#and his failure to nurture a team that can rely on each other on an emotional and psychological level

[friendly-neighborhood-nightwing]

The New Teen Titans (1980) # 29

[simplysolvedagency]

HR and Payroll Outsourcing Services for Small and Medium Business

Welcome to this article on managing your HR & payroll challenges, every CEO strives to implement a vision through his executive leadership team. HR Solution teams play a major role to ensure alignment towards this vision and typically deploy several motivators.

 Some of the motivators that HR and Payroll Outsourcing organizations use include

Nurturing leadership

Tracking compensation and benefits

Career path

Offering skill augmentation opportunities

Managing reward programs

Recognition framework

While its organizations spend a lot of time and effort in implementing the motivators often some of the basic hygiene factors may get ignored. Payroll Outsourcing is one of the important hygiene factors for an organization to be productive HR motivators, as well as basic hygiene factors, need to be in place getting all other HR motivators right and the payroll element wrong can prove expensive

An organization that does not focus on basic hygiene factors is set up for failure. Typically most organizations decide to manage payroll system with in-house teams and face several challenges. It is difficult to get the right kind of people who understand accountability responsibility and ethics.

 When hiring happens at junior to middle management level this makes it even tougher.

 Deciding on the right software can be a tough decision with all the updates maintenance and customization requirements dependency on the Wender remains high and can be very expensive.

 Your teams need to be trained in utilizing the software efficiently as there is no room for errors. This starts eating up management bandwidth to implement different policy and regulation changes in-house teams rely on manual interventions making it heavily error-prone.

 You depend on manual effort to comply with statutory regulations this is not only a challenge but can have a huge risk attached to it. With in-house teams you also lose out on several other things with so many developments and new trends emerging in the fair role having domain knowledge plays a vital role.

 Is your organization losing out with in house teams it is difficult to curtail employee crosstalk and maintain confidentiality as a key aspect in payroll System?

 Are you able to maintain confidentiality in your HR & payroll System there is no room for error in payroll processing and junior teams typically will need supervision to ensure accountability?

 Is your management spending more time than is necessary on your payroll?

 Employees want much more communication than just receiving pay slips.

Every month are you able to manage employee communication related to payroll well?

 Salaries will need to be processed irrespective of whether your payroll staff is on leave or has resigned from the organization.

 You also need to ensure salaries in spite of emergencies like server crash, data loss, fire theft, etc. Payroll teams lack the technical expertise to manage software customization and depend on software vendors. Are your teams capable of managing these technical challenges?

 Considering all these challenges it's time you consider a HR and Payroll Outsourcing specialist. Simply Solved has been exclusively focused in the payroll domain for over 12 years with over a hundred thousand payroll records processed monthly. Simply Solved has the experience to manage your requirements.

 Over 250 clients trust Simply Solved with their payroll isn't it time that you did too. Simply Solved has been exclusively focused on the payroll domain for over 12 years. Handling payroll for a variety of companies across industry segments Simply Solved serves companies with as little as 3 employees to as many as 21,000 employees.

 Simply Solved is a highly processed driven organization and is ISO 27001 certified we are also ISO 9001 certified. A Simply Solved ensures the confidentiality of data my payroll our self-service portal is HTTPS and SSL secure.

 We also have comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery plans in place. Simply Solved offers single-window services to all payroll related needs like statutory compliances leave management related services document verification etc.

 We offer each client a dedicated incubation team; the team ensures the flawless transition from your existing systems to the Simply Solved process framework. Simply Solved has built its own IP to ensure automation and convenience to its customer’s precision our very own back-end.

 The payroll engine is highly customizable and can meet your varied requirements. My payroll our employee self-service portal offers 24/7 secure access to employees as well as HR Outsourcing teams Simply Solved is proud to be associated with several elite clients who consider us to be their true partners.

[manlyman06]

Katara and Toph or how to make strong women

I talk here about stRong in the term of good writing no just strong about badass skills even if this have a important part in their developement.

Let describes each of this character:

You will find the entire article in the great blog: http://femalefortitude.blogspot.com  I advise you to go take a look ;)

Katara :  She should have been the heroine  of the serie in my opinion, she is a young girl who despites her young age take many responsability, she take care of her family and organize the most part of the journey with their group, she is very interesting beacause despites having cleary amother role, she have goals she have doubts and defaults, she thinks about her and have a strong wil.

Her dreams it’s to becoming a Master in water bending, by make her dream comes true she doesn’t hesitate to steal a trarining parchement, that can be view as a bad thing but it is very coherent due to the situation that she see Ang becoming more and more powerful with the water bending, and i don’t think it’s jealousy i think is ambitious, but the moment in the serie where we see that is real deveolop character and not just a female support for the hero is in the  Northern Water Tribe episode.

 Having worked with Aang to develop her ability, Katara seeks a master to train her. Unfortunately, the best instructor available, Master Pakku, refuses her entry to his program. In the Northern Water Tribe, he tells her, female benders learn how to heal while their male counterparts learn how to do everything else. Katara rejects this model, saying, “I don’t want to heal, I want to fight!”

She soon gets her chance; Pakku dismisses her as a “little girl,” and Katara challenges him to a duel if he’s “man enough” to take her on There are in this scene a very important moment in my opinion where Ang says to her “  do not do it for me as if in every serie the female support doing thing only because of a male character, and she replies  i’m not doing this for you i’m doing rhis to teach him a lesson  Aware of her own inferior bending technique and the reality of her inevitable defeat, Katara nevertheless chooses to face Pakku and forces him to fight her

IInn “The Runaway episode,” Sokka reveals that he relies on Katara’s strength and responsible nature. He describes the role Katara has played in his life since their mother’s death: “I’m not sure I can remember what my mother looked like. It really seems like my whole life Katara’s been the one looking out for me.

Her important personal quest is getting revenge on the Fire Nation soldier who killed her mother. Both Sokka and Aang try to dissuade her, telling her that she should forgive the soldier and move on, but Katara says that that would be impossible. When Zuko tells her to save her strength, she tells him that she has plenty: “I’m not the helpless little girl I was when they came.” Implicit in this statement and in Katara’s recollection that her mother sacrificed herself to protect her is Katara’s feeling of guilt. She has immense power now, but she couldn’t protect her mother when it counted. She had to rely on her mother’s strength so that she could one day increase her own. For Katara, a child who not only suspects, but knows that her mother exchanged her life for her own, it would be impossible not to think of her death as Katara’s fault. Tracking down and punishing the man who physically did the deed might allow Katara to feel less responsible.

This doesn’t mean that Katara is above doing terrible things in her quest for revenge and redemption, which becomes evident when Katara bloodbends the man she suspects is Kya’s killer. When it proves to be the wrong man, she appears disheartened, but not particularly remorseful. The weapon that once horrified her is now just another in her arsenal. Still, when she finds the killer, she uses only normal waterbending, which suggests that some of that initial reticence has been restored. She still resists becoming Hama’s successor.

When it comes time to make a decision, Katara decides not to kill the former soldier. She explains the situation to Aang: “I wanted to do it. I wanted to take out all my anger at him, but I couldn’t. I don’t know if it’s because I’m too weak to do it, or if it’s because I’m strong enough not to.” Aang tells her that she did the right thing, and that forgiveness is the first step toward healing. Katara replies, “But I didn’t forgive him. I’ll never forgive him.” She does, however, forgive Zuko. This is a significant point in Katara’s characterization. Whole episodes are devoted to Aang learning how to let things go, and we know that he has had to overcome the loss of his people in order to become a better Avatar. We appreciate his thoughts about forgiveness because we know that he knows what he’s talking about. But Aang and Katara are very different people, and her inability to forgive is just as important to her character as his unwillingness to take revenge. After watching three seasons of A:TLA, the viewer knows that she holds grudges, that she has immense stores of rage, and that the loss of her mother has informed much of her personality. To take violent revenge would be to become Hama, but to forgive Kya’s killer would be to stop being Katara.

Source : http://femalefortitude.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-last-waterbender.html

Toph : Is my favorite in the entire show she is funny, endearing, stubborn or determined ^^, I find in her all the  i love about my girlfriend ^^

Toph’s introductory episode is an explicit rebuttal to the typical portrayal of people with disabilities. The first time we meet her, she is defending her title at a WWE-style earthbending competition as the Blind Bandit. Aang, Katara, and Sokka are initially skeptical; surely a tiny twelve-year-old blind girl couldn’t beat a bunch of full-grown men. However, she can and does, and she is only defeated when Aang unfairly uses airbending in his challenge for the title. 

Later in the episode, after she and Aang have been kidnapped, Toph’s father reveals that his primary reason for keeping her close is her blindness. When Sokka and Katara ask for her help to save Aang, her father states, “My daughter is blind. She is blind and tiny and helpless and fragile. She cannot help you.” Toph, confronted with her father’s low opinion of her ability, says simply, “Yes, I can.” Sokka and Katara offer to help her, but she declines. Then she takes on all seven adult earthbenders at once and she wipes the floor with them.

Toph’s father is presented as controlling and irrational, and the show condemns his point of view. He is wrong for controlling her and for viewing her in terms of what she can’t do instead of who she is. By condemning him, the show rejects the usual approach to the mainstream portrayal of disability. It strengthens this message by having Toph defend her actions with very little reference to her blindness, instead framing the conversation as a matter of agency versus control. She doesn’t explain that she has devised a method of sight that involves reading vibrations in the earth, thereby “overcoming” her disability. Rather, she points out that she’s good at fighting, that she loves it, and that she deserves to exist and be accepted as she is. Ultimately, she joins Team Avatar because they can give her that acceptance.

The shift in Toph’s loyalty from her biological family to her found family forms the bulk of her character arc, and it is best exemplified in the development of her relationship with Katara. In “The Chase,” nurturing team mom Katara comes into conflict with the recently liberated Toph. Toph refuses to help the others set up camp, claiming that she can pull her own weight. The tension increases over the course of the episode, in which Team Avatar endures a sleepless night spent fleeing from Azula’s relentless pursuit, eventually causing Toph to leave the group. She runs into Zuko’s uncle, Iroh, to whom she confesses, “People see me and think I’m weak. They wanna take care of me, but I can take care of myself, by myself.” Iroh tells her that there is nothing wrong with getting help from the people who love you, and she decides to rejoin the team.

Katara tries to re-define their friendship as a relationship between equals by offering to pull a scam with Toph. In this way, she can show Toph that she’s fun while hopefully removing the baggage of projected parental failure from their relationship. At the end of the episode, Toph tells Katara that she was right and asks Katara to help her write a letter to her parents, thereby relieving her of her role as maternal figure as Toph seeks to re-open communication with her actual mother.

The exchange that follows is remarkable. Katara tries to tell Toph that the girls had no idea what they were talking about, but Toph assures her that “It’s okay. One of the good things about being blind is that I don’t have to waste my time worrying about appearances. I don’t care what I look like. I’m not looking for anyone’s approval. I know who I am.” Still, she’s crying as she says it. Katara notices and tailors her response to reinforce Toph’s value as a person, even as she also addresses the unspoken question: “That’s what I really admire about you, Toph. You’re so strong and confident and self-assured, and I know it doesn’t matter, but you’re really pretty.” This response earns Katara the (should-be) coveted Beifong shoulder punch of affection.

This is particularly interesting in light of Toph’s complicated relationship with gender performance. Whereas Katara fights to be allowed access to traditionally male spaces, Toph’s domination in Earth Rumble V and VI proves that she’s already there. As far as we know, she spent all of her time at home with her parents and servants, with regular visits from her earthbending teacher, Master Yu. It’s no surprise that a sheltered, disempowered kid would want to emulate the competitive earthbenders’ overt displays of strength and forge a place for herself among them. Joining their ranks, however, necessarily requires her to immerse herself in their hyper-masculine subculture, based on violence and trash talking. Toph happily becomes a master of both.

ne of the incontrovertible truths of the A:TLAworld is that it is impossible to bend metal. Xin Fu says as much when he tells Toph, “You might think you’re the greatest earthbender in the world, but even you can’t bend metal.” For a time, even Toph believes this. As all of her ploys to get out of the box prove unfruitful, however, she looks to the metal itself. Overlaid on the scene is the voice-over of a guru, telling Aang that all of the elements are connected. Even metal, he says, is just “a part of earth that has been purified and refined.” Without the benefit of hearing this voice-over, Toph nevertheless finds the impurities in the metal box and physically pries it apart. When her captors come back to investigate, she imprisons them in the box, exclaiming as she leaves, “I am the greatest earthbender in the world! Don’t you two dunderheads ever forget it.” In this scene, we see the essence of Toph. She finds herself in a seemingly impossible situation, so she does the impossible to get out of it. She has been locked in a cage -- a metal box, the prison of her parents’ house, the jail of their controlling affection, or the dark dungeon that others assume she is confined to due to her blindness -- and she forges her way to freedom. Ultimately, Toph Beifong is a character who finds empowerment in disempowerment, turning perceived weaknesses into real strengths.

All the analysis belong to femalefortitude.blogspot.com

Source :http://femalefortitude.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-greatest-earthbender-in-world.html

[nayleaharvez97]

Avoid Being Served Divorce Papers Marvelous Unique Ideas

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Ways To Stop Divorce

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Can Separate Bedrooms Save A Marriage

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[sayantandodo]

The Meaning of Real Education and The Importance of SkillPal Mentorship.

The role of education is meant for developing something new rather than relying on old innovations. One should be able to identify what he knows and what he doesn’t know. “Education is not to mug up, but to understand how to create the world around us, how to sustain it for future generations and how to develop relations for existence. Education is the only way to win the world. It is to think deeply about something till its roots and understand the intention behind it“. Education is the ability to think, apply it in the world and to know the value of life. It doesn’t limit with self-education, but also to spread it to every human around us. There is no end for education, as in each and every stage of human life we learn something. It is not about learning life, but education itself is life. Also, it is the key to find great characters hidden in every individual. It will help us to know what harm we are doing to the world and guides us to protect the world from all dangers which are caused by human beings. This is the wealth that can be transformed from ages to ages. The real education means to mentoring someone about his or her life goals. SkillPal starts its journey from here. SkillPal is a platform where people come to ask a mentor how they should begin to achieve their goals.

Many people have many goals but they don’t have any way to sort them according to their wish or priority. This not only creates chaos in their mind but also in their lives. Not having a properly planned life will backfire one day. It is very important to set a goal and work according to it. This will not only ensure a better and safe future but also will also help you to keep your mind straight, as less the confusion, lessen the stress on your mind. So by following these steps one can solve the problems on their own but in a much better and planned way. First and most foremost thing is to decide what you actually want. There must be many things one will be interested in for your career or maybe you are interested in none. There will be many of these cases, but you should decide on what you want to do at least. Try and discover your hobby and your liking. Find out which kind of jobs one can do using those hobbies and talent of his. The purpose of mentoring is to tap into the existing knowledge, skills, and experience of high performing employees and transfer these skills to newer or less experienced employees in order to advance their careers. The SkillPal mentorship is a relationship between two people where the individual with more experience, knowledge, and connections is able to pass along what they have learned to a more junior individual within a certain field. The more senior individual is the mentor, and the more junior individual is the mentee.

Many jobs are there for a particular talent, just find the one suitable. We should follow our heart. We should go for something which is best with respect to our talent. What other think is also important but also believe in yourself and in your talents. The best way to do that is to nurture yourself and always be confident about your true decision. We should always keep a note about our goals that have been set by us. Additionally, we should also keep checking if we achieved this within the deadline or took more of it. Of course, it’s good we conquer our goal faster but taking care of ourselves is a must. We shouldn’t ignore our own body in the name of achieving our goal. Always note it down in a positive feeling or way. Stay positive and focused. SkillPal democratizes celebrity and industry-leading knowledge sharing for fans and aspiring talent through personalized, bite-size video advice and live guidance. If someone ever wanted to get his or her song chorus reviewed by a famous musician or your social media content by a marketing thought leader? You can now with SkillPal. Our team consists of globally diverse developers, designers, marketers and visionaries. Together, we are passionate about creating the next generation of edutainment, combining short-form content and industry leader insight accessibility. They are India’s first Influencer advisory video messages marketplace.

