the towns environs, and help create a fear of the unknown path ahead. Unfortunately the game fails to find the right balance between challenge and enjoyability with its combat. Defeating the monsters in Silent Hill is far more tedious than it is gripping. There is far too little variety in the methods of attack and too much time is required to kill each one that soon combat becomes a slow and repetitive affair of repeatedly swinging the iron bar at low powered enemies in order to conserve ammo. Furthermore once an enemy locks into combat with the player, it no longer becomes necessary to reposition the main character, resulting in gameplay requiring no more input than holding down the attack button. There is no heads up display in SH2, and the player must access the start menu to see how much ammo or health remains. When the player has taken excessive damage the playstation controller will subtly vibrate alerting him/her to the condition they are in. This merely adds to the frustrating nature of the combat in SH2, as no clear indication of how much damage can be taken against an enemy is ever given. This results in the player frequently dying while fighting the numerous minor enemies, even with plenty of health packs in reserve. Attacks given and received in combat are accompanied by a vibration of the controller which masks the warning vibrations when close to death and further jeopardises health management. This is a grave shortcoming which detracts from the rather well designed puzzle element of SH2. Puzzles range from fairly untaxing instances of collecting and combining items to extremely cryptic riddles requiring a good deal of thought to solve. The riddles show imagination in their intricacy and leave the player with a sense of achievement for having solved them. Unfortunately instances of these riddles are far less frequent than the occurrence of monsters in silent hill. SH2 is the story of James Sunderland, a man looking for his deceased wife after receiving a letter from her which says that she is waiting for him in the town of Silent Hill, a place where they used to holiday when she was alive. James wife was named Mary, and he begins the game with a photograph of her along with the letter signed by her in his inventory. The game begins with James having driven to Silent Hill only to find the entrance road blocked. He stops at a highway toilet , examines his own reflection in the bathroom mirror, reads the letter from his wife again and decides to enter the town on foot. James commences walking through the woods. The games atmosphere is established early on by thick fog and strange disconcerting noises as he makes his way. James eventually comes upon a graveyard and we are introduced to the games first non-playable character: Angela. As James finds her she is sitting among the tombstones. The conversation between the two seems disjointed. This sets the tone for the dialogue in the game. Much of what Angela says makes little sense, James asks her questions but she seems incapable of giving him a straight answer, as though her thoughts are not fully in the present. We gather enough from what she says to learn that she is looking for her mama in Silent Hill. At a later point in the game we learn that Angela had an abusive childhood and that this has left her with a desire to end her own life. Her father was killed (it seems likely by Angela), and the family home burned down. James proceeds to enter the town proper. Everything is covered in a thick fog. The town looks for the most part normal except that it is utterly deserted and the cars, signage, and architecture have an outdated feel. We soon meet our first enemy- a non descript grotesque humanoid shape which James dispatches with the aid of a wooden plank. Soon James finds himself in an apartment building. The building is in an appalling state of repair, displaying many signs of decay with walls stained horribly with rust, mildew and blood. Here we meet our second character, Eddie. The room we find Eddie in does not display such advanced decay. Eddie is in the process of vomiting into the toilet when we meet him, and the body of a human can be seen in the kitchen unit. This is not overly remarkable in light of the monsters roaming the apartment, but Eddie is instantly defensive in his conversation with James, and his frequent uncalled for denials that he murdered the man in the kitchen lead us to suspect that he in fact did. It is noteworthy that Eddie never mentions the monsters, which would conveniently explain the body. Eddie appears to be a man of limited intelligence- coarse, with a cruel side to his nature. When James finds his way out of the apartment he discovers a little girl named Laura wandering the streets by