Thursday, May 22, 2008

Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship is the work of a social entrepreneur. A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial ship principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur assesses success in terms of the impact has on society. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many work in the private and governmental sectors.

The terms social entrepreneur and social entrepreneurship were first used in the literature on social change in the 1960s and 1970s. It came into widespread use in the 1980s and 1990s, promoted by Bill Drayton the founder of Ashoka, and others such as Charles Lead beater. From the 1950s to the 1990s Michael Young was a leading promoter of social enterprise and in the 1980s was described by Professor Daniel Bell at Harvard as 'the world's most successful entrepreneur of social enterprises' because of his role in creating over 60 new organizations worldwide
Youth social entrepreneurship
Youth social entrepreneurship is an increasingly common approach to engaging youth voice in solving social problems. Youth organizations and programs promote these efforts through a variety of incentives to young people. Fast Company Magazine annually publishes a list of the 25 best social entrepreneurs, which the magazine defines as organizations "using the disciplines of the corporate world to tackle daunting social problems."

The International Business Leaders Forum, an NGO that promotes responsible business practices, has shown how multinational companies can support social entrepreneurship - either through in their businesses, engaging in public policy debate or creating better internal climates within their organizations.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Post-Harvest Handling

In agriculture, post-harvest handling is the stage of crop production immediately following harvest, including cooling, cleaning, sorting and packing. The instant a crop is removed from the ground, or separated from its parent plant, it begins to deteriorate. Post-harvest treatment largely determines final quality, whether a crop is sold for fresh consumption, or used as an ingredient in a processed food product.

The most important goals of post-harvest handling are keeping the product cool, to avoid moisture loss and slow down undesirable chemical changes, and avoiding physical damage such as bruising, to delay spoilage. Sanitation is also an important factor, to reduce the possibility of pathogens that could be carried by fresh produce, for example, as residue from contaminated washing water.

After the field, post-harvest processing is usually continued in a packinghouse. This can be a simple shed, providing shade and running water, or a large-scale, sophisticated, mechanized facility, with conveyor belts, automated sorting and packing stations, walk-in coolers and the like. In mechanized harvesting, processing may also begin as part of the actual harvest process, with initial cleaning and sorting performed by the harvesting machinery.

Initial post-harvest storage conditions are critical to maintaining quality. Each crop has an optimum range for storage temperature and humidity. Also, certain crops cannot be effectively stored together, as unwanted chemical interactions can result. Various methods of high-speed cooling, and sophisticated refrigerated and atmosphere-controlled environments, are employed to prolong freshness, particularly in large-scale operations.

Regardless of the scale of harvest, from home garden to industrialized farm, the basic principles of post-harvest handling for most crops are the same:

  • Handle with care to avoid damage (cutting, crushing, bruising)
  • Cool immediately and maintain in cool conditions
  • Cull (remove damaged items)

Getting Backlinks Through Social Media Sites

Internet marketing is always evolving and the Internet marketing India is growing with that of the new terminologies in website promotion. There was a time when Internet marketers relied almost 100% on search engine traffic. Time have changed and now there are a lot more traffic sources available. Social media sites have become an exceptional alternative for Increase search engine ranking for the website

Social Networking sites can each provide a site with the opportunity to grab thousands of visitors per day as long as they provide the right content. Users can develop social networks by using these sites, and that can help them to have a lot more success with their articles. Their network friends can easily help them by voting for their content.

The conversion rate of social traffic to sales and ad clicks. Search traffic has a very opposite effect. Social traffic is looking to be entertained. They will jump quickly from one site to the next searching for entertainment. The key is that they aren't looking for anything in particular. Search traffic is generally looking for answers and they will take extra time to look for it. They will stay on a website longer and are much more likely to make purchases. Social traffic generates over 10 times as many links as search traffic due to the increased technical ability of this type of web user. Users of social traffic sites are a lot more likely to have sites and blogs of their own and this contributes to the increased links that are gained from social traffic.

If you have a site, make sure you leverage social media to get links. Getting links will lead to more traffic from search engines, and search engine traffic is going to be where you make your money.