We are acquainted with our own qualities and setbacks. Make sure that whatever we do, we should do it according to our capability. Only we can control ourselves and our moves. What we do depends on us and nobody else. So we shouldn’t blame others and keep concentrating on ourselves. We should face our failures and cherish our accomplishment. Talking about our goals won’t sound good especially for the introvert people as it will be quite awkward for them to share it with others. But the truth is, telling about it to the others also gives courage and confidence. The person will even try harder to achieve it than before as there are few people who are watching. A mentor of SkillPal can help you advance within your field and connect you with opportunities that you might not have otherwise had access to. They do this by sharing their knowledge, helping you identify opportunities in your path, and potentially opening doors for you when the time comes. Almost every great achiever in history has claimed that they had a great mentor at some point during their rise to excellence. A mentorship is a valuable tool for turning one’s vision into reality. SkillPal Mentors are expected to guide and advise their mentees, helping them build a successful career or gain a solid footing within a certain organization. Typically, a mentor has one mentee at a time and can focus on shaping their trajectory.

More the people to encourage, more will be the confidence and good mindset to do it as nobody wants to lose before others. Telling about your goals is reminding yourselves about it as well so that you won’t lose the sight of your target. It is the most difficult part of the whole process. Don’t delay it much longer, just go with the wimp. Do as you feel and start whenever your gut tells you to. You can only achieve it if you start it. Postponing it will only create problems. Don’t be afraid and start. Does it step by step? After clearing a step we can continue the other. Always play according to the plan you set if it is the best one you made. Changing the idea in the mid of your sub-goal accomplishment will hamper the later ones. Don’t do that ever. Follow it as planned. We already know what is best for us and we should always follow that. But if the person thinks that the new regime is better then he could try and change if possible. We should do what we think is right.

[magikalgaming]

J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit enthusiastically recommend dishes to Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 15 with their mouths half-full.

Drink of Choice: Lemon Water

Magic rings, delicious food, and sacrifice bring these unlikely friends in conversation. Tolkien’s works are undoubtedly foundational tools for most contemporary high fantasy stories, and the Final Fantasy series has grown with the the genre for over a decade. Oddly, both these narratives use a vastly overlooked and underrated symbol to emphasize the perpetual danger their main characters - Noctis and Frodo/Bilbo encounter - food.

Final Fantasy 15’s cooking mechanic is simple, less a mini-game and more an aesthetically pleasing feature that provides stat buffs. You could almost forget about it entirely, were it not for the incessant, meme-worthy quote from Ignis Scientia, “That’s it! I’ve come up with a new recipe.” Mid-dungeon Ignis finds he must tell you that Creamy Fowl Sauté is totally possible now. You beat a difficult mini-boss with an emotional cut scene,but the menu now has Fluffy Chiffon Cake, fam. The sheer amount of times players hear his token phrase is absurd, but on some level, it brings food in conversation with survival. Sure, you need food to survive, but why include the option to make recipes and gather ingredients? How do we reconcile staggering out of battle and picking up mushrooms after for the next five minutes?

The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit offer a very similar theme in the scope of their adventures. FF15’s and LOR/TH’s narratives drive back and forth between imminent danger and the desire for food. The very description of a “hobbit” includes their love for food, and events like Bilbo’s Birthday Party in LOR highlight that notion. The event’s magnitude is measured by how much food was ordered, and its success expressed by how much of the food was consumed. Main characters Bilbo and Sam/Frodo come pre-equipped with food being thematic and central to their personalities. Because these three characters had not experienced being outside the Shire and in danger before their quests began, we find food to be indicative of daily life and peace. Once the narrative takes the hobbits outside their territory and into precarious lifestyles, it becomes indicative of something much more important and overwhelming - the eventual triumph over evil. I’m careful not to use the word survival in this definition, as Frodo expresses throughout LOR that he expects to die during the scope of his trial. Like in FF15, there are many moments where Bilbo or Sam/Frodo engage in battle and after rest and eat.

FF15 conditions players to equate Ignis making food with safety and friendship. The campsites that the team retires to represents both sanctuary and camaraderie, and character relationships are strengthened when new or favorite meals are prepared. Ignis will also ask Noctis to assist him with the cooking, which highlights their relationship as friends and equals, rather than ruler and subject. These mealtime scenes also reveal past circumstances and a broader narrative foundation that would otherwise go unsaid. LOR’s version of Ignis is quite visibly Sam, who carries around pots and pans and, upon having to let them go near the end of their quest, feels woeful and reluctant. The role of the cook in both these narratives is the role of the nurturer. Both Frodo and Noctis carry a self-sacrificing burden, near inescapable, and feeding them becomes a small way of Sam and Ignis providing support in an impossible situation.

The absence of good food is palpable in both stories at select times. LOR weans Sam away from being able to provide nourishment once the duo enter Mordor, and they henceforth rely on lembas to keep their bodies functioning. It becomes akin to rations, bland yet encouraging. You could separate LOR’s good and difficult moments by evaluating if there is an abundance of food or an absence of it during a given moment. FF15 works the same way. DLC’s for each character removes them from the group dynamic in order to tackle a personal challenge. In a similar vein of survival, Episode Gladiolus features Gladio and Cor eating Cup Noodles at their campsites, and the tone is drastically distant and serious from the ones that feature the team of teens. Episode Prompto shows him eating canned food and dreamily thinking about Ignis’s cooking (much in the same way Frodo and Sam dream of the Shire’s cuisine during their darker days). Interestingly, Episode Ignis does not show the talented cook making himself meals. We see him drinking Ebony, a canned coffee that is said to be Ignis’s favorite drink. It’s odd to see such an integral part of his character, as chef, go unspoken and unused in his own DLC. It reveals that food isn’t a part of his character, but providing for his friends is. Why make Pork Cutlet Sandwiches when there’s no one there to enjoy them?

In an interview with FF15’s game developer, Tomohiro Hasegawa commented, “In the game, food is part of the expression of each city’s culture. However, what was important was not to focus on particular cultures, but to give the impression of traveling long distances by showing how culinary cultures change by region” (Reynolds). The road trip turned survival mission underscores the groups travel and unfamiliarity with their surroundings. Some recipes aren’t acquired unless you visit restaurants and try the local cuisine, such as Lestallum’s Bird Broth Rice and Curry, which unlocks Peppery Daggerquill Rice. On the other hand, chains like Crow’s Nest Diner offer the same dishes no matter where you go, reminding players of places like Denny's and ihop. The inclusion of eating makes characters more relatable and provides an edible record of the places Noctis and Co. have traveled.

You could easily make a similar record with LOR/TH. In moments of survival and struggle Frodo and Sam rely on lembas while Bilbo and Co. turn to cram. In LOR Gimli comments that lembas reminds him of honey cake made by the Beornings. These foods are described as bland but filling and long-lasting, and only lembas has extra magic included. Miruvor, an elvish mead, is given to Gandalf at the start of his journey in LOR to provide warmth and strength, through it is mainly used at elvish festivals. Held captive, Merry and Pippin are forced to down Grog by the orc Uglúk, and it grants them brief strength on their trip to Isengard. When evaluated, we find that most all food that is specially described and fictional in LOR/TH are foods that are self-sustaining and provide strength. Even Ent-Wash, which Merry and Pippin drink heartily, cause them to physically grow taller and larger during their attempts to overthrow Isengard. While food in FF15 informs players about friendships and emits safety, LOR/TH showcases food as a tool of war - necessary in order to turn the tides of battle.

The rings. How could we not talk about the rings? Both FF15 and LOR/TH feature reluctant ring bearers, and the rings themselves are charged with power. But what does this have to do with food? Well, if we think about food as that which is consumed and the eater as the consumer, I can’t help but think of Noctis and Frodo/Bilbo as predators turned prey. Both Frodo and Bilbo are almost literally eaten by their respective attackers, and Bilbo even listens to trolls discuss the best methods to season and cook him. While monsters never actually attempt to eat Noctis, he is hunted and, in the end, consumed by another force - the ring. The ring. The rings. Frodo’s constant psychic battles with the ring seems to invigorate and empower him while weakening his mind and heart. You could say that the ring consumes Frodo by feeding him. His reservations about surviving his relationship with the ring are slim, and the withdrawal effects are reminiscent of an addict starving for a drug. Power is food. Food is power.

And Noctis? Well, his ring feeds him by consuming him. One of FF15′s loading screens explains, “Harboring the souls of Lucian rulers of old, the ring allows its wearer to channel the power of the Crystal—but drains away one's life.” As a family heirloom, it represents leadership of an entire kingdom alongside its magical abilities. During a specific part of the game the ring is the only weapon available, making it a protective rather than a dangerous. However, toward the end of the game Noctis is consumed, literally, by a crystal. When he finally emerges time has fast-forwarded and the world is in ruins. He calls on all the forces of the ancestral ring in order to defeat Ardyn (the villain), and is ultimately sacrificed in the process. Both he and Frodo only truly accept the quest of the ring once they decide their lives are forfeit.

Food can be a magical and mysterious concept, but most often it’s a part of daily life and representative of normalcy. However, these two fantastical narratives encourage us to slow down, take it in, pull up a friend, and recover. 

Credits and Sources

Reynolds, Whitney. “The Food in 'Final Fantasy XV' Is Insanely Realistic.” Eater,

           Eater, 21 Dec. 2016, www.eater.com/2016/12/21/14030230/final-fantasy-

           vx-15-food-review.

Tolkien, J. R. R., and Alan Lee. The Hobbit. HarperCollins, 2008.

Tolkien, J. R. R., and Wayne G. Hammond. The Lord of the Rings.                     

             HarperCollins, 2014.

Final Fantasy 15. PS4, Square Enix, 2016.

Pictures/Gifs in order of appearance:

1. @celebquote, https://weheartit.com/entry/46608611

2. indeimaus, https://twitter.com/indeimaus/status/844791841492951041

3. https://gifer.com/en/VGZQ

4. kechua, https://www.gosunoob.com/final-fantasy-xv/camping-screenshots-from-ff-xv/

5. http://aagamerumahgamers.blogspot.com/2016/10/cooking-mini-game-on-final-fantasy-xv.html

6. ACTUALMAIRON, https://tolkienthinktank.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/lembas-flatbread-recipe/

7. Katie, https://www.thefandomentals.com/frodo-and-failure-at-mount-doom/

8. cine yuinimix,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVDavUot3sI

9. TheGamesEntertainer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxGm67c4i3E

10. https://21stcenturyhobbit.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/happy-birthday-j-r-r-tolkien/

