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salmankhanholics · 3 years

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★ Well done Salman Khan”: Single screen exhibitors react to Radhe – Your Most Wanted Bhai’s hybrid release announcement!

Apr 23, 2021 The industry, trade and moviegoers were left surprised with the sudden announcement that Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai, the much awaited film of Salman Khan, would release in cinemas on Eid. However, it’ll also simultaneously arrive on Zee’s pay-per-view platform, ZeePlex. It’s the first time something of this sort is being attempted. Ideally, a massy movie like Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai is best enjoyed in cinemas but due to the never-ending second wave of Coronavirus, it seems that the makers had to make this decision.

Shariq Patel, Chief Business Officer, Zee Studios says, “Wherever theatres are operational in India, our film will release. And internationally, cinemas are anyway open. So wherever theatres are functional, we’ll follow the theatrical windowing of that particular country.” In other words, internationally, the film will release only in cinemas, provided theatres are functioning in that region. In India, it’ll have a hybrid release.

He justifies this move by stating, “Internationally, Warner Bros has been following this practice. Last year, we experimented with just a PVOD (premium video on demand) release of Khaali Peeli. We shortened the theatrical window of Suraj Pe Mangal Bhariand Solo Brathuke So Better. We need to adapt to the existing market scenario. One has to understand that a lot of money has been invested. So one can’t keep waiting for the ideal scenario to arise. The pandemic and the resulting restrictions have been going on for a year now and there’s no end in sight. So, the point is that we have to evolve, find a solution to a given situation.”

Trade Speak Trade analyst Taran Adarsh says, “The producers did the right thing. Since it’s a Salman Khan film, the costs are huge. And it’s a film which was supposed to release one year ago. Imagine the interest he must have incurred due to this delay. He has all the money in the world, I am not denying that. But every film has an economic baggage. How long can you hold on?”

He adds, “As for the exhibitors, they were hoping that Salman Khan will bail them out. As I have always said, he is the pied piper of Bollywood. His films, irrespective of the merit, command a terrific initial. Now a hybrid release announcement comes as a jolt for them. It’s going to take some time for them to absorb the reality.”

He also feels that in these sensitive times, cinema is the last thing on people’s mind, “On social media, 99% discussions are only about Covid-19. Cinema doesn’t even feature anywhere as priority. So it’s a wait and watch situation right now. We don’t know how it’s going to pan out.”

Girish Johar, producer and film business analyst, however, is more critical of this development, “This scenario has to be seen through various perspectives. Definitely, it’s a big blow for cinemas. We have already lost around 1000 screens to Covid-19 last year. And now Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai, which is like a crucial oxygen cylinder, has gone away on digital. So it’s sure to affect the health of the exhibition sector.”

He says he fails to understand how someone of the stature of Salman can opt for such a model and adds, “If you are an individual producer in need of cash flow, then one can understand if one opts for such a model. After all, the interest adds to the budget with each passing month.” He also feels that the stars have been unfair to the theatres, which made them so popular in the first place. He emphasizes, “These actors, in their 30 or 35 year old careers went to various theatres to promote their films. Kuch actors ne toh ticket window pe tickets bhi bechi hai, for promotions. Pichle ek-dedh saal mein cinemas bandh kya hue, inhone toh tweet bhi nahi kiya for helpingthis sector. It’s the cinema that made you. They should have been a little considerate about them.”

He further tells why the PVOD release is not ideal, “From infrastructure perspective, it is not the right move. It’ll stop the growth of multiplex screens. Also, OTT is an urban market and mostly patronized by viewers of 10-12 cities. Toh Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai log ZeePlex pe Delhi aur Mumbai mein dekhenge ya Ichalkaranji mein dekhenge? Obviously, it’ll be the former. And Mumbai and Delhi were the top revenue generating centres for most films. As for audiences in smaller towns, they’ll access the film through Telegram or other pirated means.”

“How long can you keep waiting?” We then asked the exhibitors on their reaction to this development. While the representatives of multiplex chains were unavailable, the single-screen cinema owners shared their views to this writer. Surprisingly, till now, they have always been against a big, feature films releasing anywhere else other than the cinemas first. This time, their viewpoint has slightly altered.

Vishek Chauhan, owner of Roopbani Cinema in Bihar, says, “It’s high time they took this step and no one is to blame here. How long can you keep waiting? It’s a crisis situation for everyone. It’s not like cinemas hi marr rahe hai. Sab marr rahe hai. Everyone is suffering. Zee has paid around Rs. 230 crores. How long can they hold their investment?”

Akshaye Rathi, film exhibitor and distributor, adds, “Given the scenario given in the country right now, the decision is quite practical. I don’t expect a significant number of cinemas to be even allowed to open by May 13. It’s an interesting experiment and I truly hope that the Indian consumers rise to the occasion and actually pay per view rather than hacking the movie through piracy.”

He continues, “As an exhibitor, however, I would have loved it had the movie’s release plans been delayed a bit and was brought to the theatres when things were coming close to normal. Now that the vaccination drive is getting accelerated, I am sure that day isn’t too far out that cases would reduce. Fingers crossed and here’s wishing the team luck.”

Raj Bansal agrees with Akshaye Rathi as he states, “If they really wanted to come in a big way in theatres, they should have waited for two months.”

Question mark over its domestic box office performance However, due to the rise in cases, one wonders how many cinemas will be open in India by May 13. Also, prime markets like Mumbai, Delhi etc. might still be shut. In such a scenario, one wonders what the domestic box office of Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai would look like. Vishek Chauhan minces no words as he tells, “Theatre India mein kahan khule hai? Jo bhi khule hue hai, woh naam ke khule hue hain. The way cases are rising exponentially, cinemas will be lucky to be operating by Diwali in this country. The current crisis is unprecedented.”

He also feels that it’s a long way to go for cinemas to reopen. He explains, “First, you need the cases to go down and for people to feel confident to roam around. Then the government should feel confident to open cinemas. Then, theatre owners should feel that it’s viable to resume operations. Lastly, producers should feel that it’s a good time to release their films. Yeh hote hote aisa na ho ki phir se saal nikal jaaye.”

Raj Bansal tells, “Half of cinema theatres in India might be shut during Eid. May 13 is just three weeks away. I doubt if we can open up looking at the lockdowns that are happening in several places. The election rallies and kumbh mela have led to the increase in cases majorly. We can’t afford to do the same during Eid by opening up cinemas.” Even Akshaye Rathi is in agreement that theatres in most regions will still be shut during May 13.

Vishek Chauhan, then, tries to understand the rationale behind this move, “Salman and Zee must have got slightly bolstered since UK cinemas will resume operations from May 11. The USA market, meanwhile, is fully recovering. UAE is perfectly fine while Australia and New Zealand is alive and kicking. So the domestic losses they’ll face, they’ll make up from overseas markets to some extent. Domestic box office, meanwhile, will be zero. Kahan release karenge? The government might refuse to open cinemas for this film, fearing that it’ll lead to crowding.”

‘Radhe’ model to become the norm? Like Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai, there are several big ticket films awaiting release. The question is whether these films would also follow suit and opt for a hybrid release. Shariq Patel says, “I am fairly certain. A lot of films have been held on for so long. No producer has the capacity to hold on to their film for such a long period. However, equilibrium will be reached once the situation is back to normal. But when that normal situation would arise is something that no one knows. Today, we are in April 2021 and it’s worse than the circumstances in April 2020.”

Vishek Chauhan also has a similar point of view, “Other makers should follow suit. How long will they wait for? And we cinema owners are in no position to dictate terms to them. But one thing is proven that when cinemas are open, theatres are the best place to release a film. Theatres will be back and theatres will be the main medium to release films.”

Akshaye Rathi however disagrees, “I think a lot of filmmakers would observe what actually happens to Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai in terms of its PVOD release. India as a market has traditionally not succeeded too well with the pay-per-view model. Having said that, this is the biggest film to take this route. If it succeeds, then maybe a few more producers might consider it. So I think that it’s a wait-and-watch scenario. Personally I don’t expect too many people to take up this model yet.”

Raj Bansal adds, “It’s too early to decide. We have to wait and see how Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai performs, and also how much it affects theatrical business. If the box office gets impacted, then the Multiplex Association of India might now allow such hybrid release. However, since 15 months will pass without any major film, the MAI might allow this model for a few films initially.”

#salman khan #radhe #hybird release #hybird

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jae-canikeepyou · 5 years

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| what is worth | j.jh

pairing: jaehyun x fem!reader genre: angst a/n: based on this request! i’ll be sticking with idol!jaehyun for this oneshot just because it suits and makes sense. such a challenging one to write ^^ i hope it meets your liking! 💜🧡💛

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people always said life is a roller coaster. they are full of ups and downs, and that the ride was so unpredictable. dating jaehyun was the exact definition of the phrase. you knew that for sure, however, it never really hit you until it actually happened.

more of you waited for it happen.

the nightmares continued to haunt the you who hid behind the walls of your already-low self esteem. what was scary was that they rather seep into the cracks of it than knocking it down brick by brick. they got you walking backwards though. you knew completely that you would be able hurdle over the fog of insults and bashing, but that was only the sight— what you see. the fog actually came in with poison that was slowly killing you inside.

these ordeals you were facing included that you were not able to go out in the public normally, hiding your identity as much as you could, and die-hard jaehyun biased fans calculating or eyeing your every move. there was a reason of the latter.

jaehyun recently posted a series of pictures of you and him. he explained how he was grateful to have met you, and how he was blessed to have you in his life. knowing the risks of dating a non-celebrity, he still forgo with the idea. and because he liked you a lot, he would do anything to make you notice his motives.

a friend invited you to attend a private fanmeet of nct 127’s. you knew of the group but never really paid any attention to. that was probably the reason why jaehyun was assertive into getting in contact with you. you were seated at the very front of the audience and he giggled inside to see you trying your best to stay awake at the three-hour long event. to him at the time, there was something about you that made you appear in his spotlight.

when jaehyun knew you won the random pick to have a personal selfie with the members, his whole body was filled with euphoria. he still remembered the scent of your perfume, the gentle colors of your eyeshadow and especially the shy smile you wore as you stood beside him to fit in the frame. it was at the end of the event when you picked out a bad-written post-it letter —in your pockets— from jaehyun, wanting to take you out on a date and left his digits for you contact with him.

it was an interesting date too and it turned out you had a lot of things in common. it was a gentleman move from him to start off friends with you. you took a liking for him because of that. you saw a normal person behind the name ‘jaehyun’. half a year had passed since then and he managed to get you to say yes to being his girlfriend.

regardless of having conversations and good agreements with jaehyun, he respected how you needed privacy and understood that you were still not confident enough to be in the limelight. he let you take your time.

now in bed and freshed up for sleep, jaehyun said he’d be coming to your apartment after receiving the green light from the company. they gave him a week off, so he wanted to spend half of it with his family and you.

whilst scrolling down a social media platform, you came across his post and some supportive words from fans. having to feel that people loved jaehyun to be happy and contented made you realise that there was good in humanity. it seemed that the nightmare and fog faded away, but nature has it that it was unstoppable.

you didn’t know how you ended up in that certain site and inside you was an urging push to see what was written. your fingers trembled at the thosands of anonymous comments filled with hatred, not to jaehyun but with you. sure the pictures showed only of your figure and the ever-sweet gestures couple would usually and normally do. yet, there were words that attacked your fragile heart in this matter.

“jaehyun deserves better.” “bet you she lured him with her figure.” “even if she hides her face, i know she’s ugly.” “why did he fall in love with someone like her?” “one thing for sure, he’d leave her eventually.”

at this point the nightmares turned worst. the poisoned fog completely killed you. that wall of self-esteem crumbled down, its bricks hit you with its edges and before you even knew it, your eyes clouded with tears, blurring the hatred words towards you. it was as if you could hear the words mocking you in whispers, where they deafened you briefly that you didn’t hear jaehyun entering your apartment.

jaehyun heard hiccups and small sobs coming from your room. oh dear she’s crying again..

he pushed the thin gap of the door, quietly stepping in and calling your name. “y/n..” he said, uncovering the blankets and his heart plummeted to the ground. he knew of your struggles because he knew how it felt like to be pressured into reaching that certain perfection.

“oh babe.. c'mere.” he embraced you in his arms. without a word said, it wasn’t the right time to talk about now. a hug was appropriate.

you felt an instant regret for dampening his sweater with your salty tears. “t-they have other and better things to talk about but they really had to choose to do this to us.” you began to speak after calming down from his hug.

he loved how you thought of him too even if the matter was completely about you. and the next words you uttered got him off guard.

“yuno, i think i’m starting to be afraid of cameras.”

jaehyun hummed, waiting for you to explain further. it was the first time you called him that name with feelings of discomfort, whereas he was used to you calling him with positivity.

“paparazzis and obsessive fans would do so much just to get a picture of us. i don’t know but they might’ve distorted my face or create gossip to spread around.” you now laid on your back, eyes on the ceiling and noticed the shuffles from him.

he saw your unlocked phone and his eyes grew realizing that you stumbled upon negative comments. ��yeah i know, they do that to stir up something that’s already there.” he said, pulling you again for an embrace.

clearing his throat, there was pain in his voice. “i thought i received some fan letters. took me a millisecond to know they were hate letters, telling me i should look for someone better.”

“i see, you’ve had it hard too..” you tightened your grip around him.

“it’s been challenging for the both of us.” he kissed your forehead. “but i know we’ll make it.”

there was a spark of doubt trying illuminate inside you, yet the thought was quite insisting.

“i try not to think too much because i know it’s not worth it, but i couldn’t sleep peacefully at night knowing that it’d haunt me again.” you sighed, pressing face hard into his chest. “i may sound stupid and unreasonable but before you came here, i wanted to call things off, like breaking up with-”

“whoa hold on y/n.” he sat up, making you fall to the pillow and he stared into your eyes intently.

“you’re precious to me. i’m not giving away something i worked hard in pursuing for. they can say whatever they want but it doesn’t affect me. you are really worth the prize i was given. breaking up would only make things worse, we’ll both be hurt and it won’t be easy. seeing you this way, sometimes i blame myself for posting too much and getting you exposed into the world.”

silence showered you as you heard your boyfriend. why were you thinking of breaking up with him so suddenly anyway? was it to calm the nightmares haunting you? was it to push away the people who disapprove of your relationship with him? or was it to stop their expectations on you to meet the girlfriend standard? if it was any of these, then you would really think jaehyun doesn’t deserve you. you pressed your lips and blinked several times to avoid the tears from falling.

“no, it’s never your fault and you shouldn’t blame yourself.. i should’ve seen your posts as a sign of your happiness. i think it’s just me who has to adapt and get used to feedback from everyone. people just have awful standards.” you trailed off.

