#but they always change their tune when they find out how much my annual net income is

[theflagscene]

Company: We’re so impressed by you never missing a payment and being a constant customer that you’ve been pre-approved for a really low tier crappy credit card!

Me: Uh, thanks, I guess?

Company: *sees my mid af credit score*

Me: You got a problem?

Company: Sorry, we weren’t aware you were poor, we rescind our offer.

Me: Fair.

[personalcoachingcenter]

Use These 5 Steps to Reach Your Business Goals

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/use-these-5-steps-to-reach-your-business-goals/

Use These 5 Steps to Reach Your Business Goals

Have you set goals and resolutions for your business for 2021? I sure hope you did because setting and achieving goals are very important for your business. So let me ask you this. How are your goals and resolutions progressing? Are you on target to achieving them, or Maybe you have already given up on some of them? Here are five steps that you can take to enable you and ensure you to achieve your business goals in 2021.

Entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized business owners. Just like you to help, you start and grow your business.

On this site we try to share with you business strategies, practical tactics, Information and tips that you can apply to your business To help you generate increasing profits and greater impact.

So, as we start the beginning of the year you, Just like every other entrepreneur and business owner out. There have set goals and new year resolutions for your business.

So how is that progression? Tell us what are some of the goals and the resolution that you have set for your business.. We would love to hear from you Now in a survey by US news. The survey tells us that by this time of the year early March, late February, 80 % of the new year resolutions with a goal set at the very beginning of the year, falls by the wayside. That’s, 80 % of new year resolutions and goals Gone forever.

People give up, that is rough. Nevertheless, there is hope. You know in my many years of working with clients and also just through my own Entrepreneurship journey. I’ve learned that there are a few things that you can do to really make sure That you are on track to achieve your goals.

So right now I’m, going to share with you five steps that you can take to ensure you achieve your goals. Step number one create clear and concise goals. What does that mean? You ask? Well, it means that don’t think about your goals that you made for your business as a level that you need to attain, or it’s a place where you need to be.

Instead, you should think of the business goals that you set as a target: a Bull’s-eye, something that’s very clear and very concise that you know exactly where it needs to be So don’t, say something like Or set a goal like, I want to grow my business by 20 %, 20 % of what? What does that mean? Is that 20 % increase of market share? Is that 20 % increase of revenue? Is that 20 % more likes on your Instagram post? What is 20 % Right?

That is very unclear. It is very difficult to focus and Do the things that you need to do when the goal is unclear, like girl., Bye, 20 %, So say something like this instead.. I want to grow our net income by 2022 by 20 % when compared to 2020.

Now that it’s clear, you have one metric that you are measuring, That is our net income and you have a time frame. You have one year, the year 2021, to accomplish this goal, and you have something to compare to you: have your 2022 net income versus your 2020 net income? Now you know exactly Where you need to be.

Now your goal is a bull’s-eye. That’s a target, so you can actually focus and get to it So as entrepreneurs and business owner Setting clear and concise business goals for your business is your first step towards successful year.

Step number two: take small, the measurable steps Towards your goal. So once you have your business goals concisely and clearly set try and not to take and plan for activities to Accomplish that goal in one shot, and the reason is, is when you try to do that in one shot, You’re, probably not going To get it right, the first time, and maybe not even the second time.

Where the third time, if that happens, thus courage, Minh sets in and you’re more likely to give up. Then, if you take Smaller but definite steps towards that goal. So the idea is that, on a regular basis, whether that’s daily, weekly or monthly, You want to take steps towards that goal.

You want to plan activity towards that goal that you have set one step at a time in sequence, in order, so let’s use the example that we talked about in step number one, and that is, I want to increase my annual net income For 2021 by 20 percent when compared to 2020, so let’s just say my 2021 net income was three hundred thousand dollars.

You know pick a number Whether that’s too little too big for you. It doesn’t. Matter. It’s. It’s just an illustration. So if I want to increase that by 20 % for 2021, That means I will need to get to three hundred and sixty thousand dollars of net income for 2022.

That is a sixty thousand dollar increase in the net income for the year 2022, so sixty thousand dollars. It depends on obviously your size of business, where your business is that it is not a small number, It is not being significant.

So how do you get to an increase of sixty thousand dollars of net income For 2021 or the idea of taking smaller but definite and measurable steps? Is this right break that down into monthly, so sixty thousand dollars divided by twelve, that every month you have to increase your net income bite about $ 5,000? So now that thing’s, much more doable than Trying to get sixty thousand dollars of net income, all at one shot.

