Nursing and Evidence Based Practice Essay - 861 Words

Evidence based practice (EBP) is the utilisation of best available, contemporary research in the management of individual patient care (Sackett et al. 2000). Combined with the personal experience of the healthcare professional, EBP facilitates problem-solving that takes patient preferences and values into account (Melnyk and Fineout-Overholt 2005). The approach respects the patient as an individual and as a partner in the planning and receiving of care. EBP aims to reduce the use of ineffective healthcare interventions and encourage clinical decision-making that is based on modern credible evidence (Stevens 2013). Concisely, it aspires to achieve best outcomes for patients hence increasing the standard of care nurses provide to their†¦show more content†¦Adolescence is a transitional stage of development where teenagers enter as dependent children and ideally leave as independent, functional adults. During this time puberty, social groups and family impact the teenagersâ⠂¬â„¢ physical and psychosocial attributes. Apparent differences such as diabetes during this stage can direct unwanted attention onto adolescents oftentimes increasing their stress and anxiety during puberty. These negative feelings can affect the teenager’s management of their diabetes. It is important to acknowledge that the healthcare and psychological needs of teenagers with type 1 diabetes are substantially different from children and adults (Court et al. 2009). Moreover some teenagers may choose to act out during adolescence and the individual and their families may require additional support. Type 1 diabetes is the third most common chronic health condition in childhood (Spencer, Cooper and Milton 2010). Worldwide incidence is increasing yearly (Mullier 2012). Type 1 diabetes is a life-long autoimmune disorder. It occurs when the body’s immune system destroys pancreatic beta cells resulting in the stoppage of insulin production, which is necessary to regulate blood glucose levels (Mullier 2012). Individuals with Type 1 diabetes need to inject insulin or acquire it through a pump to live. Many health-related complications can arise as a result of poor management of diabetes. These include retinopathy,Show MoreRelatedEvidence Based Practice in Nursing1565 Words   |  7 PagesTitle: Evidence Based Practice in Nursing Name Course Tutor April 20th, 2013 Introduction The paper herein provides a critical discussion of evidence based practice (EBP) in nursing. It clearly elaborates on the meaning and definition of EBP as used by nurses as well as the importance of evidence based decision making as it relates to nursing care. It broadly examines the concept of EBP in nursing care and its relevance to nursing practice and to the delivery of quality patient careRead MoreEvidence-Based Practice in Nursing1012 Words   |  4 PagesNursing Evidence-Based Practice Findings of evidenced based practice have to be disseminated to ensure that innovations for practice are replicated or applied in other settings by stakeholders in the health fraternity and healthcare professionals (Forsyth, Wright, Scherb Gaspar, 2010). One of the objectives of dissemination should be to improve the practice. Dissemination of evidenced based practice findings in nursing is very critical in knowledge synthesis, translation, and translation. It isRead MoreEvidence-Based Nursing Practice952 Words   |  4 PagesRunning head: EVIDENCE-BASED NURSING PRACTICE Evidence-Based Nursing Practice Karen Medley Walden University NURS 4000 Section 05, Research and Scholarship for Evidence-Based Practice) July 22, 2012 Abstract For patients that have indwelling catheters, with the evidence-based practice and standards of care, UTI’s does still continue to be an ongoing problem today. In one of the large hospitals in my area had recently developed a poster and video approach with special focus on alternativesRead MoreEvidence Based Practice For Nursing Practice2100 Words   |  9 PagesEvidence-Base practice (EBP) is defined as: â€Å"based on problem identified from the practitioner’s area of practice; a combining of best evidence and professional expertise and an integration of this into current practice; about ensuring patients receive quality care, being part of quality improvement processes; about collaboration and requiring a team approach† (French, 1999). Scott and Mcsherry (2008) supported the French’s assertion, proposing the key elements of EBP are that it is a theory-drivenRead MoreEvidence Based Practice For Nursing Practice2023 Words   |  9 PagesHeitkemper Buche r (2014), â€Å"Evidence-based practice is a problem-solving approach to clinical decision making. It involves the use of the best available evidence in combination with clinical expertise and patient preferences and values to achieve desired patient outcomes.† Using evidence based practice in nursing is extremely important, because evidence-based practice is the result of others trying a practice one way but needing to change some of the guidelines to make the practice safer and over all betterRead MoreEssay on Evidence Based Practice in Nursing703 Words   |  3 PagesWithin this essay Evidence based Practice will be identified and the significant effect it has on the nursing profession, barriers will also be explored in the implementation of Evidence Based Practice. Individuals need specific care tailored to them, it is vitality important to have the correct professional and appropriate personal care. In order to receive this we need to get the patient involved in the decision process, listen to their views and opinions and receive the relevant, accurate, professionalRead MoreEvidence Based Practice Effects Nursing Practice Essay1643 Words   |  7 Pagespatient’s rate of infection. This paper will analyze the information found and explore how evidence based practice is useful to nurses. Introduction This paper will discuss how evidence based practice effects nursing practice and how nurses can apply what they learn to their practice. Evidence based practice is a great way to improve the quality of care we provide. â€Å"Evidence based practice means using the best available research findings to make clinical decisions that are mostRead MoreEvidence Based Practice : Nursing Implications1399 Words   |  6 Pages Evidence Based Practice: Nursing Implications Misty DelCiampo Submitted to Sarah P. Combs PhD, MPH, RN in partial fulfillment of NR460 Evidence Based Practice in Nursing Regis University August 3rd, 2015 Evidence Based Practice Nursing Implications As the health care environment is becoming more complex, and technology is developing rapidly, the expectations of nurses has increased more than ever before. Times are rapidly changing and to keep up with these changes, nurses areRead MoreIntegration of Evidence-Based Practice Into Professional Nursing Practice1511 Words   |  7 PagesIntegration of Evidence-Based Practice into Professional Nursing Practice In this paper we will discuss the integration of evidence based practice into professional nursing practice. Scott amp; McSherry (2008) define evidence based practice as the combination of individual, clinical, or professional expertise with the best available external evidence to produce practice that is most likely to lead to positive outcomes for a patient. Despite literature surrounding what evidence based nursing is and isn’tRead MoreImportance Of Evidence Based Practice And Nursing Research1006 Words   |  5 Pages Significance of Evidence Based Practice and Nursing Research Rina Desai Widener University â€Æ' The significance of nursing research and evidence-based practice has gained a huge momentum in nursing. Research findings, knowledge from basic science, clinical knowledge, and expert opinion are all considered ‘evidence’. Thus, the practices based on research findings are more likely to result in the desired patient outcomes across numerous clinical settings. In addition, the pressure of healthcare

African American Music And Its Impact On African Americans

Music in the 1900 s had meaning , music was how African Americans got through a long working day . Music then was something that no man could take away . That still applies to the 21st century music , back onto the 1900 s African Americans were not given the same privileges as they are today . Music was the less threatening way for African Americans to get there point across . The music was not always about them wanting equality , there was loving songs , upbeat songs , songs about what they are doing . There were always those songs that would get a person in there feelings . The music that tells a person life story on what all they may have been through . Most the listeners were African American which is good , then there may have been some white but not many . African American music to some was not as important to them as to others . The African American music has evolved from the 1900 s to now , also the amount of people that listen to African American music has also evolved . At a farm in Mississippi is an example of how African Americans used music to get through a hard working day . Music while working usually help the time go by faster . The music in which was sung in the fields or in the cabins for entertainment later became known as The Blues . Blues music is usually written from the heart it is an emotional genre of music , the lyrics or the feeling in the blues comes from a place in someone that may be hurting or struggling . But the blues are unique to theShow MoreRelated The Impact of the Violent African-American Stereotype in Rap Music4585 Words   |  19 Pageswill show that the stereotype of the violent, criminal African-American portrayed in rap music lyrics can become a self-fulfilling prophecy for African-Americans. Repeated and long-term exposure to this stereotypical behavior in rap music lyrics can lead to increased aggression and this stereotype becoming accepted as a social norm by African-Americans. I intend to support my argument w ith examples and analysis of the violent African-American stereotype, and by explaining how the stereotype can becomeRead MoreAfrican American Music Culture1490 Words   |  6 PagesAfrican American Music Culture Jakiella James â€Å"African-American gospel music is a major influence in nearly all genres of modern popular music, from rhythm ‘n blues to jazz, from soul to rock ‘n roll. The musical genre is a unique expression of the black experience in America? The emotionally-charged, wailing vocals and syncopated rhythms give the music a distinctive style. The singing is accompanied not only by instrumentals, but often also by hand-clapping, foot-stomping and shoutingRead MoreThe Legacy Of Soul Music1509 Words   |  7 Pagesis a music genre that over five decades or so remains very popular in the music industry. This may be due to the fact that soul has had a huge impact upon other genres. Shuker defines soul as a â€Å"secular version of gospel, soul was the major black musical form of the 1960s and 1970s and remained evident in various hybrid styles since, for example, contemporary neo-soul and soul jazz (312). The history of soul music is notable for producing a range of artists who have assisted African-American societiesRead MoreHarlem Renaissance : The Cultural And Artistic Explosion745 Words   |  3 Pagesmost influential movement where African Americans came together and created multiple things that was unique to their race such as; music, literature, poetry, and much more which really impacted the way African Americans stood up together in a country controlled by whites. After the end of slavery, many African Americans from the south migrated to industrial northern cities. This event was also known as The Great Migration. The urbanization of african americans was an important contributor toRead MoreThe Beauty Standards Set For African American Women1688 Words   |  7 PagesThe beauty standards set for African American women has shifted drastically in the past decades due to the change in popularized stereotypical images portrayed through the explicit lyrics of hip hop and rap music. How African American women are portrayed in the music industry has had a profound impact on how black women view themselves as well as other races, it promotes unrealistic body sizes/images, and colorism in the black community because of how the new age rap and hip hop stigmatizes andRead MoreAfrican American Culture in the Americas741 Words   |  3 Pages African Americans brought over a distinctive culture into America from Africa. The Africans can create many different sounds that we never knew about. They revived the way we held church and worship, and brought joy to many citizens. African Americans enslaved by the South created a truly magnificent culture in slavery using new music, oral traditions, and religious ideas. Many African countries are known for their spectacular music, and during the time of slavery many African American slavesRead MoreThe Critical Impacts Of The Harlem Renaissance1066 Words   |  5 Pagesunderlines the trouble of ethnic issue knowledgeable by African Americans all through the twentieth century. There were numerous critical impacts, for instance, artistic the growth. The Harlem Renaissance was an energetic affiliation amongst the 1920s where African Americans started composed and transported artistry and writing one of a caring to their race, motivating a countless many darks kin to complete in a white overwhelming society. While the American war was a disaster for the confederate south leavingRead MoreAfrican American Vernacular Traditions: Integrated Into Modern Culture1292 Words   |  6 PagesAfrican American Vernacular Traditions: Integrated Into Modern Culture African American vernacular traditions have been around for many centuries and still cease to exist in their culture. The vernacular traditions of the African Americans started when slaves were existent in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. It is believed that the slaves spoke a mix of Creole and partial English, in which they had to create in order to communicate between them discreetly. The vernacular traditions originatedRead MoreAnalysis Of The Song Crazy Blues 1172 Words   |  5 Pagesto record other African American singers. Noble Sissle’s version was recorded later that same year, and had similar success. Despite the large quantity of blues recordings during the 1920’s, â€Å"Crazy Blues† is considered the first successful blues song recorded by an African American artist.9 Ironically, â€Å"Crazy Blues† is considered more of a popular song than a blues song despite many references to â€Å"blues† throughout the track. Nevertheless, t his song paved the way for black music makers into a thenRead MoreThe Blues : A Very Short Introduction Essay1689 Words   |  7 PagesWhen music enthusiasts or even music novices such as myself think of the blues, thoughts of hardship, adversity, and regret rush to mind. An individual loses his or her job, they get the blues. A close relative passes away, you feel the blues. Indeed, blues music is all too often associated with trials and tribulations. Yet, the blues itself seemingly encompasses much more than simply a sense of misery and unhappiness. Rather, the blues more so embodies overcoming hardship, moving past adversity