“babe, talk to me if you’re feeling down. call me if you think you’re falling apart. lean on me if you’re in need of support.“ his eyes were on the verge of welling. he thought that he’d stay strong for you. he was your pillar even on unstable foundation.

your lips started to quiver at the gloominess and low spirits between the two of you. “i’m sorry if i said i was breaking up with you..”

he held your hands in his, interlocking them to tell you that it was alright and he understood your position.

“hey, i’m always here to remind you that you’re worth to be mine. you aren’t like those who try to impress through looks and body- well you did impress me when you slept ten minutes in into the fanmeet, eyes all droopy and sleepy and-”

“i was finally starting to feel encouraged and my spirits finally lift up. but seriously yuno, that was so uncalled for!” jaehyun heard you hold back a giggle as you hovered over him, attempting to attack him with tickles.

“hey- stop- agh! i just wanted to see the smile i’ve fallen for!” he managed to flip you over, and you laid there tiredly. “i wanted to see you smile.” he leaned down for a kiss, where your hands held his neck. “i love you so much.”

when he said that and hugged you again, the fear of the haunting nightmares disappeared and that the fog dispersed too. you grasped everything. jaehyun pulled you out of the sleep, and was the warmth to your suffering.

“i love you more than you know, yuno.” you smiled into the kiss.

“y/n, was that pun deliberate?” he asked.

“maybe.”

people always said life is a roller coaster. they are full of ups and downs, and that the ride was so unpredictable. what they didn’t tell you was that you had the choice to scream out of fear or to enjoy the thrill.

you used to scream in fear, but now the ride was something to enjoy as jaehyun assured that he would be with you all throughout.

#nct 127 #jung jaehyun #jung yoonoh #nct jaehyun #yoonoh #yoonoh nct #jaehyun x reader #yoonoh x reader #jaehyun scenarios #jaehyun oneshot

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simmyseo · 3 years

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bilal123-us · 4 years

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What is social media marketing?

This is a type of marketing that comes on social media platforms. As you would expect, this notion includes a wide variety of activities that have only social media in common. So if you want to promote a blog or organize a recruiting campaign, and if it is done in connection with Facebook or Twitter, then it is social media marketing agency services.

In fact, most of the strategies adopted on social media aren't exclusive or groundbreaking - it's just about adapting old recipes to new types of media.

Should You Be Marketing On Social Media?

For all sorts of companies and organisations, doing social media marketing has become a mustVia free or paid ads, social media offers you access to a vast audience, an audience that you can form and build on your own. Of course, in reality, all of this is not really “free”. Indeed, someone is supposed to spend some time posting on social platforms, but it is possible to work wonders even with a very limited amount of time.

Social media marketing doesn't work for everyone, and it would be a mistake to see it as an easy, inexpensive way to make money. The most popular tactics take the planning of the business into account and fit into the overall approach. For a different company, a different approach. But we will come back to that. The bottom line is that there are huge possibilities in social media marketing for most businesses, even if it's not just posting a few messages to increase sales.

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Like we said, there are many strategies out there, and the results depend on which ones you adopt. Here is an overview of the main benefits of social media marketing:

· It equips the business with fast customer service to users around the world.

· It creates new opportunities to sell and promote your products. This encourages your brand and builds trust among your clients. It allows you to promote your own content so as to reach new users without breaking the bank. It communicates your corporate culture and facilitates the recruitment process.

· Even though these strategies help your business become more profitable, sales are not going to increase overnight. Rather, see social media as a solid foundation that your business can rely on at all times.

· Gary Vaynerchuck, social media expert, sums up why this type of marketing is so important: “Think of the most famous social media, the Internet. I find it hard to imagine someone not betting on the Internet ”

Where to start ?

The first thing to do is to define your approach by making a list of objectives to be achieved Your approach to social media will depend entirely on your company, as we said before.

A corporation that has a product to sell and a charity, for instance, will develop various approaches. Generally speaking, here are the ideas that could be had by a company and non-profit organization.

6 good reasons to use social media for businesses

It is unthinkable today to develop a digital marketing strategy without including social networks. These platforms allow their users, private or professional, to create pages in their name and share information, photos, videos, etc. with their community. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest… each network has its specificity. Without wanting to aim for exhaustiveness which would be time consuming, it is important to position yourself on these social media and to make them privileged communication channels.

1. Develop your notoriety and your e-reputation

Social media allow companies to present their business, their products and put themselves in the spotlight. This digital storytelling is more flexible and manageable on a social network rather than on a static corporate website. You have to rely on the formats of each network: photo for Instagram and Facebook, video for YouTube, Facebook or Snapchat, position statement for Twitter… It's up to you to identify upstream the format most suited to your activity.

2. Prospect new customers

Social networks also allow you to reach new prospects and thus present them what you have to sell. This new approach to the commercial profession is called social selling, it is about prospecting via social networks to make sales. The paid advertising modules of Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram…. will allow you to target very precisely the people you want to reach and thus consider qualitative and not quantitative targeting.

3. Build customer loyalty

Social networks are not only a sales vector, above all they allow you to forge links with your customers or future customers. You can thus reward your loyal customers by integrating them into your strategy: competition, priority information, discount voucher…. Thus valued, they can turn into valuable ambassadors of your brand.

4. Provide instant after-sales service

The various contact modules available on social networks (messaging, instant chat, etc.) allow you to communicate in real time with your customers. If you open these channels, it is important to be available because lack of time, a question left unanswered can lead to unhappy customers.

5. Increase your site traffic

Real open doors to your website or your online store, social networks are for you a channel for acquiring traffic and potential transformation. It is therefore essential to think carefully beforehand about the landing pages of the various “posts” in order to allow a better conversion on arrival on your site.

6. Be on the lookout for competition

This last point should actually be the first. It is indeed interesting to take an overview of what your competitors are doing on social networks and to be inspired by it or on the contrary to identify the practices that do not suit you in order to develop your digital strategy.

Read this : Social media marketing agency service

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emsykesillustration · 6 years

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Portfolio Reviews

As part of my portfolio reviews, I’ve been in contact with several people in the industry to gather feedback and advice for my portfolio so far. Rose Lloyd Rose Lloyd is a Stockport alumni, and has risen far in the industry. She’s represented by Eye Candy agency, who are massive in the illustration world. Her work is bright, bold and at such high quality she’s had clients such as the BBC, The Times, and the British Medical Journal. She uses texture and shape as a forefront for her work, which is something that makes me very lucky to have been able to speak with her about my work, as it’s not just inspiring but also very similar to my own work. Having a creative who can understand your work and the processes behind it, is brilliant in getting feedback. One of the first points Rose made when looking through my work is that she could see that I had a versatile range of media in my visual language, as well as my output. She mentioned that versatility is important, and that if you use more than one medium in your working style, let potential clients and agencies know that. I’m going to continue using different styles, as well as employing various techniques such as using mock ups, as well as if suits best - photography of my work, such as t-shirts, prints and books if needs be. Rose also suggested the I add my contact details to the back, as it’s a nice note to end with. I currently have mine at the front, so I’ll see if other artists suggest the same. Business cards were also suggested, which I’m currently designing! I’m also ensuring I keep my font, colours, and general feel consistent - I’m a brand as an illustrator and clients and agencies need to see that, purely because it looks so professional. Rose, speaking about getting work, also mentioned looking up art directors in Manchester, and just getting yourself out there, emailing your portfolio over so you’re in their books and getting your name out there for potential work! She also mentioned if I wanted to go into editorial work, it’s well worth getting current articles and adapting them as your own. Editorial is so fast paced, so it’s good to get into that fast frame of thinking and ways of applying your skillset to text in a short amount of time. It’ll also put your work into context and be super applicable for potential clients. It was wonderful to speak to Rose, and really nice to see how far you can go in the illustration world! Flow Creative I was given the amazing opportunity by Barney to visit the team at Flow, a huge agency in Manchester. They're a design agency who specialise in motion design an animation, but are super versatile. They have a massive client base and a team who are always looking for work from freelance illustrators - so it’s safe to say they have a good eye for the illustration industry. I spoke with Karl Doran, the creative director, and Sarah - accounts manager, as well as other members of the team. Feedback included my portfolio, website and social media accounts being consistent, presentation of my work being well ordered, and they liked how my website is an open portfolio. Karl commented that my mix of mockups and full digital photos was refreshing, and that mockups used with my (Re)Collection work, as well as both print and digital campaigns is brilliant - agencies and potential clients love to see things in context, and the applicability of your work, so to keep that up! Feedback also included to add sketchbook workings, and work leading up to it - this may be drafts or screenshots - it’s important that clients see this, as it puts your work into context some more, and shows the importance of your process, and how you’ve worked as a designer. I definitely need to start adding these! After showing my ident animations, it was amazing to see that the whole team actually really liked what I had going on - for something I’m really new to, a process that I struggled with, and is still a work in progress - they loved the looping of the saxo wheels, the general over-the-top-ness of the 90′s items, and the lo-fi, VHS feel. Points to improve on were looping my work, perhaps simplifying transitions, and putting them on my instagram as loops or GIFs, as people looking for work such as agencies and clients absolutely love this. Karl mentioned that I should check out Ruffmercy on instagram, and I’m so glad he did! I’m so inspired right now! When chatting, I mentioned how I felt worried that by using the MTV logo so much in my (Re)Collection work, I may be ‘ripping off’ the brand, however the whole team said that it’s a good thing - people in the industry have published ‘knock off’ potential designs and actually gotten work off the original brands! They also mentioned that using Beer Paper from GF Smith for my Beer work was so effective and a really nice touch, and possibly even creating business cards that are beermats! I am SO getting on that! Beermats are collectible, usable, and the thought of someone lifting their mug off it while looking for inspiration and seeing my contact details is a great idea! An amazing feedback experience with lots of things to take back, and my confidence boosted. Thank you for checking my work out and for your time! Tyler Spangler I contacted Tyler last year for a small interview about his views on the creative industry, and so contacted him again this year for some feedback on my PDF portfolio. Tyler is based in California, and uses amazing colours in bold designs covering character, text, and many types of concepts. He has some amazing clients including Chanel, Nike, Outkast, and has featured online in Dazed and Confused, and Hi-Fructose magazine. He’s lovely to talk to and has always had time to give me advice, and is in a great position to learn from and get advice from from within the industry. On sending him my portfolio, he mentioned that he remembered my work from last year because he likes my uses of texture! This is great, as being able to be consistent with my visual language means that I’ll be able to stay in people’s minds and proves better to staying in the radar as a creative! He mentioned that he thinks it may be nice to include project information on my PDF portfolio, similarly to how I do on my website - that it’ll give the viewer some more context. At the moment I only have my captions as to what they are, media, and when they were done. However, my website captions, such as here - simply even with how and why I came about it, why it’s grapefruit, etc. I think this is a great idea, as as well as working sketches and drafts, it gives the full information to viewers and potential clients. If I’m sending a PDF portfolio over it typically means I can’t show someone my work in person, where I’d normally explain and talk through what I’d been working on and why. So that’s a great piece of feedback! He also mentioned that his favourite piece in my portfolio is Elvis Juice, so I’m glad I’ve put it so prominently on my business cards! A few people have mentioned that it’s their favourite when looking through my work, and so it’ll be nice to be able to show people my best work here, especially in chances were first impressions are small, short, and therefore need to be really good and lasting, and an essence of my visual language as a whole. I’m going to add small captions to my work, making sure it doesn’t take over too much or become too much of a read. Ken Maylor Ken is a proper old school illustrator. He’s based in Lancashire, and has been illustrating for decades. He’s produced work for the likes of Star Trek and Elvis Presley annuals, Oyston’s Estate Agency, produced spray positives of photographs for various catalogues, as well as being a police officer for years, he created drawings for the Police and Crimewatch, as well as airbrushing. We couldn’t find any of his old work together, but he now mainly fly ties - as you can see here, he’s got an incredibly craft hand and so it’s no surprise he did so well with airbrushing and producing realistic drawings for the Police and Crimewatch! Looking through my updated portfolio with captions and sketches of the process thanks to Flow Creative’s and Tyler Spangler’s feedback, he had lots of positive feedback. Generally, he said he loves the colours I’ve used, for myself as a brand, and the boldness in the illustrations - they grab attention. The use of my batman making faces image as my logo alongside hand-drawn type is quirky, and he thinks they’re positive and there’s humour. This is great, as I’d love this to be a first impression for agencies and potential clients! Looking through my (Re)Collection work, compiled together with suggestion from Tutorial Feedback to categorise my work, the ‘90′s Called’ poster design reminded him of 90s films such as Lethal Weapon - knowing that the use of items to promote nostalgia has set off in this way for a variety of people who remember the ‘90s differently is great! The (Re)Collection campaign is definitely nostalgic and giving the right message about the ‘90s. The Inflatable Sofa piece casts a good image and Ken said it made him wonder whether watching tv is relaxing, as he saw the sofa as floating on the ceefax due to its transparency - which is a new way of myself looking at it - considering it to be possible to be used for an editorial piece covering technology etc! Going to the beer area/pieces of my portfolio, he suggested that Elvis Juice could appeal to bikers, and the ways in which the grapefruit is used for the wheels is again humorous and thought provoking - it’s lovely and refreshign to see that a fresh pair of eyes can see something like this consistent throughout my work when I’ve never noticed it before! He also mentioned that the sketches and process components are great - the feedback from before has paid off! The use of texture and paint dragged over on such a large scale gives a lovely effect in Beer Dive and allows a relaxing thing to look at - I never thought of this as a relaxing piece, but it’s now something I can use within my visual language if I need to create something relaxing or scenic! The Red Screes design is very relevant to the suggestion of where the ale is from, helping promote its locality - continuing to use the culture of the client and what my work is based on proves well and really shows that there’s deeper meaning and a lot of work put in behind my illustrations - I’ll definitely keep working like this. The craft beer book is accessible, readable for both experts and non-experts, and makes you want to go out and try craft beer! This is wonderful, exactly what I set out to create when I made this - from a portfolio page, I’ve managed to get the best choice and range of photos for Ken to be able to tell this! The Brodie’s Prime fox stance works well, as it looks mischievous but as hough he could be affectionate too, with a good stance considered in the sketches to show he’s on the prowl for mischief. The Tarn Hows XPA piece with the lemon over the building is brilliant and works well with the spotted background, representing the way the lemon is squeezed and he also loved how it makes you think - one of my most conceptual pieces which I’m glad it’s not just me that thinks of it in this way! The Palace cinema piece sets the tone well and the selection of what I’ve illustrated is so apt to the location, using Lancashire roses shows so much relevance. The House Plant piece is so differential in terms of shapes used - he said he could see a sloth, a birds head, a goose - he mentioned that you look for shapes when looking at the illustration and it casts your eye all round. The more you look, the more you see - and then he saw an elephant looking away! And now I see it! I’ve had some amazing feedback from Ken, and I’m so glad I was able to get feedback from such a practiced illustrator with a different variety of work to other artists I’ve looked at - it’s wonderful to see that artists from different disciplines can help me see my work differently, and can bring wonderful suggestions and feedback. Eva Stalinski Eva Stalinski is an illustrator based in the Netherlands, who works with bright colours and bold outlines, with most of her work screen printed as merchandise. Her work is here! Like Chris Madden and Tyler Spangler, I contacted Eva last year for some insight into the creative industry, and received some amazing information and advice! Again, I contacted her for a portfolio review and received some really good feedback. On looking through my PDF portfolio via. email, she mentioned that she really liked the bright colours used, especially yellow - I never realised myself how much I use yellow, and just how much it works nicely with my work! She also mentioned that my work is different from hers in discipline, and in that she uses bold outline a lot, however she could really see my work as merchandise! I’d love to explore screen printing some more as I have a screen printing kit at home, and I love using it! Finally, she mentioned that my beer work is really together and nice. She suggested looking at International breweries, as it’s always good to branch out and get myself out there! It’s strange, because as much as I love beer, I’ve never thought about this so I might do this! Thank you to everyone, as I’ve had so much help with my work generally, and my portfolio has improved massively!