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Hi Everyone! Julian here from Founder Stories (founderstories.io) - here's one of our latest interviews with ZenMaid's founder - Amar Ghose on how he and 2 Co-founders started a 40k+ / mo SaaS business.Interview: Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hi, my name is Amar Ghose. I’m the CEO/co-founder of ZenMaid. Our software makes it easy for growing maid services to manage their cleaners, clients, and schedules in one easy to use software.While we might have started off slow (both my co-founder and I worked full time for over 2 years after starting ZenMaid) we now make more than half a million dollars a year helping maid service owners to achieve the freedom in their lives and businesses that we have (I’m currently writing this from Canggu in Indonesia!)how-we-validated-and-grew-a-saas-for-maid-services-to-500k-year What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea? I’ve always been quite entrepreneurial. I started as a kid selling candy to my middle school friends actually. Despite that I hadn’t been able to create a real business that really stuck until ZenMaid.In 2012 I came across a post on Reddit. A guy was starting his own maid service and documenting the entire thing. By chance a friend of mine saw the same post and started working on the technical side of the business (building a website and etc). My friend quickly realized that he didn’t want to deal with the people side of the business however. He tagged me in to help with operations and sales/marketing. From there I was quite quickly made an equal partner as he had yet to launch.Don’t fall into the classic trap of spending months building or working on something, only to find out when you launch that no one is interested.At the time I was doing sales for a tech startup so closing business by phone was my jam. From there I quickly learned basic man management skills to work with our cleaners.Fast forward 1 year and I was no longer living locally. I’d moved closer to home (the SF Bay Area) for a much better day job. I was 400 miles away from our maid service and that caused tension with my partner. Ultimately I gave up my portion of the maid service (which shut down shortly thereafter).It was at this point that another friend approached me about what became ZenMaid. He felt he could build a better management platform than the one he’d seen me using. And he was confident that I could sell and market the software given my skill set and industry knowledge.Hence ZenMaid was born (initially named MaidDesk though I doubt that’s ever been mentioned anywhere publicly before now :-) )While working full time (myself at a startup, my co-founder on his PhD at Stanford University) we began simultaneously working on the product and getting in contact with as many maid service owners and offices as we could.Take us through the process of building the product. My co-founder Arun was familiar with the coding language Python but decided after reviewing some of the existing libraries that Ruby on Rails was the right way for us to proceed.… so he taught himself Ruby in ~8 days and got to work. I’m still baffled by this looking back on it.Due to my full time work schedule I made calls between 5 am and 8 am on weekdays before going into work and all day on Saturdays.It took almost 6 months to get a working prototype due to Arun’s PhD program at Stanford (he worked from 11 pm to 3 am most nights on ZenMaid). I spent that entire time calling maid service owners and offices. Due to my work schedule (1.5 hour commute to SF each day) I made calls between 5 am and 8 am on weekdays before going into work and all day on Saturdays.We made the decision to focus our efforts on an easy to use calendar that specifically focused on truly recurring services (something that’s unique to maid services and housekeeping companies) and on automated communications around the appointments.To this day that is still our bread and butter, though we’ve added many features and benefits since.A lot of people have asked about our startup costs but we didn’t really have any due to our combined skill sets. The only expense we took on was once the product was live was ~$100-$200 per month for Google AdWords so we could get consistent traffic to our website and app.Describe the process of launching the business.We didn’t do much of a launch for ZenMaid as we didn’t have an audience to announce to. We paid for a press release service that didn’t do much but I did reach out to everyone I had been talking to when the software was ready. Our first customer came onboard for $1000 for life, paid over 4 months (we have given a few other maid service owners lifetime access for a set price but we quickly moved to a more traditional SaaS model priced monthly which now starts at $49)We already had a landing page at this point as I was treating the business/product as if we were ready at least 3 months prior to the software being launched. I believe we initially used a tool called LaunchRock and then moved to WordPress with a theme quite quickly.Launch numbers (this was fun to look up in Stripe) :We brought on our first customer on September 9, 2013 and ended that year with 5 customers (though 13 had tried and paid us for at least a month) so clearly there wasn’t much of a launch eventSince launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers? ZenMaid has always relied heavily on paid advertising (Google, Capterra, LinkedIn, Facebook) for a constant flow of leads however we quickly branched out from there to do content marketing which helped with SEO and a variety of other things.We actually stumbled on this by accident when I took the keywords I had researched for my maid service and I shared them in a Google Spreadsheet which we hid behind an email gate. This was our very first lead magnet and to this day it still gets us more leads than anything else :-)From there we built an extensive email marketing funnel that’s almost all quality content. Our goal is to never be forgotten by our leads because when they’re ready for our software, they’ll let us know. Essentially any maid service owner that signs up for our email list will receive high quality, implementable content for their businesses for almost two years, each email having a small, unobtrusive link at the bottom to learn more about the software. If they click this link they’ll get a couple more targeted emails. I set this up following Ryan Deiss’ The Machine course a few years ago.Two quick examples of awesome content we’ve done would be The Ultimate Hiring Panel, where we interview 3 industry experts on their hiring best practices, and “Steal This Cancellation Policy for Your Maid Service”, which is exactly what it sounds like: 3 example cancellation policies that can be copy pasta’d into a maid service whether they use ZenMaid or not.More recently we’ve added in extensive Facebook retargeting campaigns, also focused on quality content, that we use to nurture the leads we get from other channels.And finally, what we’re best known for in the industry, is our Facebook group, the ZenMaid Mastermind. We built the first widely joined community (some existed before us but were quite dead, and many have appeared since we did it) and at the 2015 industry event we were the talk of the town.More people knew us from that community than for our software though that’s changed since. It’s still where we get lots of leads, content ideas, and feedback on our software!Building the Facebook groupThe Facebook group actually happened by accident - I had a crazy idea that we could start a membership site and do it on Facebook so I launched a $19 per month subscription to our email list.Two months later and after signing up a whole 3 (THREE) members, I realized it wasn’t the time or place (in hindsight this failure was 100% on me and had nothing to do with timing or anything other than my lack of experience)We refunded the money of the members who had joined but left the group up on Facebook. Over time I started inviting people to join if they added me as a friend and were part of the industry.Fast forward a year and we had 50 members who were starting to chat regularly when an awesomely epic thread appeared. I sent an email to our list letting them know they might be interested and 50 members turned into 200 overnight. We haven’t looked back since.What was the thread? You know how they say Sex sells…One of the cleaning clients caught the team lead and a cleaner having sex in her bathroom while they were supposed to be cleaning. To make matters worse the 3rd cleaner on the team in question was the WIFE of the team lead (yes, you’re reading that right)Epic, hilarious, and very beneficial to our business.Since that time we’ve built up the group with great content and discussion as well as making it a safe place for owners to let loose and rant (my approach was to make this a place online that maid service owners could get the help they need but also relax with a glass of wine at the end of a long day and chat with their friends)These days we do regular Facebook Lives and feature many of the industry’s leading experts :-)And all of this has led to speaking engagements for myself and partnerships with almost every big name consultant in the industry. It helps a lot when we have a bigger audience than they do so at some point there was a snowball effect where most influencers chase us rather than the other way around.For example, we have a virtual summit coming up this year and, where most organizers have to chase speakers, we had 25 confirmed presenters within 24 hours of making contact with the first one.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?We recently passed the half million dollar yearly mark and will be breaking the million dollar a year barrier in late-2020.That will actually happen much sooner if we can accomplish the 3 primary goals I have in mind for ZenMaid going forward - two of which I consider to be “holy grails”1 - To extend our lead as industry leaders.It sounds weird to me to answer that but after 6 years of hard work and focus the truth is ZenMaid is now the gold standard in the house cleaning industry for software.We have some very good competition but none are focused on our industry specifically which gives us a lot of advantages that we’ve piled up over the years (for example, we now employ 4 current or former maid service owners which puts our support heads and shoulders above other software who serve our audience)2 - Negative net churn.We recently changed our pricing to grow every month with our customers as they are more successful. That change has lowered our churn significantly but we do still lose money each month from our current customers. By the end of 2019 I’d like us to actually make more from our existing customers even if we continue to lose ~5% of them each month.Software folk will recognize this as the SaaS holy grail, and we think it’s possible for ZenMaid :-)3 - Paid marketing that pays for itself (I’m not sure what the right term is for this - any readers want to let me know in the comments?)Inspired by Russel Brunson who actually makes money advertising ClickFunnels before people convert to paying software users … With our current lead costs my goal is to get a $97 or $197 info product that’s part of our email automations so that we can advertise the software and immediately recoup our advertising spend.If we can achieve #1 and #2 simultaneously the sky's the limit for ZenMaid, particularly as a bootstrapped company. It’s the holy grail of marketing in my opinion.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous? Test test test would be lesson #1 as we essentially lit our business on fire overnight about 2 years back. We had the best intentions and it absolutely turned out for the best but we burnt a lot of bridges and lost almost 30% of our revenue because we didn’t do enough testing prior to releasing a massive update on our software.Lesson #2 would be something I learned from Tim Ferriss which is “treat everyone like they can put you on the front page of the New York Times”.A lot of our best partnerships and relationships have come because I simply cared more about the actual people than our competition a few months or even years before either we could help them or they could help us. We’ve had multiple customers sign up who currently pay us thousands of dollars a month who knew me 6 years ago when the company was starting but we weren’t sophisticated enough for their businesses.On a similar note I’ve gone out of my way to help up and coming consultants, some of which became quite big years after and now refer us business left and right. And most consultants in the industry know they can approach me for tech or marketing advice if they want it. I’ll even fix problems for them (usually paying money out of my own pocket to do so) if I know it’s considerably easier for me or my team to do than for them.Lesson #3 would be to simply Not Quit. Everything in our business these days sounds like flowers and sunshine (and profits) but I can point to at least 20 situations where other entrepreneurs would have thrown in the towel. The reason we’re in business and successful today was that we never gave up when things got challenging. It’s easy to run a business when things go well, it’s what happens when the sh*t hits the fan that actually defines you and your success.What platform/tools do you use for your business?We use a lot of software as a software company so here are our daily ones:Slack - for chatting when an email is unnecessary. Group discussions and etc. I’ve seen people mention this can be a big distraction but with a remote team it’s absolutely vital to everything we doActiveCampaign - Email marketing and automation, we’re known in the industry for our email marketing and current email leads will receive messages for approximately 2 years after registering so this one’s important fo’ shoIntercom - I hate their pricing with a passion as it changes every month but they’ve done a great job of infiltrating every part of our customer process. We use them for support but also as a sort of customer dashboard (easier for us to find users with over X employees using intercom than anywhere else, for example)What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources? I listen to a ton of books these days (Audible on 3x speed) so there’s a lot to pick from but here are a couple that I think helped me a lot as I got started:The Four Hour Work Week - the lifestyle dream was always my why after reading this bookJobs by Walter Isaacson - this book completely shifted how I approached building the ZenMaid product and taking pride in many of the little details in our business I previously thought were unimportantThe Fish That Ate The Whale - Best entrepreneur [true] story I’ve ever read - everything about this man’s life is epicThe Foundation - a online course to help folks like me start software businesses. We went through this after picking up our first 5 customers and came out the other side with over 30Straight Line Persuasion - a sales course by Jordan Belfort, who everyone knows from the Wolf of Wall Street. I was already in sales and this course took my sales game to a new level. Shortly after listening to it we had our first +$200 MRR day which at the time was absolutely massive for usAdvice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?The main advice I would give to both starting entrepreneurs and even experienced one is to focus on FEEDBACK LOOPS, and increase the speed at which you go through them.A feedback loop is essentially asking yourself “How can I figure out if I’m on the right track as quickly as possible?” For ZenMaid we’ll run article headlines and outlines by our audience before we create content. We’ll do quick mockups of new features and share them first with our team, then with our champion user group on Facebook to find whether we’re on the right track to solve the problems we intend to. This has been absolutely invaluable.For a new entrepreneur, don’t fall into the classic trap of spending months building or working on something, only to find out when you launch that no one is interested. This is why I spent so much time calling maid service owners while we were developing the software and getting as much input from them as I possibly could. And this was despite the fact we “knew” what we were building.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?We try to keep our dev team lean and fast moving but on the non-tech side I’m always on the lookout for two types of people - entrepreneurial marketers and maid service owners.Most of the ZenMaid team members work part time for us and have their own businesses I’m happy to help them build. Anyone who can help me to get more leads, or convert more maid service owners into active users, is going to have my attention.For quite a few of our entrepreneurial team members their other business is an actual maid service in which they use ZenMaid. I can’t dogfood my own software anymore since exiting my maid service. But the next best thing is hiring our customers or potential customers to help with customer service, marketing, account management, and more.Where can we go to learn more?Your website: theamaricandream.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/godblessamarica Instagram: https://instagram.com/TheAmaricanDream/ If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Amar Ghose, Founder of ZenMaid‍

[anupsingh11-blog]

In Vitro Fertilization | Fertility Centre in Delhi | ElaWoman

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF): What Is It?

In Vitro Fertilization is an assisted reproductive technology (ART) commonly known as IVF. IVF is the method of fertilization by means of extracting eggs, retrieving a sperm pattern, and then manually combining an egg and sperm in a laboratory dish. The embryo(s) is then transferred to the uterus. Other kinds of ART encompass gamete intrafallopian switch (GIFT) and zygote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT).

Why is IVF used?

IVF may be used to treat infertility in the following patients:

Blocked or damaged fallopian tubes

Male component infertility such as decreased sperm rely or sperm motility

Women with ovulation disorders, untimely ovarian failure, uterine fibroids

Women who have had their fallopian tubes eliminated

Individuals with a genetic ailment

Unexplained infertility

Side consequences of  in vitro fertilization

Although you can need to take it clean after the system, maximum girls can resume normal sports tomorrow.

Some aspect effects after IVF may additionally include:

Passing a small quantity of fluid (may be clear or blood-tinged) after the manner

Mild cramping

Mild bloating

Constipation

Breast tenderness

What are the dangers related to in vitro fertilization?

As with maximum medical methods, there are ability dangers. More severe signs, typically from OHSS, encompass the following:

Nausea or vomiting

Decreased urinary frequency

Shortness of breath

Faintness

Severe belly pains and bloating

Ten-pound weight gain inside three to five days

If you experience any of those signs above, touch your doctor proper away.

Success rate

In 2016, 26 percentage of approaches brought about a live beginning.

In 2010, the UK's National Health Service (NHS) anticipated that the chance of a stay delivery changed into:

32.2 percent for ladies elderly below 35 years

20.8 percentage for women aged between 38 to 39 years

13.6 percentage for girls aged 40 to 42 years

5 percentage for ladies elderly 43 to 44

1.9 percentage for girls aged over 44 years

These data vary relying on in which IVF is executed.

Other factors that can affect success

Apart from age, the probability of success relies upon on factors which include:

how lengthy you have been seeking to grow to be pregnant

the reason of the infertility

whether or not being pregnant or a stay start has happened before

the strategy that will be used

Aveya IVF and Fertility Centre

Aveya IVF and Fertility Centre Physicians have been educated in Germany, Japan and United states and feature international recognition for his or her excellent medical paintings. We at Aveya IVF and Surrogacy centre India treat a huge range of fertility issues with popularity, warm temperature and dignity. We are dedicated to imparting compassionate care to all people who wants to come to be a parent, and could walk with you each step of your treatment until you fulfill your dreams of becoming a parent. Our fertility middle India combines latest innovation in reproductive treatment with a multidisciplinary approach to higher attend to the physical, emotional and non secular needs of our sufferers. Our entire body of workers is dedicated to supporting humans circulate thru the challenges of becoming a determine via fertility treatment, insemination, fertility tablets, IVF, ART, egg donation, and gestational surrogacy and it is one of the Best Fertility Centre in Delhi.

Aveya IVF and Fertility Centre offers couples who wish to be dad and mom, a crew of global-class experts from Germany, Japan and america, devoted to bringing you the exceptional of IVF treatment, these days. This is certainly unique in India! We keep in mind that each affected person is unique, this means that that every cycle is also going to be specific. We, at Aveya try to present our patients the personalised treatment and the care they deserve, doing so with utmost confidentiality

Services : Intrauterine Insemination (IUI)Semen Freezing Surrogacy Egg Freezing

Location : Rajouri Garden, Delhi

Rating : 4.2 / 5

First Step IVF Center

First Step IVF Center is a sincere effort to help couples struggling with fertility and reproductive health associated problems. It is controlled by means of an experienced team of Fertility Specialists. The vital values of medication- honesty, integrity and competence are core philosophy of First Step IVF Clinic. At our centre there aren’t any company pressures, no goals to fulfill, no false promises in phrases of treatment. Transparency is general and whole and it is one of the Best Fertility Centre in Delhi.

First Step IVF Center gives some of the satisfactory great offerings like Donor IUI, Infertility Evaluation and Treatment, Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF), Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), Egg Donation, Surrogacy, Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) and Frozen Egg Embryo Transfer. This is the quality-recognized Andrology and Fertility sanatorium in West Delhi.

Services : In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)

Location : Vikaspuri, Delhi

Rating : 3.6 / 5

Nurture IVF Clinic

The Nurture IVF Clinic has been striving to offer the nice solutions to couples searching for treatment of infertility. We are attempting our great to offer all of the couples coming to us, their package deal of joy, their personal baby. We are prepared with high cease era and updated infrastructure to provide one of the excellent fertility treatments inclusive of IVF, Surrogacy, ICSI, and IUI tactics. We comply with the worldwide requirements as far as our techniques and procedures are worried. We are centered on supporting couples to sail out from trauma of infertility by means of supplying them appropriate treatment to have their very own baby. We specialize within the location of IVF, ICSI, IUI, Egg Donation, Embryo Donation, Assisted Hatching, Surrogacy, Embryo Freezing, Male Infertility Services, Sperm Banks and other Natural Infertility Treatments. We additionally provide infertility books, infertility support and pills with encouraging emotional and moral assist and it is one of the Best Fertility Centre in Delhi.

Nurture IVF Clinic success charge has been outstandingly suitable, which has made us pleasant fertility medical institution in Delhi and amongst satisfactory fertility clinics in India. We goal at offering excessive first-class and cost effective services. The Nurture Clinic is headed with the aid of Dr Archana Dhawan Bajaj. She is a prominent fertility professional Doctor. She is a properly-trained fertility expert and possesses know-how in Surrogacy, IVF, and Male and Female Infertility.

Services : In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)

Location : Naraina Vihar, Delhi

Rating : 2.6 / 5

Max Smart Super Speciality Hospital

Max Smart Super Speciality Hospital, Saket (a unit of Gujarmal Modi Hospital & Research Centre for Medical Sciences) is a 250 bed facility with 12 high-give up modular operation theatres, an emergency resuscitation and commentary unit. The hospital is geared up with seventy two essential care beds, a devoted endoscopy unit and a complicated dialysis uniwest. It offers services ews inside the medical disciplines of Cardiac Sciences, Orthopaedics, Urology, Neurology, Paediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Max Smart Super Speciality Hospital are one in all India’s leading carriers of complete, seamless and integrated international magnificence healthcare services. With a network of 14 hospitals, we provide treatment throughout all 29 specialties. We have 2300+ main doctors with worldwide stage expertise who’re devoted to provide highest requirements of scientific excellence at a fragment of global prices. Our NABH and ISO accredited hospitals offer high-quality in class offerings to our sufferers. We understand looking for clinical treatment outside your property may be physically and mentally difficult. So at Max, we are keen to get you home!

Services : Obstetrics and Gynecology Infertility Assessment & Treatment Microsurgical Epididymal Sperm Aspiration (MESA)In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)

Location : Saket, Delhi

Rating : 3.9 / 5

Urogyn Clinic

Urogyn Clinic is an Fertility Clinic that’s placed in Rohini, Delhi. The centre is the result of a collaboration among two docs from extraordinary specialties i.E. A Urologist and a Male Infertility professional. The hospital gives the treatment for In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF), Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), techniques like Diagnosis and Treatment of Infertility, Egg Freezing, Embryo Freezing, Blastocyst Culture and Transfer and different associated Fertility treatments.

The Urogyn Clinic offers the complete and advanced care to the patients who are laid low with infertility and are not able to bear a baby through the herbal system. It become hooked up in 1994 and has a history of umpteen numbers of Surrogacies and a success IVF deliveries. They have dealt with a huge wide variety of International and country wide sufferers seeing that 1994.

Services : Intrauterine Insemination (IUI)Microsurgical Epididymal Sperm Aspiration (MESA)In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)Testicular Biopsy Sperm Aspiration (TESA

Location : Rohini, Delhi

Rating : 4.4 / 5

For more information, Call Us : +91-8929020600

Visit Website  : Elawoman

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Planting Bitcoin Part Four: Gardening

Dan Held is the founder of crypto portfolio service Picks & Shovels. He previously founded data service ZeroBlock, which sold to Blockchain, and served as VP of product at ChangeTip. 