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Free Essays

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was one of the most influential and beloved President’s of United States history.   However, his death is shrouded in mystery.   When all is said and done, conspiracy theorists have left virtually no stone unturned in an attempt to explain the tragedy of November 22, 1963. We will write a custom essay sample on John Fitzgerald Kennedy or any similar topic only for you Order Now    Clearly Lee Harvey Oswald was present and did shoot a gun.   But did his bullet kill JFK?   Did he act alone?   Many people have their own ideas of what really happened that day. One common theory is that the Cuban government ordered a hit on the President.   The President had attempted to invade Cuba, and though the plan failed, Castro knew that further plans were in the works.   Likewise, Kennedy had made several unsuccessful attempts on Castro’s life.  Ã‚   Getting rid of Kennedy would certainly enable Castro to keep control of Cuba (Anders 1993). A similar theory is that anti-Castro Cubans killed Kennedy.   Perhaps they were hoping that if the suspicion were focused on Castro, America would demand retaliation.   Later, evidence seemed to surface from a former Castro operative that Oswald was actually hired by the Cuban government (Anders 1993, McAdams 2004).   With Oswald’s death, the facts of these reports could not be verified, though Castro staunchly denies this report. Similarly, Russia, the US cold war opponent, was bothered by JFK’s youth and erratic nature.   He would be capable of elevating the cold war to a full blown World War III.   With the introduction of nuclear technology, the fear of a US strike on Russia was also a concern.   Therefore, the Russians planned the assassination.   In a related theory, this order came from Nikita Khrushchev himself (Anders 1993). Another popular theory is that the mafia ordered a hit on Kennedy.   Initially, some big name crime bosses such as Sam Giancana worked with Jimmy Hoffa and the teamsters to get President Kennedy elected, particularly through votes in Ohio ( Unfortunately, President Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy, the US Attorney General, had later stepped up prosecutions of mafia members to an unprecedented high (Odoni 2005; McAdams 2004) J. Edgar Hoover, who was not friendly with President Kennedy, was due to be forced into retirement from his position of the Director of the FBI. Hoover had a history of neglecting to prosecute mafia members.   His retirement would mean mean the end of these favors, especially if JFK appointed his brother Robert to that position. After Kennedy’s death, Hoover remained as the head of the FBI for ten more years. During that time, mafia prosecutions fell dramatically. James Files, a mafia hit man, actually confessed to the murder, indicating that Giancana had ordered the hit.   Oswald’s killer, Jack Ruby, was a small time gangster with a few major mafia connections.   He could have killed Oswald to silence him (Odoni 2005). Two equally argued theories that are more alarming are those that implicate the United States itself.   Many suspect Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson.   He gained the Presidency after Kennedy’s death, though he was not liked by the public; Kennedy was planning to drop Johnson from his ticket in 1964.   He was involved in four major criminal investigations involving bribery, money laundering, contract violations and misappropriation of funds, at the time of Kennedy’s death. In fact, Kennedy often complained that he had been manipulated into appointing Johnson by the FBI and that Johnson acted as a spy for J. Edgar Hoover.   After he became President, Johnson’s criminal investigations were dropped (Ayton no date). Another US based theory is that the CIA itself had killed the President to cover up or redirect attention from its new practice of assassinating foreign leaders.   The Church Committee was formed to look into this possible scandal but concluded that while the CIA was increasing in national and international power, it was not responsible for the death of the President (Ayton no date). The Warren Commission heard testimony from 552 witnesses and 10 federal agencies over the span of 10 months as it investigated the assassination and all the related conspiracy theories.   Published in October of 1964, it concluded that, basically, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, shooting three bullets from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository (McAdams 2004). The single bullet that wounded Connally and killed JFK hit him from behind as the motorcade passed by the Depository. However, the issue has not been laid to rest.   Four of the seven members of the investigatory team seemed to indicate skepticism about the Commissions findings (McAdams 2004).   Several individual pieces of the Commission’s findings also have been called into question since its completion. Kennedy was struck by two bullets.   One hit him in the back, and one hit him in the head.   The second hit killed the President.   The single bullet theory was born because Oswald’s gun would not have been able to fire fast enough to hit both Kennedy and Connally with separate shots (McAdams 2004). However, the idea that a single bullet traveled through Kennedy’s back, exited his throat, passed through the seat of a car, entered Connally’s back, exited his chest, passed through his wrist and entered his thigh has been seriously questioned by evidence from eye witnesses, including passenger Nellie Connally, and forensic evidence (McAdams 2004) Now this theory is known as the magic bullet theory.   The bullet which had such an incredible journey ended up on a hospital stretcher in near pristine condition (McAdams 2004). Medical examinations and missing x-rays and autopsy pictures also add to the mystery.   Kennedy was taken first to Dallas’ Parkland Hospital where 44 doctors and medical staffers claimed that the exit wound was at the back of JFK’s head.   This would have been impossible if the shot came from the Depository and lended itself to the grassy knoll theory (Odoni 2005). However, two doctors at Bethesda Medical Center, the second hospital Kennedy was taken to, reported that the exit would was at the front of the head (McAdams, 2004).   Why then did over 44 doctors and medical staffers claim that the wound was at the rear of the head?   X-rays that a Parkland Hospital technician claims to have taken have never been found.   Pictures of the autopsy that emerged up to four years after the assassination are suspicious and do not match accounts given by witnesses. All in all, the Warren Commission seemed to ignore 44 doctors and 20 eye-witnesses at the murder scene.   Other evidence was destroyed.   Governor Connally’s shirt from the day of the shooting was dry cleaned at Johnson’s request within 24 hours (McAdams 2004).   The car carrying the Kennedys and the Connallys was immediately cleaned and refurbished instead of being thoroughly examined for ballistic evidence.   This was also ordered by Lyndon B. Johnson (McAdams 2004). Any forensic evidence that may have been provided by these items was lost. Nobody will ever really know what happened that day in 1964.   However, it seems that the â€Å"facts† are clearly not what they seem and that the Warren Commission did not delve into the discrepancies too   deeply.   The theories mentioned here are all viable theories that were not examined closely, if at all, by the authorities. The idea of a â€Å"magic† bullet is preposterous.  Ã‚   It seems that something is being covered up. But what? References Anders, P. (1993). An Introduction to JFK Conspiracy Theories. Stay Free 4. Available from:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/4/jfk.htm [accessed 10 August 2006] Ayton, M. (no date).   Questions of Conspiracy. Spartacus UK. Available from: [accessed 10 August 2006] McAdams, J. (2004). The Kennedy Assassination. Available from: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm [accessed 10 August 2006] Odoni, Martin. (2005). Who Killed JFK?   Current Affairs. Available from:     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://havetstorm.tripod.com/currentaffairs/id7.html   [accessed 10 August 2006] How to cite John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Essay examples

ERGONOMICS IN OFFICE AND CLERICAL ENVIRONMENTS Essay Example For Students

ERGONOMICS IN OFFICE AND CLERICAL ENVIRONMENTS Essay ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMENT 200GROUP PROJECT WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTErgonomics is becoming one of the most important aspects of administrative management. Since the introduction of computers, offices are becoming more technologically based. Employees are spending greater amounts of time in the office and therefore must be comfortable to remain productive. Workers that feel stressed and do not like their work environments lose morale and spend more time away from the office than usual. Furniture, climate, training procedures, lighting and many more aspects are related to ergonomics in the office and clerical based environments. Keeling and Kallaus (1996;384) says that office furniture and equipment has traditionally been manufactured and used with a view of using efficient office space and cost saving. Although these factors are vital to work within the budget, managers fails to consider the ergonomics need of the employees. Sleeth (1996;10) defines ergonomics as a study of the office environment to allows employees to work productively. Ergonomically designed work environment that takes into consideration both psychological and physical needs increases job satisfaction and prevents injuries (Hess:1996;28). Troyer (1996;20) says that employers have become extremely concerned about potential discomforts associated with extended use of repetitive duty on computers and other office equipment. These discomforts can cause serious bodily injuries and force organisation to lose millions of dollars in loss hours of work, hospital cost and workers compensation claim. Organisation became aware of the high cost associated with injuries therefore ergonomic furniture and equipment became an important issue in the work place. Ergonomic furniture and equipment is an important issue that management should consider because it decreases the medical cost, insurance cost associated with injuries and also increases workers efficiency in the workplace (Allie;1996;20). Keeling and Kallaus (1996;384) says that in order to consider the ergonomic furniture and equipment for the office, the manager must firstly understand the type of work being performed and the ergonomics needs of the employees. Allie (1996) argues that it is also vital to educate employees about ergonomics, provide proper adjustable furniture and equipment. Managers should also understand employees needs and ways to help them work more safely. Troyer (1996;20) states that it is difficult to really determine which furniture and equipment will provide the ergonomic needs for the employees. The author suggests that when evaluating whether certain furniture and equipment can provide the necessary ergonomic need, it is important to find out how the manufacturer design their products. It is important to consider whether the manufacturers uses ergonomics expert, is the product adjustable, does the product provide comforts for the eyes, neck, wrist and back. It is also vital to find out how the manufacturer test the claims they make for their products and the manufactures reputation for making ergonomics product. When buying office furniture and equipment, the purchases that gets the most investigation and examination are usually the one that will last longer. Keeling and Kallaus (1996;386) suggests that when selecting office furniture the following must be taken into consideration, firstly, it should provide adequate safety and comforts to the employees. Secondly, it should be made of good quality materials, build strongly and provide ease for the work to be done. Thirdly the furniture should be adjustable and can be used for different purposes. Finally it should meet the preferences of all the employees who are going to use them. For example when the organisation is looking for chairs for its employees, the key factors management should consider is adjustability. Marston (1996;39) mentions that an ergonomic chairs should able to be adjusted up and down according to the desired height, should have lumbar and arms support, comfortable cushioning, provide backward or forward tilt and the adjustment can be easily made by anyone using the chairs. Beside providing ergonomically design furniture, a variety of office equipment are also required. Equipment such as photocopying, telephones, facsimile and computers. These office equipment facilitate the office task in less time and with greater accuracy (Keeling and Kallaus:1996;391). The guideline provided by Keeling and Kallaus for selecting office equipment, is firstly, the equipment should be made available to employees if it makes their job more efficient. For example in selecting between a typewriter and a computer, the computer will be more faster and efficient than the typewriter but the cost would be higher. In the long term the computer will save the organisation in hours of working time. Secondly, equipment should be considered when they are simple to operate, flexible to use in different situations, easy to move around and be able to adapt to existing office. Thirdly, the equipment that are less expensive and the availability of reliable maintenance service should be se lected in place of other equipment. Fourthly, the rates of accuracy that the equipment will provide must also be taken into consideration. Finally the things that the equipment can do and also its limitations also need to be considered. THE AIR ENVIRONMENTThe air environment refers to the total atmosphere created in the office by the