herself. Laura tells James that she shared a ward with Mary in the hospital during Marys illness. This strikes James as highly suspect, Mary was supposed to have died three years ago, when Laura would have been very young indeed. He tries to question Laura on the matter but just like the previous conversations with Angela and Eddie, it bears little fruit. James continues on towards Rosewater Park, one of the places which would fit Marys description of a special place from her letter. Instead of Mary James meets a woman who calls herself Maria. James is astounded at Marias appearance, as she looks almost identical to his dead wife Mary. Their personalities are less similar however; Mary is extraverted and bawdy whereas Mary was reserved and ladylike. Maria is dressed in a suggestively low cut outfit with a mini skirt and an incident later on in Heavens Night strip club infers that she works as a stripper. Maria says she doesnt know Mary and takes James confusing of the two women badly. It is significant that James should meet Maria in the place he expected Mary, not to mention the similarities in appearance. Maria resolves to join James in his search for Mary. After an episode in the hospital Maria is violently killed on front of James by a sinister pyramid headed monster which is seemingly impervious to attack. Later on he finds her i nexplicably alive and well before she is again killed on front of him. This pattern repeats itself three times in the game, as James is forced to witness his dead wifes doppelganger murdered in front of him. James receives no explanation for this, or the manner in which Maria seems to share memories of Mary with James; and though she becomes angry when James confuses the two women, it seems that even she confuses herself with Mary. James surmises that Marys special place must be the hotel by the lake and makes his way there. He encounters Laura and Eddie at various times but their conversations reveal little apart from the extent of their mutual confusion. In a prison on the way to the Hotel James meets Eddie in a room full of recently murdered human corpses. This is strange as Silent Hill appears to have been deserted for some time. Eddie has lost his mind, and starts talking about having to kill people for making fun of him. Eddie becomes convinced James is just like all the rest and tries to kill James but fails, losing his own life in the process. James finally reaches the Hotel. A look in the games inventory screen reveals that Marys note has gone blank. This raises the question of whether or not it ever existed. James reaches the room where he and Mary stayed. The room is in perfect condition and is empty apart from a vcr and a television. James inserts a video he found elsewhere in the Hotel and watches in horror at footage of himself putting a pillow over Marys face in her hospital bed. It finally becomes clear- James killed Mary. He sits with his head bowed for some time until Laura enters. We wonder how she made it into the hotel past all of the monsters and traps. James tells Laura he killed Mary. At this point the player realises the origin of James confusion. Mary was dying and James killed her and subsequently blocked out the memory. Now the chronology of the game makes more sense; Mary didnt die but merely got sick three years ago and James killed her much more recently. This explains how Laura had met her not long ago. It transpires that Marys illness badly affected her appearance and demeanour, causing her to lash out at James. This goes some way to explaining why James did what he did. Just before the final boss James again meets Angela. She is consumed by despair and James can do nothing to dissuade her from suicide. James is forced to witness the death of Maria at the hands of pyramid head one last time before proceeding to the roof of the Hotel where an evil incarnation of either Mary or Maria (depending on the players actions during the game) awaits. There are four endings to SH2: 1: In the Leave ending, the woman on the roof is Maria yet again, disguised as Mary in an attempt to trick James. James refuses her and Maria transforms into a monster. After James defeats this Boss Maria, he finds himself by Marys bedside once again. He explains to Mary that he killed her to end her suffering but also selfishly to end his own difficulty in having to care for her. He reads Marys letter in full and then leaves the town with Laura. 2: The in water ending is the same as above except instead of leaving with Laura we hear the sounds of James car driving into a lake. We surmise that he could not live without Mary and chose to drown himself. Marys letter scrolls across a screen with a watery background. 