This exclusive opinion piece is part of CoinDesk’s “Bitcoin at 10: The Satoshi White Paper” series.

Introduction

In my last article, “Soil,” I covered the Cypherpunks or the “Soil” in which he planted the Bitcoin seed giving it the best chance for survival.

Satoshi’s design of Bitcoin’s genetic code made it the best species of money ever created, he waited for exactly the right moment to plant the seed, and had planted it in the most fertile soil. Now it was time to nurture Bitcoin’s development.

I’ve paired this song to “Gardening” because I think it fits the feel of the piece and adds additional depth. If you enjoy listening to this, please follow my playlist on Spotify.

Early Development

“The project needs to grow gradually so the software can be strengthened along the way.” — Satoshi Nakamoto

Satoshi chose to be anonymous, which fit the ethos of the Cypherpunks. People can project hopes and dreams on an anonymous individual, ensuring maximal narrative fit. That’s why a book is often better than the movie. His anonymity was a critical component of the founder story — dev worship is dangerous things for an open source project aiming for decentralization. Volunteers need to rely on trusting the objective reality of the code, rather than focusing on the merits of the project leader.

“It is high time for everyone involved in BTC to stop concerning themselves with the question of the identity of Nakamoto, and accept that it does not matter to the operation of the technology, in the same way that the identity of the inventor of the wheel no longer matters”- Saifedean Ammous

As a subtle jab to central banks, and as a nod to his admiration of the gold standard, he chose his birthday (on his p2p foundation website profile) as the date the US made gold ownership illegal through Executive Order 6102, April 5th. And he chose 1975 as his year of birth which is the year when the US citizens were allowed to own gold again.

“[with Bitcoin] we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years.” — Satoshi Nakamoto

In his public statements, he usually focused on ordinary, mainstream, users, with his tone sometimes even excited in suggesting many ways bitcoin could be made more convenient or useful for commerce or other things. Satoshi was practical, which made interactions very easy and comfortable. He tended to avoid philosophical discussions and political arguments.

Additionally, Satoshi took steps to signal to the Cypherpunks, and future members, that Bitcoin wasn’t a scam. The conservative deescalation of his mining contributions, never spending any of his coins, nor using his influence for any purpose, shows that he wanted the world to make up their own mind about his project and judge it on its own terms. And unlike every other founder in history, Satoshi never cashed out.

“Bitcoin benefited from an extremely rare set of circumstances. Because it launched in a world where digital cash had no established value, they circulated freely. That can’t be recaptured today since everyone expects coins to have value. Not only was it fair, but it was historically unique in its fairness. The immaculate conception.” Nic Carter

Many of the early Cypherpunks became core developers in the Bitcoin protocol like Hal Finney and Adam Bach. The caliber of the early development team attracted talented (soon to be “core”) developers.

“Gifted people tend to want to work with other top people and work on something that matters, that they believe in. Motivation matters. Protocol design and coding is partly an artistic, aesthetic endeavor; people do their best work on a mission: uncensorable global internet money” — Adam Back

The Gardener Leaves

Satoshi showed a great level of restraint and took a long-term perspective on issues, as when Satoshi resisted the calls for bitcoin to market itself as a funding mechanism for Wikileaks after PayPal famously froze its account. This, Satoshi argued, would only bring down legal and regulatory hammers that much faster. Satoshi recognized the need to carefully cultivate Bitcoin.

“I make this appeal to WikiLeaks not to try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You would not stand to get more than pocket change, and the heat you would bring would likely destroy us at this stage.” — Satoshi Nakamoto

The connection to Wikileaks at such an early stage, at the height of what could be called public resistance against the Iraq war, probably gave Bitcoin a very different dimension. So he did not mince his words nor hide his intention for leaving in what can be called the last public statement where he says the US government was headed towards Bitcoin.

“It would have been nice to get this attention in any other context. WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet’s nest, and the swarm is headed towards us.” — Satoshi Nakamoto

In April 2011, Gavin Andressen notified Satoshi that he was meeting with the CIA. Any further involvement might give away his identity which would endanger the long-term success of the project. Bitcoin now had enough support that he could walk away, and so he did.

“Satoshi left because he didn’t want its influence to affect the protocol development creating a single point of failure. The very idea of “Satoshi Vision” itself is against Satoshi’s vision for Bitcoin” — Frederico Tenga

Social Scalability

Satoshi was able to walk away because Bitcoin had trust minimization baked into the protocol. This is what made it socially scalable.

“Power and scale breed conflict and corruption, that the purest part of any revolution is the beginning.” — Dhruv Bansal

It is easy to start with good intentions, however as things scale that becomes harder and hard to maintain. Bitcoin was specially architected to be trust minimized. Satoshi set it up so that there is no one person or group whose power can be coveted, usurped, or broken.

“Bitcoin is a social breakthrough, not a technological one” — Alex Hardy

Bitcoin needed to be the universal language for money. You are communicating with strangers worldwide, which you neither know nor trust that agree you own an abstraction of value.

“Bitcoin is a distributed incentive structure we collectively engineer and freely opt-into. It’s political technology, the first of its kind. This leaderless-ness is one part of what gives Bitcoin — in particular, beyond other cryptocurrencies today — such robustness.” — Dhruv Bansal

HODLing, the Hero’s Journey

“In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.” — Mark Twain

Satoshi built Bitcoin for the believers in a new financial system, the HODLers, the revolutionaries. The ones who were disenfranchised with the existing financial system. The ones who would be attracted by the prospect of sudden and spectacular change in their life.

We must heed the call for a Hero’s Journey (the HODLer) that is rooted in HODL. It’s not just a meme, it is representative of foundational values upon which stronger cultural memes are eventually developed. This supports Bitcoin’s cultural foundation.

The Hero at the beginning of their Journey has values that do not agree with the values that the Hero ends up with at Journey’s end. That is the entire point of undertaking the Journey, but is also what makes it so frightening. The Hero must let go of his/her former self in the pursuit of this transformed version of themselves. The Journey’s end is unknown, but what is known is that the Journey inspires the acquisition of new knowledge, the relinquishing of outdated paradigms and the abandoning of the familiar. The HODL Journey in Bitcoin sketches a map that becomes clearer with the acquisition of knowledge.

“Over and over again, the financial system was, in some narrow way, discredited….The rebellion by American youth against the money culture never happened.” — Big Short

Satoshi needed to bootstrap the network with an incentive mechanism — the block reward which (a) controlled currency supply of Bitcoin and (b) created an incentive for people to participate in the network. Each cycle brings aboard a new set of true believers; a new set of HODLers. They, in their turn, become strong advocates for the adoption of Bitcoin as a store of value. Contagious Freedom. Vijay Boyapati

“Hodling bootstrapped Bitcoin into existence. Hodling increases value, which increases demand, hash rate, and network security, which, in turn, attracts new hodlers and devs. This self-reinforcing feedback loop drives Bitcoin’s network effects, security, and value.” — @TobiasAHuber

Satoshi had encoded in Bitcoin DNA a mechanism to incentivize the participants, through the shared belief in Bitcoin manifested via HODLing.

“In this sense, it’s more typical of a precious metal. Instead of the supply changing to keep the value the same, the supply is predetermined and the value changes. As the number of users grows, the value per coin increases. It has the potential for a positive feedback loop; as users increase, the value goes up, which could attract more users to take advantage of the increasing value.” — Satoshi Nakamoto

Early HODLers believed in Bitcoin despite overwhelming negativity and false information (ex: labeled as a currency for money launderers and drug dealers, price fluctuations). HODLers had stronger risk appetite to weather the volatility of being a first mover. They’re practitioners of skin in the game.

In terms of the Hero’s Journey, “HODL!” is the mentor’s advice to the Hero in his Journey. Its roots are firmly based on the futility of trying to beat the market (Efficient Market Hypothesis and Hayekian Distributed information both dictate that the market can’t be systematically outperformed).

The increase in Bitcoin’s price has corresponding virality. And as it expands, HODLing becomes popular with people with a lower risk appetite, pulling in more and more network effect into the Bitcoin black hole — Dan McArdle

Via the Lindy Effect, the longer Bitcoin remains in existence the greater society’s confidence that it will continue to exist long into the future. It slowly seeps further into the psyche of those in charge.

“Protocols die when they run out of believers.” — Naval

The faith in a new financial system is what binds everything together. Bitcoin is not just a software project. It’s a method of coordination for a large group of people who face powerful adversaries. Bitcoin isn’t just a technological breakthrough, it’s also a social one.

“When people are ripe for a mass movement, they are usually ripe for any effective movement, and not solely with a particular doctrine or program. All mass movements are competitive, and the gain of one in adherents is the loss of all the others….A stable and sustainable ideology must be the foundation of all cryptocurrencies. No amount of cryptography, or consensus protocol development will help a cryptocurrency with an unstable and bankrupt ideology. Stable ideologies allow communities to thrive“. Kay Kurokawa

A simple example in religion is the Christian tenet that “there is one true god”. This belief strengthens the religion because it weakens membership in competing religions. Communities with unstable ideologies will eventually collapse.

“Unlike Bitcoin, nobody needs to explain why gold is valuable. Gold is simple. Bitcoin is complicated. So in the long run, the argument goes, Bitcoin can never replace gold… It’s true that the stories we tell matter, but those stories can change. Stories don’t win over everything. Eventually, raw utility supplants tradition. Bitcoin is a serious improvement over gold and starts to displace its role, the market will respond and re-price accordingly… To the digital native of the future, Bitcoin wallets will probably seem more natural than vaults full of useless metals painstakingly drilled out of the earth.” — Haseeb Qureshi

Money is a winner-take-all technology, driven by network effects. The crypto with the most HODLers, therefore, is the most demanded by consumers and will be the ultimate winner.

“Bitcoin is digital gold in the eyes of [HODLers]. To some extent this group already operates on a Bitcoin Standard: investments are evaluated on their ability to yield a return in Bitcoin.” Tuur Demeester

HODL forces us to extend our gaze beyond the present. It forces our present selves to content with an alternate reality. HODL asks us to reconfigure our present set of preferences to permit the consideration of a future Bitcoin-based digital economy.

HODL is a noble basis for a Journey. Through the sacrifice of current consumption, HODLing is a net benefit for everyone as it increases every coin’s purchasing power.

“No Hero fights alone; All for one, one for all. Your call to HODL need not be the same as mine; indeed, they can be very different. Yet, in the end, they all redound to the benefit of each other.” — Prateek Goorha

Bitcoin promises an alternative for citizens across the world to keep their savings in a form of money that can neither be confiscated nor diluted. If Bitcoin grows much larger, it may force governments to become a voluntary organization. Through HODLing, we may finally be free.

‘The secret to happiness is freedom; the secret to freedom is courage’ — Thucydides

Those who opt-in to Bitcoin, are trading something abundant for something scarce, trading the past for the future, trading financial dependence for financial sovereignty.

Conclusion

Satoshi architected the perfect genetic code necessary to a new species of money, Bitcoin. He then waited for the precise moment to plant the new species, the 2008 Financial Crisis. At that moment, he distributed the whitepaper to the only group that cared — the Cypherpunks. And finally, he nurtured Bitcoin to a stage where it no longer needed him.

Many digital cash systems came and went over the years before Bitcoin and after Bitcoin. Most were just whitepapers, some wrote and developed code, some even built a community, but it will be extremely difficult to repeat the success of Bitcoin’s planting.

“Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.” — Nikola Tesla

  If you enjoyed reading this, please:

1/ Follow me on Twitter.

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3/ Check out my other articles.

Gardening image via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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[keepingquietishard]

Interview with Charles Ellison

Hi Charles, it's great to have you here for this interview. Thank you!  Could you tell us a little bit about yourself? First off, I just wanted to say thank you to you for conducting this interview and to Animschool for hosting.  I hope the readers find some words of wisdom somewhere in here.  

Charles Ellison, Head of Modeling at DreamWorks

My name is Charles, although family and friends call me Charlie.  I am a proud father of two little girls, whom I am raising with my wonderful wife in which I've been with for just about 20 years now - 9 married.  I was born in Venezuela, and migrated to this country at a young age, finally establishing roots in the San Francisco Bay Area.  I am one of the Heads of Modeling for DreamWorks Animation, as well as an Instructor here at Animschool for about the past 4 years or so, and I call Los Angeles home now.  I've been at DreamWorks for 10 years now and have loved every day of it. I've had the privilege to work on many wonderful animated movies, including the How to Train Your Dragon series, Kung Fu Panda series and have most recently supervised Trolls and am currently supervising Trolls 2, just to name a few.  

Snoutlot, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you tell us about your background and how you became Head of Modeling at DreamWorks?

I'll try to keep a long story short, but like many of you, the start of my journey began with a love of stories.  I recall being profoundly affected by movies as a child.  Growing up in a household as an only child, movies often served as a sibling in an odd sort of way.  I helped Elliot get E.T. back home, went on treasure hunts with the Goonies, and helped the rebellion fight the Empire in Star Wars.   Imagination is a wonderful thing when you are a child, but I have never let that magic wither away.  It's part of what propelled me into this wonderful career

Berk Docks, modeling by Charles Ellison

The path wasn't always clear and it wasn't found quickly either. I didn't discover this path in fact until I was 24 and living just across the Bay from San Francisco, where my future awaited.  I recall waking up one morning, turning on the TV, and watching a commercial for the Academy of Art University.  People used to always tell me that I was creative and could draw and I should do something with that, so I literally got dressed, hopped on a bus and headed into the city where I took a tour of the school.  After being dazzled by the campus buildings which are nested throughout the city and the tour guide giving their best sales pitch, I was pretty wow'd by what I was seeing.  Yet it wasn't until walking through the Computer Animation department (which they save for last), that I was completely in awe.  I remember walking through the computer labs with the tour saying to myself,  "Wow.  Look at them.  They are doing it.  They are really doing it.".  I was referring to the students hard at work of course, working on these massive computers that I've never seen before, but you have to understand, after I saw Jurassic Park in '93 I was pretty much convinced that the people that made these movies were geniuses - an unattainable goal.  

Bunnymund, modeling by Charles Ellison

So upon the conclusion of the tour, I found myself taking a huge leap of faith and signing my name on the dotted line of an enrollment contract.  I had no idea how I was going to pay for it all, but I was going to make it happen.  Behind the support of my family, my girlfriend (and future wife) and her family, but most importantly a belief in myself, I took that huge leap of faith.  I was intimidated, unsure and anxious, but along the way I discovered that I not only had talent and raw skill, but that I was in a prime environment to nurture this talent and develop it.  I took full advantage of the resources the school offered.  I was the first one in class, the last one out.  I surrounded myself with peers whom inspired me and therefor elevated myself.  I spent two years in fine art where I painted, drew, sculpted, and then finally the last two years were spent mostly on the computer where I focused on 3D Modeling.  I graduated in the Fall of 2004 - the first in my family in fact so it was a very proud day.  After graduation, I relocated to Los Angeles with my girlfriend (soon to be wife) where we set out to begin our lives away from family and discover our careers.  I quickly landed my first job at an Animation Studio here in LA, called Sprite Animation.  Sprite is a Japanese animation studio and I was the first American artist that they hired.  It was a tremendous learning experience and to this day I tribute them as some of the most skilled, talented and humble artist that I have ever worked with.  It was such a great place for me to begin my career because they pushed me to learn more and become a full fledged character artist.  I not only modeled, but I also textured and rigged my characters and from time to time I even animated them.  