principal air factors. They are temperature, humidity, circulation (ventilation) and cleanliness. It is used the term air-conditioned office literally. it is an office where the air has been carefully conditioned for human comfort, including the control of temperature, humidity and cleanliness. Workers consider the air environment, especially air circulation and the right temperature as very important to their jobs. It properly maintained air environment improves mental activity. boosts efficiency, increase productivity and decreases absenteeism. On the other hand, stale, dry and dusty air dulls the mind and reduces the output of work. Moreover, according to Labar, most indoor air problems involve the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system. Due to it was not designed and installed properly, is not being adequately maintained or is simply wearing out. According to a survey of 4300 workers in 47 buildings performed by Building Use Studies, 34 per cent of the workers described the air in their offices as uncomfortably dry, hot or stuffy, over 50 per cent reported symptoms such as lethargy, headaches or eye, nose or throat irritation while at work, and 25 per cent felt that the working condition reduced their productivity over 20 per cent. (Journal of General Management, 1992)TemperatureTemperature refers to the relative hotness or coolness of the air measured in degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius. If the temperature too hot or too cold in a office environment this can interfere with productivity thorough sickness of the worker. the American Society of Heating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineers suggest that the most comfortable and healthful temperature for work is below 70 F. With normal office activities, such as lighting, heat from computers, body temperature increase discomfort to the operators. A Broken Wing EssayIn the article Here Ye Hear Ye Noise Guidelines Needed, Walt Clawson offer ten guidelines for managing office noise:Examine the layout of the Workstation For example, position telephones in a way that there is no direct path between two workstations. This allows for quieter telephone conversations thus reducing office noise. Taller panels offer more privacy It also helps to manage office acoustics. Invest in a masking sound system These speakers generate a sound resembling moving air in order to reduce the high pitches in speech and provide more privacy. Examine the quality of the acoustical ceiling tiles in the space Tiles can absorb sound waves thus reducing noise. Blocking sound is paramount This is of greater importance than absorbing sound. Carpeting has little impact Carpet only absorbs little office sound, concentrate on the ceiling. If there is a way for sound to creep through, it will Make sure that all openings between rooms are sealed in order to prevent sound travelling too far. Panel construction can make a difference Find panels that are able to block noise efficiently. Dont clutter you panel The placement of notes on panels can greatly reduce the sound blocking qualities that make the office louder. Office workers need a bit of din Workers need some noise in order to be productive. This can be provided in the way of soft music. Ergonomics does not just involve computers, furniture and office equipment, it includes aspects such as employee age, time spent working with computers, training in ergonomics procedures and actual office design. Most valuable employees are relatively older than employees in training and as such are often overlooked. When designing an office, it is important to take into account the effects of aging and the increased care needed by such individuals. According to (Materials Handling Engineering, Jun 1996) stature begins to decline after thirty years of age and flexibility and strength are significantly reduced after the age of forty five years. Lower back pains and hand problems are the main symptoms of a poorly designed office. A typist spends most of the day using a keyboard and therefore will experience hand problems in their lifetime. Loss of hand function is the number one reason that a person enters a nursing home (Materials Handling Engineering, Jun 1996). Experts say that people that spend more than four hours at a keyboard each day are most likely to suffer from some kind of repetitive strain injury, (Managing Office Technology, Jul 1996). A natural straight posture during keying with the wrist laying horizontal is the best way to avoid such RSIs. The mouse has to be kept as close to the keyboard as possible and can be rotated to each side of the keyboard to minimise dominant hand overuse. The introduction of computers into the workplace has reduced the need to move constantly and often leads to a more sedentary employee. This in turn produces higher levels of discomfort and reduces worker productivity. Sun Microsystems has mostly eliminated this problem with a series of training programs and employee inclusion when selecting furniture and computer components. Such training programs increased ergonomic awareness and resulted in three times as many symptom reports, (HE Solutions, Jun 1996). This program has reduced injury rates, allowed for employee feedback, created a greater respect for management and generally increased employee productivity. Video display terminals are found in almost every office throughout the world and therefore must be examined when discussing ergonomics. Many older offices have considerably older computer desks that are dangerous for the eyes. The terminal is often placed too high and can result in eye strain and muscular complaints. Ideally the monitor should be placed 15 to 20 degrees above the horizontal line of sight and angled so the employees eyes are closer to the bottom of the screen than the top. The actual monitor should also be placed about 18 to 24 inches away from the user, (Electrical Apparatus, Nov 1996). Another cause of eye strain is the placement of reference material in conjunction to the computer terminal. Books and reports that are placed to the side force the employee to constantly turn their head and may result in stiffness of the back and neck muscles. One aspect often overlooked when using a computer is the position of the legs. If the legs are allowed to dangle, they can often fall asleep, which can lead to circulation problems in the future. Foot rests are a god way to resolve such a complaint. When designing a workstation, there are many aspects that must be considered if ergonomics is to be a contributing factor (HR Magazine, Aug 1996). Adjustable furniture is an absolute must to allow for the difference in employee stature. A light dimmer system helps to reduce glare and eye strain. Bright carpets are considered by most to be ergonomically correct. A well cleaned ventilation system that brings in a plentiful supply of oxygen to eliminate sick building syndrome. Flexible ergonomic chairs that insist on a correct posture to reduce back and neck complaints. All such systems are likely to improve employee morale and increase productivity levels. Sick days will undoubtedly decline and employee enthusiasm will begin to climb. It is for these reasons that we consider ergonomics to be an essential factor when examining office and clerical environments. REFERENCESKeeling B.L, Kallaus N.F 1996 Administrative Office Management 11th EdUSA South West PublishingSleeth J.E. 1996 Ergonomics can prevent injuries, Save money. Canadian Banker V103 Number 6 pp10. The perils of video display terminalsElectrical-Apparatus.Nov 1996; v49n11, pp. 44-45Building a better ergonomics programFacilities-Design-and-Management.Nov 1996; v15n11, p. 28Design a safe workstationHRMagazine-.Aug 1996; v41n8, p. 71Adopting an integrated approach to ergonomics implementationHE-Solutions.Jun 1996; v28n6, pp. 18-23Healthy keyboarding: What you should knowManaging-Office-Technology.Jul 1996; v41n7, pp. 27-28Integrating ergonomics into great office designManaging-Office-Technology.May 1996; v41n5, pp. 21-26The ergonomics of agingMaterial-Handling-Engineering.Jun 1996; v51n6, p. 34Marston C.B. 1996 Make Yourself look comfortable Office Systems V13 Number 6 pp38-40Furniture: Increasing productivity and the bottom lineTelemarketing-and-Call-Center-Solutions.Sep 1996; v15n3, pp. 20,134+Troyer C. 1996 Sorting out the confusion about Ergonomic Products, Telemarketing and Call Centre Solutions V15 Number 5 pp20.

Role in Enhancing International Trade Competitiveness free essay sample

Indias export import growth has grown around 24 per cent during 2002-07. Its impact on container traffic growth could be higher, since a greater share of trade is moving towards finished goods requiring containerization. Presently, containerized cargo represents about 30% by value of Indias external trade, and this proportion is likely to grow as containerization increasingly penetrates the general cargo trades and increases its share from the current 68 per cent to nearer international levels of around 75-80 per cent [World Bank, 2007]. Considering various growth scenarios and studies, it appears that international trade growth and penetration would result in 21 mTEUs by 2015-16. Looking at the container traffic growth in the past few years, there seems to be scope for hub operations in India, possibly one each on the east and west coast. As per the projections made by a study of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, 9 mTEUs of the Indian traffic of 21 mTEUs will be hubbed in 2015-16 [JNPT, 2006]. We will write a custom essay sample on Role in Enhancing International Trade Competitiveness or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page If 50 per cent hubbing were to take place in India, then 4. 5 mTEUs will be hubbed in India, implying transhipment handling of 9 mTEUs. This requires port handling capacity of 30 mTEUs, with 9mTEUs as transhipment at hub ports. Further, shipping trends will play an important role in deciding whether the Indian ports have potential for hub operations. Hinterland connectivity is a critical area to ensure a seamless flow of containers and improved port productivity. Currently, 30% of the traffic is expected to move hinterland by rail and the remaining is expected to move entirely by road, mostly to nearby CFSs, and some to the interior Inland Container Depots (ICD) [PC, 2006]. There are also issues with respect to evacuation of containers from ICDs. There is a lot of road based congestion due to insufficient infrastructure. Interfacing with customs is another issue. This paper focuses on issues in marine and port operations, hinterland connectivity, and ICDs; in short, the entire supply chain of container movement for building global trade competitiveness. 1. Introduction India has 12 major and 187 non major ports along its 7517 km coastline. The compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of container traffic in TEUs for the period 2001-06 was 15. %, which is higher than the worlds average for this period. Given the growing economy and international trade, a lot of future potential is seen in this sector. This however would be contingent on the maritime sector being equipped to take the challenges emerging from (i) large shipping vessels and deeper draft at ports (ii) hub and feeder operations at ports and along the coast respectively (iii) hinterland connectivi ty between port and Inland Container Depot (ICD)/Container Freight Station (CFS) and (iv) terminal development on ports and in the hinterland. Other issues relate to use of Information Technology (IT) and better systems to coordinate with bodies like customs and industrial location policy (especially with respect to Special Economic Zones (SEZs). 2. Objectives i. To understand and map the current and future trends of containerization in India’s international trade. ii. To correlate the growth of containerization with other variables i. e. , growth in International Trade (export-import) and growth in GDP 3. Hypothesis With the current growing economic growth rate of India which is second only to China, there has been consistent increase in foreign trade. In the absence of a hub port in India, a majority of the countrys containers are currently transshipped through other ports i. e. Colombo (just south of India), Singapore (east), Dubai and Salalah (west). Handling these through the Indian transshipment terminal would result in savings of between Rs 6,000 and Rs 16,000 per TEU for the Indian exporter. The reasons for a hub port not evolving in India are * insufficient traffic * cabotage law * insufficient infrastructure including draft requirement for a mainline ship Table 2 gives the container traffic and transshipment at Indian ports. As can be seen, the percentage of transshipment is a very small share of the total traffic, implying that Indian ports are really not providing hub services. Table 2: Container Traffic and Transshipment at Major Ports| Year| Total Container Traffic| Transshipment| | 000 TEUs| Growth (%)| 000 TEUs| %| 2000-01| 2468| 13. 0| 25| 1. 0| 2001-02| 2886| 16. 9| 169| 5. 9| 2002-03| 3366| 16. 6| 187| 5. 6| 2003-04| 3900| 15. 9| 208| 5. 3| 2004-05| 4233| 8. 5| 162| 3. 8| 2005-06| 4613| 9. 0| 181| 3. 9| 2006-07| 5437| 17. 9| | | [IPA, 2006]| Given the above three drivers of container growth, we can get an insight into the breakup of the traffic across various port clusters, as per a World Bank study. Relevant excerpts of this are given in Annexure 1. The ports in the western region (Mumbai and Gujarat) would handle at least 66% container throughputs in the country, followed by the ports in the southern region at 27% and the balance at the eastern region ports. 2) Potential of Container Traffic India handled 649 million tons (mt) (569 mt) of cargo traffic in 2006-07 (2005-06). The total container traffic in 2006-07 (2005-06) was 80. mt (67. 1 mt). In terms of Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs), it was 6. 0 mTEUs (5. 0 mTEUs) in 2006-07 (2005-06). Growth rate of container traffic is outstripping the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate. Table 3 gives the growth trends of national GDP, total port and container traffic. Table 3: Port Traffic| Year| National GDP| Total| Major Ports| Non-Major Ports| Container| | | | | | Major Ports| Total| | US Sb1| Growth2 (%)| mt| Growth| mt| Growth (%)| mt| Growth (%)| mt| 000 TEUs| Share**| 000 TEUs| Growth| 2000-01| 409| 4. 4| 368| 10. | 281| 3. 3| 87| 39. 3| 32| 2468| 11. 5| 2468| 13. 0| 2001-02| 441| 4. 8| 384| 4. 3| 288| 2. 5| 96| 10. 3| 37| 2886| 12. 9| 2886| 16. 9| 2002-03| 467| 3. 8| 419| 9. 1| 314| 9. 0| 105| 9. 4| 44| 3366| 13. 9| 3366| 16. 6| 2003-04| 554| 8. 