So, Now the idea is you, take steps and find things that you need to do to increase only $ 5,000 a month in that income Or even better, if you can break it down into a weekly basis and let’s just say that it’s four weeks in a month every week, All you need to do is increase your net income by one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars again.

That seems much more doable than trying to find things to do. To increase your net income by sixty thousand dollars all in one shot, So what’s, probably even more important of Taking small but definite and measurable steps towards your goal? Is that psychologically? You actually know that you’re taking step.

You’re marching towards that goal, Because when you’re working on something that’s really big and trying to get that sixty thousand dollars all at one shot., The things gets complicated. So now, with smaller steps.

You know you’re marching towards that goal and secondly, when you take those steps – and you reach the 1250 dollars of net income for the week or 5,000 dollars for the month, you can celebrate those wins and you can celebrate it twelve times Right.

Instead of that, First 12 months or that whole twelve months, where in trying to figure out whether you can hit the sixty thousand dollars of net income, this way you’ll, be encouraged every step of the way and it’s.

More likely that you will not give up and continue in pursuit of your business goals and business resolution and step number three is to analyze your data in the now that you have set your goals precisely and concisely: Clear and concise goals, and you got taken small, But definite and measurable steps towards those goals.

You need to analyze your data Consistently regularly and yes, I do mean the numbers. Sometimes entrepreneurs or business owners Do not like or do not want to analyze their numbers, But I have to tell you the numbers: don’t lie.

They will tell you exactly how you’re doing, And they will also tell you whether you’re likely to achieve your goals or not So let’s. Take a look at our example again about increasing our yearly net income.

So, every month you really have to dig into your numbers and look at whether your revenue is going up, And also you have to look at whether your expenses are going down Right, because the only way your net income Increases is if your revenue is going up Or Your expenses are going down Or both are happening Without looking at the numbers, you will never know Without looking at the numbers You don’t know whether the activities that you’re doing the promotions that you’re.

Doing is actually working, So it is only by going through your numbers, where you know Whether your cost-cutting activities are working or your promotion to increase your revenue is working Without going through a number you wouldn’t, be able to know what to do.

Next So make the numbers your friend Analyze it go through. It know, them. So make sure you analyze your numbers or data, Because it is through the numbers. You will know whether your cost-cutting Initiatives are working or whether your promotion to increase your revenue is working Without that you wouldn’t know how to take the next step, a friendly reminder.

Don’t, wait at the end of the month to analyze their data Analyze and know your numbers throughout the month, get in a habit of Analyzing your data, so that you know how you’re trending, Because without it, when it comes To the end of the month or end of the quarter, it is too late step number four adjust and fine-tune So based on the analysis based on the numbers that you see from step number three.

You will probably have to make some adjustments to the things that you’re doing, so we entrepreneurs and business owners sometimes think that our ideas, the thing that we’re implementing, are always the best and We may not be so Inclined To make changes or make adjustments.

However, Experience tells us, and I ‘ve, worked with many clients before that. This Entrepreneurship journey this this is running journey really at some point or another. It’s a little bit of a trial and error.

You do have to try something and if you make a mistake Or if you see is not getting you the results that you’re, looking for., We need to make adjustments. We need to make Fine-tuning so that we can continue going forward Towards that goal that we have said earlier.

So in the case of us trying to increase 20 % of our net income for the year. If the number is not showing you that you’re, not reaching, let’s, say the 1250 additional net income for the week., What a $ 5000 net additional net income for the month.

Maybe there are some things that we need to adjust.. Maybe there are some things that we need to change. Maybe it is spending a little bit more on marketing a little bit more on Appropriate promotions to get the sales revenue up or it may be, spending less on non-essential expenses that are not directly producing you revenue or maybe it is fine-tuning a message or ad or Promotion that you’re running, whether that’s on Facebook and this program or whatever you’re doing you’re advertising, or it could be another Product that you need to promote a different service that you Need to offer something That’s a little bit different than what you’re doing right now, so we can see whether that makes any changes or not whether those changes that you make.

The adjustment that you make are helping you to increase your revenue and Decreasing your expenses, because remember if you want increased net income or net profit, Your revenue has to go up and your expenses have to go down and you just have to make the adjustment and The fine tuning to see that happening – and please remember Hope, is not a strategy just because You has one in place and you’re, hoping that it will work.