3: In the Maria ending James is reunited with Maria after the fight and the pair leave town together. As he helps her into his car she begins coughing. It seems likely that Maria will fall ill just like Mary did. It could be construed as a punishment for James, or perhaps even a chance of salvation if he sees Marias illness to the end, the way he never did for Mary. 4: The rebirth ending, which can only be unlocked during a replay sees James killing boss Maria, and then taking Marys body out to an island in Toluca Lake via boat. It appears as though he intends to resurrect Mary using various talismans he found in game at the church on the island. SH2, with its multiple endings and abundant ambiguity has no single reading or interpretation. Just as James discovers his own true past after watching the video the player must assemble his/her own definitive narrative based on the events they have witnessed. Many of the events negate each other, or have causes and consequences which are mutually exclusive. These include Marys note which disappears partway through the game, or Marias frequent resurrections. It becomes apparent after some reflection that if SH2 provides an account of these inconsistencies it is not made explicit and its left up to the player to make sense of events. The one theme each one of the endings have in common is that someone along the line in the story, be it Maria or Mary, turns out to be a figment of James imagination. Given that each ending allows for this possibility it seems likely that much of what James has experienced in Silent Hill was a product of his own mind. This reasoning is the only way to bui ld a logical picture of the events of SH2. The best way to examine this theory is to look closer at James encounters with the other characters in the game. The characters in SH2 converse with each other in a disjointed way, as though each inhabits a separate reality which only they have access to. It appears as though the town presents a subjective reality to each person who visits it. It also makes sense to think that each characters reality can only be observed when they meet face to face. The evidence for this is quite strong when one examines how the characters interact. Eddie never once mentions the monsters that threaten James, for him Silent Hill is a place full of people who make fun of him. James never sees any of these people except lying dead in and around Eddie. The town is less dilapidated when we meet Eddie, such as in the apartment room, where sports posters adorn the wall. It is uncertain why Silent Hill drew Eddie to it but his experience there is a failure, he loses his mind and commences slaughtering everyone. His experience of Silent Hill ends when he meets a real person- James, who kills him. Angela provides an even more dramatic example. When James rescues her she is being threatened by a monster that she refers to as daddy. This scene provides a good insight into how the town manifests itself to different people. The room is full of the decor of a domestic living room, even though it occurs in an underground labyrinth. Angela apparently sees Silent Hill through the eyes of her childhood. She saw her father while all James saw was a monster. The last time James meets Angela it is in the burning hallway. This seems to be a representation of how her childhood home burned down. James remarks that its hot as hell in here, while Angela replies You see it too? For me its always like this. The fire only exists when Angela is near; when James leaves the room, the Hotel is back to its damp rotting self. The town seems perfectly normal in the presence of Laura, and this explains how an eight year old girl could run from place to place without being harassed by monsters. In the bowling alley we find Laura and Eddie together eating a pizza. This too is revealing. The silent Hill James experiences is far too old and unsanitary a place to find food in, whereas for Laura and Eddie it appears just ordinary enough to find a pizza. Now we have some idea of how the town works for different people we can make more sense of James experiences. Firstly the chances of Maria being a real person seam dubious. Unlike the other characters in the game Maria is the only one who shares James experiences and can witness the things he can. This is evidence against her existence outside of James imagination, as none of the other characters seem to have any idea what James means when he talks of monsters. Furthermore none of the other characters ever see Maria, and when she and James arrive at the bowling alley she stays outside, away from Laura and Eddie so as not to reveal her illusory nature by appearing on front of people who cannot see her. There is also the more obvious discrepancy of her many deaths and