5| 466| 11. 2| 345| 9. 9| 121| 15. 2| 51| 3900| 14. 8| 3900| 15. 9| 2004-05| 633| 7. 5| 522| 12. 0| 384| 11. 3| 138| 14. 1| 55| 4233| 14. 3| 4502*| 15. 4| 2005-06| 725| 9. 0| 569| 9. 0| 423| 10. 2| 151| 9. 4| 62| 4613| 14. 6| 4998*| 11. 0| 2006-07| 827| 9. 3| 649| 14. 1| 464| 9. 7| 185#| 22. 5| 73| 5437| 15. 8| 5964*| 19. | [CMIE, 2007; IPA, 2006]1At current market prices2At factor cost (constant prices)#132 mt from GMB ports*Includes traffic from Mundra and Pipavav**Share of container traffic wrt total port traffic| 3) Shipping Trends Looking at the current as well as the future shippin g trends that are likely to emerge, it would be the era of large mother vessels, with a minimum of 6000-8000 TEU, and a few as big as 12,000-14,000 TEU. These ships would make only a few calls at mega hub ports to/from where cargo movement would be by transshipment and feedering through the present age ships of 4000 TEU and below. These future generation vessels would require drafts between 13-15. 5 mtrs. These ports would also need the infrastructural facilities like wide berthing, high crane handling capacity, quicker and safe loading and unloading capabilities, and direct shift of containers to the feeder vessels. Table 4, which gives the evolution of container shipping vessels in different periods, clearly indicates that the size of the vessels along with their draft requirement are on the increasing trend. Therefore, the ports should be geared up for deepening their draft for accommodating such types of vessels. Table 4: Evolution of Container Shipping Vessels| Generation| Period| Length (meter)| Draft (meter)| Size (TEU)| Post Suezmax| 2006-| 397| 15. 5| gt;12,000| Suezmax| 2005-06| | 15| 10,000-12,000| Post Panamax Plus| 2000-05| 335| 13-14| 5,000-10,000| Post Panamax| 1988-00| 275-305| 11-13| 4,000-5,000| Panamax class| 1980-88| 250-290| 11-12| 3,000-4,000| Cellular Containership| 1970-80| 215| 10| 1,000-2,500| Converted Cargo Vessel/Tanker| 1956-70| 135-200| lt;9| 500-800| [http://www. solentwaters. co. uk]| 4) Potential Hub Ports in India Given the reality of transshipment and feedering, it is important to focus on few ports on both the coasts with deep draft. The key requirements of a transshipment terminal are its strategic location, potential to reduce total transport cost using hub and spoke arrangement, financial savings in terms of lower land values, less need for dredging and the facility to receive higher-capacity vessels to reduce overall fleet costs. Table 5 shows the container traffic handled at ports (including the non-major ports of Mundra and Pipavav) in 2006-07 and 2005-06. Table 6 provides a comparative analysis of various ports in terms of their physical and efficiency parameters for hub operations. Table 5: Port-wise Container Traffic| | | | 2006-07| 2005-06| S No| Port| Operating Company| Total(000 TEUs)| %| Total(000 TEUs)| %| 1| JNPT| 1. Port2. DP World3. AP Moller/Concor| 3298| 55. 3| 2667| 53. 4| 2| Chennai| 1. DP World2. PSA International/SICAL| 798| 13. 4| 735| 14. 7| 3| Mundra* (MPSEZ)| DP World| 393| 6. 6| 299| 6. 0| 4| Tuticorin| PSA International/SICAL| 377| 6. 3| 321| 6. 4| 5| Kolkata| Port| 240| 4. 0| 203| 4. 1| | Cochin| DP World/Concor| 227| 3. 8| 203| 4. 1| 7| Kandla| ABG| 177| 3. 0| 148| 3. 0| 8| Pipavav*| AP Moller| 135| 2. 3| 86| 1. 7| 9| Mumbai| Port| 128| 2. 1| 156| 3. 1| 10| Haldia| Port| 110| 1. 8| 110| 2. 2| 11| Visakhapatnam| DP World| 50| 0. 8| 47| 0. 9| 12| New Mangalore| Port| 17| 0. 3| 10| 0. 2| 13| Mormugao| Port| 12| 0. 2| 9| 0. 2| 14| Paradip| Port| 2| 0. 0| 4| 0. 1| | Total| | 5964| 100. 0| 4998| 100. 0| [CI Magazine, 2007; Indian Infrastructure, 2007; IPA, 2006] *Non-major and private ports, both under GMB| Table 6: Hub Operation Readiness| Readiness Level| West| South| East| High| JNPT, Mundra, Pipavav| Cochin, Chennai| Visakhapatnam| Medium| Kandla, Mumbai| Tuticorin| | Low| | New Mangalore, Mormugao| Kolkata, Haldia, Paradip| [CRISIL, 2006]| The readiness level is based on the maximum vessel size at berth, high speed equipment, average turnaround time, average pre-berthing time and average parcel size. As per the CRISIL Infrastructure Advisory study, hub ports could be Mundra, Pipavav, JNPT, Cochin, Chennai and Visakhapatnam. About 50% of the containers exported through Indian ports are transshipped at some point prior to reaching their overseas destination. Approximately 30% of containers are transshipped in either Colombo or Singapore/Klang and another 5% in Dubai or Salalah. About 50% of the container traffic is not transshipped and moves on the same vessel to the final destination port. In the case of JNPT, this proportion is above 80%. Of Indian containers transshipped in Singapore/Klang, Chennai and Kolkata account for 68%, while for Colombo the eastern and southern ports account for 87% [World Bank, 2007]. Table 7 gives the share of direct and hub shipments for JNPT and the other ports in the country. Table 7: Direct and Hub Shipments Per cent | JNPT| Other Ports| Total| Share of Container Traffic| 55| 45| 100| Direct| 80| 13| 50| Through Hub| 20| 87| 50| It is useful to note that while 80% of JNPT traffic is direct, 87% of all the other ports is through a hub. Overall, water depths are low in Indian ports compared to those of neighbouring regional hubs. Table 9 gives the draft available in the various ports. In contrast, Colombo, for example, one of the main hubs for transshipping Indian container cargo, has a draft of 15 metres. This is proposed to be increased further to 17 metres and eventually 20 metres. JNPT, the largest container port in the country has a draft of only 12 metres. JNPT currently handles vessels of upto 4000 TEUs compared to 8500 TEUs at Colombo. Despite handling a higher volume of traffic than Colombo (Exhibit 3), JNPT is constrained by its deficient draft from offering cheaper and higher quality services, i. e. higher frequency and lower transit times. Other ports in the region like Singapore, Dubai, Port Klang etc have drafts of at least 15 meter and can accommodate vessels upto 11,000 TEUs. 5) Hinterland Connectivity Hinterland connectivity is probably the most critical area to ensure a seamless flow of containers and improved port productivity. It is an essential part of a world class logistics system that India needs to develop with a strategic focus. JNPT is the most efficient container port in the country and is the preferred port for a majority of the countrys container traffic, presently accounting for about 55% of the total. Table 10 presents the distance, travel time and cost of moving a container from the Delhi area to JNPT and to alternate ports. As shown in the table, even though the Gujarat ports are located a little closer, they take almost twice as long to reach. The east coast ports not only take much longer, but also cost more than twice as much in inland haulage charges. These differences restrict competition, and JNPT therefore enjoys a dominant position on account of both its better overall shipping service offerings and its superior hinterland connectivity. The Gujarat ports on the other hand, continue to lose out to JNPT due to their relatively poor connectivity, despite enjoying a closer proximity to the north-western hinterland which generates a majority of the container traffic. Even cargo destined for China or other south east Asian countries prefers to be routed through JNPT, rather than ports like Chennai on the east coast which though closer to the destination offer poor connectivity to the northern hinterland [World Bank, 2007]. Table 8: Inland Haulage Costs for Delhi Container Traffic to JNPT vs Other Ports| Port| Distance from Delhi (Km)| Rail Transit Time (Hrs)| Haulage Costs(Rs/TEUs)| | | | Rail*| Road| JNPT| 1388| 48| 18750| 32000| Mundra| 1295| 80| 16650| 20000| Pipavav| 1333| 70| 17000| 24000| Visakhapatnam| 1700| 67| 22450| 66000| Chennai| 2100| 90| 30000| 70000| World Bank, 2007]*Excludes terminal charges of roughly 30%| Rail Evacuation Currently, 30% of the JNPT traffic is expected to move hinterland by rail and the remaining moves entirely by road, mostly to nearby CFSs, and some to interior ICDs. Rail capacity is barely sufficient for current demand. As per discussions in CENTRUM 2006, CONCOR monopoly has been a deterrent to quality service. Competition has now been permitted and 15 licenses have been issued, as listed in Table 9. However, many of the licensees have signed up with CONCOR to have access to their wagons and ICDs, as required by the license conditions. This has distorted the competition to an extent. Name of Company Associated with| Category I: Rs 50 Crore (can operate on all routes)| 1. | Adani Logistics| Adani Group| 2. | CWC (own ICD)*| | 3. | CONCOR (own ICD)*| | 4. | Dinesh/ETA| | 5. | Gateway Rail Freight (own ICD)*| Gateway Distriparks| 6. | Hind Terminals and MSC Agency*| Hind Terminals (subsidiary of Sharaf Group, UAE), Mediterranean Shipping Company (Geneva)| 7. | India Infrastructure and Logistics*| APL India (subsidiary of NOL, Singapore), Hindustan Infrastructure Project and Engineering| 8. Container Rail Road Services**| DP World| 9. | Reliance Infrastructure Leasing| Reliance (ADAG)| 10. | SICAL Logistics (own ICD)| | 11. | KRIBHCO| | Category II: Rs 10 Crore (can operate on all routes except JNPT/Mumbai NCR)| 1. | Delhi Assam Roadways| | 2. | Innovative B2B Logistics Solutions*| Bagadiya Shipping and Bothra Brothers| 3. | Boxtrans (India) Logistics Services*| JM Baxi amp; Co| 4. | Pipavav Rail Corporation| | Table 9: List of Players for Rail Container Operation *Out of the 15 licensed operators, seven have started operations **Will start in September, 2007 Presently, for instance, it is estimated that the transport cost of a container from Delhi to Mumbai Port is almost half the total logistics costs of delivering it to a destination in Europe. Inadequate capacities in the hinterland transport modes often lead to higher costs and delays on account of sub-optimal mode choices, circuitous routing and congestion in the hinterland transport links. The Tughlakabad-JNPT (Delhi-Mumbai) line, one of the most highly trafficked corridors in the country is a case in point (Figure 1). With an average line capacity of 50 trains per day, it has been handling over 67 trains per day, operating at a capacity utilization of 135%t, and several sections are being operated at 160% utilization levels. Roughly 40 trains on this corridor are passenger trains, leaving a limited capacity for freight trains, which have a lower priority. Congestion at the railways Tughlakabad ICD near Delhi and on the line itself has resulted in a poor reliability of service, and high value cargo such as containers, which form the majority of the traffic on this corridor, is increasingly shifting to road transport. Presently, less than one-third of the containerized cargo in this corridor is being carried by the Railways. On average, 9,000 loaded trucks move over this corridor everyday, aggregating around 30 mt annually of road freight traffic [World Bank, 2007]. Figure 1: Rail Connectivity Mumbai to North-Western Hinterland [World Bank, 2007] The overall data related to hinterland flows at JNPT in Table 10. JNPT faced an acute congestion in 2004. Since then, a third container terminal has been commissioned, bringing the total throughput capacity to 4 mTEUs. A fourth terminal being considered is likely to double the capacity. This will impose serious constraints on the facilities around the port, unless they are addressed concurrently [Raghuram, 2006]. Table 10: Hinterland Flows at JNPT| Per cent| Import| ICD by Rail| 33. 3| ICD by Road| 4. 0| En Bloc CFS| 59. 7| Green Channel| 3. 0| Export| ICD by Rail| 22. 6| ICD by Road| 7. 5| CFS by Road + Buffer Yard| 26. 5 + 7. 7| Factory Stuffed under Excise Seal RTS| 35. 7| [Chaudhuri, A, 2006] To provide for the rail based evacuation, the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCIL) has been set up in 2006, with its first phase being the JNPT to Tughlakabad/Dadri and Ludhiana to Son Nagar via Dadri corridors. The western corridor will have container trains as its driving traffic. Road Evacuation To provide for the road based evacuation, while the National Highways Development Programme is providing inter-regional connectivity with some success, not all port based connectivity projects have been successful. Three such project contracts were recently annulled. Beyond just the four laning of highways, expressway connectivity to the ports to service major flows would be essential. The currently envisaged future phases of NHDP do not provide for this. In terms of local road connectivity around ports and ICDs, there is no explicit planning for consequential trailer movements for empty containers and empty trailer movements. Recent studies show that these could be as high as six to seven movements per TEU [Raghuram, 2006]. Similarly, there is no planning for trailer parking, maintenance, facilities for drivers etc. These could lead to avoidable congestion and first/last mile problems. Coastal Shipping and Inland Waterways The potential of coastal shipping and inland waterways is untapped and needs to be developed to lessen the load on the railways and road networks and bring down the costs since cost of cargo movement by sea is significantly less than the cost by road and rail. Feedering from an Indian transshipment port would naturally be a coastal movement. The possibility of a dedicated sea corridor with inter-port connectivity needs to be explored. Integration with coastal and inland water transport for evacuation needs proactive consideration. ICD/CFS Infrastructure Given that ICD/CFS business is open to anybody, there would not be a concern regarding the supply. The concepts of SEZs and Free Trade Warehousing Zones would only further facilitate such infrastructure. The conditions imposed on the private rail container operators reinforce the same direction. However, the following would need intervention. Location and access, giving consideration to distance to manufacturing units, local connectivity with minimum traffic interference * Customs and bonded warehouse * Rail connection to gateway ports * Parking spaces and maintenance facility ) Other Issues Information Technology (IT) While IT use for container logistics would be commercially driven, policy and industry level interventions would be necessary to develop standards, networking and information sharing, and even knowledge products. Technologies such as Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) and Global Positioning System (GPS) should be leveraged to achieve effectiveness and efficie ncy. Domestic Traffic While container movement has been primarily viewed in the context of international trade, domestic container movement is slowly picking up and needs focus for development. Most of the domestic container movement is expected to be by rail (Concor). During 2006-07, out of over 2 mTEUs moved by Concor, nearly 0. 