#pdp

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netmetic · 4 years

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Amdocs Voices

COVID-19 is putting businesses worldwide to the test. Avishai Sharlin, Division President, Amdocs Technology, explains how Amdocs’ transformation journey has prepared us for this moment.

Avishai Sharlin, General Manager, Amdocs Technology

Avishai Sharlin will speak more about this during the Human Factor session at #TMFDigital on Wednesday, October 21. Learn more about Amdocs’ catalyst projects, award nominations and speaking opportunities taking place at TM Forum’s Digital Transformation World 2020. COVID-19 has been an equalizer in many ways. It’s making all companies take a closer look at how they deal with such times. Changing the culture of a company to embrace transformations, new ways of working and thinking is perhaps the hardest challenge for any organization to face. Concentrating on creating an environment to foster this change is critical. Especially when uncertain times throw a curveball at your business. Historical events, including the current COVID-19 epidemic, can change the way businesses function forever. At Amdocs, we’ve gone through many changes over the past few years. We’ve been transforming the way we work to ensure our teams are ready for disruption at any given time.

Our transformation journey

Transformation is a continuous journey. It’s a process taking place daily to change the way we work, think and develop. Three years ago, well before the coronavirus pandemic, we aimed to transform our capabilities, expertise and people. We anticipated the future of software development would require a radical change in our then modes of operation. On the “human” side, my team was tasked with changing the organizational culture of our employees in a short time. After working closely with major Silicon Valley companies and industry experts, we decided to adopt new methodologies such as cloud native technologies, including developing in microservices and embracing DevSecOps and SRE concepts. To help our employees succeed, learning tools and the adoption of the latest technology platforms were critical. On the technology side, we re-platformed our product suite to be open and modular and cloud agnostic based on a domain-driven design approach. It changed our product release cadence from over a year to as little as four weeks, and we can upgrade pieces of our customers’ technology stack at the velocity needed. By adopting open source, inner source, embedded AI and the latest CI/CD tools and knowhow in our product development process, we can move quickly at times of crisis to help our customers keep billions of consumers connected. From a customer journey perspective, we learned from the best, worked closely with Stanford D-school and altered the way we solve problems. By integrating design-led thinking to look at the end-users’ needs, establishing a leading user experience center of excellence, we achieve the right solution from the very start.

Leading the industry transformation to the cloud

More than 7,000 of our employees are now DevOps qualified. And in coordination with our customers, we’ve achieved DevOps working maturity in over 75% of projects. From our learnings, we developed a state-of-the-art platform, MS360, to manage all aspects of the microservices lifecycle, ranging from SDK and CI/CD to addressing operational elements. As a result, we have been able to introduce new, industry-leading, telco-grade, mission-critical solutions, which are open and modular. They harness the newly developed expertise and capabilities of our transformed organization to power the digital evolution of our customers. In doing so, we’re leading the shift to the cloud at an accelerated pace with a host of new SI practices, offerings and solutions.

Weighing risk and reward

The communications and media industry is taking incredible measures to serve our society in these uncertain times of COVID-19, ensuring the world’s population has connectivity and access to crucial information, as well as entertainment. Due to our ongoing transformation, we are well-positioned to adapt to this environment and assist the industry. Any business transformation is a significant leap of faith. But adopting a constant change mentality creates the ground for opportunities and can better prepare all of us for whatever the future holds.

published first on https://jiohow.tumblr.com/

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legalcopywritingandseosydney · 4 years

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The 17 Most Misunderstood Facts About Legal Copywriting Sydney

youtube

Nowadays, great licensed advertising and marketing is a great deal A lot a lot more than obtaining an advertisement in your local Phone reserve or producing a mediocre Web site. Promoting and promoting is type of wholly finished on-line, by a mixture of running a website, social networking, movie, and much more.

In recent times’s persons realize what they need and find out how to seek out it, and a strong lawful endorsing technique develops approaches to feed in to the routines of Web-savvy Males and girls. Here are a few important do’s and don’ts of sturdy authorized marketing and advertising that you might adapt as You begin to craft and hone your unique digital advertising and advertising approaches.

Most Lawyers Utilize a Internet existence of some wide variety – if you don’t, it’s time to make 1 without delay

If you do have an internet site or are in the entire process of producing a single, be Certainly selected that it is cell welcoming. Whichever images, movies, blogs, or other prepared articles you location in your legislation Firm’s Internet-website, it’s critical they be easily viewable and browse from the tablet or smartphone.

Only Section of the goal of a lawyer or laws firm’s Website-web page is to supply achievable clientele Make contact with details as well as a way to succeed in them. A much larger ingredient of having a authorized World wide web internet site is preserving it up-to-day with information that the possibility customers uncover correct to them and have a need to study. This suggests running a blog and optimizing all of your present information for Search engine marketing.

youtube

You want to be acquiring considerable, engaging content articles on a really frequent basis, although that may be just by no means lacking at time per month. Working a site is between the most effective strategies to journey traffic to your internet website, produce your business or on your own as an authority inside of your niche in your area, and helps transform site visitors to potential customers.

Although some Lawyers bounce with regard to the social networking bandwagon proper away from regulation university, Other men and women continue on to keep looking ahead to social media marketing internet marketing to vanish like so several other fads. MySpace was definitely a development, but Fb turned fifteen various decades outdated in 202002 and it’s only rising.

LinkedIn is the most crucial social community that C-degree executives Join and when you are not on it, you look a small little bit outdated. Prospects abound along with Innovative paid out out purposes like LinkedIn Gross revenue Navigator To position your Group advancement into exceptional gear.

It’s reasonably Guarded to point out that Facebook and LinkedIn aren’t heading anywhere at any time immediately. Meaning it’s time to generate a minimum of these social networking networks give you the results you want.

Though some Web advertising and marketing ways are natural and organic, including web page posts furthermore some social media publicity, other promotion and advertising and marketing techniques are shell out out-to-Take pleasure in. Regardless of if you’re collaborating in PPC or Fb Adverts, it’s natural to expect to fork over some hundred (or hundreds) of bucks to reinforce your licensed internet marketing and advertising and marketing and Receive your Business’s name in existence to potential individuals in your town.

Conversely, be cautious of spending out cash on any advertising and advertising and marketing which you'll’t Examine. You always desire to know about what your advertising is executing in your case Individually and In the event that your pounds are increasingly currently being used in The best way.

Should you’re unable to Assess a certain World wide web promoting procedure, it’s almost certainly of no use to suit your needs. You’ll never at any time know if the money you put in improved your believed Management profile, site visitors and potential clients or reduced your bounce charge.

n at present’s earth, accurately exactly where Lawyers For each and every will need to acquire are in all destinations, it’s vital that you make a private reference to potential purchasers who quit by your website. Irrespective of whether you’re basically just Placing up your impression so site visitors can see who you are in connection with your discover, otherwise you’re putting up films addressing some sizzling subjects within your location of curiosity, creating the additional do the job to personalize your Net internet site can make a giant big change when it comes to conversion expenses and turning prospective buyers into shoppers.

While having your impression on your Website’s banner or within the About web page is vital, amongst the very best techniques you can make an effect on potential clientele is with the use of online movie to be a lawful advertising and marketing Source.

f you don’t have movie clip about the law business enterprise’s Website-internet site but, time has not been much better to start. Movies of you answering client issues or speaking about quite possibly quite possibly the most talked-about matters at your agency gives conclusion users the chance to pay attention to your voice and telegra.ph/the-3-biggest-disasters-in-copywriting-for-law-firms-sydney-history-10-04 uncover Every little thing you’re all about.

On the subject of picking who they want as their authorized Expert – whether or not they’re experiencing a divorce, tackling a trademark problem, Each time they’ve been wounded, or they’ve been arrested for a crime – option prospects commonly gravitate toward attorneys they genuinely truly feel they “know” better.

#Copywriting For Law Firms

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iadm-gch · 4 years

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W12 // Teach

Skill-Sharing

Today I shared some tips and trick with my colleagues, which can help them improve their reading speed. I applied these 3 tips as well and can say that I was able to improve my reading speed by around 50%.

1. Use a pointer – one can use a finger or a pen to help keep a constant reading speed, because we sometimes get stuck at difficult or long words and they slow us down, even we understood them.

2. Make indents - Our peripheral vision allows us to read words even if we don’t focus on them. To take advantage of that, one can draw indents into a text from both sides, 1-3 words into the text. By reading only between these lines, we can train our brain to read the words on the outside within our peripheral vision, which lets us read faster.

3. Read faster than your comprehension level allows – We are all stuck in our favourite reading speed. Changing this speed can make us feel uncomfortable and like we are missing out on important information. If we consciously push this speed and allow ourselves not to understand everything, we show ourselves that a faster speed is possible. The goal is to overwrite our normal reading speed that we have acquired over many years, by training and forcing our brain to adapt to a new situation.

Alec taught us four steps to non-violent communication. Baran educated us on how to build something interesting. Mathias taught us the ALS alphabet so that we can spell our names in sign language and Mai showed us how to create a neat little art piece by only drawing lines.

Learning to code

Coding and understanding electronics are becoming increasingly important areas which should be integrated into the curricula of the appropriate level. However, teaching these areas presents a number of hurdles, such as the financial outlay for the necessary equipment and accessories, as well as the question of whether these skills will actually be needed in later life. Children are eager to learn new things and engage with their surroundings. As today’s children grow up in a “media-saturated world” (Akermann E. K. 2016) they learn to speak a lot of different languages that they use for different types of media or to operating different digital devices. When confronted with digital things they often are fascinated by it, like it is some form of magic. Especially remote controlled devices seem to enchant them. For young children there is no difference between low or high tech, what matters is that the can control something form a distance and in a straightforward manner

[K]ids as young as 4-5 years of age are not just capable of but eager to learn the basics of programming! […]To a child high or low tech isn’t what matters! What counts is a devices ability to let you control things mediated-ly— and possibly remoted-ly! (Akermann E. K. 2016)

To teach children the basic principle of programming, there is no need for a screen. This can also be achieved with physical devices which consist of multiple pieces, that can be combined in different ways. This give the child the freedom to explore and understand different combinations and dependencies between the parts. It is important that the child can manipulate the device in such a way, that it has the feeling of some kind of control. Most of the time children find a way to use such devices in ways that don’t conform to normal use.

And when invited to join the dance, they invent many ways to derail a critter’s behaviour, without ever having to re-write its code, reconfigure its parts, or push it around physically!

(Akermann E. K. 2016)

Children enjoy to be able to control or influence behaviours of things. This “making things do things” (Akermann E. K. 2016) and finding ways around possible constrains is something that is found in programming s well. Different children like different approaches, but what all children have in common is the fascination for making a device act in a certain way.

It is not only a simple approach to teaching children the basic ideas of programming, but also a way of introducing them to the concepts of control, power and delegating, which are important issues in later life as well. Programming of some kind of device to make it do something can also be seen as teaching, in this situation the child is the teacher and the device is the student. The child must find ways to teach the device.

What coding, in this case, teaches the children is to think about teaching itself (in this case programming a cyber-creature) not as “instructing” but as providing the wiggling room their trainees need to gravitate toward their own interests. […] In a deeper sense, programming in a weak sense teaches children to compose with things they don’t always understand, but recognize as a good starting point into further inquiry.

(Akermann E. K. 2016)

The ability to program allows children to speak a language that enables them to understand our networked and computerized world much better.

Scrapnology

Learning an experimenting with electronics doesn’t have to be expensive. Experimenting with electronic scrap can be just as engaging as working with high-tech educational kits. By hacking conventional devices to make them do something else than they were supposed to, one can slowly and in an engaging way get to grips with the way electronics work. What otherwise requires a certain level of knowledge can be easily discovered and partly understood by experimenting. Most electronic devices contain very primitive electronic circuits, which are well suited for first experiments. Scrap electronics helps to keep the hurdle of trying something that might not be good for the device low. The selected devices also impose certain restrictions that do not give you the full range of possibilities for further development, which limits the scope for invention in a good way. Most devices are very primitive in

The use of basic electronic circuits allows participants to focus on developing their prototype and keeps the technical learning curve required to a minimum.

(Moriwaki et al. 2006)

Repurposing objects and construction new artifacts can be a powerful experience for individuals with little to no exposure to electronics and physical computing.

Within the Scrapyard environment, participants are able to jump directly into creating working pro totypes, which can set the foundation for more structured learning and design activity later.

(Moriwaki et al. 2006)

The Scrap approach can also be a valuable way of finding inspiration for innovation in the design process. Even experts in the field of electronics can benefit from this Scrap approach, because it gives them the freedom to move away from standards and rules and it “encourage[s their] mental and creative flexibility.” (Moriwaki et al. 2006)

Key Words

intelligent artifacts:– basic tangible and programmable things that children can understand and interact with in a playful way

programming in the weak sense - informal programming styles that are downsized in complexity and simplified to suit newcomers.

ambient computing - programming operations ad brought into the physical worlds (e.g. Barcodes that can be scanned by robot and work as road marks)

Sources

Ackermann, Edith K. 2016. “Learning to Code: What is it? What’s In It For The Kids?— A Tribute to Seymour Papert". Trans. version from publication in Tecnologie didattiche (TD 27-2002).