That is not a business strategy and it’s. Not a tactic that you should be taking., You should definitely make adjustments, Fine-tuning the strategy and the practical things that you’re doing and see. If the results are different.

Some entrepreneurs love Analyzing, the penalize they delve into the number, But they won’t make any decisions.. They would just analyze analyze analyze. Other entrepreneurs Hate the numbers.. They don’t like the numbers.

They don’t want to see the numbers. They don’t want to analyze the numbers. So my suggestion to you, it might advice to you – is this Analyze, but don’t analyze it to death. When you think you have enough information, Take action, Make an adjustment Make some fine-tuning so that your activities will be trending the right way.

So now we come to our last step. Step number five step. Number five is Repeat the process. You have to think about achieving your goals, business goals or goals in life as a process. It is not a one-time thing, so in step number four, once you have made the adjustments to Fine-tuning, that is like again your step number two, where you’re, taking small, Immeasurable steps towards your goal right, You’re, making that a Small adjustment, You’re, making them fine-tuning towards your goal.

You’re, trying something else so that you’re, taking that next step next little step a measurable step, the fine-tuning Towards your goal again, and once you do that Don’t forget to go to step number three or You have to continue to analyze your data, Look at the numbers and then step number four again to see if you need to make any more Adjustments or fine-tuning, and then you know what you got ta repeat the steps again repeat the process.

I’m sure you have heard people say that Entrepreneurship is a marathon.. It’s, not a sprint. Well, that analogy is correct.. Let’s, learn from the marathon runners Throughout their race. The marathon runners make changes.

They make adjustments. If they’re going up a hill, they may be running a little slowly or slower to conserve their energy. They’re, going down a steep slope.. Maybe they run a little faster, but they have to control their steps.

Sometimes they sprint, they want to run a little faster, Sometimes they slow down and to conserve their energy. Well, when it’s time to almost reaching that very end of the race, they run fast, a sprint Right.

So if we really take heart to that analogy, We’re running our bias. Our businesses and entrepreneurship is Like a marathon and let’s. Learn from the marathon runners.. Let’s, make sure we make those adjustments Make those fine-tuning and we repeat that process throughout this entire race, And I hope these five steps have given you some inspiration. I know that will help you to achieve your business goals in 2021.

elink.io | See Original

[dtkrippene]

Managing a blog page for a group or organization can be fun and rewarding – a phrase that should immediately toggle the cautionary button.

It’s that time of year for our annual writer’s group conference in mid-March. Since I blog somewhat regularly on WordPress, I was asked to revamp an outdated WordPress page to post presenter profiles, interviews, and conference news. Essentially, I’d be the ‘ghost in the shell’ to solicit, edit, format, and post articles by other group members.

Hey, I use WordPress all the time. How much trouble could it be?

Looking back, I ignored the ‘check details before proceeding’ indicator, and thought I’d share a few things I learned.

Get a Clear Mission Statement Before Proceeding

Valentina Conde – Unsplash

The group gave me carte blanc to redesign the page, which included an upgrade to a premium page for a small annual fee with access to better template options, widget buttons, and customary links. Nobody had to learn HTML tech-speak or pay a monthly “mortgage fee” to fancy-pants web designers.

That part was the easy.

Once the docket was approved, we created a process for members to sign up for one or more of the over twenty articles slated to print over a time frame of four – five months. First solicitation was met with a silence akin to a high school gymnasium at 2:00 AM. It took a bit of prodding by group officers to get things rolling, but eventually folks stepped up.

Create a New User Account for the Blog

Ludovic Toinel – Unsplash

I blew this one big time. As a WordPress Premium Plan user myself, I hoped to minimize the setup time by creating a new page while logged in with my own account, then adding others for administrators. Updating a page whose original owner hadn’t participated with the group for isn’t the best way to go. Page could be accessed by anyone.

I didn’t have problems with approved members accessing the blog and creating a post, but like Facebook, the WordPress folks like having an “owner” available for everything. Since I revamped the page while signed in on my personal account, only way I can unlock myself is if I delete the account. The annual bill hits my account every year like the return of robins in spring. Every year I have to rebill the group. I’m still working on a third-party Paypal invoice option.

Twenty-twenty hindsight; start fresh.

First, sign out first from any personal WordPress and Email accounts that are open.

Create a new group email and sign-in credentials if one is not available. I found Gmail to be work best. May sound like a Homer Simpson “duh”, but make sure officers know how to access it.