4 mTEUs were for the domestic market (Table 11). Table 11: CONCOR TrafficIn TEU Year| International| Domestic| Total| Annual Growth (%)| 1996-97| 424,741| 278,801| 703,542| -| 1997-98| 491,481| 230,238| 721,719| 2. 6| 1998-99| 576,790| 225,156| 801,946| 11. 1| 1999-00| 664,490| 243,329| 907,819| 13. 2| 2000-01| 755,670| 291,304| 1,046,974| 15. 4| 2001-02| 905,058| 326,775| 1,231,833| 17. 7| 2002-03| 1,031,925| 351,238| 1,383,163| 12. 3| 003-04| 1,251,618| 350,501| 1,602,119| 15. 8| 2004-05| 1,376,516| 351,460| 1,727,976| 7. 9| 2005-06| 1,556,714| 373,848| 1,930,562| 11. 7| 2006-07| 1,715,661| 389,605| 2,105,266| 9. 0| [CI Magazine, 2007] This would also create an opportunity for customised containerization. For example, while the standard container does not permit double stacking under electric traction wires, specially designed lower height conta iners for automobiles have permitted double stacking under wire. Opportunities in customized containerization should be leveraged, as specific segment volumes increase. Leasing and Manufacture Availability of containers, wagons, tractor/trailers and cranes as support equipment is critical. India does not have enough manufacturing base for such equipment. China is currently the world leader in this domain. There is big opportunity for India to develop a manufacturing base, not only to cater to our requirement, but also for the export market. In the context of containers, leasing by non-shipping line owners has been leveraged internationally for efficient use of containers. However, the share of the leased fleet has dropped from 50% in 1981 to 40% in 2006 (Exhibit 6). With better IT for container tracking, the leased fleet has utilizations over 90%, with the cost of leasing showing a decreasing trend (Table 12). Table 12: Global Lease Fleet| Year| Fleet Size* (TEU)| Utilization (%)| Per Diem Rate** (US $)| 1966| 5,000| 95. 0| 1. 50| 1970| 120,000| 85. 0| 1. 50| 1974| 465,000| 78. 0| 1. 20| 1978| 1,030,000| 85. 0| 1. 80| 1982| 2,050,000| 80. 0| 1. 85| 1986| 2,315,000| 75. 0| 1. 40| 1990| 2,755,000| 90. 0| 1. 80| 1994| 4,350,000| 87. 0| 1. 35| 1998| 6,190,000| 81. 0| 0. 85| 2002| 8,010,000| 83. 5| 0. 60| 2006| 10,290,000| 92. 0| 0. 70| CI Magazine, 2007]* Year-end**New build 20ft placed on five year term| Location Policy of Industries Including SEZs As part of evolving world class export and import logistics, the government has embarked on the policy of developing SEZs. As on July 31, 2007, 135 SEZs had been notified under the SEZ Act apart from the 19 that were operational prior to the SEZ Act of 2005. Of the 154 SEZs (Table 13), 67 are manufacturi ng driven while the rest are IT and IT enabled services based. Of the 67, 39 are coastal and the rest 28 are away from the coast and would hence require focus on connectivity. Table 13: Location of SEZs | Coastal| Non-Coastal| Total| Manufacturing| 39| 28| 67| IT/ITES| 24| 63| 87| Total| 63| 91| 154| As far as possible, it would be a good idea to locate SEZs near ports. The same would apply for industries, where a focus on appropriate zoning of industrial development to minimize connectivity requirements with planned linkages including by Inland Water Transport would be essential. Gujarat has been proactive in this through a policy of port led industrial development. Regulation It is important to ensure appropriate regulation for the following: Licensing Issues of ensuring sufficient competition, along with capability to deliver with appropriate national security would be key criteria in licensing. There have been debates on private sector monopoly, when Pamp;O Australia won the bids and operated many terminals in the South Asian region. Pamp;O Australia has now been taken over by DP World and the same issue continues. Exhibit 10 provides an insight into the concentration of terminals (62% of throughput in 2006) operated by the top five terminal operating companies. There are guidelines on there being at least two operators in a port and no more than two terminals per operator. These guidelines need to be reviewed and linked with TEU capacity and not number of terminals. Security Security was a matter of concern in the context of Hutchison bidding for Chennai Even DP World had to give up some of its US acquisitions due to perceived security concerns. Operational security at ports including screening of containers has gained significance after 9/11. Port Tariffs While India has a Tariff Authority for Major Ports (TAMP), the question has often been raised as to whether we need the TAMP, and even if so, whether the regulation should be cost based. Recently the PSA International operated container terminal at Tuticorin port resisted the reduction in tariffs imposed by TAMP and consequently reduced their throughput. It would appear that with the number of terminals that India has and is developing, competition is increasing and the market itself can regulate the tariffs. Shipping Line Conferences In the container shipping business (which is a hangover of liner business), cartel like conferences of shipping lines operated in route based markets to control schedules and tariffs. While these were frowned upon, they were ever regulated. Recently, the Competition Commission of India raised the issue that such conferences were anti competitive and that shipping lines should set tariffs and compete independently. Independent of conferences, there is an increasing market concentration in the container shipping business. Table 14 gives a perspective on the concentration of container shipping among the top 20 carriers, which has increased from 38. 8% in 1990 to 72. 7% in 2006. This is reflective of the mergers and acquisitions, which seem to be a rather continuous activity of this business. Table 14: Top 20 Ocean Carriers| | Carrier Traffic (TEU)| Carrier Traffic (TEU)| | 1990| 2006| 1. | Evergreen| 130,916| AP Meller-Maersk [1]| 1,600,012| 2. | Sea-Land Service| 115,367| Mediterranean Shipping Co| 937,145| 3. | Maersk| 94,703| CMA CGM [2]| 597,677| 4. | NYK| 78,148| Evergreen [3]| 539,801| 5. | Mitsui OSK Lines| 70,338| Hapag-Lloyd| 448,840| 6. | APL| 66,380| Cosco| 385,368| 7. | OOCL| 58,117| China Shipping Container Lines| 339,545| 8. | K Line| 55,462| Hanjin Shipping [4]| 328,307| . | Cosco Shanghai| 54,505| APL| 323,319| 10. | Hapag-Lloyd| 53,178| NYK [5]| 313,049| 11. | Hanjin Shipping| 49,621| Mitsui OSK Lines| 284,848| 12. | P amp; O Containers| 49,368| OOCL| 268,502| 13. | Yangming| 46,817| CSAV [6]| 249,885| 14. | Zim Israel Navigation| 44,916| K Line| 241,772| 15. | Nedlloyd Lines| 40,335| Yangming| 223,192| 16. | Baltic Shipping Co| 36,760| Hamburg Sud [7]| 217,018| 17. | Neptune Orient Lines| 35,294| Zim Integrated Shipping Services| 213,795| 18. | ScanDutc h| 32,948| Hyundai Merchant Marine| 153,850| 19. CGM| 29,040| Pacific International Lines [8]| 141,391| 20. | Delmas Vieljeus| 31,204| Wan Hai Lines| 117,767| | Total| 1,173,413| Total| 7,925,083| | Top 20 Share| 38. 8%| Top 20 Share| 72. 7%| [CI Magazine, 2007]1 includes Portlink and Safmarine; 2 includes ANL, Delmas, FAS, MacAndrews, OT Africa Line; 3 includes Hatsu, Italia Marittima; 4 includes Senator Lines; 5 includes TSK; 6 includes CSAV Norasia, Libra, Montemar; 7 includes Alianca, Ybarra; 8 includes Advance Container Line| Customs Customs need to become more process friendly with increased usage of green channel. The data gathered by customs, especially with Electronic Data Interchange, can be used to create much required Origin Destination (OD) data for traffic profiling. Cabotage The cabotage rules of not allowing foreign flag vessels for coastal shipping need to be reviewed. The main trade of is between protection for Indian flags versus more competition and supply. In todays world of liberalization led growth, it would appear that cabotage must be lifted as a matter of long term policy. An attendant measure would be to provide the same concessions to coastal shipping as international shipping. As was voiced in CENTRUM 2006, cabotage should not become a sabotage! Other Areas of Regulation (which are not being elaborated) * Environment and conservation * Safety * Quality of service * Dispute resolution 6. Concluding Issues Based on the above analysis, the following issues need consideration: o Landlord port with privately operated terminals would be the way forward. Existing ports should be empowered for this There should be clear delineation of roles between landlord and operator. This does not exist at JNPT presently (JNPT vs JNPCT) o The public port authority will focus more on landlord function such as long-term planning, infrastructure development, asset management * regulatory function such as maritime safety, environment protection and fair competition, and * co-ordination function such as coordination among governmental agencies, maritime organizations, decision-making authorities and planners of the city, under the commonly shared long- range policy and planning * f acilitation/promotion function such as provision of port EDI, inter-port cooperation and strategic marketing o There is not enough focus on scale of container terminals. This is necessary to drive down costs. o Tendering and bidding should be done in a time definite manner. There should be a flexible framework in place for terminal development by private parties under a landlord port. There are significant beauracratic delays (eg second terminals in Tuticorin and Chennai). Labor is not always in favour and needs to be dealt with. o Global tendering would be essential to get the most competitive supply. Dredging is an example. o Acts governing ports and related activities need to be reviewed and liberalized (MS Act, IP Act, Maritime Trade Practices Act, etc). Training to bring in a supply chain and marketing mind set among executives of all stakeholders in this sector is critical. OD data on port traffic should be systematically gathered and published. IPA should drive this with support from Customs and Concor. EDI based data would help. o Top management stake holding, especially through the civil service, is not compatible with strategizing port deve lopment. Technocrats, with appropriate incentives and accountability should be brought in. The largest increases in container traffic are expected to occur in the western region, with the Mumbai and Gujarat port clusters together requiring capacity additions on the order of 10 mTEUs, from about 4 mTEUs now to over 14 mTEUs by 2015. Of this about 6 mTEUs of capacity is expected to be needed in the Mumbai cluster, and another 4 mTEUs in the Gujarat cluster. The other cluster where a large increase in container traffic is expected is in the Cochin/Tuticorin cluster where an additional 4 mTEUs of capacity will be needed. These three port clusters would then account for 14 mTEUs of the 16 mTEUs of additional capacity needed for container traffic through the year 2015. Achieving this level of capacity increases in the Mumbai, Gujarat and Cochin/Tutitcorin clusters would largely address the container traffic requirements through the year 2015. The 191 mt or 15 mTEUs capacity shortfall for container traffic projected for 2015 would only partially be filled by capacity expansions planned under the NMDP. The NMDP envisages the creation of an additional 11 mTEUs of container handling capacity in the near term. The remainder would need to be developed in the State ports sector primarily through private investments, and some of these are already being planned or under implementation such as at Mundra and Rewas. The investments proposed under the NMDP include large expansions of container handling capacity at Tuticorin, Cochin, JNPT and Mumbai port. This appears to fit well with the strategy of developing container facilities where the demand is greatest (the western and southern ports) and in the southern cluster which has proximity to international shipping routes [World Bank, 2007]. For 30 mTEUs per annum, as per normal international standards of 1000 TEUs per annum per mt of berth length, we need 30 km of berth length. By JNPT standards where demand is continuously available and productivity is high, this could be as low as 15 km. However, providing for a reasonable 70% occupancy, we need 21 km. At 300mts per berth, this translates to 70 berths. Currently we have 27 berths. An additional nine berths have been signed up as stated earlier in this paper. So there is a need for atleast 30 more berths. While this is a target, market forces will drive the actual berth development. The additional investment required could be of the order of US $7. 5 billion based on a 300 mts berth cost of US $250 million (Rs 1000 crore). With JNPT standards, and focusing on Suezmax vessels at hub ports, berth productivity can be doubled and the investment requirements brought down. A detailed cost benefit analysis, keeping in view the costs of accommodating large vessels and benefits of increased productivity including due to hubbing in India needs to be carried out. Indian infrastructure for logistics is poor compared to world class and at best reactive to demand. There is need for continued focus on quality infrastructure development with speed. Commercialization and private involvement through PPP contracts is the key for building global trade competitiveness through containerization. References 1. Chaudhuri, A (2006). De-regulation within the Rail Market, Presentation. 2. CI (2007). Containerization International, 40th Anniversary Issue, 2007. 3. CI (2007a). Containerization International, May, 2007. 4. CMIE (2007). Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy 5. CRISIL (2006). CRISIL Infrastructure Advisory Study. 6. Drewry (2006). Container Shipping Services from Asian Ports, Drewry Maritime Services, New Line, December 2006. 7. i-maritime and IPA (2006). India P ort Sector Strategy Demand and Capacity Assessment Study, Draft Final Presentation, May 08, 2006. . IPA (2006), Major Ports of India, Indian Ports Association, New Delhi. 9. Levinson, Marc (2006). The Box, Princeton University Press, New Jersey. 10. Raghuram, G (2006). A Diagnostic Study of Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, Working Paper No 2006-04-09, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, April 2006 11. World Bank (2007). India: Port Sector Development Possibilities for Accelerating Growth, June 26, 2007. 12. http://en. wikipedia. org 13. http://www. solentwaters. co. uk 14. http://www. public-freight. com