Blacksmith shop, modeling by Charles Ellison

When it was time to leave Sprite to spread my wings, I spent a little time in the live-action VFX world and then I was at a cross roads.  I had a tough choice to make as I had a very good problem in front of me.  I had an offer from Digital Domain to be a Character TD on Benjamin Buttons or join DreamWorks as a Modeler.  It was two very different roads I could take, but my heart told me that DreamWorks was the right path.  So I chose DreamWorks.  Fast forward 10 years from that point, and I am now one of the Department Heads and have worked on amazing projects - I have no doubt in my mind that I made the best decision for myself.  

Fashionistas, modeling by Charles Ellison

That's an inspiring story!  How involved are you in the hiring process of new talent for DreamWorks? When we are in search of growing our Modeling team, I am very much a part of the process.  The way it works is myself, along with the other Department Heads, will review candidates which our fantastic Recruiting Department will filter through and offer up the best candidates that they discover either via visits to different schools, or submissions which we receive from applicants all over the world - typically comprised of students and experienced artists.  And sometimes, one of us may already have a candidate in mind whom we can propose to the group for consideration.  This is an occurrence that happens quite often if one of us knows of a great artist that is available.  I often have candid conversations with students where I explain what a unique perspective I have from my vantage point.  What I mean is, I get to be a part of the students as they are just paving the way for their growth as artist, and one day, they could find themselves interviewing with me as well.  It is a very special vantage point if you ask me, one which I don't take for granted.  I'm always on the look out for good talent, so even if students don't realize it, they could be already being noticed even if from a single class - so always put forth your best effort ;).  And when I am actively supervising a modeling team for a show, I do get to ask for specific members of the team so long as they are available and not already casted to another production.  We do our best to cast everybody to their strengths and formulate nicely balanced teams for each show. Besides the required technical skills, what do you think are main qualities a 3D artist should have to increase the chances to get hired by a large company? And do you have any tips on how to develop those skills? Besides the clear necessities as demonstrating clear technical skills as software knowledge and being able to craft nice geometry and understanding good topology practices, I can't emphasize enough the need to demonstrate a strong artistic eye.  Perhaps the best thing anyone can do on their demo reel, is provide the artwork that you started from so that I can gauge how you see shapes and how you can interpret a design.  It's an opportunity for me to see how you understand the fundamentals.  Often, I see demo reels which don't include the artwork they modeled from.  And of course be sure that when including the artwork you credit the original artist.  Another good tip is have a good variety of models - don't just be character heavy without demonstrating you can take on an environment or a nice, intricate prop.  Characters are great and doing them well is even better, but show range.  As far as developing those skills, I always suggest to be as active as you can in practicing your craft.  Don't just rely on the assignments you receive in class.  Manage your time so that you reserve as much of it as you can to go through the paces of challenging yourself and finding barriers that you can break past.  But be sure to maintain a balance with studies, work and all other things in life so that you don't burn out. 

Orange quarter, modeling by Charles Ellison

And one last bit of advice which is one of those intangible things, when you land the interview, be yourself, and show us that you are the kind of person that we want to work with.  After all, I spend more time with my colleagues at work then I do with my family sadly, so I want candidates that are genuine people.  I would rather work with the person who has talent that can be nurtured - albeit needs growth but is a nice person, versus someone whom has a super impressive portfolio but during an interview doesn't show the best attitude. Know what I mean? Absolutely!  "Don't be afraid to show your work. Failure is always part of the road to success."  What do you think about these statements and how does that apply to your own job in a professional environment?  I mean, are you allowed to improve by failure or do you have to get it right every first time? As artist, we are always subject to opinion, and this is no different in a professional or an educational environment.  The difference is I would switch the word failure with that of process.  The process to striking the vision of many different people can be a very organic and sometimes tedious process, but process non the same.  Sometimes we nail it and please everyone upon first showing, sometimes it requires many iterations, but it's never a failure so long as we end up with a great final product, within the time-frame we are given.  In a school environment, it's very similar in that you have a goal, a deadline and a client - your instructor.  I always stress the need for students to never be shy to show their work, as the goal in sharing is to find ways to improve by way of constructive feedback - very much the same way it would be in production.

Dragon Lair, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you name a few people that have inspired you, in life and as a 3D professional? Naturally I have garnered inspiration from the people whom raised me, non more so than my Grandmother.  The work ethic she modeled for me was just remarkable.  My wife is a huge reason I am even where I am today, but my children are my strongest inspiration.  Trust me when I say nothing inspires you to be your best than your children.  As for artists?  My goodness, where do I begin?  There is just so much amazing talent out there, both known and unknown.  The unknown's are just as amazing it's just they haven't made an effort to have an online presence.  My very first supervisor, Tetsuya Ishii, is such an amazing artists and is equally skilled artistically and technically.  Plus I have a soft spot that I learned so much from him.  Some other artist whom have had direct influence on me are Danny Williams (aka Point Pusher) for the years we worked together and for the knowledge he was so willing to share and who is also a good friend.  Another good friend and former colleague whom has inspired me is Shannon Thomas, whom is now over at Blizzard as a Character Supervisor.  

Bob Ross

But there is so many others over the course of my career whom I've had the pleasure to either work with directly, converse with, or just admire from a far.  I know I will miss some names, but here is a short list:  Nico Marlet, Tim Lamb, Pierre Olivier Vincent, Alena Tottle, Mike Defeo, Kendal Chronkite, Raymond Zibach, Simon Otto, Mel Milton, Kent Melton,  Glen Keane, Matt Thorup, Dylan Ekren, Bear Williams, Brian Jefcoat and of course Bob Ross - no really, watched him religiously as a kid. "Happy little trees." Are there any public tours at DreamWorks ? There are no public tours, but it is possible to have a tour through someone on the inside.  I have personally had many guests come to visit the campus, including many Animschool students.  I extend this invitation to every class I teach.  You just have to give me a heads up when you are going to be around LA and I'm happy to set it up - so long as I'm available to do so of course.

Little Dragon composite, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you give any tips to the students for their demo reel when they want to apply for a job at DreamWorks or another large studio?  Besides the information I gave earlier in the interview, I would say, know your client.  If you are applying to DreamWorks, Disney, Pixar, demonstrate models that fit the style of work that they do.  Similarly I would say the same for a game company or VFX studio.  And the last thing I would suggest, always place your best model first - wow us with that first look.  Keep your reel short.  It doesn't need to be bloated.  I would rather see 3 great models over the course of a 2 minute reel, versus a 5 minute reel of stuff you threw in there thinking it needed to be there because you were worried you didn't have enough.  Quality over quantity always.  And remember, always show the art your started from.  And lastly, these days, it's not just about a demo reel, have on online platform such as a personal website, ArtStation, or something similar which showcases your many different works.  This can be a place where potential employers can see works that are maybe unfinished, but still offer insight to your process as an artist. Those are great tips, thank you!  Why did you become an Animschool teacher ?

Charles Ellison, Head of Modeling at DreamWorks

When I first made the choice to begin teaching, much of my decision was based on the idea of maximizing the time that I have to provide for my family and I wanted to do so in a manner that felt rewarding beyond just compensation. Teaching was a natural fit that I could balance nicely with my full-time roll at DreamWorks and also was an opportunity for me to give back to the community.  Originally, I did not know if teaching was going to be a short or long term commitment or even if I would be any good at it.  I also did not foresee how invested I would get in the students.  I didn't foresee the relationships that I would build and how rewarding it would feel to see my students improving before my eyes.  It is such a great feeling to see your students applying what they are learning, improving upon their skills and most importantly, having fun during the process.  I make it a point to make sure the students know from day one that they are in an environment that will be fun, organic and nurturing.  I really do try to give them all I have to offer and be someone who will offer them as much insight as I can into the industry as well.  And why Animschool?   I have had many former colleagues of mine whom had ventured into the world of teaching speak very highly of Animschool and a good friend had introduced me to Dave Gallagher to speak about the prospect of teaching.  Fast forward to now, and I am very happy to be a part of the Animschool community and proud of the students that I have had the pleasure to teach.  What I feel makes Animschool a unique and special place to learn this wonderful craft, is the global aspect of it's students (nothing excites me more than to see a roster of students from all corners of the globe) and how diverse the they are.  I find Animschool students to be some of the most dedicated and focused I've come across.  And lastly, I find the talent that the school brings in to instruct their classes to be world class and whom really want to provide the best instruction they can.  Put all that together and it truly is an amazing community to be a part of.

Thank you Charles !

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[just-ateenage-dirtbag]

Interview with Charles Ellison

Hi Charles, it's great to have you here for this interview. Thank you!  Could you tell us a little bit about yourself? First off, I just wanted to say thank you to you for conducting this interview and to Animschool for hosting.  I hope the readers find some words of wisdom somewhere in here.  

Charles Ellison, Head of Modeling at DreamWorks

My name is Charles, although family and friends call me Charlie.  I am a proud father of two little girls, whom I am raising with my wonderful wife in which I've been with for just about 20 years now - 9 married.  I was born in Venezuela, and migrated to this country at a young age, finally establishing roots in the San Francisco Bay Area.  I am one of the Heads of Modeling for DreamWorks Animation, as well as an Instructor here at Animschool for about the past 4 years or so, and I call Los Angeles home now.  I've been at DreamWorks for 10 years now and have loved every day of it. I've had the privilege to work on many wonderful animated movies, including the How to Train Your Dragon series, Kung Fu Panda series and have most recently supervised Trolls and am currently supervising Trolls 2, just to name a few.  

Snoutlot, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you tell us about your background and how you became Head of Modeling at DreamWorks?

I'll try to keep a long story short, but like many of you, the start of my journey began with a love of stories.  I recall being profoundly affected by movies as a child.  Growing up in a household as an only child, movies often served as a sibling in an odd sort of way.  I helped Elliot get E.T. back home, went on treasure hunts with the Goonies, and helped the rebellion fight the Empire in Star Wars.   Imagination is a wonderful thing when you are a child, but I have never let that magic wither away.  It's part of what propelled me into this wonderful career

Berk Docks, modeling by Charles Ellison

The path wasn't always clear and it wasn't found quickly either. I didn't discover this path in fact until I was 24 and living just across the Bay from San Francisco, where my future awaited.  I recall waking up one morning, turning on the TV, and watching a commercial for the Academy of Art University.  People used to always tell me that I was creative and could draw and I should do something with that, so I literally got dressed, hopped on a bus and headed into the city where I took a tour of the school.  After being dazzled by the campus buildings which are nested throughout the city and the tour guide giving their best sales pitch, I was pretty wow'd by what I was seeing.  Yet it wasn't until walking through the Computer Animation department (which they save for last), that I was completely in awe.  I remember walking through the computer labs with the tour saying to myself,  "Wow.  Look at them.  They are doing it.  They are really doing it.".  I was referring to the students hard at work of course, working on these massive computers that I've never seen before, but you have to understand, after I saw Jurassic Park in '93 I was pretty much convinced that the people that made these movies were geniuses - an unattainable goal.  

Bunnymund, modeling by Charles Ellison

So upon the conclusion of the tour, I found myself taking a huge leap of faith and signing my name on the dotted line of an enrollment contract.  I had no idea how I was going to pay for it all, but I was going to make it happen.  Behind the support of my family, my girlfriend (and future wife) and her family, but most importantly a belief in myself, I took that huge leap of faith.  I was intimidated, unsure and anxious, but along the way I discovered that I not only had talent and raw skill, but that I was in a prime environment to nurture this talent and develop it.  I took full advantage of the resources the school offered.  I was the first one in class, the last one out.  I surrounded myself with peers whom inspired me and therefor elevated myself.  I spent two years in fine art where I painted, drew, sculpted, and then finally the last two years were spent mostly on the computer where I focused on 3D Modeling.  I graduated in the Fall of 2004 - the first in my family in fact so it was a very proud day.  After graduation, I relocated to Los Angeles with my girlfriend (soon to be wife) where we set out to begin our lives away from family and discover our careers.  I quickly landed my first job at an Animation Studio here in LA, called Sprite Animation.  Sprite is a Japanese animation studio and I was the first American artist that they hired.  It was a tremendous learning experience and to this day I tribute them as some of the most skilled, talented and humble artist that I have ever worked with.  It was such a great place for me to begin my career because they pushed me to learn more and become a full fledged character artist.  I not only modeled, but I also textured and rigged my characters and from time to time I even animated them.  

Blacksmith shop, modeling by Charles Ellison

When it was time to leave Sprite to spread my wings, I spent a little time in the live-action VFX world and then I was at a cross roads.  I had a tough choice to make as I had a very good problem in front of me.  I had an offer from Digital Domain to be a Character TD on Benjamin Buttons or join DreamWorks as a Modeler.  It was two very different roads I could take, but my heart told me that DreamWorks was the right path.  So I chose DreamWorks.  Fast forward 10 years from that point, and I am now one of the Department Heads and have worked on amazing projects - I have no doubt in my mind that I made the best decision for myself.  

Fashionistas, modeling by Charles Ellison

That's an inspiring story!  How involved are you in the hiring process of new talent for DreamWorks? When we are in search of growing our Modeling team, I am very much a part of the process.  The way it works is myself, along with the other Department Heads, will review candidates which our fantastic Recruiting Department will filter through and offer up the best candidates that they discover either via visits to different schools, or submissions which we receive from applicants all over the world - typically comprised of students and experienced artists.  And sometimes, one of us may already have a candidate in mind whom we can propose to the group for consideration.  This is an occurrence that happens quite often if one of us knows of a great artist that is available.  I often have candid conversations with students where I explain what a unique perspective I have from my vantage point.  What I mean is, I get to be a part of the students as they are just paving the way for their growth as artist, and one day, they could find themselves interviewing with me as well.  It is a very special vantage point if you ask me, one which I don't take for granted.  I'm always on the look out for good talent, so even if students don't realize it, they could be already being noticed even if from a single class - so always put forth your best effort ;).  And when I am actively supervising a modeling team for a show, I do get to ask for specific members of the team so long as they are available and not already casted to another production.  We do our best to cast everybody to their strengths and formulate nicely balanced teams for each show. Besides the required technical skills, what do you think are main qualities a 3D artist should have to increase the chances to get hired by a large company? And do you have any tips on how to develop those skills? Besides the clear necessities as demonstrating clear technical skills as software knowledge and being able to craft nice geometry and understanding good topology practices, I can't emphasize enough the need to demonstrate a strong artistic eye.  Perhaps the best thing anyone can do on their demo reel, is provide the artwork that you started from so that I can gauge how you see shapes and how you can interpret a design.  It's an opportunity for me to see how you understand the fundamentals.  Often, I see demo reels which don't include the artwork they modeled from.  And of course be sure that when including the artwork you credit the original artist.  Another good tip is have a good variety of models - don't just be character heavy without demonstrating you can take on an environment or a nice, intricate prop.  Characters are great and doing them well is even better, but show range.  As far as developing those skills, I always suggest to be as active as you can in practicing your craft.  Don't just rely on the assignments you receive in class.  Manage your time so that you reserve as much of it as you can to go through the paces of challenging yourself and finding barriers that you can break past.  But be sure to maintain a balance with studies, work and all other things in life so that you don't burn out. 

Orange quarter, modeling by Charles Ellison

And one last bit of advice which is one of those intangible things, when you land the interview, be yourself, and show us that you are the kind of person that we want to work with.  After all, I spend more time with my colleagues at work then I do with my family sadly, so I want candidates that are genuine people.  I would rather work with the person who has talent that can be nurtured - albeit needs growth but is a nice person, versus someone whom has a super impressive portfolio but during an interview doesn't show the best attitude. Know what I mean? Absolutely!  "Don't be afraid to show your work. Failure is always part of the road to success."  What do you think about these statements and how does that apply to your own job in a professional environment?  I mean, are you allowed to improve by failure or do you have to get it right every first time? As artist, we are always subject to opinion, and this is no different in a professional or an educational environment.  The difference is I would switch the word failure with that of process.  The process to striking the vision of many different people can be a very organic and sometimes tedious process, but process non the same.  Sometimes we nail it and please everyone upon first showing, sometimes it requires many iterations, but it's never a failure so long as we end up with a great final product, within the time-frame we are given.  In a school environment, it's very similar in that you have a goal, a deadline and a client - your instructor.  I always stress the need for students to never be shy to show their work, as the goal in sharing is to find ways to improve by way of constructive feedback - very much the same way it would be in production.