resurrections; the other characters seem much more conventional in this regard. Finally there are the comparisons between Maria and Mary. She has the same body, and appears in the same spot James expects to see Mary- all suggestive of an imaginary Maria hypotheses; a construct of James mind composed of elements of his dead wife. Pyramid head, like all the monsters in SH2, is a further construct of James imagination. He plays a role in that he forces James to face his own guilt by killing the image of his wife before his eyes again and again. James admits this to himself before the final fight with the twin pyramid heads: thats why I needed you, needed someone to punish me for my sins. Interestingly James never actually harms pyramid head during combat. All the encounters with him are survived by endurance rather than by beating him. In the end it is pyramid head that kills himself. So the definitive narrative of SH2 is thus: James, forced to care for what was left of his sick wife, decided to kill her rather than have either of them suffer any longer. Once he had killed her however, he was filled with feelings of guilt and began living in denial, telling himself and others that she had died three years ago. In fact however; he hated himself, and needed to face the truth of what he had done, and so he was drawn to the town of Silent Hill where the forces of the town led him on a journey to face himself. Aesthetically SH2 has a very unified and clear vision of itself. As an audio visual experience the different elements tie together very well and form quite a cohesive feeling game of seamless stylistic integrity. Particular attention was given to the design of the monsters which reflect the nature of James inner turmoil. Apart from pyramid head every monster in SH2 is feminine in nature. Even the indistinguishable humanoid shapes that spit acid have high pitched female voices and long legs. Some of the monster designs have sexual overtones such as the mannequins or the nurses. It seems plausible to read this as a manifestation of James relationship towards womankind since he murdered his wife. It could even be said that the form of the monsters are derived from the nature of Marys disfiguring illness. The sense of atmosphere in SH2 is superbly well crafted. To this end the designers have employed prolific use of heavy fog and darkness to create a fear of progressing forward into the unknown. This is coupled with the use of a noise grain filter that lends an organic feel to the textures and ties in with the static motif reflected in the radio. The noise filter plays tricks on the eye, making walls appear to crawl and adding to the sense of chaos and unease. Every area exhibits a very high level of detail, with various bits of rubbish, graffiti, and detritus creating a thoroughly believable, lived in, (though abandoned) town. The minimal soundtrack is no less appropriate, with Akira Yamaoka opting more for industrial or ambient soundscapes than a conventional soundtrack (although a conventional song was also composed for the game). The imagination displayed in the composition of the soundtrack is impressive. Yamaoka employed very few conventional instruments, instead creating deeply unsettling otherworldly cacophonies of banging iron, bee-hives, saws, miscellaneous improvised percussion, sirens, wild animals, and heavy machinery. It is unfortunate therefore considering the quality of SH2 as an aesthetic experience, to find it marred by the camera. SH2 uses a third person viewpoint at all times with only a miniscule degree of control afforded to the player. The game has a very cinematic attitude to camera placement and as a result the camera is tyrannical in its inflexibility. Examination of the detail in the graphics is forbidden at all times by the camera, which will change position at the drop of a hat to the other side of a room. Though the camera positions are clearly deliberately chosen to lend the game an avant-garde and cinematic veneer they succeed only in hampering movement, increasing combat difficulty and generally detracting from SH2s enjoyment on every level. In conclusion the strength of Silent Hill 2 lies in its ability to tell a compelling and intriguing story while successfully evoking a palpably uneasy atmosphere. SH2 represents an advance in the video game as form, as it redefines the areas in which a game succeeds at entertaining. By all traditional standards the gameplay is uninspired, even tedious at times, yet SH2 remains a deeply affecting and compelling experience. The attention to detail in the feel of the game, along with the subtle, mature, and ambiguous storyline create a game of tremendous artistic unity, which represents a true formal leap in video games. .