Social Media Images How To Make Them (With 128 Free Photos)

Social Media Images How To Make Them (With 128 Free Photos) The idea is pretty simple: Lets combine two of your favorite, top-performing tools- social media and imagery- to produce the best  social media images thatll engage your audience. Unfortunately,  while the idea is simple, the application can be quite challenging since  the visual options seem to be endless. But, today we have good news! With the correct sizes, best colors, awesome imagery types, and social image helpers in , youll be well on your way to a successful social media image that will extend far beyond its initial post life. How To Make The Best Social Media Images Step By Step (+ Free Photoshop Action)Get Your Free Social Media Images + Photoshop CC Action Are you ready to save hours of time!? Rather than designing custom images for each social network, simply use this Photoshop CC action that will size and save them all for  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+! Not only that, but use  the social media images infographic for every day reference, and enjoy these 14 images already sized for every single network! 1. Size Your Images For Optimal Attention The very first step to creating  the best social media images is by producing the correct size for each social network. You're  only given a limited space to capture your audience's attention, so you'll  want to use every pixel you're  given. This can get quite tricky when each network has different ratios and proportions, but if you know the posting sizes for each one, you'll be off to a great start! Below you'll find all of the recommended sizes for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google+ with the preferred size for  social posting. Keep in mind that all social platforms accept these three main file types: GIF, JPEG, and PNG. Alright, with that, here we go! Facebook Image Sizes Facebook is still the most popular social network today with over 1.6 billion active monthly users worldwide. With such a great audience, it's essential to optimize every single post for top engagement, especially for business. Facebook  image posts are known to get 39% more interaction  than that of a normal one, which is a perfectly great reason to start using social images for every single post. Plus, they've found that 87% of a Facebook Page's interaction comes solely from image posts, and that people remember the information better over a longer period of time. This study found that  information paired with an image  was 65% retained after a three day period. That's amazing! In recent news, Facebook now allows you to  post several images for one post, appearing as an album. There's been some discussion whether a single image or multiple images perform better, but  according to Convince and Convert, using multiple images can  increase clicks by 1,290%! Facebook's Three  Golden Rules: Use images in every single Facebook post and  multiple images whenever possible. Use the 1200 x 630px image dimensions. Post on the weekends at 12–1 p.m. for best performance. Facebook's Recommended Image Sizes: Profile Photo: 180 x 180px Cover Photo: 828 x 315px Shared Image: 1200 px 630px Shared Link: 1200 x 630px Highlighted Image: 1200 x 717pxIncrease clicks by 1,290% when you use multiple images on #Facebook. #marketing Recommended Reading: 12 Effective Ways To Expand Your Facebook Engagement 10 Fundamental Ways To Boost Your Facebook Organic Reach By 193% Facebook Marketing Strategy: Why You Need One ( How To Build It) Twitter Image Sizes Twitter, one of my personal favorite networks,  sends out 500 million tweets per day. That's 6,000 tweets every second! Adding images to your tweets not only gets you 18% more clicks, but also 89% more favorites, and  150% more retweets.  Talk about an engagement boost! Plus, Twitter has kept their network posting consistent in proportion, so there's no question that a 440px by 220px image is the best size  to reach the most people. If you really want to make sure your resolution is clear, bump it up to 506 by 253px so desktop users have the highest clarity. Twitter's Three  Golden Rules: Use images in every  tweet. Use  images that are  506 x 253px for optimal resolution. Schedule your tweets for Wednesdays at  12–1 p.m. or 5–6 p.m. Twitter's Recommended Image Sizes: Profile Photo: 400 x 400px Header Photo: 1500 x 500px In-Stream Photo: 506 x 253pxUse images on #Twitter  to  get 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites, 150% more retweets. Recommended Reading: 15 Tactics To Boost Twitter Engagement Backed By Research How To Get Started With Twitter Video Marketing How to Expand Your Organic Growth on Facebook and Twitter for Free LinkedIn Image Sizes While LinkedIn is one of the older social networks, it has continued on throughout  the years and thrives  with its 414 million users. LinkedIn's focus on business professionals creates a perfect space for business-specific content to be seen and viewed across the world. Although, post with caution. According to Jeff Bullas, being 'too professional' without first creating a relationship can actually be a common mistake when using LinkedIn. This idea seems to  validate just how important using  images can be for establishing that desired connection and relatability. LinkedIn's Three Golden Rules: Make sure your images have a personal touch. Use  images that are 531px wide. Schedule your posts midweek at  or 5–6 p.m. LinkedIn's Recommended Image Sizes: Banner Image: 646 x 220px Standard Logo: 400 x 400px Square Logo: 60 x 60px Hero Photo: 974 x 330px Profile Picture: 400 x 400px Background Image: 1000 x 425px Regular Post Image: 531px wide Linked Image Post: 191 x 100px414 million #LinkedIn users engage best with images that are 531px wide.Pinterest Image Sizes The average time spent on Pinterest per visit is 14.2 minutes! Multiply that by the 110 million active  users, and you're looking at one very powerful source of information and inspiration. With all of that collective time spent on Pinterest, that also means it's one of the fastest growing websites, creating the  greatest opportunity  for your business to grow along with it. Similar to Instagram, Pinterest is  highly visual, but rather with an emphasis in sharing content with strangers and friends alike as 80% of pins are repins. In order to have the best Pinterest images, avoid using faces, use  red or orange, and rock a less distracting background. Pinterest's Three Golden Rules: Always link back to content on your blog or website wherever you can convert that traffic. Use  images that are 600 x 1102px for highest engagement. Schedule your pins on Saturday from 8–11 p.m. Pinterest's Recommended Image Sizes: Profile Picture: 165 x 165px Pin Board Large Thumbnail: 222 x 150px Pin Board Small Thumbnail: 55 x 55px Pins On Main Page:  238px wide Pins Once Expanded: 600px wide Pins Enlarged Pin: 500px wide176 million Pinners spend 14.2 minutes a day on #Pinterest. Best image sizes here: Recommended Reading: How To Improve Your Pinterest Engagement With These 15 Tactics How To Get More Followers On Pinterest With 21+ Tactics That Will Grow Your Following The Ultimate Guide On How To Use Pinterest For Marketing Instagram Image Sizes Instagram is unique in that it solely allows photo-based posts. With an imagery-focused platform, it draws visual connections that make both a memorable and human impression. "Instagram’s per-follower engagement rate for top brands is 58 times higher than on Facebook and 120 times higher than on Twitter," according to Forrester, which might be why 85% of top brands are adopting it to grow their business. Just recently, Instagram opened their strict square ratio image size up to a variety of landscape and portrait options in addition to  increasing their resolution to 1080px for top clarity! Surely,  Instagram  is a great place for both connection and business. Instagram's Three Golden Rules: Always include a link back to your content in your profile. Use  images that are 1080px wide for highest resolution. Schedule your Instagrams for Monday at  2–3 p.m. or 8–9 p.m. Tip: Did you know that now schedules Instagram posts? Now you can schedule Instagram alongside all of your other social media marketing, making you more strategic and better organized. Instagram's Recommended Image Sizes: Profile Picture: 110 x 110px Photo Thumbnails: 161 x 161px Photo Size in App: 1080 x 1080px Instagram's engagement rate is 120x higher than Twitter. Best #Instagram image sizes here: Recommended Reading: How To Improve Your Instagram Engagement With 15 Tips How To Get Way More Instagram Followers With 20 Easy Tactics The Ultimate Guide On How To Use Instagram For Business Google+ Image Sizes While Google+  may very well be slowly disappearing, it still has a lot to offer if used correctly. After all, its partner in crime, Google, is our greatest source of information across the internet, one of the highest sources of revenue  for a lot of businesses, and one of the greatest companies worldwide. Your Google+ account is directly tied to the search engine so your business information is carried over into helping your SEO. Win-win. Everyone knows and loves Google. For that reason alone, it's no surprise that Google+ has 300 million active members. With that large of an audience, it's best that your images are set up for optimal performance. Google+'s Three Golden Rules: Use the .png image format rather than .jpg format for highest clarity. Use  images that are 426 x 255px. Schedule your posts on workdays from 9–11 a.m. Google+'s Recommended Image Sizes: Profile Picture: 250 x 250px Cover Image: 1080 x 608px Shared Image: 518px wide   Shared Link Thumbnail: 150 x 150pxMake perfect images for #Google+ to reach 375 million active users.There you have it! A complete guide to the best social image sizes, with the most important recommendations  for each and every network. Find the size you're looking for, and use that when you begin the creation process with your images. Simply choosing the correct size at the beginning, will save you so much time when you're ready to save and export your images for the world to see! Recommended Design Tools: Check out these awesome tools to help you create the best social media images with the perfect sizes- Canva, Piktochart, Visage, and more  free design tools. 2. Use The Best Colors To Increase Your Engagement While several factors go into making an image its very best, color is one of the most  essential ingredients. Color psychology has proven time and time again that we can convey emotions simply by using a particular color! In May of 2015, I did a two-month study on the popularity of a given color in 's graphics. Since we typically use a three-color palette for our blog graphics, I was able to give appropriate rankings to each of the three colors used  to see how they each performed. I quickly realized that certain colors might be performing better  simply because we use them more often, so I then compared the popularity percentage to the usage percentage  to find an overall color grade. Basically, I nerded out super hard and used data to see what colors performed the best. Use a graph like this to review and test your color schemes. At the end of my study, we found that blue and green were our highest performing colors! If we look at color psychology, both of these colors reflect a calm, clean, comforting presence which seems to  be the perfect match to the experience we want our readers to have, especially if they're new to the blog. Blue is also one of our brand colors. The other two top-performing colors were none other then red and orange. While blue and green provide a safe, calm place for our readers, orange and red are perfect complements because  they grab our audience's attention and spark their  interest. Blue and green and orange and red are a dynamic set of colors that will help you succeed. #colorPsychology tells us that red and orange represent passion, energy, and success.  I couldn't imagine a better pair for blue and green's calm, comforting presence than the passion and success of orange and red. Together, they seemed to make  a dynamic duo, so I tried using those color pairs over the past year... Out of our top 10 posts, 8  of them have either blue or green as the main color. The remaining two blog posts have orange as their main color. Absolutely none of our top performing posts contain any other  main colors! By understanding which colors performed better, we were able to help  increase our page views by  833.76%! You can do this, too! Simply follow the steps below to see which colors work best for your brand: Review your blog post header graphics and write down the primary, secondary, and third colors. Define  a ranking to the most prevalent 3 colors in your graphics. (i.e. 3 points for the primary color, 2 for the secondary color, and 1 for the third most-used color.) Look at the total shares each  post received during a set amount of time. For more than  x amount of  shares (at , we did per 100 shares), give each color that set amount of ranked points that you decided on above. (e.g. If the color blue was the primary color in a post that received 300 shares, blue  would have 9  total points, 3+3+3. If red was the second most-used color  in the post with 300 shares, it would have 6  points, 2+2+2.) At the end of each week, track the overall totals and see which colors perform the highest. After 8 solid weeks, you should start to see trends stick out, revealing your top-performing colors. While everyone has different colors that match  their brand and audience demographics, it's essential to test out the waters and find the colors that work best for you! But when in doubt... use blue or green. Recommended Reading: What 20 Studies Say About the Best Times to Post on Social Media 3. Use The Types Of Social Media Images That Get The Most Attention Now that you know your target image size and top-performing colors, it's time to decide what type of image to  use. While almost anything can be an image- screenshots, illustrations, photos, quotes, GIFs- there are a few standout images you  can depend upon to receive the most engagement. Quotes Quotes come in all shapes and sizes. Maybe it's from a speaker, conference, or a book that you've recently read. Or, maybe it's from an article or blog  online.  