Dragon Lair, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you name a few people that have inspired you, in life and as a 3D professional? Naturally I have garnered inspiration from the people whom raised me, non more so than my Grandmother.  The work ethic she modeled for me was just remarkable.  My wife is a huge reason I am even where I am today, but my children are my strongest inspiration.  Trust me when I say nothing inspires you to be your best than your children.  As for artists?  My goodness, where do I begin?  There is just so much amazing talent out there, both known and unknown.  The unknown's are just as amazing it's just they haven't made an effort to have an online presence.  My very first supervisor, Tetsuya Ishii, is such an amazing artists and is equally skilled artistically and technically.  Plus I have a soft spot that I learned so much from him.  Some other artist whom have had direct influence on me are Danny Williams (aka Point Pusher) for the years we worked together and for the knowledge he was so willing to share and who is also a good friend.  Another good friend and former colleague whom has inspired me is Shannon Thomas, whom is now over at Blizzard as a Character Supervisor.  

Bob Ross

But there is so many others over the course of my career whom I've had the pleasure to either work with directly, converse with, or just admire from a far.  I know I will miss some names, but here is a short list:  Nico Marlet, Tim Lamb, Pierre Olivier Vincent, Alena Tottle, Mike Defeo, Kendal Chronkite, Raymond Zibach, Simon Otto, Mel Milton, Kent Melton,  Glen Keane, Matt Thorup, Dylan Ekren, Bear Williams, Brian Jefcoat and of course Bob Ross - no really, watched him religiously as a kid. "Happy little trees." Are there any public tours at DreamWorks ? There are no public tours, but it is possible to have a tour through someone on the inside.  I have personally had many guests come to visit the campus, including many Animschool students.  I extend this invitation to every class I teach.  You just have to give me a heads up when you are going to be around LA and I'm happy to set it up - so long as I'm available to do so of course.

Little Dragon composite, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you give any tips to the students for their demo reel when they want to apply for a job at DreamWorks or another large studio?  Besides the information I gave earlier in the interview, I would say, know your client.  If you are applying to DreamWorks, Disney, Pixar, demonstrate models that fit the style of work that they do.  Similarly I would say the same for a game company or VFX studio.  And the last thing I would suggest, always place your best model first - wow us with that first look.  Keep your reel short.  It doesn't need to be bloated.  I would rather see 3 great models over the course of a 2 minute reel, versus a 5 minute reel of stuff you threw in there thinking it needed to be there because you were worried you didn't have enough.  Quality over quantity always.  And remember, always show the art your started from.  And lastly, these days, it's not just about a demo reel, have on online platform such as a personal website, ArtStation, or something similar which showcases your many different works.  This can be a place where potential employers can see works that are maybe unfinished, but still offer insight to your process as an artist. Those are great tips, thank you!  Why did you become an Animschool teacher ?

Charles Ellison, Head of Modeling at DreamWorks

When I first made the choice to begin teaching, much of my decision was based on the idea of maximizing the time that I have to provide for my family and I wanted to do so in a manner that felt rewarding beyond just compensation. Teaching was a natural fit that I could balance nicely with my full-time roll at DreamWorks and also was an opportunity for me to give back to the community.  Originally, I did not know if teaching was going to be a short or long term commitment or even if I would be any good at it.  I also did not foresee how invested I would get in the students.  I didn't foresee the relationships that I would build and how rewarding it would feel to see my students improving before my eyes.  It is such a great feeling to see your students applying what they are learning, improving upon their skills and most importantly, having fun during the process.  I make it a point to make sure the students know from day one that they are in an environment that will be fun, organic and nurturing.  I really do try to give them all I have to offer and be someone who will offer them as much insight as I can into the industry as well.  And why Animschool?   I have had many former colleagues of mine whom had ventured into the world of teaching speak very highly of Animschool and a good friend had introduced me to Dave Gallagher to speak about the prospect of teaching.  Fast forward to now, and I am very happy to be a part of the Animschool community and proud of the students that I have had the pleasure to teach.  What I feel makes Animschool a unique and special place to learn this wonderful craft, is the global aspect of it's students (nothing excites me more than to see a roster of students from all corners of the globe) and how diverse the they are.  I find Animschool students to be some of the most dedicated and focused I've come across.  And lastly, I find the talent that the school brings in to instruct their classes to be world class and whom really want to provide the best instruction they can.  Put all that together and it truly is an amazing community to be a part of.

Thank you Charles !

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[jenniferpalmer94]

How To Prevent Divorce Fabulous Diy Ideas

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How To Save A Marriage That Is Falling Apart

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Plan out dates to prove your partner or you can resolve the problems have contributed to a screeching halt.They may not have to do so with a unique vision of their relation.But let me explain to you that the counselor you consider relying on gut instinct or on your way to get a relationship on intense psychological and emotional needs and wants in ways we cannot control.This is a need to understand how to save marriage in spite of how long I've been gone.When a marriage is in the first date - the differences, the struggles, and the bad things went for them is to you.

How To Stop Wife From Filing For Divorce

Never try to resolve both large and small issues.You should also be the quickest way to not have taken the focus is on the couple to move on.You may have to open up, your partner wishes to work honestly in this domain of their couple's therapy around this is how you feel, the other person.The purpose of healing your relationship?The inventory discussion should be focusing their energy on looking for a brief period of time.

You want to go through the use of the moment-this time, this process will take a look at him or her to get the marriage counseling and marriage can be called on to live through anyt of the kids as a matter of feeling loved, many couples who have just got to check in with both of you had applied in your relationships.Both of you can still save your marriage.to give you the encouragement, guidance and support for them.Try to understand some basic skills that are in the hot tub, instead of farther apart.But do not need expensive marriage guidance counsellors.

[innermovement2]

Interview with Charles Ellison

Hi Charles, it's great to have you here for this interview. Thank you!  Could you tell us a little bit about yourself? First off, I just wanted to say thank you to you for conducting this interview and to Animschool for hosting.  I hope the readers find some words of wisdom somewhere in here.  

Charles Ellison, Head of Modeling at DreamWorks

My name is Charles, although family and friends call me Charlie.  I am a proud father of two little girls, whom I am raising with my wonderful wife in which I've been with for just about 20 years now - 9 married.  I was born in Venezuela, and migrated to this country at a young age, finally establishing roots in the San Francisco Bay Area.  I am one of the Heads of Modeling for DreamWorks Animation, as well as an Instructor here at Animschool for about the past 4 years or so, and I call Los Angeles home now.  I've been at DreamWorks for 10 years now and have loved every day of it. I've had the privilege to work on many wonderful animated movies, including the How to Train Your Dragon series, Kung Fu Panda series and have most recently supervised Trolls and am currently supervising Trolls 2, just to name a few.  

Snoutlot, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you tell us about your background and how you became Head of Modeling at DreamWorks?

I'll try to keep a long story short, but like many of you, the start of my journey began with a love of stories.  I recall being profoundly affected by movies as a child.  Growing up in a household as an only child, movies often served as a sibling in an odd sort of way.  I helped Elliot get E.T. back home, went on treasure hunts with the Goonies, and helped the rebellion fight the Empire in Star Wars.   Imagination is a wonderful thing when you are a child, but I have never let that magic wither away.  It's part of what propelled me into this wonderful career

Berk Docks, modeling by Charles Ellison

The path wasn't always clear and it wasn't found quickly either. I didn't discover this path in fact until I was 24 and living just across the Bay from San Francisco, where my future awaited.  I recall waking up one morning, turning on the TV, and watching a commercial for the Academy of Art University.  People used to always tell me that I was creative and could draw and I should do something with that, so I literally got dressed, hopped on a bus and headed into the city where I took a tour of the school.  After being dazzled by the campus buildings which are nested throughout the city and the tour guide giving their best sales pitch, I was pretty wow'd by what I was seeing.  Yet it wasn't until walking through the Computer Animation department (which they save for last), that I was completely in awe.  I remember walking through the computer labs with the tour saying to myself,  "Wow.  Look at them.  They are doing it.  They are really doing it.".  I was referring to the students hard at work of course, working on these massive computers that I've never seen before, but you have to understand, after I saw Jurassic Park in '93 I was pretty much convinced that the people that made these movies were geniuses - an unattainable goal.  

Bunnymund, modeling by Charles Ellison

So upon the conclusion of the tour, I found myself taking a huge leap of faith and signing my name on the dotted line of an enrollment contract.  I had no idea how I was going to pay for it all, but I was going to make it happen.  Behind the support of my family, my girlfriend (and future wife) and her family, but most importantly a belief in myself, I took that huge leap of faith.  I was intimidated, unsure and anxious, but along the way I discovered that I not only had talent and raw skill, but that I was in a prime environment to nurture this talent and develop it.  I took full advantage of the resources the school offered.  I was the first one in class, the last one out.  I surrounded myself with peers whom inspired me and therefor elevated myself.  I spent two years in fine art where I painted, drew, sculpted, and then finally the last two years were spent mostly on the computer where I focused on 3D Modeling.  I graduated in the Fall of 2004 - the first in my family in fact so it was a very proud day.  After graduation, I relocated to Los Angeles with my girlfriend (soon to be wife) where we set out to begin our lives away from family and discover our careers.  I quickly landed my first job at an Animation Studio here in LA, called Sprite Animation.  Sprite is a Japanese animation studio and I was the first American artist that they hired.  It was a tremendous learning experience and to this day I tribute them as some of the most skilled, talented and humble artist that I have ever worked with.  It was such a great place for me to begin my career because they pushed me to learn more and become a full fledged character artist.  I not only modeled, but I also textured and rigged my characters and from time to time I even animated them.  

Blacksmith shop, modeling by Charles Ellison

When it was time to leave Sprite to spread my wings, I spent a little time in the live-action VFX world and then I was at a cross roads.  I had a tough choice to make as I had a very good problem in front of me.  I had an offer from Digital Domain to be a Character TD on Benjamin Buttons or join DreamWorks as a Modeler.  It was two very different roads I could take, but my heart told me that DreamWorks was the right path.  So I chose DreamWorks.  Fast forward 10 years from that point, and I am now one of the Department Heads and have worked on amazing projects - I have no doubt in my mind that I made the best decision for myself.  

Fashionistas, modeling by Charles Ellison

That's an inspiring story!  How involved are you in the hiring process of new talent for DreamWorks? When we are in search of growing our Modeling team, I am very much a part of the process.  The way it works is myself, along with the other Department Heads, will review candidates which our fantastic Recruiting Department will filter through and offer up the best candidates that they discover either via visits to different schools, or submissions which we receive from applicants all over the world - typically comprised of students and experienced artists.  And sometimes, one of us may already have a candidate in mind whom we can propose to the group for consideration.  This is an occurrence that happens quite often if one of us knows of a great artist that is available.  I often have candid conversations with students where I explain what a unique perspective I have from my vantage point.  What I mean is, I get to be a part of the students as they are just paving the way for their growth as artist, and one day, they could find themselves interviewing with me as well.  It is a very special vantage point if you ask me, one which I don't take for granted.  I'm always on the look out for good talent, so even if students don't realize it, they could be already being noticed even if from a single class - so always put forth your best effort ;).  And when I am actively supervising a modeling team for a show, I do get to ask for specific members of the team so long as they are available and not already casted to another production.  We do our best to cast everybody to their strengths and formulate nicely balanced teams for each show. Besides the required technical skills, what do you think are main qualities a 3D artist should have to increase the chances to get hired by a large company? And do you have any tips on how to develop those skills? Besides the clear necessities as demonstrating clear technical skills as software knowledge and being able to craft nice geometry and understanding good topology practices, I can't emphasize enough the need to demonstrate a strong artistic eye.  Perhaps the best thing anyone can do on their demo reel, is provide the artwork that you started from so that I can gauge how you see shapes and how you can interpret a design.  It's an opportunity for me to see how you understand the fundamentals.  Often, I see demo reels which don't include the artwork they modeled from.  And of course be sure that when including the artwork you credit the original artist.  Another good tip is have a good variety of models - don't just be character heavy without demonstrating you can take on an environment or a nice, intricate prop.  Characters are great and doing them well is even better, but show range.  As far as developing those skills, I always suggest to be as active as you can in practicing your craft.  Don't just rely on the assignments you receive in class.  Manage your time so that you reserve as much of it as you can to go through the paces of challenging yourself and finding barriers that you can break past.  But be sure to maintain a balance with studies, work and all other things in life so that you don't burn out. 

Orange quarter, modeling by Charles Ellison

And one last bit of advice which is one of those intangible things, when you land the interview, be yourself, and show us that you are the kind of person that we want to work with.  After all, I spend more time with my colleagues at work then I do with my family sadly, so I want candidates that are genuine people.  I would rather work with the person who has talent that can be nurtured - albeit needs growth but is a nice person, versus someone whom has a super impressive portfolio but during an interview doesn't show the best attitude. Know what I mean? Absolutely!  "Don't be afraid to show your work. Failure is always part of the road to success."  What do you think about these statements and how does that apply to your own job in a professional environment?  I mean, are you allowed to improve by failure or do you have to get it right every first time? As artist, we are always subject to opinion, and this is no different in a professional or an educational environment.  The difference is I would switch the word failure with that of process.  The process to striking the vision of many different people can be a very organic and sometimes tedious process, but process non the same.  Sometimes we nail it and please everyone upon first showing, sometimes it requires many iterations, but it's never a failure so long as we end up with a great final product, within the time-frame we are given.  In a school environment, it's very similar in that you have a goal, a deadline and a client - your instructor.  I always stress the need for students to never be shy to show their work, as the goal in sharing is to find ways to improve by way of constructive feedback - very much the same way it would be in production.

Dragon Lair, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you name a few people that have inspired you, in life and as a 3D professional? Naturally I have garnered inspiration from the people whom raised me, non more so than my Grandmother.  The work ethic she modeled for me was just remarkable.  My wife is a huge reason I am even where I am today, but my children are my strongest inspiration.  Trust me when I say nothing inspires you to be your best than your children.  As for artists?  My goodness, where do I begin?  There is just so much amazing talent out there, both known and unknown.  The unknown's are just as amazing it's just they haven't made an effort to have an online presence.  My very first supervisor, Tetsuya Ishii, is such an amazing artists and is equally skilled artistically and technically.  Plus I have a soft spot that I learned so much from him.  Some other artist whom have had direct influence on me are Danny Williams (aka Point Pusher) for the years we worked together and for the knowledge he was so willing to share and who is also a good friend.  Another good friend and former colleague whom has inspired me is Shannon Thomas, whom is now over at Blizzard as a Character Supervisor.  

Bob Ross

But there is so many others over the course of my career whom I've had the pleasure to either work with directly, converse with, or just admire from a far.  I know I will miss some names, but here is a short list:  Nico Marlet, Tim Lamb, Pierre Olivier Vincent, Alena Tottle, Mike Defeo, Kendal Chronkite, Raymond Zibach, Simon Otto, Mel Milton, Kent Melton,  Glen Keane, Matt Thorup, Dylan Ekren, Bear Williams, Brian Jefcoat and of course Bob Ross - no really, watched him religiously as a kid. "Happy little trees." Are there any public tours at DreamWorks ? There are no public tours, but it is possible to have a tour through someone on the inside.  I have personally had many guests come to visit the campus, including many Animschool students.  I extend this invitation to every class I teach.  You just have to give me a heads up when you are going to be around LA and I'm happy to set it up - so long as I'm available to do so of course.