Moriwaki, Katherine & Brucker-Cohen, J. 2006. “Lessons from the scrapyard: creative uses of found materials within a workshop setting”. In AI & Society. 20:4. 506-525.

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uglyducklingpresse · 7 years

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Ephemeralism, Sequentiality, and Writing By Hand: Emma Clayton in conversation with Constance DeJong

2017 marks the 40th anniversary of the initial publication of Constance DeJong’s long out-of- print novel, Modern Love. Critically acclaimed in its time, Modern Love is now back in print, in a new facsimile edition co-published by Ugly Duckling Presse and Primary Information. On April 4th 2017, DeJong performed from the novel at The Kitchen, where she had performed a one-hour radio version of the novel in 1978. Amid these notable happenings, UDP intern Emma Clayton spoke with DeJong at Hunter College, where she is a Professor of Art/Combined Media. Her work is represented by Bureau Gallery, NYC.

Could you speak about the role re-articulation, repetition, and recurrence play in your work?

You know, it’s a strategy or a device, almost a structuring device in a time based medium, which of course performance is, but I actually think books are too. At the time that I was writing Modern Love it was almost a popular idea among artists a bit older than me who had used it in a way that I found very interesting. There were examples from performance—Yvonne Rainer and Trisha Brown using repetition and restart. The soundtrack that I played in the Modern Love performance was written by Philip Glass, there again involving repetition, although he wasn’t the only composer using repetition. Even among visual artists, you know, repetition in the work of Warhol and in painters and such. When I was in my late twenties and started writing that book I certainly had absorbed it by osmosis, and then by more than osmosis considered it as a way to sort of reset the narrative. By that I mean the narrative is, for want of a better word, moving forward, but repetition is useful to reset it back, and then move with a different forward continuity from the repeated place. And that as a strategy, especially for maybe the first third of Modern Love, was very useful, because it’s polyphonic, there’s more than one strand of narrative going on. I was also interested in memory, and it’s also a kind of memory device—you repeat something, but on the second or third repeat you’re actually in a completely different place.

Within that forward moving narrative and then jumping back, and with writing the book serially, did you employ any type of writing structure?

No, I just wrote into the dark. Which I still do, perhaps now with a tiny bit more ease. The seriality wasn’t serial in the way that sometimes means seriality, like in visual arts. The seriality was a way for me to be engaged in the project. Almost, I put the gun to my own head to produce it and it was a way of manifesting the work into the world. I designed and printed and distributed each issue of this serial by mail. I was maybe of a nature that, the serial just suited me temperamentally. What, I’m going to wait around for the keepers of the gates to say “yes darling, do come in, we think you’re worthy”? You know, at that time, maybe I still am, I was more like fuck you, who are you, you know. So producing this serial was agency.

Forward motion, like a propellor...

Yeah, get into the world. I started performing it, which was another way for it to be in the world. And I thought about 19th century novelists. They often had agents or publishers who published the serials but I’ve always been enchanted by how you (one of the public), would subscribe. You would pay into a subscription for so and so serial, say George Elliot’s or Dickens'. It’s a really interesting, call it business model if you will, but it can also be a very self sufficient and independent way of doing things, which would all happen digitally now.

In an interview with Jennifer Krasinski for BOMB Magazine you said ‘narrative is sequential, you can’t escape it’. When you perform, do you see that as a way of escaping that sequential narrative, through the interruptions you can play with, with music for example?

No I don’t. I just think it’s a reformulation of a kind of sequentiality (if there is such a word). I think the escape, so to speak, from sequential can happen, but in environments where one can escape, which I’ve done in navigated works. You, as a user, navigate the work on the computer, mouse driven, and the piece, which is made of narrative, resets itself every time you turn it on. You venture, as it were, through a sequence of whatever happens in that moment. There isn’t a meta sequence. So that’s a true escape. Within that, on a smaller scale, there’s the sequential. You, the user, can’t rewrite every one of my sentences, you know what I mean. There are moments of sequential. I’m working with Triple Canopy on something for the internet, and that can have programming that does something similar—where there isn’t a meta sequence. There are modules and the module is a sequence, but the experience of the module is multiple sequences. So that’s a true escape. I’m often working on a project base with the performances. So there’s a core of material, almost always written language, ideas, and subject matter, from which comes a book, some objects, a performance, etc. In performance, for me, the doing and differentiating from the fixed sequence of that same material in book form, is something I really enjoy doing. You called it this seamless arrangement—it’s almost this kind of adaptation.

A completely reformulated work...

Yeah, and I do it in different ways. In seemingly more casual adaptations than the one I did at The Kitchen (2017), I will seem as if I’ve left the formal text. But it’s a moment of adaptation. As soon as I finished writing Modern Love I decided to make an audio version of it—an adaptation, it isn’t word for word. So right away I stepped into adapting my own material. I wanted to make a radio program, adapting it for multiple speakers. I asked Philip Glass to write some thematic music, and I got a residency with one of the world’s great audio engineers—Bob Bielecki, my first sound engineer, genius. We would call it now perhaps an audiobook, or a podcast. I thought it would be on the radio. A total folly, because the BBC makes some space for drama and books, but we don’t. Certainly at the time it was almost non-existent. Now that exists as podcasts—often an independent venture.

I didn’t, and still don’t, have a sense of ‘the primary work is the text’—I think all the various parts of the project are in play. I don’t make a hierarchy out of it. I’ve always had a relationship to the material that is fluid, which isn’t really about the escape from sequence, but it is a kind of malleable and porous way of working that is with me even now.

On reading Modern Love, and thinking about that porous nature and the disruption of narrative, I couldn’t help but draw parallels with the work of Chris Kraus, I Love Dick especially, and I know that you were colleagues and friends with Kathy Acker (also noted for her interruption of narrative). I was wondering how you think about those parallels, or whether you see relations between your works?

Of course. I’m a reader as much as a writer. It wasn’t that long ago that Chris interviewed me for her book, the Kathy Acker book [After Kathy Acker, Semiotext(e), 2017) and brought back to my mind things I hadn’t thought about for a very long time. I think something that Kathy and I shared, which came from each of us separately as opposed to coming out of us knowing each other, and I hope this doesn’t sound too nerdy and odious, was this notion of the constructed ‘I.’ The constructed first person singular being constructed as a multiplicity not a singularity. It’s a bonafide narrative strategy we had in common and importantly, with some urgency in our respective narratives. In my work very differently than Kathy’s. Kathy identifies that construct as a multiple, as do I, but Kathy identifies that first person singular with her own name as well, which at that time was very original. Now it’s been done to tedium and I wanna kill the young hipster so called post-modern person who does it again like ‘oh it’s so clever and my name’s on the cover and I’m the character.’ It’s sad how a bonafide, vivid, and urgent construct becomes whittled into a cliche, in one’s own lifetime. It’s groaning. That’s perhaps my problem. Perhaps I should see it from a different vantage point which is that, no, that’s a bonafide contribution and invention to narrative writing and just other people are using it, it doesn’t belong to a couple of individuals or one person. But I don’t. Perhaps it’s because the writing itself, in which that is borrowed and used, is unsatisfactory at large. But that was a

shared view of narrative and, in my case, it was a shared view of self. Now, there I think Chris and Kathy go on a street that I don’t walk on. Because my first-person self is a multiple package that changes, and is not autobiographical. In my work, I have no interest in examining that constructed first person singular as a self that might be considered to belong to a ‘real life’. That has become almost a genre, this bio-fiction, which has evolved over some decades. It’s in I Love Dick and it’s in Chris’ writing. I think there’s a bit more artifice in Kathy’s approach to that. There’s a tremendous amount of artifice in my approach to it. I’m happy to be the queen of artifice. I will wear that tarnished crown, or cross.

Would you therefore say that the self you consider in your work is located externally rather than introspectively?

No, I don’t think it’s a binary like that. We are creatures of both and then some. To overuse the word porous, I think some of us have a lot of porosity between internal and external, or a different sense of balance and at times, prioritizing so-called external events overstates the externalized in a way—as if they’re not products of the mind and of thought, to call those interior. I’ve thought a lot about those distinctions simply by it being brought to my attention by people noticing it in the work. What does one call an event? Does the event have to be describable in language as, ‘she walked across the room?’ I want to acknowledge multiple presences.

It can be experienced without notation and delineation...

It’s experiential. It’s quite hard, but I’ve been trying to use it in writing. I’m really interested now in how we discount, for some of us, a third of our life—sleep and dreaming. I’ve become really intent on this huge event, dreaming, that’s been discounted in our culture for a really long time. We are at a time with brain science and neuroscience, but most of the investigation of the workings of the so-called brain are very mechanical and material—as if there it is, a body of cells. It’s like a line was drawn in the sand after Jung and Freud, and very few people have ventured into that sand again.

It’s like taboo...

It is! In terms of considerations of the interior or exterior, and the construction of self and/or this construction of the first person singular ‘I’—one almost never reads of dreams when thinking about the constructed elements. One almost never finds dream experience within narrative. Do you? Can you think of any examples?

No, apart from the classic ‘she woke up and it was all a dream...'

Yeah, it’s been made a cliche. We’ve not been interested in, we’ve not investigated, we don’t know. We don’t have a language for it. It’s fascinating. Such a huge part of the day.

True, we don’t have any kind of interrogative linguistic framework or line of questioning around that.

I’ve been doing serious research, and there’s almost nothing. There’s a lot of new age, wonky con-artist stuff. And I’ve found some interesting writing from the late 19th century, when there was a moment where people wanted to take on dreams in a serious way. But it is a poverty.

How are you beginning to negotiate that—the taboo realms of these subjects which are cliched primarily? I was also wanting to ask you about how you negotiated the difficulties in dealing with the topic of love?

Well, I think it’s kind of important to tread the taboo. At the time I wrote Modern Love, one was oppressed by notions of love voiced upon the culture, period, but especially on women concerning paradigms and expectations. So some of that conscious negotiation was

going on, which included mocking and making fun of the paradigms, and of the self in my narrative that was trying to throw them off. We all got mocked in Modern Love. I have a strong aversion to narrative that scolds me, that tells me what things are, how to do and live. That adheres to a perspective, a dogma, that didacticism. So in Modern Love you don’t come upon a new oppressing set of paradigms—that women will be this. The work is certainly a lived moment, and continues to be—urgent environments and realities. They stand in for more particular environments and settings, such as a certain room, or a city by name. But you know, the world of ideas is an environment, and a location as well. It’s a temporal location. It may have attributes that aren’t material, but it is a location.

In a way, that agency and urgency forms a context, the need to do.

Yeah, and I think that, if you want a little more about your previous question—Kathy and I lived in the same neighborhood, she sublet my apartment you know, we talked. There was an urgency. Again, manifested in narrative, in fiction, very differently in her work from my work. Certainly she and I shared that. I’m sure other writers of our age and of that time did as well, but I didn’t know that many others. I think a thing that’s in I Love Dick, and in Constance, and Kathy, was the inclusion of material that wasn’t an obvious constituent of the ‘fictional narrative’. Now of course, Melville in Moby Dick has tracts about whales, and Bram Stoker in Dracula has tracts that are informational, historical, research based. But that was a fairly uncommon element of fiction writing. I think it still is very pronounced in my work, where there is a heterogenous kind of material—that there is not a singular strata of what participates in a fiction narrative. I think that was coming very to the forefront in my work and Kathy’s work. There’s a veering off, and that’s kind of interesting.

Thinking about this urgency, what makes you so eager to traverse mediums? The not staying within one communicative medium, in reference to working across forms, how you spoke about working from a core and fragmenting out.

I really can’t say. You would think that I would have had an insight about that. I think it’s partly to do with my understanding of language as a time based medium. I hear it sonically, I write it sonically, I produce it in terms of rhythms, I produce it highly constructed. That sounds like audio-video, and performance, to me, as much as the page. And even the page is something that I have always had a visual relationship to. I’m a pain-in-the-butt demon to work with because I have ideas about what the page should look like. That’s as much as I understand. That there is a sharing of time-based. That’s all I know.

What type of anchor points do you use within time, and your experience of it, yourself?

It’s not static, it’s not a fixed point. I’ve been thinking recently about becoming an elder. And not just becoming one, but anchoring myself to time as, ‘Oh, I am an elder’. And an elder’s relationship to time is very acute. There aren’t tomorrows. When you’re thirty there’s tomorrows and then some. That’s a relationship to time that’s very different than there not being futurity. I rather like it. I like it a lot. It makes things very vivid. I think probably for almost everyone, what you call the anchor to time, changes—if we get to live a bit of decades. I was thinking about that sense of time we almost lose, that non-time time of the inquisitive child—you can look at something, and you can look at it, it seems like hours. We almost don’t retrieve that at other times in our life. It’s really an interesting temporal relationship.

Thinking about language as a time-based medium, and then your work with performance, and this idea of location, I was interested by your decision to locate voice outside person, or within objects. For example, in Modern Love there is the passage where the protagonist is in India and the environment almost becomes the voice and character that is playing out. Also, thinking about your piece Pillow Talk (2003).

Those are two different things. But to answer one—I have a longstanding interest in the inanimate animated by mind and animated by language, which we all do and have done. It’s so accessible and common to all of us, but I’ve kind of pulled it out of the fabric to think about it, to make works not about it, but to make works be that. They’re vessels of memory. Inanimate things are archives of the invisible. I’ve been interested in unthreading those invisible things. And different cultures with different belief systems approach that notion of the inanimate very differently, and how the inanimate is animated by mind or language. A work of mine from 2013 called SpeakChamber, involves three different cultural belief systems that negotiate that place. I should be finished with it, but I’m working on some spoken texts now, for these things I call ‘talking photographs’, which is what Pillow Talk is, and damn. There I am again. With an object that is a vehicle for simply being an object in a present moment, but is also an object whose biography involves Mao and China and the cultural revolution and you know, here we go. Because I don’t write or think in stories, these become the ignition of narrative, from an idea not from a story. But, in that segment of Modern Love, that’s more about polyvocal narrative—you have a preceding vocality, that’s probably identified by an ‘I’, or a character by name, and then suddenly that vocal isn’t what’s vocalizing. It becomes an unnamed vocalizing. And then by the end it actually moves into a third person narrative because it says ‘the woman was traveling alone in India. She was eating ice-cream because it was her birthday’. You are the reader. You know that’s the ‘I’ character that you already have met in the book. But that’s language’s potential for a slight of hand. Again, I don’t do that as a technical feat. To talk about that interior/exterior thing, we do it all the time in our mind. Thinking, daydreaming, wandering about. I mean you’re somebody else, you’re thinking for somebody else, an old version of yourself, you’re remembering, and you’re not confused. It’s not confusing to live in a vocal polyphonic environment. And it’s something that has engaged me in my writing, and continues to.