No matter the  form or social network, quotes can be an excellent way to reach your audience with images. Simply find a quote you like and pair it with a color or simple background. The dynamic duo will allow your readers to ponder, identify with, and in return, share your quote. For example, at we started sharing quotes from our blog authors on Facebook, and we received 98% growth in engagements and 91% growth in clickthroughs. Facebook isn't alone! Here's another example from Twitter: 20 Ways To Be Creative When You Dont Feel Inspired https://t.co/JS5YcKZFoQ pic.twitter.com/hRaof4lPfV (@) January 16, 2016 This tweet received  2,107 impressions and 38 engagements because the quote had insight, intrigue, and direct application. It not only complemented the content topic of creativity, but gave further information that could be easily shared with their family and friends. Quote images are a perfect way to give something to your audience that they can share and be proud of, all the while giving your content more traction. Try them out! GIFs GIFs are one of the office's favorite things both in our work chats and on social media because they  perform well, all while bringing a smile. Even in challenging situations, GIFs can bring a delight to those who would rather be frustrated. Hook you audience, tell a story, and make their day. Here's an example: Uh, oh. #facebookdown In the meantime, enjoy a cat gif! pic.twitter.com/34o2LYk61a (@) September 28, 2015 By using a GIF and bringing a humorous moment to a normal circumstance, we received  15,953 impressions and 381 engagements! We've also found that tweets with GIFs tend to get 22.3% more engagement than tweets with plain images. Here's an example: Are You Excited? You Can Now Pin To Pinterest With https://t.co/014yRye9xG pic.twitter.com/uo6Kenojn6 (@) March 8, 2016 Just by turning a static image into a motion-filled GIF, the tweet received  1,328 impressions, 77 views, and 15 engagements! Plus, this tweet isn't alone! When tweets contain GIFs, they get 166.6% more clickthroughs. GIFs allow motion to make your social posts stand out, get even more attention, and bring delight. What are some of your favorite GIFs? Infographics At this point, it's no secret that infographics are one of the most popular and highest shared content types  in today's digital world. Not only do they get shared 3 times more often, but they're also 30 times more likely to be read than a purely textual article! If that  wasn't good enough, infographics are also the perfect pair for one of the top-performing visual bookmarking site: Pinterest. Infographics get a lot of attention on  Pinterest  because they tend to be longer in format, which fits Pinterest's 4:5 image ratio that receives 60% more Repins. Here's an example of our top-performing pin: Is it a surprise that it happens to be an infographic? I think not. Titles You  work really hard to find the perfect headline for your content. You  search for  keywords, words  filled with emotion,  then use the headline analyzer to find the precise, most-effective title. So why not take advantage of that in your social image? At , we reviewed some of our top-performing tweets, and found that they all included a title image.  Our top  tweet in March  received 5,043 impressions and 85 engagements, our top tweet in April  had 3,556 impressions and 35  engagements, and in May  our top tweet got a total of 7,951 impressions and 58  engagements all with title graphics. That's an average of 5,516  impressions and 59 engagements from using a title graphic within the tweet. March  Example:   How To Use The Right Content Marketing Tools For Every Job - https://t.co/TQesnglq9t pic.twitter.com/pX4UcGXKi5 (@) March 2, 2016 April Example: Want to write killer blog posts? Here is the ultimate process to awesome content. https://t.co/2HO8vmL4mA pic.twitter.com/OD0IGGccCI (@) March 30, 2016 May  Example: How to Triumph at Content Marketing On A Limited Budget https://t.co/nRe4lMv1jP pic.twitter.com/D6nlmVH2Q1 (@) May 8, 2016 As you can see, titles extend beyond the written context, and can certainly be effective within the graphic itself. Find the title of your blog, announcement, or event, and use that in the image to see the top performance. 4. Automate Your Images For Social Media To Save Time As the graphic designer on 's marketing team, I live and breathe images every, single, day, so although creating your graphics well is super important, so is making sure you're efficient when it comes to uploading  them to your social messages. After all, time is money, and money is time you could be spending on other projects. This is exactly where is a HUGE time saver for me. Let me introduce you to a magical thing called 'Social Helpers'. What Are Social Helpers in ? But First, I should probably back up and start with Social Templates. Social Templates is  a great way to reuse your social sharing schedule time and time again. That means that you can create a social campaign just one time (with the best times and right frequency), save it as a template, and then apply it to all other forms of content from there on out. Just one time! (That's hours of savings right there.) In case you'd like to see it in action, here's a live demo of social templates. If that wasn't awesome enough, there's three key components  of social templates that save  us even more time. Within each social template, you  can create an individual message 'template' using social helpers. Let me show you how it works: Within , Social Templates live to the left of your social campaign. 2. If you click on a Social Template, you can modify each and every single message within that template. This is a great way to personalize your messages for each network. 3. Do you see those blue things? Those are social helpers! There are text, image, and video helpers. 4. Here's where the magic comes in. Are you ready? You can add specific helpers to  your messages so whenever the template is applied, rather than writing that message 10x or uploading that same image 10x, you only have to do it once! Wherever that helper is located,  the content will auto-populate to all your messages at one time. What Does That Mean for Social Images? The brilliance of Social Image Helpers, is that I no longer have to upload images to every individual message for every piece of content. If your team is like ours, we have about 17 messages per piece of content, so before Social Image Helpers, I uploaded  the same image 17 times. That took a lot of time! Time spent I could be doing better things like image creation, design strategy, or connecting with our audience. With Social Helpers, I can now do what I had to do 17 times, just once. Once! This saves me so much time, and allows me to focus more time on what makes an image great, rather than worrying about how it'll publish across every single network. Social templates and social helpers take the guess-work out of it, and allow me to quickly place my images, moving onto the next thing. Now You Know How To Make Successful  Social Media Images From Beginning To End Social media images can take quite a few different forms, colors, and sizes- but with this data, you've found exactly what equation works best for each social network. If you happen to be in a rush or maybe you're just starting out, use a  2:1 ratio for your image size, incorporate blue or green with a pop of orange or red in your color scheme, stick to the four main image types: GIFs, quotes, titles, and infographics, and save time uploading with Social Image Helpers. Without much time at all, you'll be on your way to success! What colors, sizes, and image types have worked best for you? Share below! Social Media Images How To Make Them (With 128 Free Photos) The idea is pretty simple: Lets combine two of your favorite, top-performing tools- social media and imagery- to produce the best  social media images thatll engage your audience. Unfortunately,  while the idea is simple, the application can be quite challenging since  the visual options seem to be endless. But, today we have good news! With the correct sizes, best colors, awesome imagery types, and social image helpers in , youll be well on your way to a successful social media image that will extend far beyond its initial post life. How To Make The Best Social Media Images Step By Step (+ Free Photoshop Action)Get Your Free Social Media Images + Photoshop CC Action Are you ready to save hours of time!? Rather than designing custom images for each social network, simply use this Photoshop CC action that will size and save them all for  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+! Not only that, but use  the social media images infographic for every day reference, and enjoy these 14 images already sized for every single network! 1. Size Your Images For Optimal Attention The very first step to creating  the best social media images is by producing the correct size for each social network. You're  only given a limited space to capture your audience's attention, so you'll  want to use every pixel you're  given. This can get quite tricky when each network has different ratios and proportions, but if you know the posting sizes for each one, you'll be off to a great start! Below you'll find all of the recommended sizes for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google+ with the preferred size for  social posting. Keep in mind that all social platforms accept these three main file types: GIF, JPEG, and PNG. Alright, with that, here we go! Facebook Image Sizes Facebook is still the most popular social network today with over 1.6 billion active monthly users worldwide. With such a great audience, it's essential to optimize every single post for top engagement, especially for business. Facebook  image posts are known to get 39% more interaction  than that of a normal one, which is a perfectly great reason to start using social images for every single post. Plus, they've found that 87% of a Facebook Page's interaction comes solely from image posts, and that people remember the information better over a longer period of time. This study found that  information paired with an image  was 65% retained after a three day period. That's amazing! In recent news, Facebook now allows you to  post several images for one post, appearing as an album. There's been some discussion whether a single image or multiple images perform better, but  according to Convince and Convert, using multiple images can  increase clicks by 1,290%! Facebook's Three  Golden Rules: Use images in every single Facebook post and  multiple images whenever possible. Use the 1200 x 630px image dimensions. Post on the weekends at 12–1 p.m. for best performance. Facebook's Recommended Image Sizes: Profile Photo: 180 x 180px Cover Photo: 828 x 315px Shared Image: 1200 px 630px Shared Link: 1200 x 630px Highlighted Image: 1200 x 717pxIncrease clicks by 1,290% when you use multiple images on #Facebook. #marketing Recommended Reading: 12 Effective Ways To Expand Your Facebook Engagement 10 Fundamental Ways To Boost Your Facebook Organic Reach By 193% Facebook Marketing Strategy: Why You Need One ( How To Build It) Twitter Image Sizes Twitter, one of my personal favorite networks,  sends out 500 million tweets per day. That's 6,000 tweets every second! Adding images to your tweets not only gets you 18% more clicks, but also 89% more favorites, and  150% more retweets.  Talk about an engagement boost! Plus, Twitter has kept their network posting consistent in proportion, so there's no question that a 440px by 220px image is the best size  to reach the most people. If you really want to make sure your resolution is clear, bump it up to 506 by 253px so desktop users have the highest clarity. Twitter's Three  Golden Rules: Use images in every  tweet. Use  images that are  506 x 253px for optimal resolution. Schedule your tweets for Wednesdays at  12–1 p.m. or 5–6 p.m. Twitter's Recommended Image Sizes: Profile Photo: 400 x 400px Header Photo: 1500 x 500px In-Stream Photo: 506 x 253pxUse images on #Twitter  to  get 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites, 150% more retweets. Recommended Reading: 15 Tactics To Boost Twitter Engagement Backed By Research How To Get Started With Twitter Video Marketing How to Expand Your Organic Growth on Facebook and Twitter for Free LinkedIn Image Sizes While LinkedIn is one of the older social networks, it has continued on throughout  the years and thrives  with its 414 million users. LinkedIn's focus on business professionals creates a perfect space for business-specific content to be seen and viewed across the world. Although, post with caution. According to Jeff Bullas, being 'too professional' without first creating a relationship can actually be a common mistake when using LinkedIn. This idea seems to  validate just how important using  images can be for establishing that desired connection and relatability. LinkedIn's Three Golden Rules: Make sure your images have a personal touch. Use  images that are 531px wide. Schedule your posts midweek at  or 5–6 p.m. LinkedIn's Recommended Image Sizes: Banner Image: 646 x 220px Standard Logo: 400 x 400px Square Logo: 60 x 60px Hero Photo: 974 x 330px Profile Picture: 400 x 400px Background Image: 1000 x 425px Regular Post Image: 531px wide Linked Image Post: 191 x 100px414 million #LinkedIn users engage best with images that are 531px wide.Pinterest Image Sizes The average time spent on Pinterest per visit is 14.2 minutes! Multiply that by the 110 million active  users, and you're looking at one very powerful source of information and inspiration. With all of that collective time spent on Pinterest, that also means it's one of the fastest growing websites, creating the  greatest opportunity  for your business to grow along with it. Similar to Instagram, Pinterest is  highly visual, but rather with an emphasis in sharing content with strangers and friends alike as 80% of pins are repins. In order to have the best Pinterest images, avoid using faces, use  red or orange, and rock a less distracting background. Pinterest's Three Golden Rules: Always link back to content on your blog or website wherever you can convert that traffic. Use  images that are 600 x 1102px for highest engagement. Schedule your pins on Saturday from 8–11 p.m. Pinterest's Recommended Image Sizes: Profile Picture: 165 x 165px Pin Board Large Thumbnail: 222 x 150px Pin Board Small Thumbnail: 55 x 55px Pins On Main Page:  238px wide Pins Once Expanded: 600px wide Pins Enlarged Pin: 500px wide176 million Pinners spend 14.2 minutes a day on #Pinterest. Best image sizes here: Recommended Reading: How To Improve Your Pinterest Engagement With These 15 Tactics How To Get More Followers On Pinterest With 21+ Tactics That Will Grow Your Following The Ultimate Guide On How To Use Pinterest For Marketing Instagram Image Sizes Instagram is unique in that it solely allows photo-based posts. With an imagery-focused platform, it draws visual