Then go to WordPress and create new account, using group email.

Have fun building the chosen template to fit your needs.

Be sure to include group’s mission statement in the blog page “About” profile.

Have more than one administrator assist with the management of it. I suggest offering a cocktail or two before making your pitch.

  Select Template to Suit the Group’s Brand

From: blogaholicdesigns

I love WordPress because they take the pain out of designing a page. They have lots of them for writers and authors, and the web is chock full of outside designers who create WordPress compatible temples.  You want it to be easy to read, not splattered with visual frilly things that distract from the text. Save that for a personal blog that celebrates all things unicorn.

I stuck with the same template I use for my personal page because I’m lazy, and the Chateau Theme has a good balance of widget placement, logos and link options.

I’ll not go into details of initial page set up. WordPress is fairly easy to navigate, and numerous Youtube videos exist from people who don’t get out much. Best advice I have in how to organize the page:

I’ve always believed a picture tells a story, even if it’s a simple message. Not everyone agrees, but to me, a blog page becomes it’s just another bunch of words in an overcrowded blogosphere universe. And since the graphic is the first visual a reader sees, make it a good one.

I went all out on my personal page on dtkrippene.com. Took me weeks to find that perfect graphic to represent my brand, “Searching For Light in the Darkness.” For a writer’s group, we agreed something less snazzy to be appropriate.

  Ready, Set, Blog – Wait …

To fill in that vast empty draft space, articles authored by other group members should be submitted with the following criteria.

Micah Boswell – Unsplash

Article typed in Times-New-Roman, 12 Font, preferably on Word for Window’s, or compatible program like Open Docs. The days of handing a secretary handwritten notes for letter dictation ended decades ago, and I don’t have time to retype an entire draft. Cutting and pasting on that blank template above saves a pile of time. Avoid fancy fonts; work this on the WordPress draft if you want them.

To this day, I still get articles inside the body of an email or formatted in a weird font that I must reformat. As a result, I transfer all summitted articles to a separate Word document by copying text, using “Paste Special – Unformatted Text” to remove hidden formatting problems that don’t translate well on WordPress, followed by changing the pasted text to NTR 12. Even then, I frequently have to use WordPress’ “Clear Formatting” Button (little eraser symbol) on pasted text.

Patrick Goth – Unsplash

A useable headshot for profile or interview, not a thumbprint taken from google images, or blurry selfie shot. There won’t be enough pixels. Do not include the photo inside the Word document; which requires screen-printing to clipboard, then opening a photo program to access pic for saving as a jpeg, only to get a photo the size of a postage stamp. Most professional agents and authors will provide a media kit upon request. The upside with WordPress, if the photo is too large, it’s easily reduced in the body of the draft.

Marco Djallo – Unsplash

Editing isn’t supposed to be in the job description, but it ends up as one. Minor faux pas for punctuation and a missing word happens to everyone, but I’ve had to practically retype some submissions. There’s a lot more to it than typesetting. When I write an article for someone else, I treat it as if I’m submitting to an agent. I mean – we’re supposed to be writers.

  Include social media and website links if doing a presenter profile or interview. The most time-consuming chore with posting someone else’s work (aside from chasing down useable photos), is searching the net for said links. Why is this important? It’s a common courtesy in a profile piece, and the more links we have inside the article, the greater the SEO search linkages the article will have, which leads to greater exposure. The pros know this.

Get article author’s bio and headshot. The point of volunteering to submit an article is exposure for the author. “Written by Such-n-such” is about as invisible as the dialogue tag – “said”. If article author hasn’t created a bio, this is the time to draft one. Call me old-fashioned for thinking readers want to see a human face, I tend to reject avatars. It might be acceptable with Twitter and Instagram, but if an article author wishes to remain anonymous, so be it. Unicorns and cute pugs are not writers.

Leio Mclaren – Unsplash

Article should include author’s social media links as well. I remember asking one article author if they had any social media links included in their bio, who answered with “I don’t use social media.” I almost followed up with “how does anyone know you exist as an author”, but sighed – que sera sera, and quit asking.

  Pay attention to tags and keywords. For the conference, every article should be tagged with: Writing, Writing Conferences, Writing Craft. If the article is a profile or interview, add tags to identify the skill set, like ‘Author Voice’, Query Letters’, or ‘Staging Fight Scenes’. If an author of YA fantasy, tags should include YA and Fantasy. If the profile is about a publisher or book coach, include the publisher’s agency name, ‘Marketing’, ‘Self-Publishing’, ‘Indie-Publishing’, etc. It helps fine tune SEO search engines, so browsers looking for book writing tips don’t end up with suggestions on how much to tip.