I haven’t quite thought of it like that before. That when it’s made so concrete on a page, when not stating subject or voice, it appears confusing, but it’s something that we experience very fluidly all the time.

Yes, we do. And you’re not alone. I’ve had my time to dwell on it because it’s a part of my work and of me so, I’ve lived in that room for a while. And now in that room is dreams, and people who contact us from the dead. The work I donated to the auction [Ugly Duckling Presse’s Art Auction, May 2017] is spirit writing. I’ve been making a project called Nightwriters, which is basically an insomniac narrator whose bed is under a sky light. The only thing she has to do is look through the skylight and get really interested in stars and she starts drawing them and making asterisms and her hand becomes guided by, or inhabited by, something. So three astronomers come through the skylight and spirit write and so she, and therefore we the readers, become acquainted with three women who most of us haven’t heard of: Caroline Herschel, Annie Jump Cannon, and Henrietta Swan Leavitt— three major astronomers. So now in that room of polyphony are the ‘voices’ of these spirit writers. I know it was always a con, spirit writing, but I think it’s interesting that we even, as a culture, as a species, invent these things.

There’s desperation in there.

Yeah, they reflect this desire, and a loss. And my drawings are chalk on black paper because the con artists in the séances doing spirit writing would often use chalk boards—it was a trope of séances. I think it was because then they could wipe it off and not get arrested.

Reading about your new work, and the spiritual side of it, I was considering your close working relationship with Tony Oursler, and wondering whether that influence has come from working with him throughout your career? Or has it always been something very intrinsic to yourself?

No, no, it was something that cemented a friendship more than 30 years ago. It was a common interest, and believe me, there aren’t that many people, especially at the time, who would have a ‘serious’ conversation about those seemingly absurd belief systems. I knew things he didn’t know and vice versa, and we have continued that conversation for over 30 years. Maybe some people will know of Tony and Imponderable (2015 - 2016), which is a recent, spectacular work at MoMA. 5-D film work, also big archive, also 500 page book with many essays in it about some of the beliefs and practices that he’s been interested in for most of his life. One of the interests that we also share is in the invisible histories—the discredited and ignored. Something like spirit writing, at times is also fueled by specific, topical events. The Civil War spurred con artists into both spirit writing and spirit photography, preying on the grief of the country which had never lost that many people to a war. It was a death consumed, death obsessed nation. If you weren’t obsessed with civil rights you were obsessed with the death produced by the Civil War, and in that context certain so-called spiritual ideas came on. Yet if now you are reading about the Civil War, it’s very unlikely that you would read a section about that part of the history of the nation and of that time. They’re willfully and maliciously ignored, hierarchy-ed down.

Do you have any idea why it’s at this point in your work that you’re coming to start to really try and work with these spiritualities?

I can’t say that I do. I’m offended by people being superficial about so-called spirituality. And I have private interests that have remained private for most of my life and it’s very willful on my part to turn that around—which I did a little bit in SpeakChamber. It came from a commitment to the material that I was mentioning earlier, about this investigation of the inanimate. And to knowing a community of Tibetans for decades, and having travelled and so on, I was aware of an astonishing belief system that is unknown to us. Where an inanimate thing is penetrated and co-habited by the mind, and by repeated practice and visualization and, it’s not correct to call it prayer, but it’s a thinking. That slapped me in the face in 1977 when I first encountered it. It really was a jolt and I never put it down. So with SpeakChamber it was like OK, if I’m really getting down on this interaction between the animate and the inanimate, and want a heterogeneous approach to it, there’s this glaring example that I know. A very old friend idea I activated. Amateur astronomy is another old friend, a huge part of me, and I wanted these three astronomers to have place in a narrative that I’m writing. And I’ll be god-damned if I’m gonna write a researched, historical fiction where I make them walk around and talk and wear clothes and be this thing called a character. Characters are abhorrent. I don’t get it as a device. So I had to get them into the narrative. Spirit writing was how I could draw them literally into the narrative. This is my folly, and everyone can have a good laugh—to me that is a very legitimate way to locate in the narrative, through the hand that’s drawing. Much more legitimate than this creaky, clanky old thing called character that has to walk and wear clothes.

Very concrete formulations...

Yeah, although never go to the bathroom somehow. And I had spirit writing at hand because I had a huge, ongoing, years old interest in it. I actually have an engagement with handwriting, period. I have a fascination with it, with handwriting and artists who make their work with handwriting. Which is rather unusual, but there are a few.

That intrigues me. Looking through your work, it’s so much placed into technologies, for example your current project, ‘Radios’. How does that weave together?

They’re ideas that coexist and I don’t think they’re in conflict with each other. The handwriting and the ever-changing technology I’ve had to learn for wanting to make a certain work—just co-existing interests. Thinking about handwriting now is different to 20 years ago, simply because it’s really disappearing. I have students now who aren’t taught to write by hand.

How do you feel about that?

Well you know, we do lose things and things change things. Generally, if one is living in a moment where something is disappearing, people get very upset and up in arms and it’s the end of civilization or something. But I’ve read a lot about technology over time. This is in my bag right now [DeJong pulls out a book]—Haunted Media, Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television by Jeffrey Sconce, which is a really interesting book about belief systems which inform the rise of certain technologies. For me, the rise or the appearance of new technologies has been in my life since birth, so other things have dropped off. It’s just how it is. It doesn’t alarm me.

Does it affect the way you think about making work? Within your work there seems to be thoughts on broadcast or dissemination or communication. Do you have to very directly think about those terms of communication, or do you find you just flow with the media?

Well, communication is a snaggy word. If I thought about communication I would probably be a greater participant in social media or have a podcast. So I don’t think of it that much as communication—isn’t that interesting? I think of it as form of function and materializing work. I am working on something where there would be a more regular audio presence on the internet. A performance stops and starts and then it’s gone. But the internet is not discreet. It’s just there. Always and anyone.

There’s something about placing the ephemeral, you dealt so much with that...

I am, I am an ephemeralist.

To take an ephemeral moment and place it somewhere that then is, not always broadcast, but accessed at different points.

Yeah, and it’s a very different kind of time-based time. I mean, now in our culture and in several other cultures we know about personal access. Every day, every hour of the day — we don’t even think about it. It’s actually not that old.

Going back to that idea of communication, when I used that term I was more thinking about it in terms of your ability to feed your ideas through certain mediums, and the reception of this in a particular way. Has that had to change? Have you enjoyed the reception changing?

Oh I see. You reminded me that I want to back up to —I’ll try to say this very simply. I was never burdened by what a writer is. Which in my culture, and especially in my city, New York City, it is very conservative and rigid. It’s so constricting. I had an interest and ambition, an engagement with how language could act, how language could perform, where language could operate, where it might be sited. Now those things involved having to invent the locations and the sitings and hence—‘she makes talking objects!’, and talking photographs and public artworks and language infested, language infused things. That precedes an involvement with technology. The involvement with technology is necessitated by this investigating where language might go other than the page. One has ideas for forms and then to make those—I had to know and learn and become familiar with technology so I could use it. I wouldn’t say that I’m interested in technology. I’m not somebody who’s going to start writing essays about the role of technology in culture and what’s happened to handwriting. I might. Until recently that wasn’t the interest—it was need to know. I learned, I taught myself, I took little tutorials, I paid people to teach me. Often, a technological part of a work will be truly beyond me. So I collaborate with technicians frequently, and work together with their knowledge to make the idea happen. The one time that technology interested me, and that I went after it, was for the escape from the sequential—when mouse-driven navigation came into being. That’s what it presented itself to me as—an interesting escape, and another way to construct narrative. So right away it was the technologies that could do something. I think it was Stephen Vitiello who introduced the idea of Tony Oursler, Constance, and Stephen collaborating, and then that collaboration ended up being a commission of Dia’s (1995). Before our collaboration, Dia’s commissions were concrete. There was that tradition—an exhibition for a year of material work, mostly men, minimal. But the new director, Michael Govan, was very receptive to the idea of a digital work. So there was a vehicle, a way to make that work. It was a very new coding, it was painful. Just made our hair fall out how long and hard it was. Then we were fools because we thought that CD-Roms had entered the world as a way of experiencing time based work. Wrong. They vanished. They were like 8- track audio tapes. They were here and gone. Now it could just be on a cloud. You can still find a CD player but you can’t find the hardware and software to drive a CD-Rom.

And it doesn’t bother you that that access has been lost now?

It doesn’t bother me, oddly. Also, the prospect of correcting it is beyond me. I’m really busy and the prospect of taking that on as a project is hugely time consuming. But it’s interesting— there’s three of us and no one is bringing this thing on fire as an idea. It’s strange.

I feel like we live in a world where we are constantly trying to grapple to hold onto things. It’s funny, I feel you can tell you’re a time-based medium artist because you’re fine that things have been and gone and its done it’s thing—when artists are often so precious about work and preventing the deterioration of work.

Yeah, yeah. Partly initiated by the reissue of Modern Love, I’ve been thinking about old work. I live on many streets. One of those streets is the visual art world and it started me thinking about ‘wow, people have retrospectives,’ you know, at a certain age and a certain accumulation of work. I thought up a notion of a time-based retrospective that I’ll do next season, wherein, instead of there being an exhibition where all the work is in one place at one time, there are performances over time that address all of the work in different combinations of programming the nights. So to do that I had to go into a closet and dig out all the old formats for the performances that I did. They start with cassette videos this big [shows with hands] and move forward into mini DV tape—that’s the most current. There’s one thing that’s on a card. So everything before the card, even if it’s digital, still has to be re- formatted. It all has to be re-formatted. To go onto media players. It’s such a job.

For more information about Modern Love and to order a copy, click here.

Well-known for her contributions to downtown New York's performance art and media art scene of the 1970s and '80s, and considered one of the progenitors of media art, or “time-based media,” Constance DeJong has worked for over three decades on narrative form within the context of avant-garde music and contemporary art. DeJong’s writing extends off the page through the body, resonating out of objects and into the space of the theater. DeJong extends her prose writing into multiple forms— performances, audio installations, print texts, electronic objects, and audio and video works. In 1983, DeJong composed the libretto for the Philip Glass opera Satyagraha. Since 1983, she has collaborated with Tony Ourlser on numerous performance and video works. DeJong has also been a writing collaborator with The Builder’s Association on SuperVision, 2005. Her books include Modern Love, I.T.I.L.O.E., and SpeakChamber and her work is included in the anthologies Up is Up, But So is Down: Downtown Literary Scene (NYU Press), Blasted Allegories (New Museum/MIT), and Wild History(Tanam). She is a recipient of awards from NYSCA for Media Production, NYFA for New Genres, and the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Media Production, among others. She has exhibited and performed both locally and internationally at venues such as the Walker Art Museum, the Wexner Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and in New York at The Kitchen, Threadwaxing Space, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Dia Center for the Arts. DeJong teaches at Hunter College for the MFA and BA in Fine Arts.

#constancedejong #modern love #read #author interviews

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Vivian Gleich: Profile of a Remote Worker

Born and raised in the bustling metropolis of Mexico City, Vivian has always valued creativity, both her own and others’. Growing up, she would watch at the glamorous billboards that lined the Mexican capital’s streets in awe and could be found humming along to the jingles that played in her favourite television and radio ads. At the age of nineteen, while still a marketing student at Mexico’s prestigious Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey university, she began working part-time at a local advertising agency. Though advertising agencies were among the first office spaces to incorporate more modern layout designs, the offices Vivian worked at in the almost ten years prior to her switch to remote working still maintained most aspects of a traditional office space.

Over the course of ten years, Vivian worked in office spaces in both her hometown of Mexico City and in Dallas, United States after emigrating in the year 2000. Shortly after moving to Dallas, however, she made the switch and began working remotely.

In the year 2001, Vivian welcomed her first daughter. Alongside her work, taking care of her new family became her top priority. She now had a newfound need to have a better balance between her work and her home life. At the time, she saw working remotely as the best course of action to take in order to be able to keep working and her spend time with her children. She began working from home for the next several years as she found she was easily able to care for her children as while also rising through the ranks of the competitive world of advertising.

After remaining a remote worker for several years, Vivian was faced with the opportunity to return to an office space and briefly worked at the Conill Advertising Agency’s office in the downtown Miami, Florida area before returning to remote working. After having experienced the environment a conventional office workspace and spending nearly a decade working remotely at home, Vivian found that working remotely best suited her goals and was an environment she could more easily adapt to serve her needs.

Benefits of Working Remotely

Being a working parent always presents its own set of challenge. When she first began working remotely, Vivian was a new parent in an unfamiliar country. Working from home allowed her to spend more time with her children than she would if she worked in an office while also continuing to pursue a full-time career. With the technological advances of the modern age, working remotely has become much easier - over time, it became possible to attend staff meetings, have important client interactions, and give presentations from home - and has increased productivity and quality of work due to the greater control remote workers have over their work environment.

Working remotely also allowed her to acquire more clients based abroad, as working remotely made it easier for her to work following her clients’ schedules more closely without being constricted to her own time zone’s normal 9:00 to 5:00 work schedule. Vivian quickly found that working at the same time her international clients facilitated contact between both parties and strengthened both her professional relationships with clients. Better client relationships increased her reputation in her clients’ - and therefore, her employer’s - eyes, doing so from the comfort of her own home, without the stress and hassle of the long commute.

Vivian’s time working in conventional office spaces opened her eyes to it many professional benefits and over ten years working remotely allowed her to experience the pros of remote working first-hand and drove her choice to ultimately remain as a remote worker. As of now, Vivian has been working remotely for several advertising agencies and multimedia communications groups for almost twenty years, including the Leo Burnett Company, Conill Advertising Agency, and Árbol Communications Group.

Drawbacks of Remote Working

The primary reason Vivian chose to remain a remote worker was the work-life balance she was able to maintain in a way co-workers and friends who worked in office spaces were less able to. After working remotely for several years, Vivian chose to temporarily return to a traditional office space while employed by the Conill advertising firm, though she soon remembered how beneficial remote working was to her desired lifestyle. Still, the issues she experienced as a remote worker were some many others experience as well.

For one, the line between one’s work life and personal life was blurred drastically. Working in the same space as her young children became her primary distractor throughout the day. The mere fact that Vivian was working in a comfortable, less rigid environment sometimes proved to be a drawback that took away from her focus on any given day’s task. It’s fairly easy to give into everyday temptations when they are easily available; there’s no one but yourself to judge you or immediate repercussions if you stop working to take a short nap, get distracted browsing the web, or watch television when you are at home, away from co-workers, bosses, and employers.

