The Risk in Management

The definition for risk management (in the business world) is he forecasting and evaluation of financial risks together with the identification of procedures to avoid or minimize their impact. Risk management can be applied in more areas than just business.  It's actually more apart of everyday life, more than what we might think. With the decisions we make everyday we're taking a risk. There's a risk in everything we do. Randy Martin talks discusses how risk management is involved in out school institution. More specifically the Universities we go to, to get a higher education. He explains that risk drives student demands and that risk pressures student and faculty to continually be involved with productivity. As students in a University, from day one, we're began to make decisions that could lead us to either a satisfactory or an unsatisfactory place in life. To start off we move away from our families to new place, we take out loans to pay for the expenses in school, the classes and fields we study. These are all risks we take throughout our college careers. We're left with the unknowing and questions of will we be happy with the career we've chosen? Will we have a job to pay off those loans? Will we even make it through college? People aren't the only ones who experience risk. Institutions also take risks.  For example the Government take risks that could be intrusive and could potentially hurt others. They're allowed to arrest and question someone for a crime, simply because that individual looks similar to another individual has committed crimes. For example after the 9/11 attacks, the Government was allowed to arrest anyone that had features similar to that of the Middle Eastern descent. The risk there is the possible and often mistaken identity.  They also area allowed to tap into our phone conversations, hack into internet accounts, and keep a watchful eye on all of the people they're trying to protect. In doing this, they run the risk of privacy is being invaded. Citizens begin to feel less at ease. All these actions show a country in a state of paranoia. Worried more about what could happen than what is happening.  In the film Minority Report, it shows how a Government can become so paranoid that begin convicting criminals before the crime is committed. They have the technology to predict when and who will commit a crime. They stop and arrest the person before the crime can happen. The problem and risk with that is the intrusion and surveillance of their citizens. Also, what if the predictions are incorrect? The George Orwell book, 1984, is a great example of a government invading the privacy of its citizens to the extreme. In the story Big Brother is the system that can see all and hear all. Some critics would argue that the U.S. Government is heading down the road of Big Brother. 

The Making of a Teenager

             Starting around the 1950s, around the end of the second world war, there is this subculture of the teenager. The stage of life where an individual will grow from child to adult. At this time the individual will go through life with experiences that will stick and shape their mind, morals, and ideas. It's like that for every generation of teenagers. It's easy for the generation before the teenagers to think that they are all troublemakers. Even though they were once teenagers themselves. The young teenager is always viewed as someone that has no idea what real life is. That's some what true, most of them still live with their parents, their parents buy their belongings. Of course they have no idea what is to have real job and real life issues. The thing is, the teenage years is where they begin the transition into adulthood, where they have to deal with real life issues. These years are when they become confused. They are sort of handed these responsibilities and expected to automatically know how to handle them, with no practice. For example in the film "Rebel Without A Cause," the character Judy has become familiar with innocently, kissing her father when he comes home from work. Now that she is 16 years old, she's become too old to behave that way. When she tries to kiss her father, he slaps her. Judy in humiliated and runs away. When she becomes a certain age she is expected to act a certain way, according to her father, and it seems like over night she should know this behavior. In this great film, both Judy and Jim have issues with there parents. Jim has view issues with his parents. Although his parents provide for him and give him whatever he needs, they even show him affection (his dad more so), but they put aside Jim's real problems. Every time he gets into some trouble, they move and forget about it. They don't fix the issue at hand, just neglect it. Moving from school to school, Jim develops another issue that all teenagers have to deal with, and that  is fitting in with his peers. This is where the stereotypes come into play. For example in the same film, there are cliques of kids in the school: the jocks, the greasers, the nerds. These cliques make a general stereotype of the kids involved in them. The greasers are the troublemakers that don't participate in anything, the jocks are the athletic types that are feel privileged over everyone else. The list of stereotypes and cliques goes on, and have grown even more so today. In the beginning of the film "Mean Girls," all of the cliques in high school are named and from my experience it's pretty accurate. This film shows at what lengths a young girl will go through to be accepted by her peers. Rather they are mentally or physically harming a teenager will do what they can to be accepted or even acknowledged.

Youth in the 1960s

Fame in the 1960s told through two films, "A Hard Day's Night" and "The Doors." Around the time of the 1960s was the start of teenage rebellion. Teenagers and young adults began to do things that was out of the ordinary, that the people older than them couldn't understand. They rebelled in everything and it showed through their music, the way they dressed, the ideas they followed. Teenagers became their own subculture. This is the point in someones life where they go through experiences that make that child that they once were grow into a more understanding, more aware, human being.  They began to follow new revolutionary ideas. This was the time of the Vietnam War, civil rights protests and riots, the assassination of Martin Luther King, John F. and Robert Kennedy. All of these images were blasted all over the news media. This subculture of teenagers and young adults became more into making a change of the world around them. They didn't want to fight a war that their parents had started. This was a time of peace and love. The decade of the "hippie." They experimented with drugs, tried new things that were supposed to make life better for them. Of course the this generation of kids were influenced by the culture and media in the 60s. Bands and artists like The Beatles, The Doors, Jim Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and so many more had an impact on the minds of the youth. The younger generation is always seen as the troublemaker in the eyes of the generation before. Throughout the film in "A Hard Day's Night" The Beatles are viewed as the young, cool, hip musicians. It's evident in the film that they have a massive following of fans. The scene where George gets pulled into the office, there are fashion trendsetters there, telling him his what's fashionable and what's not. He has a nonchalant attitude towards them, as if he doesn't care about what's hip and trendy. Ironically making that attitude trendy. Of course, if a Beatle thinks something is cool, it's automatically cool to everyone else (the fans). It's easy to manipulate a crowd when their favorite band is behind it. In the film, the musicians are trying to live normal lives as young adults. However, their manger and other older authority figures keep a close eye on them, making sure they are the responsible ones and not getting in any trouble. The paradox is that Paul's grandfather is the one that gets into a lot of trouble and the band and everyone else has to take care of him. Towards the end where Ringo goes out and about to explore the countryside, he gets into a lot of trouble for just being himself. Which, I thought, was a way of saying that The Beatles act and behave a certain way. Any other way would be a like a crime. Now moving on to "The Doors" film, it focuses more on Jim Morrison and his controversial antics. When The Doors performed on the Ed Sullivan show for the first time they were told to use another word other than "higher," in their song "Light My Fire." When it came time to perform, Jim said it anyway. Later Morrison was arrested on multiple occasions throughout his musical career for indecency and public obscenity. He was most definitely a pioneer on the new revolutionary thought. He experimented with drugs and and other ideas. Ideas like witchcraft, it is said that he married a woman in a Wiccan ceremony, where they cut their wrists and mixed their blood. The Doors was a major, record selling band. In the late 60s, The Beatles began to change their views, views that were controversial at the time also. For example,  John Lennon's controversial song "Imagine." Both The Doors and The Beatles are bands that are still loved to this day, no matter how crazy or controversial an artist or band is, the true fans are will always love the music and band or artist. Which makes the job of the major record company (part of an elite group) manipulate the minds of the youth.