Compare and Contrst †Paradise Lost and Balled of Reading Gaol Essay

How do both the poems and the poets relate to the theme ‘Fallen Hero?’ John Milton and Oscar Wilde were two literary figures who crafted many different types of work. Milton was a pamphleteer in mid seventeenth century, who wrote and discussed important matter such as; in defence of liberty, in support of regicides, against episcopacy, divorce, apologist for the Common Wealth. Perhaps the most famous of his pamphlets, was ‘Areopagitica’, this dealt with censorship. Wilde was a playwright in the late nineteenth century. Milton was highly placed in the political world. He was sentenced to prison, for being a republican when monarchy returned to Britain. He was however bailed out by a friend, and after facing his sentence in gaol he wrote Paradise Lost referring to a ‘Fallen Hero’ which is possibly the best piece of English literature ever written. Paradise Lost, his most famous poem that was first published in 1867 in ten books. Wilde was one of the most popular celebrities of his time. He was sentenced to two years imprisonment and hard labour in Reading Gaol. He was sent to gaol after he was accused by the Marquis of Queensbury of homosexual offences. He then regrettably took his libel case to court, and lost his case. The case attracted much publicity in 1895 which destroyed Wilde’s reputation. Unlike Milton, he was a wrecked person after his sentence, and felt he had to move to France; and it was there he wrote ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’. In the following essay, I shall be comparing and contrasting this poem with two excerpts from his Milton’s poem. Both poets have written about a form of captivity that can be described as hell or hell on earth. In Wilde’s case he describes gaol as being a hell on earth, in Milton’s case however, he describes the protagonist, as being in the actual hell. Milton’s principal character, Lucifer, was the archangel of Heaven and serving for God. However Lucifer; wanted more power, he believed he was equal to God. He instigated a rebellion, and fought God, and was defeated in the battle. As a result: â€Å"Him the almighty Power Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky† (line 45) Lucifer with his fellow rebels, were thrown out of Heaven into the Chaos of Hell. â€Å"Nine times the space that measures day and night† (line 50) This Hell was the deepest, darkest, most dreadful part of the Universe. Satan is thrown into the Hell that Milton describes: â€Å"Fiery gulf† (line 52)†¦ â€Å"One great furnace flame† (line 62)†¦ â€Å"Regions of sorrow† They were left to perish in agony. Lucifer was from then on known as Satan. He was the ‘Fallen Hero’ in Milton’s epic poem. Wilde however described the tortures of gaol, illustrating how hellish they were. In his poem he writes about a soldier, Trooper Charles Thomas Wooldridge being charged with murder by slitting his wife’s throat with a razor. This is an example of a fallen hero. However; I believe Wilde can also be seen as a ‘Fallen Hero’. He portrayed his own situation through the imagery of the soldier as a metaphor for his condition in his poem. He fell from the height of his popularity, in 1895 to degradation and never recovered. He was so ashamed of his humiliation that although Wilde never hid his authorship of the poem, it was published under the name ‘C.3.3.’, which stood for building C, floor 3, cell 3, at Reading. Wilde speaking of his hell on earth says: â€Å"The wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long.† (Verse 1) The differences between Wilde’s hell and Milton’s hell are that Milton’s hell is open for Satan to run free. â€Å"Here at least We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure† (line 258) Satan feels now he is out of God’s hand, he is free and has more power than ever. God will not be able to touch Satan and Beelzebub were they are, and Satan will â€Å"reign secure† (line 261) In Wilde’s poem, he describes his hell as a confined, claustrophobic area, where nobody has freedom. They are: â€Å"Each in his separate Hell,† (verse 10) Each prisoner is deprived of, senses, confrontation, food and water. Society which has locked them up, acts as God. Society is the law, and law is not always right: â€Å"I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong;† (verse 1) The word Law in this poem, has a capitol L this is to personify the word, and raises the word law from guidance, into a high power. The quote is saying Law, which is society, perhaps is judging mistakenly. The next quote highlights this fact: â€Å"But straws the wheat and saves the chaff† (verse 2) This quote is a play on the saying ‘Separate the wheat and chaff’. The saying means to distinguish the good from the bad, the precious from the worthless. This saying literally occurred regularly in the ancient agricultural practice of winnowing. This is said in the Bible: ‘Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’ (Matthew 3:12) In Wilde’s poem, he says that more bad people are not imprisoned, than good people are imprisoned. The Satan in Milton’s poem intended to be the ‘Fallen Hero’? I believe he is the anti-God or anti-hero. If this is the case, I believe Satan is not a hero, but is a character that consists of many heroic qualities; â€Å"A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.