connections that make both a memorable and human impression. "Instagram’s per-follower engagement rate for top brands is 58 times higher than on Facebook and 120 times higher than on Twitter," according to Forrester, which might be why 85% of top brands are adopting it to grow their business. Just recently, Instagram opened their strict square ratio image size up to a variety of landscape and portrait options in addition to  increasing their resolution to 1080px for top clarity! Surely,  Instagram  is a great place for both connection and business. Instagram's Three Golden Rules: Always include a link back to your content in your profile. Use  images that are 1080px wide for highest resolution. Schedule your Instagrams for Monday at  2–3 p.m. or 8–9 p.m. Tip: Did you know that now schedules Instagram posts? Now you can schedule Instagram alongside all of your other social media marketing, making you more strategic and better organized. Instagram's Recommended Image Sizes: Profile Picture: 110 x 110px Photo Thumbnails: 161 x 161px Photo Size in App: 1080 x 1080px Instagram's engagement rate is 120x higher than Twitter. Best #Instagram image sizes here: Recommended Reading: How To Improve Your Instagram Engagement With 15 Tips How To Get Way More Instagram Followers With 20 Easy Tactics The Ultimate Guide On How To Use Instagram For Business Google+ Image Sizes While Google+  may very well be slowly disappearing, it still has a lot to offer if used correctly. After all, its partner in crime, Google, is our greatest source of information across the internet, one of the highest sources of revenue  for a lot of businesses, and one of the greatest companies worldwide. Your Google+ account is directly tied to the search engine so your business information is carried over into helping your SEO. Win-win. Everyone knows and loves Google. For that reason alone, it's no surprise that Google+ has 300 million active members. With that large of an audience, it's best that your images are set up for optimal performance. Google+'s Three Golden Rules: Use the .png image format rather than .jpg format for highest clarity. Use  images that are 426 x 255px. Schedule your posts on workdays from 9–11 a.m. Google+'s Recommended Image Sizes: Profile Picture: 250 x 250px Cover Image: 1080 x 608px Shared Image: 518px wide   Shared Link Thumbnail: 150 x 150pxMake perfect images for #Google+ to reach 375 million active users.There you have it! A complete guide to the best social image sizes, with the most important recommendations  for each and every network. Find the size you're looking for, and use that when you begin the creation process with your images. Simply choosing the correct size at the beginning, will save you so much time when you're ready to save and export your images for the world to see! Recommended Design Tools: Check out these awesome tools to help you create the best social media images with the perfect sizes- Canva, Piktochart, Visage, and more  free design tools. 2. Use The Best Colors To Increase Your Engagement While several factors go into making an image its very best, color is one of the most  essential ingredients. Color psychology has proven time and time again that we can convey emotions simply by using a particular color! In May of 2015, I did a two-month study on the popularity of a given color in 's graphics. Since we typically use a three-color palette for our blog graphics, I was able to give appropriate rankings to each of the three colors used  to see how they each performed. I quickly realized that certain colors might be performing better  simply because we use them more often, so I then compared the popularity percentage to the usage percentage  to find an overall color grade. Basically, I nerded out super hard and used data to see what colors performed the best. Use a graph like this to review and test your color schemes. At the end of my study, we found that blue and green were our highest performing colors! If we look at color psychology, both of these colors reflect a calm, clean, comforting presence which seems to  be the perfect match to the experience we want our readers to have, especially if they're new to the blog. Blue is also one of our brand colors. The other two top-performing colors were none other then red and orange. While blue and green provide a safe, calm place for our readers, orange and red are perfect complements because  they grab our audience's attention and spark their  interest. Blue and green and orange and red are a dynamic set of colors that will help you succeed. #colorPsychology tells us that red and orange represent passion, energy, and success.  I couldn't imagine a better pair for blue and green's calm, comforting presence than the passion and success of orange and red. Together, they seemed to make  a dynamic duo, so I tried using those color pairs over the past year... Out of our top 10 posts, 8  of them have either blue or green as the main color. The remaining two blog posts have orange as their main color. Absolutely none of our top performing posts contain any other  main colors! By understanding which colors performed better, we were able to help  increase our page views by  833.76%! You can do this, too! Simply follow the steps below to see which colors work best for your brand: Review your blog post header graphics and write down the primary, secondary, and third colors. Define  a ranking to the most prevalent 3 colors in your graphics. (i.e. 3 points for the primary color, 2 for the secondary color, and 1 for the third most-used color.) Look at the total shares each  post received during a set amount of time. For more than  x amount of  shares (at , we did per 100 shares), give each color that set amount of ranked points that you decided on above. (e.g. If the color blue was the primary color in a post that received 300 shares, blue  would have 9  total points, 3+3+3. If red was the second most-used color  in the post with 300 shares, it would have 6  points, 2+2+2.) At the end of each week, track the overall totals and see which colors perform the highest. After 8 solid weeks, you should start to see trends stick out, revealing your top-performing colors. While everyone has different colors that match  their brand and audience demographics, it's essential to test out the waters and find the colors that work best for you! But when in doubt... use blue or green. Recommended Reading: What 20 Studies Say About the Best Times to Post on Social Media 3. Use The Types Of Social Media Images That Get The Most Attention Now that you know your target image size and top-performing colors, it's time to decide what type of image to  use. While almost anything can be an image- screenshots, illustrations, photos, quotes, GIFs- there are a few standout images you  can depend upon to receive the most engagement. Quotes Quotes come in all shapes and sizes. Maybe it's from a speaker, conference, or a book that you've recently read. Or, maybe it's from an article or blog  online.  No matter the  form or social network, quotes can be an excellent way to reach your audience with images. Simply find a quote you like and pair it with a color or simple background. The dynamic duo will allow your readers to ponder, identify with, and in return, share your quote. For example, at we started sharing quotes from our blog authors on Facebook, and we received 98% growth in engagements and 91% growth in clickthroughs. Facebook isn't alone! Here's another example from Twitter: 20 Ways To Be Creative When You Dont Feel Inspired https://t.co/JS5YcKZFoQ pic.twitter.com/hRaof4lPfV (@) January 16, 2016 This tweet received  2,107 impressions and 38 engagements because the quote had insight, intrigue, and direct application. It not only complemented the content topic of creativity, but gave further information that could be easily shared with their family and friends. Quote images are a perfect way to give something to your audience that they can share and be proud of, all the while giving your content more traction. Try them out! GIFs GIFs are one of the office's favorite things both in our work chats and on social media because they  perform well, all while bringing a smile. Even in challenging situations, GIFs can bring a delight to those who would rather be frustrated. Hook you audience, tell a story, and make their day. Here's an example: Uh, oh. #facebookdown In the meantime, enjoy a cat gif! pic.twitter.com/34o2LYk61a (@) September 28, 2015 By using a GIF and bringing a humorous moment to a normal circumstance, we received  15,953 impressions and 381 engagements! We've also found that tweets with GIFs tend to get 22.3% more engagement than tweets with plain images. Here's an example: Are You Excited? You Can Now Pin To Pinterest With https://t.co/014yRye9xG pic.twitter.com/uo6Kenojn6 (@) March 8, 2016 Just by turning a static image into a motion-filled GIF, the tweet received  1,328 impressions, 77 views, and 15 engagements! Plus, this tweet isn't alone! When tweets contain GIFs, they get 166.6% more clickthroughs. GIFs allow motion to make your social posts stand out, get even more attention, and bring delight. What are some of your favorite GIFs? Infographics At this point, it's no secret that infographics are one of the most popular and highest shared content types  in today's digital world. Not only do they get shared 3 times more often, but they're also 30 times more likely to be read than a purely textual article! If that  wasn't good enough, infographics are also the perfect pair for one of the top-performing visual bookmarking site: Pinterest. Infographics get a lot of attention on  Pinterest  because they tend to be longer in format, which fits Pinterest's 4:5 image ratio that receives 60% more Repins. Here's an example of our top-performing pin: Is it a surprise that it happens to be an infographic? I think not. Titles You  work really hard to find the perfect headline for your content. You  search for  keywords, words  filled with emotion,  then use the headline analyzer to find the precise, most-effective title. So why not take advantage of that in your social image? At , we reviewed some of our top-performing tweets, and found that they all included a title image.  Our top  tweet in March  received 5,043 impressions and 85 engagements, our top tweet in April  had 3,556 impressions and 35  engagements, and in May  our top tweet got a total of 7,951 impressions and 58  engagements all with title graphics. That's an average of 5,516  impressions and 59 engagements from using a title graphic within the tweet. March  Example:   How To Use The Right Content Marketing Tools For Every Job - https://t.co/TQesnglq9t pic.twitter.com/pX4UcGXKi5 (@) March 2, 2016 April Example: Want to write killer blog posts? Here is the ultimate process to awesome content. https://t.co/2HO8vmL4mA pic.twitter.com/OD0IGGccCI (@) March 30, 2016 May  Example: How to Triumph at Content Marketing On A Limited Budget https://t.co/nRe4lMv1jP pic.twitter.com/D6nlmVH2Q1 (@) May 8, 2016 As you can see, titles extend beyond the written context, and can certainly be effective within the graphic itself. Find the title of your blog, announcement, or event, and use that in the image to see the top performance. 4. Automate Your Images For Social Media To Save Time As the graphic designer on 's marketing team, I live and breathe images every, single, day, so although creating your graphics well is super important, so is making sure you're efficient when it comes to uploading  them to your social messages. After all, time is money, and money is time you could be spending on other projects. This is exactly where is a HUGE time saver for me. Let me introduce you to a magical thing called 'Social Helpers'. What Are Social Helpers in ? But First, I should probably back up and start with Social Templates. Social Templates is  a great way to reuse your social sharing schedule time and time again. That means that you can create a social campaign just one time (with the best times and right frequency), save it as a template, and then apply it to all other forms of content from there on out. Just one time! (That's hours of savings right there.) In case you'd like to see it in action, here's a live demo of social templates. If that wasn't awesome enough, there's three key components  of social templates that save  us even more time. Within each social template, you  can create an individual message 'template' using social helpers. Let me show you how it works: Within , Social Templates live to the left of your social campaign. 2. If you click on a Social Template, you can modify each and every single message within that template. This is a great way to personalize your messages for each network. 3. Do you see those blue things? Those are social helpers! There are text, image, and video helpers. 4. Here's where the magic comes in. Are you ready? You can add specific helpers to  your messages so whenever the template is applied, rather than writing that message 10x or uploading that same image 10x, you only have to do it once! Wherever that helper is located,  the content will auto-populate to all your messages at one time. What Does That Mean for Social Images? The brilliance of Social Image Helpers, is that I no longer have to upload images to every individual message for every piece of content. If your team is like ours, we have about 17 messages per piece of content, so before Social Image Helpers, I uploaded  the same image 17 times. That took a lot of time! Time spent I could be doing better things like image creation, design strategy, or connecting with our audience. With Social Helpers, I can now do what I had to do 17 times, just once. Once! This saves me so much time, and allows me to focus more time on what makes an image great, rather than worrying about how it'll publish across every single network. Social templates and social helpers take the guess-work out of it, and allow me to quickly place my images, moving onto the next thing. Now You Know How To Make Successful  Social Media Images From Beginning To End Social media images can take quite a few different forms, colors, and sizes- but with this data, you've found exactly what equation works best for each social network. If you happen to be in a rush or maybe you're just starting out, use a  2:1 ratio for your image size, incorporate blue or green with a pop of orange or red in your color scheme, stick to the four main image types: GIFs, quotes, titles, and infographics, and save time uploading with Social Image Helpers. Without much time at all, you'll be on your way to success! What colors, sizes, and image types have worked best for you? Share below!