The biggest issue Vivian has faced in her time as a remote worker is one that is often brought up in the argument against working remotely - the lack of interpersonal communication. Humans are social creatures, and face-to-face communication is an important need that must be met. As with any work environment, we communicate with those in our vicinity. Issues arise, then, when you work alone in your home. Oftentimes, remote workers find that only being able to speak and interact with other adults is through a computer screen, e-mail correspondence, and phone calls or video chat. As a result of almost entirely digital human interactions, a sense of isolation can develop.

In advertising, the process that takes an idea into a finished product, whether it be a televised advertisement or social media campaign, requires the input and edits of multiple people. In being largely isolated from individuals in one’s field, it can be difficult to receive feedback and constructive criticism from your peers, as Vivian has also experienced.

There is also an oftentimes unexpected drawback to working remotely, and it is in fact one of it’s benefits: the lack of a fixed work schedule. Not being restricted to a typical nine-to-five office job can prove greatly beneficial to one’s productivity in creative fields such as advertising. However, in Vivian’s case, at times her lack of a fixed schedule resulted in her being perceived as a sort of 24/7 worker, clients and employers expecting her to be available at all hours for the mere fact that her desk was in her living room, not in an office.

In Vivian’s case, such issues did drive her to resume working in a conventional office space temporarily before ultimately returning to working remotely, since, at the end of the day, doing so better allowed Vivian to balance her work with her family life. Because of her decision to work remotely, Vivian was able to spend a greater amount of time with her growing family and remain as a full-time employee instead of giving up one for the other as is so often the case.

How Co-Working Spaces Come Into Play

Though each remote worker has his or her own motivations behind working outside of an office, and Vivian’s experiences may not be the same as yours, you may have shared many of the issues she has encountered in her eighteen years as a remote worker. And, like her, you are aware of the issues presented to you but do not want to move your workspace into a traditional office. In these situations, co-working spaces provide an alternative to both working from home and in an office.

Shared office spaces have grown in popularity over the last few years, primarily because they combine the best of both worlds: flexible work hours and convenience with the amenities provided in many offices that are less easily available to remote workers, like free coffee, a place to separate one’s work life from his or her personal life, and a community of fellow remote workers.

As they are centred around their clients, co-working spaces cater to their individual needs and offer a high level of control. Privately owned co-working spaces, as opposed to those run by larger institutions like banks, are available to clients for more hours out of the day rather than just when their parent institution is open - they don’t tend to be restricted by a 9:00 to 5:00 work week. There is also the added benefit of having the ability to utilize a co-working space during the weekend, allowing remote workers like Vivian to get ahead or catch up with more ease. To say the least, co-working spaces offer a perfect balance between the convenience of not having a fixed work schedule with the ability to work whenever and for however long you choose.

Co-working spaces also offer freelance and remote workers with certain amenities that create a work environment more comfortable than a conventional office space yet still offers the feel of an office space, an aspect beneficial to those who may struggle with distractions. Clients of a co-working space are able to come and go as they please and use the space’s many amenities, which oftentimes include access to printers and scanners, free beverages (both hot and cold), a comfortable workspace, meetings rooms and private offices, and reliable and fast broadband internet included the price.

One of the most important, if not the most, and significant benefits of utilizing a co-working space is the ability to interact and network with other people. Remote workers often experience feelings of isolation brought on by reduced human interaction, an experience Vivian is all too aware of. The clients of a co-working space are able to speak to other clients or even the co-working space’s onsite staff, potentially receiving advice and feedback regarding their work while also fulfilling their need for socialization and interaction. Occupying the same workspace can also facilitate networking between individuals, either in different or similar fields, that may otherwise be more difficult or even impossible from an office or home.

With nearly thirty years of experience in advertising and eighteen years as a remote worker, Vivian has accumulated plenty of experience working both at home and in an office space over the years. Though her personal experiences are unique, you may easily relate to the issues she has faced as well as the benefits she has found. While, previously, one could only choose between working in an office or working at home, the rise of co-working spaces over the last several years has provided an alternative many remote workers find far more suitable to their needs and gives remote workers a convenient, more personal place to work that is also better suited to their needs, wishes, and today’s rapidly developing world.

About the Author

Vivian Gleich has almost thirty years experience in the fields of advertising, communications, and marketing and has spent the past eighteen years working remotely. Her work over the past several decades has been internationally recognized as such prestigious festivals as Cannes, One Show, and New York Festival among others. She is currently the Chief Creative Director for Árbol Communications Group based out of Miami, Florida.

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cryptoquicknews-blog · 5 years

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New Post has been published here https://is.gd/zBhLRs

Oxfam Trials Aid Distribution With DAI, Future Use 'Highly Likely'

This post was originally published here

Throughout May 2019, United Kingdom-based nonprofit organization Oxfam International executed a month-long trial that saw MakerDAO’s DAI stablecoin distributed as a means of exchange among citizens of Vanuatu. The Oxfam initiative, named UnBlocked Cash, was conducted in partnership with MakerDAO, ConsenSys and Australian tech startup Sempo. The Australian government also supported the program.

Tsunamis, cyclones and volcanic eruptions comprise a constant concern for the citizens of Vanuatu, with WorldRiskReport describing it as the world’s most at-risk nation to natural disaster for five consecutive years. The month-long program saw 200 residents of the Vanuatu villages of Pango and Mele Maat issued tap-and-pay cards loaded with roughly 4,000 Vanuatu vatu (approximately $50) worth of MakerDao’s DAI stablecoin.

Related: From Clean Water Supply to Rebuilding Notre Dame: Crypto and Blockchain in Charity

Local vendors who agreed to participate in UnBlocked Cash were provided with Android smartphones with an app facilitating the processing of DAI payments. The vendors were also able to convert DAI into fiat currency through Sempo‘s cryptocurrency exchange or any other platform, if desired. In total, 34 vendors participated in UnBlocked Cash, including local stores and schools.

Approximately 2,000 transactions were recorded during the pilot. Due to privacy concerns, an individual’s purchases were not tracked. However, the program recorded the general category of purchases — such as “medicine,” “food” or “bills.” During May, 5% of all new DAI addresses were created by the citizens of Vanuatu.

Cash trumps in-kind provisions

According to Australian media outlet Micky, contemporary research indicates that providing aid in the form of a liquid means of exchange is significantly more effective than giving in-kind support, such as food and other basic provisions.

The publication approximates that roughly “70 percent of Syrian refugees have been forced to sell in-kind donations for cash so they can buy the items that actually need to suit their personal circumstances.” The provision of cash also serves to encourage local economic activity.

Sandra Uwantege Hart, the head of Oxfam’s Pacific Cash & Livelihoods in Vanuatu, told Cointelegraph that “Oxfam was already managing a portfolio of activities designed to scale cash transfers as a means of delivering disaster assistance across the Pacific region” as early as 2017. She continued:

“Typically, cash transfers are much more efficient than providing goods as a form of aid relief, but they are also slow to set up and often bogged down by lengthy financial reconciliation processes and slow monitoring and reporting, which is often difficult for donors to verify. We saw the potential for higher transparency, rapid analytics and automated transaction tracking typical of blockchain solutions as a vehicle to improve and accelerate our cash transfer programs and ultimately make them more responsive to people’s needs.”

According to Hart, it took Oxfam “a while to find the right tech provider to get this solution off the ground before settling on Sempo through an RFP process. Sempo stood out from the pack as one of the only tech providers who fully understood both sides of the equation we were trying to solve — how cash transfers work, and how to design blockchain solutions in a local context-adapted way to make them work for the people who need them the most.”

Sempo’s platform operates offline

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Sempo’s Melanie Hardman described that the platform’s mission is to solve the challenges encountered by both vendors and customers who seek to conduct trade in periods of crisis. Hardman said:

“Our platform consists of: an app used by vendors as a ‘point of sale’ platform, an e-voucher or ‘tap and go’ card which hold a balance of funds and is used by recipients to make purchases, and a dashboard managed by the Oxfam team, where they can enroll and approve program participants, disburse funds and monitor transactions.”

The platform is able to continue operating offline by “cryptographically recording recipient’s balances on tap-to-pay smart cards, which are then synced at a later point.” The platform also does not require recipients to have access to a mobile phone and does not require users to undergo Know Your Customer (KYC) identification checks, which Hardman described as “critical,” given that many people living in the developing world lack identity documentation.

In late 2018, Sempo used its platform to deliver cash aid to refugees based in the Greek city of Athens, Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as Beirut and Akkar in Lebanon. According to Sempo, the programs saw the “creation of a digital credit transfer platform that is easy for both vendors and recipients to use, regardless of literacy and existing levels of financial inclusion.” The company also noted that it was able to increase the transparency of the program by leveraging distributed ledger technology.

Stablecoin issuance as cash aid

Sempo’s Nick Williams told Cointelegraph that MakerDAO and Sempo developed a process for UnBlocked Cash that distributed DAI-backed digital vouchers, which were redeemable for fiat currency, to Vanuatu citizens.

“Dai was used as collateral for a special e-voucher, which means that vendors can be reimbursed by anyone who meets the regulatory requirements of the Vanuatu Government. This gives the platform capacity for much lower cost overheads, as well as creating the foundations for open financial ecosystems in the communities that need them.”

Greg DiPrisco, head of business development for the Maker Foundation, told Cointelegraph that “Sempo was convinced that Dai was the best solution for their needs and thus went through the proper channels to ensure that they could use it in the pilot.” DiPrisco described the initiative as “a testament to the power of a decentralized stablecoin to empower disenfranchised populations.”

Sempo’s Hardman stated that the company was selected by Oxfam to provide its cash transfer platform technology for the Unblocked Cash pilot following year-long discussions between the two entities regarding “the potential to revolutionize the cash transfer space using blockchain.” Hardman continued:

“Sempo was invited to put forward a proposal by Oxfam as part of their RFP process. This involved Sempo presenting an initial presentation on our work to date, and then developing and submitting a proposal, which we did in partnership with ConsenSys.”

Claudio Lisco, strategic initiatives lead at ConsenSys, told Cointelegraph that the company was engaged by Oxfam alongside Sempo “to assess the time, cost and quality of digital cash based transfer programs” after the nonprofit became aware that ConsenSys had built a financial inclusion platform in conjunction with the Union Bank of the Philippines, titled Project i2i. Lisco stated:

“ConsenSys aided in the initial design of the pilot, provided blockchain advisory and communications support, and evaluated the pilot to make recommendations for future utilization and scaling potential. We were on the ground during the pilot, to document and collect data insights, and conducted interviews and filming. We are now producing the debrief report, video case study, and advising on future developments and how iterations of the cash transfer program can be scaled.”

Pilot program seen as success

While Sempo and ConsenSys will meet with Oxfam during the final week of June to discuss the pilot’s findings — and whether there is potential to employ the program at scale in Vanuatu and other regions — representatives of the entities involved indicate that the program was seen as a success.

Oxfam’s Hart stated that Oxfam’s previous cash assistance programs in Vanuatu involved a setup process that “took between 30 minutes and an hour of long lines and verifying paper lists.” According to Sempo’s Hardman:

“Within the pilot, enrolment times were reduced between communities from 5.4 minutes to 3.6 minutes, demonstrating significant time savings when compared with other cash transfer modalities, where recipients may have to attend a registration session, return at another time to verify their identity, and then travel to collect a cheque.”

Hart concluded that there were significant gains in the speed with which Oxfam was able to pay vendors, emphasizing meaningful participation on the part of many small, community-level merchants, who rarely take part in assistance programs due to typically being unable to wait weeks to be paid. Hart explained:

“Now, with weekly payments, virtually all vendors in this trial were small scale and community based, and located within walking distance for most recipients — this means that we are enabling small-scale community economic recovery that is more inclusive and better adapted to people’s purchasing habits.”

Pilot program produces “unprecedented” transparency

Transparency has long comprised a fundamental value proposition put forward by cryptocurrency, with the UnBlocked Cash pilot demonstrating the advantages digital currencies offer over opaque means for distributing public finance. Hardman stated that the initiative “provided high levels of transparency for Oxfam and their donor, the Australian Government, as administrators were able to see transaction data in real time both on the Sempo dashboard, and the public blockchain.”

Related: Young Africa Looks to Crypto for Payment

Hardman also reported that Vanuatu community members indicated that Sempo’s platform would be the preferred modality of aid issuance in future disaster scenarios, attributing such to the greater ease of use afforded to recipients when compared with other forms of cash aid. However, she also noted, on reflection, that Sempo would like to see the platform’s offline data reporting functionality strengthened in order to improve monitoring.

ConsenSys’ Lisco described the program as showcasing the unique value propositions of cryptocurrency technology, concluding that Sempo’s platform offered significant efficiency advantages over cash, checks and other traditional methods for distributing financial aid. He continued:

“The pilot demonstrated that direct donations (without any intermediaries or administration) are possible utilizing Ethereum-based stablecoins. This method of transfer was also significantly cheaper for small donations. For instance, bank transfers to Vanuatu from Australia cost approximately $20 AUD. An Ethereum transaction, by contrast, averages less than 10 cents in AUD.“

Oxfam “highly likely” to continuing using stablecoins to distribute aid

Moving forward, Hart indicated that Oxfam is currently in the process of compiling reports aimed at showcasing the UnBlocked Cash initiative, and that it will “seek out the resources to be able to plan longer-term, and look at how we scale up this innovation in the Pacific, and elsewhere.”

Joshua Hallwright, Oxfam Australia’s humanitarian lead, told Cointelegraph that it is “highly likely that Oxfam will use stablecoins or other distributed ledger technologies to provide cash aid in disaster responses in the future, either in Vanuatu or elsewhere.”

Hallwright noted that “Oxfam is exploring the use of distributed ledger technologies because of their potential to change power dynamics and address inequities,” adding:

“As DLTs become ever more present in society, Oxfam is engaging in their development and impact in line with our goals of eliminating poverty and reducing inequalities. Oxfam is currently piloting six different uses of DLTs, globally, and sees these pilots as producing important insights that will shape future DLT applications in crisis responses and more broadly in emerging economies.”

The program showcases the potential of cryptocurrencies to facilitate far greater efficiency in the provision of resources, especially within the developing world and in response to crisis formulation. It is also good to hear that more such trials may take place, which could lead to a wide-scale adoption of crypto in the disaster relief sector.

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ysawesomenotes · 6 years

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The sound of 2066 (The Sound of Britain in 2066)

A report commissioned by HSBC

Written by Dominic Watt and Brendan Gunn

An Introduction

HSBC is launching voice biometrics as an element of its digital banking services.