† This shows Satan’s determination and resilience. He will not change his mind. The reader respects Satan’s energy, resilience, bravery, not concerned of what evil archfiend has these traits. Satan is able to see what power he still has, he now has a land of his own, which he will make a Heaven, and he will believe God’s Heaven to be a Hell. Nobody appreciates Satan’s heroic qualities as much as Milton. Satan’s passionate and ambitious character is more intriguing than God’s reasonable and mild personality. Milton has sculpted the character of Satan to be a desirable character in the beginning to represent the temptation man faces when dealing with the devil. As in The Fall of Adam and Eve, Eve resists into the temptation of the Devil, and brings sin into the world. This is the beginning of the Devil’s war against God and this is what Milton’s Epic is about to answer the earlier question, although William Blake said memorably in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell in 1790: â€Å"Milton†¦was a true poet, and of the Devil’s party without Knowing it† Milton was a strong puritan and would never allow an evil character to become the true hero. There is a big difference between both focal characters in the two poems. As I mentioned before, we admire Satan’s heroism in spite of what mars him. The word marred is also used in Wilde’s poem: â€Å"And by all forgot, we rot and rot, With soul and body marred† In Milton’s case Satan’s actions are marred, and his persona is as gallant as ever. However in Wilde’s poem he describes the prisoner’s soul, body and persona marred. The soldier and Wilde are completely decrepit, and destroyed. Satan does not give up; he keeps on going determined to defeat God. â€Å"What though the field be lost? All is not lost; the unconquerable will, An the study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit of yield:† (line 105) Even once Satan has lost the battle, he feels, he is finally free from God’s slavery. This a big difference between Satan and Wilde, Wilde gave up. Satan has the ability to look at the bright side of the situation: â€Å"This downfall; since by fate the strength of gods† (line 116) â€Å"This the seat That we must change for heaven, this mournful gloom For that celestial light?† (Line 244) â€Å"With rallied arms to try what may yet Regained in heaven, or what more lost in hell?† (line 269) Satan in this situation believes that losing this battle was an act of a fate. Being defeated, in the long run, was a good thing. The battle was worth the risk of ruling heaven, even if it resulted in a loss and being thrown into hell. â€Å"Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.† Fate has led Satan to have a land of his own to rule. It is best to have power in a land of vice, than to be under slavery in a land of good. â€Å"In arms not worse, in foresight mush advance. We may with more successful hope resolve To wage by force or guile eternal war Irreconcilable to our grand Foe,† Satan and his henchman, Beelzebub, feel after they were defeated they feel they can fight back by learning from their mistakes. They will approach the war not by strength, but by intelligence. They learned God’s foremost weapon was thunder. â€Å"Who thunder hath made greater?† (Line 258) Although Satan lost his battle against God he can still win the war. The primary difference between the two poems is the determination of the two Fallen Heroes Satan has resilience to fight back and defeat the omnipotent; however Wilde allowed society, which was his omnipotent to crush him. Milton managed to write this poem as a result of his return into society he fought back, and was able to write about the positives of his fall. Wilde however, took a vast piece out of him, and was only able to write about the negatives of his experience. I believe, if Milton had been trampled to the same extent of Wilde, he would not have been able to write the best piece of literature ever. Similarly, if Wilde was not hit at such an degree, he would have been able to write about the encouraging points of his life. Milton and Wilde differ in such a way; it is difficult to contrast the two poets. However being able to see the difference in manner of literature, after different levels of crushing by society, enables you to see the true Fallen Heroes; Milton and Wilde.