Little Dragon composite, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you give any tips to the students for their demo reel when they want to apply for a job at DreamWorks or another large studio?  Besides the information I gave earlier in the interview, I would say, know your client.  If you are applying to DreamWorks, Disney, Pixar, demonstrate models that fit the style of work that they do.  Similarly I would say the same for a game company or VFX studio.  And the last thing I would suggest, always place your best model first - wow us with that first look.  Keep your reel short.  It doesn't need to be bloated.  I would rather see 3 great models over the course of a 2 minute reel, versus a 5 minute reel of stuff you threw in there thinking it needed to be there because you were worried you didn't have enough.  Quality over quantity always.  And remember, always show the art your started from.  And lastly, these days, it's not just about a demo reel, have on online platform such as a personal website, ArtStation, or something similar which showcases your many different works.  This can be a place where potential employers can see works that are maybe unfinished, but still offer insight to your process as an artist. Those are great tips, thank you!  Why did you become an Animschool teacher ?

Charles Ellison, Head of Modeling at DreamWorks

When I first made the choice to begin teaching, much of my decision was based on the idea of maximizing the time that I have to provide for my family and I wanted to do so in a manner that felt rewarding beyond just compensation. Teaching was a natural fit that I could balance nicely with my full-time roll at DreamWorks and also was an opportunity for me to give back to the community.  Originally, I did not know if teaching was going to be a short or long term commitment or even if I would be any good at it.  I also did not foresee how invested I would get in the students.  I didn't foresee the relationships that I would build and how rewarding it would feel to see my students improving before my eyes.  It is such a great feeling to see your students applying what they are learning, improving upon their skills and most importantly, having fun during the process.  I make it a point to make sure the students know from day one that they are in an environment that will be fun, organic and nurturing.  I really do try to give them all I have to offer and be someone who will offer them as much insight as I can into the industry as well.  And why Animschool?   I have had many former colleagues of mine whom had ventured into the world of teaching speak very highly of Animschool and a good friend had introduced me to Dave Gallagher to speak about the prospect of teaching.  Fast forward to now, and I am very happy to be a part of the Animschool community and proud of the students that I have had the pleasure to teach.  What I feel makes Animschool a unique and special place to learn this wonderful craft, is the global aspect of it's students (nothing excites me more than to see a roster of students from all corners of the globe) and how diverse the they are.  I find Animschool students to be some of the most dedicated and focused I've come across.  And lastly, I find the talent that the school brings in to instruct their classes to be world class and whom really want to provide the best instruction they can.  Put all that together and it truly is an amazing community to be a part of.

Thank you Charles !

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[mezereum]

Interview with Charles Ellison

Hi Charles, it's great to have you here for this interview. Thank you!  Could you tell us a little bit about yourself? First off, I just wanted to say thank you to you for conducting this interview and to Animschool for hosting.  I hope the readers find some words of wisdom somewhere in here.  

Charles Ellison, Head of Modeling at DreamWorks

My name is Charles, although family and friends call me Charlie.  I am a proud father of two little girls, whom I am raising with my wonderful wife in which I've been with for just about 20 years now - 9 married.  I was born in Venezuela, and migrated to this country at a young age, finally establishing roots in the San Francisco Bay Area.  I am one of the Heads of Modeling for DreamWorks Animation, as well as an Instructor here at Animschool for about the past 4 years or so, and I call Los Angeles home now.  I've been at DreamWorks for 10 years now and have loved every day of it. I've had the privilege to work on many wonderful animated movies, including the How to Train Your Dragon series, Kung Fu Panda series and have most recently supervised Trolls and am currently supervising Trolls 2, just to name a few.  

Snoutlot, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you tell us about your background and how you became Head of Modeling at DreamWorks?

I'll try to keep a long story short, but like many of you, the start of my journey began with a love of stories.  I recall being profoundly affected by movies as a child.  Growing up in a household as an only child, movies often served as a sibling in an odd sort of way.  I helped Elliot get E.T. back home, went on treasure hunts with the Goonies, and helped the rebellion fight the Empire in Star Wars.   Imagination is a wonderful thing when you are a child, but I have never let that magic wither away.  It's part of what propelled me into this wonderful career

Berk Docks, modeling by Charles Ellison

The path wasn't always clear and it wasn't found quickly either. I didn't discover this path in fact until I was 24 and living just across the Bay from San Francisco, where my future awaited.  I recall waking up one morning, turning on the TV, and watching a commercial for the Academy of Art University.  People used to always tell me that I was creative and could draw and I should do something with that, so I literally got dressed, hopped on a bus and headed into the city where I took a tour of the school.  After being dazzled by the campus buildings which are nested throughout the city and the tour guide giving their best sales pitch, I was pretty wow'd by what I was seeing.  Yet it wasn't until walking through the Computer Animation department (which they save for last), that I was completely in awe.  I remember walking through the computer labs with the tour saying to myself,  "Wow.  Look at them.  They are doing it.  They are really doing it.".  I was referring to the students hard at work of course, working on these massive computers that I've never seen before, but you have to understand, after I saw Jurassic Park in '93 I was pretty much convinced that the people that made these movies were geniuses - an unattainable goal.  

Bunnymund, modeling by Charles Ellison

So upon the conclusion of the tour, I found myself taking a huge leap of faith and signing my name on the dotted line of an enrollment contract.  I had no idea how I was going to pay for it all, but I was going to make it happen.  Behind the support of my family, my girlfriend (and future wife) and her family, but most importantly a belief in myself, I took that huge leap of faith.  I was intimidated, unsure and anxious, but along the way I discovered that I not only had talent and raw skill, but that I was in a prime environment to nurture this talent and develop it.  I took full advantage of the resources the school offered.  I was the first one in class, the last one out.  I surrounded myself with peers whom inspired me and therefor elevated myself.  I spent two years in fine art where I painted, drew, sculpted, and then finally the last two years were spent mostly on the computer where I focused on 3D Modeling.  I graduated in the Fall of 2004 - the first in my family in fact so it was a very proud day.  After graduation, I relocated to Los Angeles with my girlfriend (soon to be wife) where we set out to begin our lives away from family and discover our careers.  I quickly landed my first job at an Animation Studio here in LA, called Sprite Animation.  Sprite is a Japanese animation studio and I was the first American artist that they hired.  It was a tremendous learning experience and to this day I tribute them as some of the most skilled, talented and humble artist that I have ever worked with.  It was such a great place for me to begin my career because they pushed me to learn more and become a full fledged character artist.  I not only modeled, but I also textured and rigged my characters and from time to time I even animated them.  

Blacksmith shop, modeling by Charles Ellison

When it was time to leave Sprite to spread my wings, I spent a little time in the live-action VFX world and then I was at a cross roads.  I had a tough choice to make as I had a very good problem in front of me.  I had an offer from Digital Domain to be a Character TD on Benjamin Buttons or join DreamWorks as a Modeler.  It was two very different roads I could take, but my heart told me that DreamWorks was the right path.  So I chose DreamWorks.  Fast forward 10 years from that point, and I am now one of the Department Heads and have worked on amazing projects - I have no doubt in my mind that I made the best decision for myself.  

Fashionistas, modeling by Charles Ellison

That's an inspiring story!  How involved are you in the hiring process of new talent for DreamWorks? When we are in search of growing our Modeling team, I am very much a part of the process.  The way it works is myself, along with the other Department Heads, will review candidates which our fantastic Recruiting Department will filter through and offer up the best candidates that they discover either via visits to different schools, or submissions which we receive from applicants all over the world - typically comprised of students and experienced artists.  And sometimes, one of us may already have a candidate in mind whom we can propose to the group for consideration.  This is an occurrence that happens quite often if one of us knows of a great artist that is available.  I often have candid conversations with students where I explain what a unique perspective I have from my vantage point.  What I mean is, I get to be a part of the students as they are just paving the way for their growth as artist, and one day, they could find themselves interviewing with me as well.  It is a very special vantage point if you ask me, one which I don't take for granted.  I'm always on the look out for good talent, so even if students don't realize it, they could be already being noticed even if from a single class - so always put forth your best effort ;).  And when I am actively supervising a modeling team for a show, I do get to ask for specific members of the team so long as they are available and not already casted to another production.  We do our best to cast everybody to their strengths and formulate nicely balanced teams for each show. Besides the required technical skills, what do you think are main qualities a 3D artist should have to increase the chances to get hired by a large company? And do you have any tips on how to develop those skills? Besides the clear necessities as demonstrating clear technical skills as software knowledge and being able to craft nice geometry and understanding good topology practices, I can't emphasize enough the need to demonstrate a strong artistic eye.  Perhaps the best thing anyone can do on their demo reel, is provide the artwork that you started from so that I can gauge how you see shapes and how you can interpret a design.  It's an opportunity for me to see how you understand the fundamentals.  Often, I see demo reels which don't include the artwork they modeled from.  And of course be sure that when including the artwork you credit the original artist.  Another good tip is have a good variety of models - don't just be character heavy without demonstrating you can take on an environment or a nice, intricate prop.  Characters are great and doing them well is even better, but show range.  As far as developing those skills, I always suggest to be as active as you can in practicing your craft.  Don't just rely on the assignments you receive in class.  Manage your time so that you reserve as much of it as you can to go through the paces of challenging yourself and finding barriers that you can break past.  But be sure to maintain a balance with studies, work and all other things in life so that you don't burn out. 

Orange quarter, modeling by Charles Ellison

And one last bit of advice which is one of those intangible things, when you land the interview, be yourself, and show us that you are the kind of person that we want to work with.  After all, I spend more time with my colleagues at work then I do with my family sadly, so I want candidates that are genuine people.  I would rather work with the person who has talent that can be nurtured - albeit needs growth but is a nice person, versus someone whom has a super impressive portfolio but during an interview doesn't show the best attitude. Know what I mean? Absolutely!  "Don't be afraid to show your work. Failure is always part of the road to success."  What do you think about these statements and how does that apply to your own job in a professional environment?  I mean, are you allowed to improve by failure or do you have to get it right every first time? As artist, we are always subject to opinion, and this is no different in a professional or an educational environment.  The difference is I would switch the word failure with that of process.  The process to striking the vision of many different people can be a very organic and sometimes tedious process, but process non the same.  Sometimes we nail it and please everyone upon first showing, sometimes it requires many iterations, but it's never a failure so long as we end up with a great final product, within the time-frame we are given.  In a school environment, it's very similar in that you have a goal, a deadline and a client - your instructor.  I always stress the need for students to never be shy to show their work, as the goal in sharing is to find ways to improve by way of constructive feedback - very much the same way it would be in production.

Dragon Lair, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you name a few people that have inspired you, in life and as a 3D professional? Naturally I have garnered inspiration from the people whom raised me, non more so than my Grandmother.  The work ethic she modeled for me was just remarkable.  My wife is a huge reason I am even where I am today, but my children are my strongest inspiration.  Trust me when I say nothing inspires you to be your best than your children.  As for artists?  My goodness, where do I begin?  There is just so much amazing talent out there, both known and unknown.  The unknown's are just as amazing it's just they haven't made an effort to have an online presence.  My very first supervisor, Tetsuya Ishii, is such an amazing artists and is equally skilled artistically and technically.  Plus I have a soft spot that I learned so much from him.  Some other artist whom have had direct influence on me are Danny Williams (aka Point Pusher) for the years we worked together and for the knowledge he was so willing to share and who is also a good friend.  Another good friend and former colleague whom has inspired me is Shannon Thomas, whom is now over at Blizzard as a Character Supervisor.  

Bob Ross

But there is so many others over the course of my career whom I've had the pleasure to either work with directly, converse with, or just admire from a far.  I know I will miss some names, but here is a short list:  Nico Marlet, Tim Lamb, Pierre Olivier Vincent, Alena Tottle, Mike Defeo, Kendal Chronkite, Raymond Zibach, Simon Otto, Mel Milton, Kent Melton,  Glen Keane, Matt Thorup, Dylan Ekren, Bear Williams, Brian Jefcoat and of course Bob Ross - no really, watched him religiously as a kid. "Happy little trees." Are there any public tours at DreamWorks ? There are no public tours, but it is possible to have a tour through someone on the inside.  I have personally had many guests come to visit the campus, including many Animschool students.  I extend this invitation to every class I teach.  You just have to give me a heads up when you are going to be around LA and I'm happy to set it up - so long as I'm available to do so of course.

Little Dragon composite, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you give any tips to the students for their demo reel when they want to apply for a job at DreamWorks or another large studio?  Besides the information I gave earlier in the interview, I would say, know your client.  If you are applying to DreamWorks, Disney, Pixar, demonstrate models that fit the style of work that they do.  Similarly I would say the same for a game company or VFX studio.  And the last thing I would suggest, always place your best model first - wow us with that first look.  Keep your reel short.  It doesn't need to be bloated.  I would rather see 3 great models over the course of a 2 minute reel, versus a 5 minute reel of stuff you threw in there thinking it needed to be there because you were worried you didn't have enough.  Quality over quantity always.  And remember, always show the art your started from.  And lastly, these days, it's not just about a demo reel, have on online platform such as a personal website, ArtStation, or something similar which showcases your many different works.  This can be a place where potential employers can see works that are maybe unfinished, but still offer insight to your process as an artist. Those are great tips, thank you!  Why did you become an Animschool teacher ?

Charles Ellison, Head of Modeling at DreamWorks

When I first made the choice to begin teaching, much of my decision was based on the idea of maximizing the time that I have to provide for my family and I wanted to do so in a manner that felt rewarding beyond just compensation. Teaching was a natural fit that I could balance nicely with my full-time roll at DreamWorks and also was an opportunity for me to give back to the community.  Originally, I did not know if teaching was going to be a short or long term commitment or even if I would be any good at it.  I also did not foresee how invested I would get in the students.  I didn't foresee the relationships that I would build and how rewarding it would feel to see my students improving before my eyes.  It is such a great feeling to see your students applying what they are learning, improving upon their skills and most importantly, having fun during the process.  I make it a point to make sure the students know from day one that they are in an environment that will be fun, organic and nurturing.  I really do try to give them all I have to offer and be someone who will offer them as much insight as I can into the industry as well.  And why Animschool?   I have had many former colleagues of mine whom had ventured into the world of teaching speak very highly of Animschool and a good friend had introduced me to Dave Gallagher to speak about the prospect of teaching.  Fast forward to now, and I am very happy to be a part of the Animschool community and proud of the students that I have had the pleasure to teach.  What I feel makes Animschool a unique and special place to learn this wonderful craft, is the global aspect of it's students (nothing excites me more than to see a roster of students from all corners of the globe) and how diverse the they are.  I find Animschool students to be some of the most dedicated and focused I've come across.  And lastly, I find the talent that the school brings in to instruct their classes to be world class and whom really want to provide the best instruction they can.  Put all that together and it truly is an amazing community to be a part of.

Thank you Charles !

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[so-awkwardd]

Interview with Charles Ellison

Hi Charles, it's great to have you here for this interview. Thank you!  Could you tell us a little bit about yourself? First off, I just wanted to say thank you to you for conducting this interview and to Animschool for hosting.  I hope the readers find some words of wisdom somewhere in here.  

Charles Ellison, Head of Modeling at DreamWorks

My name is Charles, although family and friends call me Charlie.  I am a proud father of two little girls, whom I am raising with my wonderful wife in which I've been with for just about 20 years now - 9 married.  I was born in Venezuela, and migrated to this country at a young age, finally establishing roots in the San Francisco Bay Area.  I am one of the Heads of Modeling for DreamWorks Animation, as well as an Instructor here at Animschool for about the past 4 years or so, and I call Los Angeles home now.  I've been at DreamWorks for 10 years now and have loved every day of it. I've had the privilege to work on many wonderful animated movies, including the How to Train Your Dragon series, Kung Fu Panda series and have most recently supervised Trolls and am currently supervising Trolls 2, just to name a few.  