The system verifes a caller’s identity using leading-edge voiceprint technology, allowing customers access to their accounts using a simple universal ‘pass phrase’.

As time goes on, voice-activated systems of this kind will be an ever more central part of our lives. 50 years from now, in 2066, we will only rarely interact with machines by pressing buttons, and the keyboard will have become obsolete.

Almost everyone can talk faster than they can type, and talking is the most natural communication system we possess. Speech recognition tools like Siri and Cortana are already part of our everyday lives, but these are only the beginning. Over the next decades the successors to these systems will become ever more reliable and ‘smarter’, as they take advantage of the boundless potential of the internet to train themselves to anticipate users’ needs and to respond effciently to our commands.

Our current speech technologies perform well under diffcult conditions. They can cope with high levels of background noise, or when the speaker has a head cold or a sore throat. Strong regional or foreign accents don’t affect their performance because the systems are trained to compensate for the numerous ways in which our speech varies. And impressive as these tools already are, they are improving all the time. In the future, our devices will understand everything we tell them. The way we interact with machines will converge on how we talk to other people, to the point where there will be no obvious differences between the two.

Balthazar Cohen, author of the ‘Totes Ridic-tionary’, described the internet as the place ‘where language goes to die’. In reality it’s just the opposite. The web is an inexhaustible wellspring of new words and phrases. Already we see how easily internet-inspired abbreviations like ‘LOL’ (laugh(ing) out loud), ‘FOMO’ (fear of missing out), ‘FOLO’ (fear of living of?ine), and ‘brb’ (be right back) have been turned into words (LOL to rhyme with ‘doll’, ‘brb’ with ‘curb’). These aren’t just confned to the speech of the young, either, as shown recently by the jokingly vengeful use of ‘LOL’ by a Scottish judge as he passed down a prison sentence. Emojis have been embraced as part of written English, to the extent that the Oxford Dictionaries UK Word of the Year in 2015 was the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ symbol. We will fnd ways of integrating them into our speech too. There is even the possibility that in the near future, our computers will themselves invent new words and phrases, ones which we’ll start to use ourselves because they seem especially useful or pithy.

We tend to think of computers as things that sit on our desks or that we carry around in our pockets, but they are of course already all around us: in car engines, inside our washing machines, or controlling the heating in our homes. Very soon all these systems will be connected together. The era of the ‘internet of things’ is all but upon us. Our homes, workplaces and means of transport will be ever more interconnected, with each appliance communicating with the other devices in its local network, and with the wider world via the web. In a sense, we ourselves will become elements of that network, while keeping executive control over the important decisions. Smart technologies will learn and adapt by tracking how we humans change in our preferences and our habits, and because we will give instructions using our voices they must of course keep pace with changes in our speech and language.

Languages change constantly, and they do so whether or not we want them to. New words replace old ones, grammatical rules arise and fade away, and the ways we pronounce vowels and consonants are always shifting and mutating. English has changed enormously over its 1,500-year history. Even in the last 50 years we have seen big changes in the accents and dialects of the language, including Standard English. This leads us to ask: what will English be like 50 years from now?

In this report, we make a number of predictions about how some key accents of British English might sound in half a century’s time. Some of the changes we identify have in fact already started. In other cases we’re being more speculative, but by looking at how English has changed over the last 50 years, we can identify patterns that seem to repeat. For one thing, people tend to like to make talking as easy for themselves as they can, but without making life too hard for the hearer. So they knock off sounds at the ends of words (‘tex’ for ‘text’, ‘vex’ for ‘vexed’), they simplify complicated sequences of consonants (hardly anyone says ‘syoot’ for ‘suit’ any more), and they rub the sharp corners off sounds by making them ‘softer’. For example, although we say electric with a hard /k/ on the end, we say electricity with an /s/, and electrician with a ‘sh’ sound.

Languages also change when they come into contact with one another. English has borrowed thousands of words from other languages: mainly French, Latin and Greek, but there are ‘loan words’ from dozens of other languages in the mix. For instance, we wouldn’t say we’d spilled chutney and shampoo on the veranda of the bungalow without frst having borrowed these words from Hindi.

Our speech and language patterns are absolutely central to our individual identities, and we exercise ‘consumer choice’ over which new linguistic trends we buy into, much as we do when choosing music or clothing. We adopt new ways of saying things because they’re fashionable or cool, or because we want to sound like we’re a member of a particular group of people. We use language to tell others something about ourselves in a way that costs nothing and is very immediate: uttering just a few syllables can be enough to signal where you come from, and what kind of social groups you identify with or admire. Young people often try very hard to sound different from people of their parents’ generation. Using the right sort of words and pronunciations can be an enormously powerful symbol of belonging, of being cool, of having the right sort of knowledge, of being ‘now’. However, in time what was once the height of linguistic fashion comes to seem stale, staid, and conventional, and so new trends must be followed by those who want to seem the most up-to-date and street-smart.

We must always allow for the unexpected, too: by 2066 English may have altered in ways we hadn’t seen coming. This endless cycle of innovation and renewal is what makes the study of language change so fascinating.

The Homogenisation of English?

We can think of the dialect map of the UK as a jigsaw in which the pieces were once very small. Individual districts, towns and villages had their own dialects. Over the last century or so, the jigsaw pieces have grown larger, as dialects have become more focussed on the bigger urban centres such as Newcastle or Manchester. These days it can be harder to tell where someone is from on the basis of his or her speech than it was a couple of generations ago: the dialect distinctions between Yorkshire and Lancashire, or between Merseyside and north Wales, are becoming more blurred. This is usually put down to greater mobility, with people moving sometimes quite large distances to other towns and cities to study or fnd work, or relocating from the cities into the countryside in search of a better quality of life or more affordable housing. But it isn’t the case that we’re all starting to sound alike. As we’ll see below, new varieties are taking root in different parts of the country. It’s mainly the traditional rural dialects that are becoming less distinct from one another.

We’re not all becoming more standard in our speech, either. Over the last 50 years we have also seen Standard English and Received Pronunciation (‘Queen’s English’) lose some of their status. Where once it was more or less obligatory to speak these for anyone wishing to enter the professions, the clergy, the upper ranks of the military, acting, or broadcasting, these days, non-standard accents and dialects are much more widely accepted. We’ve come to realise that speaking in such-and-such a way isn’t necessarily a sure sign of someone’s intelligence or competence. This improves opportunities for people from a wider variety of social and educational backgrounds. It’s sometimes forgotten that even the standard forms of English are always changing. Today we laugh at the way announcers spoke in TV news programmes from the 1960s because it seems so stiff and old-fashioned. It would sound odd if someone born in 1966 ? say, David Cameron ? were to speak like someone of his grandfather’s generation. We don’t expect young members of the Royal Family to speak in the same way as old ones do. The Queen’s English spoken by Prince George as he grows up is not going to be the same as the Queen’s English spoken by the Queen.

Looking more globally, Chinese and Spanish seem set to become yet more in?uential worldwide, leading to large numbers of words and phrases from these languages coming into mainstream use in English. Other major languages, such as Japanese, Portuguese, Arabic or Russian, may boost English vocabulary by donating names for new concepts.

‘Informalisation’ of English: talking to machines and listening to Americans

As we’ve seen, high technology is a very rich source of new words in English. In turn, English provides other languages with new terms they need in this area. Young people everywhere now use the English words app, troll, or hashtag rather than the equivalents in their own languages. English is the language of the latest trends in social media, and computer users know that being in command of the latest terms will allow them to participate in a globally connected world. Though the science that underlies systems such as Twitter and Facebook is advanced and hugely complex, the innovators and designers behind these brands want to keep the image of social media as relaxed and informal as possible. The terms that are used for common functions and ways users can interact (like, friend, follow, retweet, block) are therefore short, simple and memorable ones. The fact that so many innovations in computing come from California is undoubtedly linked to this relaxed and unpretentious approach.

A preference for informal, chatty and jokey language in the technological and scientifc domains is a recent phenomenon, but it’s one which makes these areas seem more accessible and less po-faced, and we are likely to see more and more of it. After all, there’s really no good reason we shouldn’t name features on the surface of Pluto and its moon Charon after characters from Star Wars, Star Trek or The Lord of the Rings, or call underground bacteria snottites because they look like nasal mucus dangling from cave roofs, or name an Antarctic research vessel Boaty McBoatface, just for the fun of it. A glance at the online Urbandictionary testifes to the endless creativity and humour of English speakers. Freeing ordinary language users up to invent and share new words and phrases like this is a mark of how much more democratic and liberated our linguistic lives have become.

With all of these factors in mind, we turn now to ask what the English of 2066 might sound like in different cities around the country.

London

It’s often said that traditional working-class London speech ? Cockney ? has more or less died out. We can now hear a hybrid accent known as ‘Estuary English’ (EE), which combines older London features with more standard-like speech forms. EE is recognisably south-eastern, but it can be very hard to locate a speaker within that region. It also seems to blur the class divide, leading to accusations that some middle-class speakers ? politicians such as Nigel Farage and celebrities like Jamie Oliver ? ‘dumb down’ their speech so as to conceal a privileged upbringing or to sound more like they are ‘one of the people’. EE has similarities to another newcomer on the UK dialect scene, ‘Multicultural London English’ (MLE). MLE incorporates pronunciations from Englishes spoken by people from ethnic minority groups, particularly from the Caribbean, West African and Asian communities. Given this mix, and the status of London as the linguistically most in?uential city in the English-speaking world, we can expect to see signifcant changes between now and the middle of the century.

For example, there are signs that /h/ is being restored. Generations of Londoners have dropped /h/ from the beginnings of words like hat, Highgate, Harrods, Hampstead Heath, or Henry Higgins. Another feature of London speech is the treatment of the two ‘th’ dental consonants, as in words like thin and this. We see either ‘TH-stopping’ (dis and dat) or ‘TH-fronting’ (fnk for ‘think’, muvver for ‘mother’). In future we’re likely to see the standard ‘th’ sounds being lost altogether. Fin and thin will no longer be distinguished even in careful speech, and bother will always rhyme with hover. This may come as a relief to foreign learners of English, who struggle with the dentals more than any other pair of sounds.

Saying dook for ‘duke’ or nooze for ‘news’ is already pretty frmly established in London, but this habit, known as ‘yod-dropping’, may continue so that even words like cute or beauty are affected, as they are in East Anglia, where they’re pronounced the same as coot and booty. Simplifying clusters of consonants like this is one way English has changed over its history. We don’t say the /k/ at the beginning of ‘knee’ or ‘knight’ any more, or the /w/ that used to occur at the beginning of ‘wrong’ (these letters are now silent, but we haven’t ever bothered to change the spelling). We’ve lost some other great consonant clusters since the earliest days of English: the word for ‘to sneeze’ in Old English, for example, had a very sneezy-sounding /fn/ sequence at the beginning.

/w/ and /r/ are already very similar for many southern English talkers (e.g. Roy Hodgson, Chris Packham, Jonathan Ross), so the two may collapse together completely, so that wed and red are no longer distinct. We may also see consonant+/r/ clusters smushing together into sounds more like ‘ch’ and ‘j’, so trees and cheese, or dress and Jess, sound more alike.

At the ends of words, /r/ was dropped centuries ago, and /l/ is likely to follow suit by turning into a vowel. So words like Paul, paw and pool could be indistinguishable, as they already are in Cockney. Lastly, the glottal stop pronunciation of /t/ ? a brief catch in the throat rather than a sound which involves the tongue tip closing against the roof of the mouth ? will be the default pronunciation. People in 2066 will be mystifed as to why Tony Blair, Ed Miliband and George Osborne were slammed so mercilessly by the press for having been caught saying voters without using a ‘proper’ /t/ in the middle.

Liverpool

The Liverpool accent is highly distinctive but it’s not an especially old one. It mixes local Lancashire features with ones imported from Ireland during the 19th century. The in?uence of Liverpool speech is wide: there are towns on the coast of north Wales in which people speak with accents which are strongly coloured by Scouse. All the same, Liverpool speech will probably start to fall into line more closely with the accents of other major northern cities. The ‘tapped’ /r/ sound in words like green and brown, or four and five, is likely to go the way of this consonant in Scottish or Yorkshire English.

One of the very distinctive things about Scouse is the way that /k/ and the other ‘stopped’ consonants /p/ and /t/ are produced. At the end of back you’ll hear a ‘ch’ sound like the one in Scottish loch or German Bach. A lot of people say they dislike this habit, but it’s actually a very natural sound change, and quite common across other languages. It’s quite possible that we’ll see more of this softening of the stop consonants not just in Liverpool but in other accents around the country.

Liverpool, like all the other northern cities, has an accent in which pairs of words like put and putt are pronounced alike. A great number of the changes we see in current English involve a levelling out of local differences, however, and it’s possible that by 2066 the northern accents will have come into line with the global norm for these vowels. At present there are many northerners who would wince at the thought of saying cup or bus anything like southerners or Americans do, so as a compromise they may start to use some intermediate ‘fudged’ vowel in these and other putt-class words instead. The very suggestion that the north and the south could converge linguistically always meets with heated argument, but it’s not so outlandish an idea ? in fact, the process has already been happening for many centuries.

Glasgow

In Glasgow, and lowland Scotland generally, English sits at one end of a language spectrum. At the far end is the Scots dialect, which is so different from most sorts of English that some call Scots a full-blown language in its own right. It seems clear, though, that the urban Scots spoken in Glasgow is on the wane. Surveys of Scottish schoolchildren show that they aren’t familiar with many of the Scots words and phrases that their parents and grandparents would use (bampot, clarty, glaikit, stooshie, and thousands of others). Some of the dialect words will remain, though it’s impossible to say which will survive. Pronunciations like gless ‘glass’, hame ‘home’, bane ‘bone’, or ft ‘foot’ may soon come to seem too old-fashioned for young people to use.

Dropping of /r/ after a vowel is already well underway among working-class Glaswegians, meaning that pairs of words like hut and hurt can now be hard to tell apart. As in London, wordfnal /l/ is also disappearing (so Paul and paw are more alike), and the ‘th’ consonants are turning into /f/ and /v/.

On the other hand, if a second independence referendum were to go in favour of Scotland’s separation from the UK, the picture could be very different in the Glasgow of 2066. Because language and identity are so closely tied together, it might be that the Scots language lobby would step their efforts up a few gears, as a way of highlighting the separateness of Scotland’s culture and heritage. Making the language of the new state seem as distinctive as possible is exactly what the Norwegians did when they split from Denmark a hundred or so years ago. One of the big unknowns when trying to map out how languages will develop in the future is the effect of political upheavals. The history of English is full of these: think of the arrival of the Vikings, or the Norman Conquest.