Macy Brand Essay

1. Macy’s is one of very few brands in the retail business that can credibly be called an icon, and the flagship store in New York and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade are considered a commercial and cultural legacies. Since some years ago Macy’s Inc. has undertaken an extensive effort to transform Macy’s from a regional to a national brand, redefining itself. Macy’s national branding strategy is offering a more localized, personalized retail customer experience. My Macy’s is a sweeping initiative designed to embed a customer-centric orientation into every aspect of the company’s operations, and it reflects the way Macy’s wants its customers to view their personalized relationship with the company every time they interact with the brand. Macy’s believes that the aim is consistency and the key is data. To implement the kind of customer-centricity envisioned a customer data strategy was a prerequisite. So was needed to consolidate the various data repositories that had accumulated from predecessor companies, and for realizing the foundational importance of this work on a long-term macys.com need to turn to IBM to provide guidance and tools. To finish the virtually transformation macys.com worked to put in place the architectural elements needed for a 360 degree view of its customers to support a strategy of multichannel integration. 2. Considering this IT implementation Macy’s is able to know customer’s preferences and create dynamically customizes recommendations or personalized promotions and these information established a deeper level of engagement between the customers and the brand, the customer loyalty, wallet share and the sales will increase. This implementation improved the decision making and optimized the distribution center. All these benefits had make Macys’ a much more customer-centric company. 3. A data strategy was a pre-requisite towards Macy’s multichannel model to Macys’ be able to become more customer-centric. This mean, it was needed to capture customer data to enable Macys’ to interact on a more personal level with its customers. So all the previous customer’s data and a 360-degree view of the customer will personalize and enrich the customer experience in the company. To get all the information from previous data and from the 360-degree view of the customer, Macys’ turned to IBM and they provide IBMÂ  InfoSphere Information Server platform and IBM InfoSphere DataStage to integrate the multiple sources of customer data, they also provide IBM InfoSphere QualityStage to ensure that all data can be trusted and finally they provide IBM InfoSphere Warehouse Enterprise Edition to macys.com be capable to get data warehouse framework for real-time analytics. 4. To understand if this information system is strategic for the company I will do a 5 Forces of Porter analysis. According with the benefits of the IT implementation Macys’ customers will become more loyal at the brand what will minimize the bargaining power of the buyers. Working with IBM made Macys’ able to understand the evolving business needs to take the right decisions on technology and architecture, what make Macys’ more flexible to changes, and that will decrease the threat of substitutes, the bargaining power of suppliers and the threat of new entrance. With all the powerless 4 forces will influence rivalry decreasing it. To conclude, all the 5 forces have no influence on Macys’ strategy what means that this information system is strategic for the company. 5. Â  To transform Macys’ from regional to a national brand and become a more customer-centric company was need to transform in scope, the physical, logistical and organizational dimensions. According with The Venkatraman model Macys’ has achieve revolutionary levels being at the Business Scope Redefinition Degree Transformation.

Biography of Barbara Bush First Lady of the U.S.

Barbara Bush (June 8, 1925–April 17, 2018), like  Abigail Adams, served as the wife of a vice president and a first lady, and was later the mother of a president.  She was also known for her work for literacy. She served as first lady from  1989–1993. Fast Facts: Barbara Bush Known For: Wife and mother of two presidentsBorn: June 8, 1925 in Manhattan, New York CityParents: Marvin and Pauline Robinson PierceDied: April 17, 2018 in Houston, TexasEducation: Smith College (dropped out during her sophomore year)Published Works: C. Freds Story, Millies Book: As Dictated to Barbara Bush, Barbara Bush: A Memoir, and Reflections: Life After the White HouseSpouse: George H. W. Bush (m. January 6, 1945 until her death)Children: George Walker (b. 1946), Pauline Robinson (Robin) (1949–1953), John Ellis (Jeb) (b. 1953), Neil Mallon (b. 1955), Marvin Pierce (b. 1956), Dorothy Walker LeBlond Koch (b. 1959) Early Life Barbara Bush was born Barbara Pierce on June 8, 1925, in New York City and grew up in Rye, New York. Her father Marvin Pierce became chairman of McCall publishing company, which published such magazines as McCalls and Redbook. He was a distant relative of former President Franklin Pierce. Her mother Pauline Robinson Pierce was killed in a car accident when Barbara was 24 after the car, driven by Marvin Pierce, hit a wall. Barbara Bushs younger brother Scott Pierce was a financial executive. She attended a suburban day school, Rye Country Day, and then Ashley Hall, a Charleston, South Carolina, boarding school.  