  Share the article on other Social Media accounts. If the group doesn’t have a Facebook Page, get one (sorry, didn’t mean to shout). To paraphrase the words of a NYT bestselling author who spoke at a past conference, blogs exist in a ‘tsunami of content’. To break out of the isolated bubble of a few group members and family friends who might read it, group postings need a social media sprinkler to let others aware the group exists. We’ve found contacting and liking other writer groups and interested parties pays big dividends. Fellow group members who participate in social media should also help broadcast the news. Ask any RWA Chapter Group; many of them have the best communicative share net on the planet.

From: imfunny.net

When posting the article link, Facebook automatically pops the first paragraph and the picture embedded in the article. It may appear to save time, but what often happens is the photograph displayed may not be the article header pic (if article contains more than one photo). Even if it is, the photograph won’t paste to Facebook Photobook. Took me a few iterations to discover the best course of action is to type in the article title, followed by pasting the article link, then physically attaching the article picture from file. Sounds convoluted, but the article graphic becomes a permanent record on the Facebook page, and it won’t be a cat selfie.

  And if You’re Still a Gluten for Punishment …

Vance Osterhout – Unsplash

Our group page goes into hibernation after conference activity ends, until the next cycle begins six months later. I’ve been taught that leaving an active website unattended for long periods of time, can undo all the connections gathered. Personally, I don’t blog often, but I try to be regular. As if I wasn’t having enough fun with the group site, I suggested the platform was available to membership during the off months to:

Announce a new book, short story, or article that appeared in a magazine

Offer a poem, or short story for others to read.

Allow other writerly folk who have something to share with the group

Invite blog sharing from other sites. We’ll post your article, you post ours.

Share your writer’s journey.

Share a valuable lesson learned that may help others

Share successes. Share disappointments. We’re all in this together.

The list is endless.

The submissions for off-season, unfortunately – haven’t been.

A Side Note on Other Blogging Platforms

Markus Spiske – Unsplash

I’m a diehard WordPress user, because I’m too lazy to relearn another platform. But if you’re interested in what’s available, check out The 10 Best Free Blogging Platforms in 2018! (Pros & Cons). What you’ll find is – free gets you in the game, but it’s going to cost a bit more for any kind of customization.

I still run across writers and authors who feel the need to have someone design a custom blog website to be unique. If you want a primer for how much this stuff costs, read How Much Does a Website Design or Redesign Cost? [2019 Guide] for a hefty dose of sticker shock.

From: digitalsynopsis.com

I’ve lost count of those who claim to have a brother, cousin, uncle-of-a-neighbor who has some chops in programing. I’m all for unique, but if it’s a group site, the major issue is what happens if the programmer/administrator gets hit by the proverbial bus? Time and time again I’ve seen website “owners” disappear, leaving the hapless writer stuck with an HTML intensive site without an instruction manual.

I’m sure I missed a few things, but I think I’ve confused you enough. If you remember anything, stick with simple. You’ll be glad you did.

This ghost-in-the-shell thing is hard enough as it is.

  May You Blog Well and Prosper

**********

By the way, we still have openings for the GLVWG Write Stuff Conference™, March 21 – 23, 2019. Check out the amazing line up of speakers and get an opportunity to pitch your book to agents and editors.

You can learn all about the presenters on the GLVWG WordPress Blog.

A lot of work went into those articles. Throw us bone will ya, and give us a like.

  Ghost in the Shell – Group Blogging for Fun and High Blood Pressure Managing a blog page for a group or organization can be fun and rewarding – a phrase that should immediately toggle the cautionary button.

[giancarlonicoli]

Why The Coming Oil Crunch Will Shock The World And why we need a new energy strategy -- fast by Chris Martenson Friday, July 6, 2018, 7:42 PM 

My years working in corporate strategy taught me that every strategic framework, no matter how complex (some I worked on were hundreds of pages long), boils down to just two things:

Where do you want to go? (Vision)

How are you going to get there? (Resources)

Vision is the easier one by far. You just dream up a grand idea about where you want the company to be at some target future date, Yes, there’s work in assuring that everybody on the management team truly shares and believes in the vision, but that’s a pretty stratightforward sales job for the CEO.