Newcastle

British people tend to nominate one of two accents when they’re asked which is the hardest to understand. Glaswegian is one, and Geordie is the other. There are some in the north-east of England who claim that Geordie and the dialect of Northumbria are the closest forms of English to Anglo-Saxon. Though this is an exaggeration, there are features of Geordie which hark back to when Middle English was spoken (hoose for ‘house’, neet for ‘night’, and so on).

These are becoming scarcer, though. The general pattern is for Geordie to sound more like other northern dialects. The characteristic pronunciations of ‘face’ and ‘coat’ (‘fee-uss’, ‘coo-ut’) are much less common than they were two or three generations back. These days, more generic northern-sounding vowels are preferred. Over the next 50 years we predict that they will sound close to what is found in southern England. The characteristic ‘hiccuping’ Geordie pronunciation of /p/, /t/ and /k/ in words like caper, waiter, and baker may go the same way.

Geordies used to pronounce the vowel in words like ‘nurse’ as an ‘aw’ sound, so that shirt sounded the same as short. Words like ‘talk’ were pronounced ‘taak’. These differences are the basis of the story in which a Geordie with an injured leg goes to see the doctor. The doctor bandages the Geordie’s leg and says, “Now then, do you think you can walk?” The Geordie replies, in disbelief, “Walk? Ah can hordly waak!” (= “Work? I can hardly walk!”). These pronunciations can still be heard when you’re oot and aboot in the Toon, but they now have an old-fashioned ?avour. ‘Walk’ now tends to rhyme with ‘fork’, and ‘work’ with ‘jerk’. However, there’s a change going on in which the ‘jerk’ vowel is moving forward in the mouth. It seems to be linked to the habit of pronouncing the ‘coat’ vowel as something like ‘er’. So we fnd jokey spellings like ‘turtle’ for ‘total’, ‘terst’ for ‘toast’, ‘jerk’ for ‘joke’, ‘serp on a rerp’, and ‘The Perp’ (that’s the head of the Catholic church).

Manchester

Some of the same changes that we’ll see in Newcastle are also liable to take place in Manchester. ‘Turtle’ for ‘total’ has spread westward through urban Yorkshire and already seems to have crossed the Pennines into Manchester. The iconic vowel pronunciation at the end of Manchester (something like ‘Manchest-or’) seems fairly new, but whether it will last is an open question. Not all sound changes stick. Another feature of Manchester and other parts of the north-west (though not Liverpool) is the vowel at the ends of words like happy and city. At the moment, in Manchester it’s more ‘eh’-like than ‘ee’-like. The vowel in many British accents is now frmly an ‘ee’ sound ? happ-ee, rather than happ-ih. Mancunians may in time start to use the ‘happ-ee’ option, making them sound more like Scousers in this respect.

As mentioned earlier, the Liverpudlian habit of producing /k/ as the Scottish-like ‘ch’ is a very natural thing to do, phonetically speaking. So is saying /t/ as an ‘s’-like sound, so that ‘mat’ and ‘mass’ sound very alike. It’s conceivable that Mancunians could start producing these sounds the same way. This convergence might seem improbable, what with Mancs claiming to despise Scousers and vice versa, but in reality the rivalry between the two cities isn’t necessarily a barrier to their dialects becoming more similar. There are pairs of cities around the country in which people say they loathe one another (e.g. Derby and Nottingham), but the dialects spoken in them may become so alike that they’re hard to tell apart.

Birmingham

By virtue of being the closest to London of the cities listed above, Birmingham is likely to adopt the new trends in London speech before the others do. Examples might include the following.

If we are right about the restoration of /h/ in London, we might expect this to trickle down to Birmingham, so that by 2066 it’s being used in Brum with at least some consistency. Glottal stop for /t/ will be the default pronunciation (except at the beginnings of words; tea will still need a /t/, but won’t won’t!). TH-fronting (fng for ‘thing’, bovver for ‘bother’) has a frm foothold in the Midlands already, and a /w/-like pronunciation of /r/ is also common. These forms will increase in frequency, and the other features listed for London may also come to dominate Brummie speech.

We could see the phasing out of localised features like the ‘velar nasal plus’, where an audible /?/ is produced at the end of sing and wrong, and where singer (‘sing-guh’) and fnger rhyme. This habit is common in the West Midlands and in north-western cities including Manchester and Liverpool. People in these areas often say that they think they’re using the correct, standard way of saying ‘ng’ at the ends of words and syllables. In fact, it isn’t the way Standard English speakers pronounce these words. Brummies are probably being in?uenced by the spelling here, and so believe that the ‘proper’ pronunciation involves a sequence of two sounds at the end of sing instead of just one.

As with the northern varieties described above, we may see a split between the words of the put and putt sets, bringing the vowel system more closely into alignment with southern accents.

Conclusions

Over the course of the next ffty years, our lives will be transformed by technology at least as much as they were over the past ffty years.

We may see the rate of change accelerate, with each decade bringing an ever wider range of technologies to make our social and working lives easier, safer, and more effcient. The impact of these developments on society will result in new ways of using language. We will need to coin new terms for new inventions and concepts at a rapid pace, of course, but we will also interact with one another, and with the machines that will surround us in all areas of our lives, in ways that may at frst feel unfamiliar. The era of voice-activated computer systems, which are faster, smarter and more secure than ever before, is already upon us. These will not force us into particular ways of speaking, because they are designed to be responsive to our vocal patterns. They are not judgemental about how we speak and make no distinctions between accents or dialects: to them, all languages and their subvarieties are equal, and there is no ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ way of speaking. We can talk to them however we please. In short, the latest generation of secure voice biometrics systems will let you be you.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the following people for their input: Maciej Baranowski, David Britain, Georgina Brown, Urszula Clark, John Coleman, Karen Corrigan, Volker Dellwo, Holly Dunnett, Shivonne Gates, Philip Harrison, James Hoyle, Paul Kerswill, Adrian Leemann, Kirsty Malcolm, Alan Reading, Richard Rhodes, Devyani Sharma, Jane Stuart-Smith, Kim Witten, and Jessica Wormald.

Dominic Watt, Author of the report

Senior Lecturer

Department of Language and Linguistic Science

Dominic Watt was appointed Lecturer in Forensic Speech Science in 2007, and teaches mainly on its new MSc programme in that subject.

Watt has an MA (Hons) from Edinburgh and a PhD from Newcastle, and has held teaching and research positions in phonetics, speech acoustics and audiology, phonology and sociolinguistics at universities in Germany and around the UK, including York (2000-2002) and Aberdeen, where I was Director of the Phonetics Laboratory for five years.

Brendan Gunn, Co-author of the report

Brendan Gunn holds an MA and a PhD in linguistics. He began working as a Dialogue and Dialect Coach in 1986 after leaving the University of Ulster where he was a Lecturer in Linguistics.

Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Aidan Quinn, Cate Blanchett, Jim Sturgess, Heather Graham, Rupert Grint, Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Natalie Portman,Daniel Day Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Saoirse Ronan, Colin Farrell and Stephen Rea are just some of the actors who have worked with world renowned dialect and dialogue coach, over the last 25 years.

- The Sound of Britain in 2066 - About HSBC | HSBC in the UK https://www.about.hsbc.co.uk/news-and-media/the-sound-of-britain-in-2066

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imagineitbetter · 3 years

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Reflective Illustrated Journal

CTEC502 Intro to Creative Technologies - Final Assessment

For my final assessment I decided to write about Technological Determinism, Technophilia, Technophobia and Prototyping.

Here are few fragments of my Reflections and some interesting findings in my research:

Our present world is facing the fastest technological advances in history. Technology happening to be accessible almost everywhere, represents great opportunities for our society, we have already extended our life expectancy and quality, reduced illiteracy, poverty, and improved international relationships, to name just a few (TEDx Talks, 2018). At the same time Technology is growing faster than our capacity to adapt. Technophilia, Technophobia and Technological determinism are symptoms of this disproportionate growth.

Technophilia

Relates to the attraction or enthusiasm about technology, however, this affinity for technology can lead to different attitudes, behaviours, and emotions one should be mindful of. For example addictions to social media, dependency to your phone the need to constantly purchase the latest technologies, Have you ever wonder where do old phones go and how much impact this has on the planet?

Technophobia

Represents in the other hand, the fear and anxiety people usually feel towards advancing Technologies and the consequences to humanity. Further studies are being done, to understand and find ways to address this phobia better. (Reynaldo C. L.Jr.2018).

I had the impression that technophobia would be most popular in older age groups, than in younger generations who have been exposed to technology since a young age, or birth, although research in the US have shown 70% of the population presents technophobia signs (Reynaldo C. L.Jr. 2018), misinformation and ignorance on the uses of technology are big part of the problem.

Technological Determinism

Proposes that Technology determines or produce the outcome or change, on society and culture. This concept though cannot be attributed a “good nor bad nor neutral” meaning (Martin Hilbert, 2015); depending on the hat you are wearing, the social, political, or economic interest, you could argue what and how technology is involved in the course of society, taking into account the little we understand of technophilia and technophobia. All these arguments can be endless discussions and completely different from each other, although one thing they would have in common is, that they are produced by humans, who remain in control of design, so we can agree that it is on us to determine the course of our lives and how we utilise the great power of Technology as a tool, can offer us.

All this knowledge and uncertainty can be understandably worrisome but by no means is the future written, knowledge is power, and a lot of people, with the integration of technologies, are using it wisely, working towards a more honest, inclusive, fair, circular, and sustainable world. We all take part in shaping society and as creative technologist we have a big and exciting role to play.

Fortunately, the first steps everyone can take to ensure a better tomorrow, are pretty simple, there is already a considerable amount of help to get started and what is even greater, technology is not required.

Start with, working on your Emotional Intelligence!

(Psychology Today, 2021) defines that “Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions, as well as the emotions of others”.

(ExploringYourMind, 2017) explains Daniel’s Goleman, psychologist, and important figure of Emotional Intelligence study, four basic dimensions of his approach to emotional intelligence:

“The first is self-awareness. It refers to our ability to understand what we feel. To be connected to our values, to our essence.

The second aspect is self-motivation and our ability to orient ourselves towards our goals, to recover from setbacks, to manage stress.

The third has to do with social awareness and empathy.

The fourth link is undoubtedly the philosopher’s stone of Emotional Intelligence: our ability to relate, to communicate, to reach agreements, to connect positively and respectfully with others.”

The meaning and importance of emotional intelligence has been discussed since 1985 (ExploringYourMind, 2017). Recent different studies have demonstrated the value of emotional intelligence, its impact on people and the co-relation with technophilia, technophobia, the negative assumptions against technological determinism, as well as highlighting the importance of openly speaking about them.

For example, (Odai, Y.K., 2018) studied technophobia, emotional intelligence, and its influence on technology acceptance in the workforce, concluding emotional intelligence is a big factor companies need to consider when implementing new technologies. A high EI on employees is a determinant of how well they will communicate, adjust, or react to new technologies. (Quintana-Orts et al., 2020) investigates if loneliness and emotional intelligence play an important mediated role in relation with suicidal thoughts, cyberbully and traditional victimisation in adolescents, which results suggested that teenagers with higher EI skills, even when feeling lonely are better prepared to deal with bullying, consequently avoiding self-harmful thoughts and feelings of loneliness. The study also stressed, the application of polices and strategies in schools to improve EI in the students is crucial; responsible discussions on Technological determinist should be applied too.

Building Emotional Intelligence, in relation with advancing technologies might not only help us, to operate and respond better under stressful, unknown, or challenging circumstances, in our workplace and school, but in our life in overall, including the digital world, where we are susceptible to be fooled and becoming trapped by a cyber reality if we do not know ourselves well and care for others.

Analysing all the above and the four principles Goleman discusses, we can really associate the practice of building emotional intelligence and understanding what technological determinism entails with everything we have been learning through the semester, I think if we work on our EI we could learn from our studies and vice versa, consequently improve our contribution with Technology. Some of the lessons we could relate to are, reflective practice, the 4E cognition, empathy, futures thinking, the acknowledgement of soft and hard skills equitably important, growth mindset, the concept of circular economy, effectuation, causal, inductive, deductive, and abductive reasoning, and the paradoxical combination of confidence and openness to embrace failure and success.

Another potential of emotional intelligence with technology

Rana El Kaliouby, scientist, entrepreneur, author, and AI thought leader, saw the potential on emotional intelligence with technology. Rana along her team is developing an Emotional Intelligence technology, an AI called Affective which can detect nuanced human emotions, cognitive states, activities, interaction and objects people use. (Affectiva, 2021).

Although, we must consider all scenarios, question issues around cybersecurity, surveillance, consent, reliability, accuracy, and primary can emotions be read from someone’s faces or behaviour, and do all faces and behaviours represent the same? (TED, 2017), which some of these are answered in an interview with (WIRED UK, 2020), it is still a promising development.

This technology is already being implemented in different areas, for example in vehicles which allow monitor the state of the driver and passengers with the aim of improving road safety, in businesses, to understand not only what costumers say but how they feel and in psychology, contributing to human behaviour studies. (Affectiva, 2021).

Prototyping

Prototyping is creating early examples or mock-ups of the final product, idea or experience you are working on, evidently is an important part of the design and thinking process. (G, Ruchi, 2017)

Transporting your ideas into the physical world is beneficial for different reasons, one important thing we have learned is the earlier we start the better. Early testing allows you to create a better idea of the outcome, to receive feedback, consider different materials, means of production, costs, identify possible obstacles or even give enough time take your idea in another direction or to change it completely, before is too late.

Fortunately, there are few prototyping strategies to suit different needs:

Low-Fidelity: After putting some thought and doing some research you can start with an economic and accessible approach, for example illustrating or translating your ideas into paper, draw a storyboard, a diagram or/and build something with cardboard.

Medium-Fidelity: Once you have received feedback from your early tests, done further studies, you can continue exploring different prototyping ideas, for example transform your paper storyboard into a PowerPoint presentation, experiment with different tools/software and materials.

Hi-Fidelity: Although starting from low, moving to medium then to high-fi prototyping is not a rule, it is a path that works, but it can be adaptable to your project requirements or/and skills. (G, Ruchi, 2017)

Another strategy is to consider what can you prototype? On many occasions you may not have a final product visualised, or it is out of your skills to prototype, you could then target the actions, experience, service or emotions and prototype those.

Challenges:

Work on my EI and Learning practice

Find ways to interact with my class fellas

How can I utilise my 10 self-study hours better?

How can I identify and articulate the help I need?

Improve my skills on Adobe Creative

How can I share what I have learned with others as well?

#CTEC502

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