She enjoyed athletics and reading, but not so much her academic subjects. Marriage and Family Barbara Bush met George H. W. Bush at a dance when she was 16 and he was a student at Phillips Academy in Massachusetts. They were engaged a year and a half later, just before he left for Naval pilot training.  He served in World War II as a bomber pilot. Barbara, after working retail jobs, enrolled at Smith College and was captain of the soccer team.  She dropped out in the middle of her sophomore year when George returned on leave in late 1945. They were married two weeks later and lived on a number of naval bases in their early marriage. After leaving the military, George H. W. Bush studied at Yale. The couples first child, a future president, was born during that time.  They had six children together, including daughter Pauline Robinson, who died of leukemia at age 4 in 1953, and two sons who went on to have political careers of their own — George Walker Bush (born 1946), who was the 43rd U.S. president, and John Ellis (Jeb) Bush (b. 1953), who was governor of Florida from 1999–2007. They have three other children: businessmen Neil Mallon (born 1955) and Marvin Pierce (born 1956), and philanthropist Dorothy Walker LeBlond Koch (born 1959). They moved to  Texas and George went into the oil business, and then into government and politics. Barbara busied herself with volunteer work. The family lived in 17 different cities and 29 homes over the years. During her life, Barbara Bush was candid about the effort she had to put in to help her son Neil with his dyslexia. Politics Entering politics first as a county Republican Party chairman, George lost his first election running for the United States Senate.  He became a member of Congress, then was appointed by President Nixon as ambassador to the United Nations, and the family moved to New York.  He was appointed by President Gerald Ford as chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in the Peoples Republic of China, and the family lived in China.  Then he served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the family lived in Washington, D.C.  During that time, Barbara Bush struggled with depression. She dealt with it by making speeches about her time in China and doing volunteer work. George H.W. Bush ran in 1980 as a candidate for the Republican nomination for president. Barbara made clear her views as pro-choice, which didnt align with President Ronald Reagans policies, and her support of the Equal Rights Amendment, a position increasingly at odds with the Republican establishment.  When Bush lost the nomination to Reagan, the latter asked Bush to join the ticket as vice president. They served two terms together. Charitable Work When her husband was vice president under President Ronald Reagan, Barbara Bush focused her efforts on promoting the cause of literacy while continuing her interests and visibility in her role as first lady. She served on the board of Reading Is Fundamental and established the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. In 1984 and 1990, she wrote books attributed to family dogs, including C. Freds Story and Millies Book. The proceeds were given to her literacy foundation. Bush also raised money for many other causes and charities, including the United Negro College Fund and Sloan-Kettering Hospital, and served as honorary chairman of the Leukemia Society. Death and Legacy In her last years, Barbara Bush lived in Houston, Texas, and Kennebunkport, Maine. Bush suffered from Graves disease and was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Hospitalized and near the end of her life, she refused further curative treatment for her congestive heart failure and COPD, and died shortly afterward, on  April 17, 2018. Her husband outlived her by only about six months. Outspoken and sometimes criticized for her bluntness—she called then-candidate Donald Trump a misogynist and hate monger—Bush was very popular with the public, especially compared to her predecessor Nancy Reagan. She also made some remarks considered insensitive about the victims of Hurricane Katrina and her husbands invasion of Iraq. But since 1989, her Foundation for Family Literacy has partnered with local organizations and raised more than $110 million to create and expand literacy programs across the country.   Published Works C. Freds Story, 1987Millies Book: As Dictated to Barbara Bush,1990Barbara Bush: A Memoir, 1994Reflections: Life After the White House, 2004 Sources Bush, Barbara. Barbara Bush, a Memoir. New York: Simon Schuster, 1994. Print.---. Reflections: Life After the White House. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.Johnson, Natalie. Barbara Bush had a passion for literacy: Heres how to honor her legacy. CNN, April 17, 2018.  Web.Killian, Pamela. Barbara Bush: Matriarch of a Dynasty. New York: St. Martins Press, 2002. Print.Nemy, Enid. Barbara Bush, Wife of 41st President and Mother of 43rd, Dies at 92. The New York Times, April 17, 2018.  Web.