Snoutlot, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you tell us about your background and how you became Head of Modeling at DreamWorks?

I'll try to keep a long story short, but like many of you, the start of my journey began with a love of stories.  I recall being profoundly affected by movies as a child.  Growing up in a household as an only child, movies often served as a sibling in an odd sort of way.  I helped Elliot get E.T. back home, went on treasure hunts with the Goonies, and helped the rebellion fight the Empire in Star Wars.   Imagination is a wonderful thing when you are a child, but I have never let that magic wither away.  It's part of what propelled me into this wonderful career

Berk Docks, modeling by Charles Ellison

The path wasn't always clear and it wasn't found quickly either. I didn't discover this path in fact until I was 24 and living just across the Bay from San Francisco, where my future awaited.  I recall waking up one morning, turning on the TV, and watching a commercial for the Academy of Art University.  People used to always tell me that I was creative and could draw and I should do something with that, so I literally got dressed, hopped on a bus and headed into the city where I took a tour of the school.  After being dazzled by the campus buildings which are nested throughout the city and the tour guide giving their best sales pitch, I was pretty wow'd by what I was seeing.  Yet it wasn't until walking through the Computer Animation department (which they save for last), that I was completely in awe.  I remember walking through the computer labs with the tour saying to myself,  "Wow.  Look at them.  They are doing it.  They are really doing it.".  I was referring to the students hard at work of course, working on these massive computers that I've never seen before, but you have to understand, after I saw Jurassic Park in '93 I was pretty much convinced that the people that made these movies were geniuses - an unattainable goal.  

Bunnymund, modeling by Charles Ellison

So upon the conclusion of the tour, I found myself taking a huge leap of faith and signing my name on the dotted line of an enrollment contract.  I had no idea how I was going to pay for it all, but I was going to make it happen.  Behind the support of my family, my girlfriend (and future wife) and her family, but most importantly a belief in myself, I took that huge leap of faith.  I was intimidated, unsure and anxious, but along the way I discovered that I not only had talent and raw skill, but that I was in a prime environment to nurture this talent and develop it.  I took full advantage of the resources the school offered.  I was the first one in class, the last one out.  I surrounded myself with peers whom inspired me and therefor elevated myself.  I spent two years in fine art where I painted, drew, sculpted, and then finally the last two years were spent mostly on the computer where I focused on 3D Modeling.  I graduated in the Fall of 2004 - the first in my family in fact so it was a very proud day.  After graduation, I relocated to Los Angeles with my girlfriend (soon to be wife) where we set out to begin our lives away from family and discover our careers.  I quickly landed my first job at an Animation Studio here in LA, called Sprite Animation.  Sprite is a Japanese animation studio and I was the first American artist that they hired.  It was a tremendous learning experience and to this day I tribute them as some of the most skilled, talented and humble artist that I have ever worked with.  It was such a great place for me to begin my career because they pushed me to learn more and become a full fledged character artist.  I not only modeled, but I also textured and rigged my characters and from time to time I even animated them.  

Blacksmith shop, modeling by Charles Ellison

When it was time to leave Sprite to spread my wings, I spent a little time in the live-action VFX world and then I was at a cross roads.  I had a tough choice to make as I had a very good problem in front of me.  I had an offer from Digital Domain to be a Character TD on Benjamin Buttons or join DreamWorks as a Modeler.  It was two very different roads I could take, but my heart told me that DreamWorks was the right path.  So I chose DreamWorks.  Fast forward 10 years from that point, and I am now one of the Department Heads and have worked on amazing projects - I have no doubt in my mind that I made the best decision for myself.  

Fashionistas, modeling by Charles Ellison

That's an inspiring story!  How involved are you in the hiring process of new talent for DreamWorks? When we are in search of growing our Modeling team, I am very much a part of the process.  The way it works is myself, along with the other Department Heads, will review candidates which our fantastic Recruiting Department will filter through and offer up the best candidates that they discover either via visits to different schools, or submissions which we receive from applicants all over the world - typically comprised of students and experienced artists.  And sometimes, one of us may already have a candidate in mind whom we can propose to the group for consideration.  This is an occurrence that happens quite often if one of us knows of a great artist that is available.  I often have candid conversations with students where I explain what a unique perspective I have from my vantage point.  What I mean is, I get to be a part of the students as they are just paving the way for their growth as artist, and one day, they could find themselves interviewing with me as well.  It is a very special vantage point if you ask me, one which I don't take for granted.  I'm always on the look out for good talent, so even if students don't realize it, they could be already being noticed even if from a single class - so always put forth your best effort ;).  And when I am actively supervising a modeling team for a show, I do get to ask for specific members of the team so long as they are available and not already casted to another production.  We do our best to cast everybody to their strengths and formulate nicely balanced teams for each show. Besides the required technical skills, what do you think are main qualities a 3D artist should have to increase the chances to get hired by a large company? And do you have any tips on how to develop those skills? Besides the clear necessities as demonstrating clear technical skills as software knowledge and being able to craft nice geometry and understanding good topology practices, I can't emphasize enough the need to demonstrate a strong artistic eye.  Perhaps the best thing anyone can do on their demo reel, is provide the artwork that you started from so that I can gauge how you see shapes and how you can interpret a design.  It's an opportunity for me to see how you understand the fundamentals.  Often, I see demo reels which don't include the artwork they modeled from.  And of course be sure that when including the artwork you credit the original artist.  Another good tip is have a good variety of models - don't just be character heavy without demonstrating you can take on an environment or a nice, intricate prop.  Characters are great and doing them well is even better, but show range.  As far as developing those skills, I always suggest to be as active as you can in practicing your craft.  Don't just rely on the assignments you receive in class.  Manage your time so that you reserve as much of it as you can to go through the paces of challenging yourself and finding barriers that you can break past.  But be sure to maintain a balance with studies, work and all other things in life so that you don't burn out. 

Orange quarter, modeling by Charles Ellison

And one last bit of advice which is one of those intangible things, when you land the interview, be yourself, and show us that you are the kind of person that we want to work with.  After all, I spend more time with my colleagues at work then I do with my family sadly, so I want candidates that are genuine people.  I would rather work with the person who has talent that can be nurtured - albeit needs growth but is a nice person, versus someone whom has a super impressive portfolio but during an interview doesn't show the best attitude. Know what I mean? Absolutely!  "Don't be afraid to show your work. Failure is always part of the road to success."  What do you think about these statements and how does that apply to your own job in a professional environment?  I mean, are you allowed to improve by failure or do you have to get it right every first time? As artist, we are always subject to opinion, and this is no different in a professional or an educational environment.  The difference is I would switch the word failure with that of process.  The process to striking the vision of many different people can be a very organic and sometimes tedious process, but process non the same.  Sometimes we nail it and please everyone upon first showing, sometimes it requires many iterations, but it's never a failure so long as we end up with a great final product, within the time-frame we are given.  In a school environment, it's very similar in that you have a goal, a deadline and a client - your instructor.  I always stress the need for students to never be shy to show their work, as the goal in sharing is to find ways to improve by way of constructive feedback - very much the same way it would be in production.

Dragon Lair, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you name a few people that have inspired you, in life and as a 3D professional? Naturally I have garnered inspiration from the people whom raised me, non more so than my Grandmother.  The work ethic she modeled for me was just remarkable.  My wife is a huge reason I am even where I am today, but my children are my strongest inspiration.  Trust me when I say nothing inspires you to be your best than your children.  As for artists?  My goodness, where do I begin?  There is just so much amazing talent out there, both known and unknown.  The unknown's are just as amazing it's just they haven't made an effort to have an online presence.  My very first supervisor, Tetsuya Ishii, is such an amazing artists and is equally skilled artistically and technically.  Plus I have a soft spot that I learned so much from him.  Some other artist whom have had direct influence on me are Danny Williams (aka Point Pusher) for the years we worked together and for the knowledge he was so willing to share and who is also a good friend.  Another good friend and former colleague whom has inspired me is Shannon Thomas, whom is now over at Blizzard as a Character Supervisor.  

Bob Ross

But there is so many others over the course of my career whom I've had the pleasure to either work with directly, converse with, or just admire from a far.  I know I will miss some names, but here is a short list:  Nico Marlet, Tim Lamb, Pierre Olivier Vincent, Alena Tottle, Mike Defeo, Kendal Chronkite, Raymond Zibach, Simon Otto, Mel Milton, Kent Melton,  Glen Keane, Matt Thorup, Dylan Ekren, Bear Williams, Brian Jefcoat and of course Bob Ross - no really, watched him religiously as a kid. "Happy little trees." Are there any public tours at DreamWorks ? There are no public tours, but it is possible to have a tour through someone on the inside.  I have personally had many guests come to visit the campus, including many Animschool students.  I extend this invitation to every class I teach.  You just have to give me a heads up when you are going to be around LA and I'm happy to set it up - so long as I'm available to do so of course.

Little Dragon composite, modeling by Charles Ellison

Can you give any tips to the students for their demo reel when they want to apply for a job at DreamWorks or another large studio?  Besides the information I gave earlier in the interview, I would say, know your client.  If you are applying to DreamWorks, Disney, Pixar, demonstrate models that fit the style of work that they do.  Similarly I would say the same for a game company or VFX studio.  And the last thing I would suggest, always place your best model first - wow us with that first look.  Keep your reel short.  It doesn't need to be bloated.  I would rather see 3 great models over the course of a 2 minute reel, versus a 5 minute reel of stuff you threw in there thinking it needed to be there because you were worried you didn't have enough.  Quality over quantity always.  And remember, always show the art your started from.  And lastly, these days, it's not just about a demo reel, have on online platform such as a personal website, ArtStation, or something similar which showcases your many different works.  This can be a place where potential employers can see works that are maybe unfinished, but still offer insight to your process as an artist. Those are great tips, thank you!  Why did you become an Animschool teacher ?

Charles Ellison, Head of Modeling at DreamWorks

When I first made the choice to begin teaching, much of my decision was based on the idea of maximizing the time that I have to provide for my family and I wanted to do so in a manner that felt rewarding beyond just compensation. Teaching was a natural fit that I could balance nicely with my full-time roll at DreamWorks and also was an opportunity for me to give back to the community.  Originally, I did not know if teaching was going to be a short or long term commitment or even if I would be any good at it.  I also did not foresee how invested I would get in the students.  I didn't foresee the relationships that I would build and how rewarding it would feel to see my students improving before my eyes.  It is such a great feeling to see your students applying what they are learning, improving upon their skills and most importantly, having fun during the process.  I make it a point to make sure the students know from day one that they are in an environment that will be fun, organic and nurturing.  I really do try to give them all I have to offer and be someone who will offer them as much insight as I can into the industry as well.  And why Animschool?   I have had many former colleagues of mine whom had ventured into the world of teaching speak very highly of Animschool and a good friend had introduced me to Dave Gallagher to speak about the prospect of teaching.  Fast forward to now, and I am very happy to be a part of the Animschool community and proud of the students that I have had the pleasure to teach.  What I feel makes Animschool a unique and special place to learn this wonderful craft, is the global aspect of it's students (nothing excites me more than to see a roster of students from all corners of the globe) and how diverse the they are.  I find Animschool students to be some of the most dedicated and focused I've come across.  And lastly, I find the talent that the school brings in to instruct their classes to be world class and whom really want to provide the best instruction they can.  Put all that together and it truly is an amazing community to be a part of.

Thank you Charles !

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Innovative Marketers Must Not Just Face, But Embrace, Their Fears

How can you confidently pour your heart and soul into a non-traditional marketing strategy, knowing it could either take flight or fizzle?

It’s a dilemma that outside-the-box marketers must wrestle with if they truly wish to innovate and transform their industry. The idea of experimenting with methods that haven’t been substantiated through successful practice is both exhilarating and terrifying.

When facing tight budgets, client expectations, and ROI demands, fear of failure often wins out. But to quote Seth Godin: “In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is a failure. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.”

The marketplace is now busier and more crowded than ever, so perhaps what we should really be afraid of is following the same established blueprint as everyone else.

“What Is He Doing?”

A while back, I came across a thought-provoking blog post from Ken Tremendous (that’s the online pseudonym for Michael Schur, writer for such TV comedies as The Office and Parks & Rec). One of the topics he covered was the process Lin-Manuel Miranda went through while creating his eventual Broadway hit, Hamilton: An American Musical.

Miranda spent many years writing this hip-hop history lesson, despite having no clue whether there was actually an appetite for such an unconventional piece of theatre. Schur summarized the internal conflict nicely in this excerpt from his post (edited to censor out the swears — this is a family blog!):

I’m far from the first person to say this – I’m probably somewhere around the millionth person to write about Hamilton, and the maybe 500,000th to make this particular point, but it needs to be said – a hip-hop Broadway musical about the founding fathers is an astoundingly terrible idea. Lin-Manuel Miranda should never have written it. As soon as he started to write it, he should’ve said to himself, “What the f*** am I doing?!” and stopped. And after he got halfway through, he should’ve junked it, gotten really drunk, and moved on with his life, and made his wife and friends swear to never mention the weird six months where he was trying to write a hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton. I literally guarantee you that when Lin-Manuel Miranda first told his friends what he was writing, every one of them reacted with at best a frozen smile, and at worst a horrified recoiling. Some of them might have been outwardly encouraging – “sounds awesome bud! Go get ‘em!” But then later, alone, they would call each other and say What the f*** is he doing?

In response to the blog post, Miranda tweeted, “I can confirm my friends were worried about me.”

Of course, if the Hamilton creator had given into self-doubt, or allowed the concerns of his well-meaning peers to derail him, the world would have never been able to experience his masterpiece, which went on to win countless awards while crushing at the box office still to this day.

Image via Playbill

Shifting Ahead 

Schur’s oddly inspirational rant about Miranda stuck in my mind, and resurfaced as I was paging through Shift Ahead: How the Best Companies Stay Relevant in a Fast-Changing World, a new book from Allen Adamson and Joel Steckel. Examining dozens of case studies, the authors argue that the biggest mistake a business can make is getting too comfortable with success.

As Andrew Grove once observed, “Only the paranoid survive.”

In their book, Adamson and Steckel share a quote from Maryam Banikarim, CMO of Hyatt:

“Look at Airbnb and Uber,” she said. “If you had said to somebody ten years ago there’s going to be a business where you’re riding in someone’s car, they would have been like, ‘Are you crazy?’ There is no question that what will be here in ten years will not look like what it looks like today.”

That really is the crux of the matter. Marketers need to formulate their plans based on what the world will look like tomorrow, not today. No one can predict the future, but by relying on good data, meaningful trends, and your own intuition, you can make smart bets and get the necessary buy-in to execute.

Boldness, Belief, Balance

At a time where businesses everywhere are trying to find deeper meaning and purpose in what they do, it’s wise to reflect on the core values that will drive you forward in the coming year. Here at TopRank Marketing, our focus is on nurturing a culture of brave marketers who aren’t afraid to be inventive and color outside the lines.

Developing this mindset requires three key ingredients, and whether you operate in marketing or any other line of business, I think they can apply in some way.

Boldness: The dictionary defines bold as “showing an ability to take risks; confident and courageous.” That pretty much sums it up.

Belief: In order to truly deliver on a bold idea, you need to believe — in your expertise, in your conviction, and in the ability of our team to help you achieve the results you envision.

Balance: It’s great to think big, but it’s also important to balance this ambition with evidence, realism, and respected outside input.

With that being said, don’t let yourself be discouraged by the occasional “What is (s)he doing?” or “Are you crazy?” In fact, sometimes these can be the very signs you’re on the right track.

Innovation rarely occurs without a bit of incredulity.

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