PlanningForPeace.org

Peace is a term that most commonly refers to an absence of hostility, but which also represents a larger concept wherein there are healthy or newly-healed interpersonal or international relationships, safety in matters of social or economic welfare, the acknowledgment of equality and fairness in political relationships and, in world matters,
peacetime; a state of being absent any war or conflict. Reflection on the nature of peace is also bound up with considerations of the causes for its absence or loss. Among these potential causes are: insecurity, social injustice, economic inequality, political and religious radicalism, and acute nationalism.

Derived from the Anglo-Norman pas c.1140, and meaning “freedom from civil disorder”, the English word came into use in various personal greetings from c.1300 as a translation of the biblical terms pax (from the Vulgate) and Greek eirene, which in turn were renderings of the Hebrew shalom. Shalom, cognate with the Arabic “salaam”, has multiple
meanings: safety, welfare, prosperity, security, fortune, friendliness. The personalised meaning is reflected in a non-violent lifestyle which also describes a relationship between any people characterized by respect, justice and goodwill. This latter understanding of peace can also pertain to an individual’s sense of himself or herself, as to be “at peace” with one’s own mind attested in Europe from c.1200. The early English term is also used in the sense of “quiet”, reflecting a calm, serene, and meditative approach to the family or group relationships that avoids quarreling and seeks tranquility — an absence of disturbance or agitation.

An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site.It is the modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board, and a technological evolution of the dialup bulletin board system.From a technological standpoint, forums or boards are web applications managing user-generated content.

People participating in an Internet forum can build bonds with each other and interest groups will easily form around a topic’s discussion, subjects dealt within or around sections in the forum.

Information and Communications Technology - or technologies (ICT) is an umbrella term that includes all technologies for the manipulation and communication of information. The term is sometimes used in preference to Information Technology (IT), particularly in two communities: education and government. In the common usage it is often
assumed that ICT is synonymous with IT; ICT in fact encompasses any medium to record information (magnetic disk/tape, optical disks (CD/DVD), flash memory etc. and arguably also paper records); technology for broadcasting information - radio, television; and technology for communicating through voice and sound or images - microphone, camera, loudspeaker, telephone to cellular phones. It includes the wide variety of
computing hardware (PCs, servers, mainframes, networked storage), the rapidly developing personal hardware market comprising mobile phones, personal devices, MP3 players, and much more; the full gamut of application software from the smallest home-developed spreadsheet to the largest enterprise packages and online software services; and the hardware and software needed to operate networks for transmission of information, again ranging from a home network to the largest global private networks operated by major commercial enterprises and, of course, the Internet. Thus, “ICT” makes more explicit that technologies such as broadcasting and wireless mobile telecommunications are included.

It should be noted that “ICT” by this English definition is different in nuance and scope than under “ICT” in Japanese, which is more technical and narrow in scope.

ICT capabilities vary widely from the sophistication of major western economies to lesser
provision in the developing world. But the latter are catching up fast, often leapfrogging older generations of technology and developing new solutions that match their specific needs.

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is a form of outsourcing which involves the contracting of the operations and responsibilities of a specific business function to a third-party service provider.

Traditionally, BPO is undertaken by manufacturing firms, for instance Coca Cola, where almost the entire supply chain is outsourced and the company is essentially becoming a marketing organization. More recently, it is also used by service oriented businesses, such as the Bank of America, who outsourced their entire Human Resources function to the BPO firm Exult Inc.

BPO is often divided into two categories: back office outsourcing, which includes internal business functions such as billing or purchasing, and front office outsourcing, which includes customer-related services such as marketing or tech support. BPO that is contracted outside a company’s own country is sometimes called offshore outsourcing.
BPO that is contracted to a company’s neighboring country is sometimes called nearshore outsourcing.

Use of a BPO as opposed to an application service provider (ASP) usually also means that a certain amount of risk is transferred to the company that is running the process elements on behalf of the outsourcer. BPO includes the software, the process management, and the people to operate the service, while a typical ASP model includes only the provision of access to functionalities and features provided or ’served up’ through the use of software, usually via web browser to the customer.

BPO is a part of the outsourcing industry. It is dependent on information technology, hence it is also referred to as information technology enabled services or ITES. Knowledge process outsourcing and legal process outsourcing are some of the subsets of business process outsourcing.