By the way, this same process applies at the individual level, too, for anyone who wants to achieve a major goal by some point in the future. The easy part of the strategy is deciding you want to be thinner, healthier, richer, or more famous.

But the much harder part, for companies and individuals alike, is figuring out 'How to get there'. There are always fewer resources than one would prefer.

Corporate strategists always wish for more employees to implement the vision, with better training with better skills. Budgets and useful data are always scarcer than desired, as well.

Similar constraints apply to us individuals. Who couldn't use more motivation, time and money to pursue their goals?

Put together, the right Vision coupled to a reasonably mapped set of Resources can deliver amazing results. Think of the Apollo Moon missions. You have to know where you're going and how you're going to get there to succeed. That’s pretty straightforward, right?

So, it should be little surprise that the opposite, a lack of Vision and/or Resources, leads to underperformance -- and, eventually, decline. Think Kodak or Xerox. Or third-generation family wealth that has dwindled away to nothing. In a changing world, refusing to change with it is a losing strategy.

A great strategy aligns people’s interests and motivations with the available resources. More importantly, it provides a meaningful framework for action, one that gives a sense of purpose that will motivate everyone through difficult or trying times.

The grand goal of defeating the Nazis provided sufficient motivation for people to buy war bonds, scrimp on consumption, plant victory gardens, and go without nylon. A large part of our national resources were dedicated to the larger strategy of winning the war. Because of the strategy everyone shared, practically nobody complained of this repurposing as a 'time of sacrifice’ or as an imposed burden.

Given the right framework and the means to achieve it, people will literally crawl through mud in freezing temperatures -- and find it deeply satisfying. But given zero context or insufficient resources, people quickly become demoralized or rebellious (just observe how quickly most folks get royally pissed off at having to sit on the tarmac for a few extra minutes before their airplane takes off.)

Strategy matters. A lot.

A Nation Adrift, A World In Denial

Here's why I'm harping so much on strategy: the US is operating without a viable one.

We neither have a compelling Vision of where we want to go, nor any sense of the Resources required to change with the many transitions underway around us.

The current ‘strategy' (if we can be so generous as to call it that), is nothing more than "business-as-usual" (BAU).

The US is assuming it is always going to have more cars and trucks on the road this year than last year, more goods sold, a larger economy, more jobs, and the world’s most powerful military. That’s the BAU model. And it has largely worked for the past century.

But it can't work going forward. And the longer we pursue it, the more of our future prosperity we ruin.

Why? Because the future of everything is dependent on energy. More specifically: net energy.

Having a powerful military consumes a tremendous annual quantity of energy. The US military eats up 100 million barrels of oil each year. By itself, America's Department of Defense is the 34th largest consumer of oil in the world.

In total, the US consumes over 7 billion barrels of oil each year. And that represents only 37% of the nearly 100 quadrillion of BTUs of America's annual energy consumption (the rest coming from natural gas, coal, and other sources). For comparisons sake, the rest of the world consumes another 450 quadrillion BTUs.

And world energy demand just keeps on insatiably growing year over year. The (notoriously conservative) EIA predicts it will jump by 28% over the next two decades.

Will our energy production be able to keep up? As I've been warning for years, it will be very challenged to do so -- or, to do so at prices anywhere near as low as today's.

Putting Our Plight Into Concrete Terms

Putting those staggering figures aside for a moment, let's focus on one -- just one! -- of the crises ahead of us when it comes to our future energy needs.

The nations of the world have made the truly regrettable decision to build so much of their infrastructure using concrete reinforced with steel (re-bar, mesh, etc.). As I've explained in detail in previous articles, because the steel rusts over time, the concrete is busy being destroyed from the inside out -- something we can detect easily enough by the cracks and spalling (sheets flaking off) so readily apparent on every bridge that’s more than a couple of decades old.

This has created a ticking time bomb. The world's crumbling concrete buildings, bridges and roadways will have to be entirely replaced in just 40 to 100 years of their original construction dates. Where will all of the energy come from for that?

Also, note that China has poured more steel-reinforced concrete over just the past few years than the US did in the entire 20th century(!). All of this, too, will need to be replaced later this century.

Given that the sand required for all of the world's *current* concrete projects is now in very short supply, where all the sand will come from for all that future concrete and cement work? Who ever thought we could run out of sand?

But such are the unpleasant surprises that crop up during the late stages when running an exponential economic paradigm (i.e., "Growth forever!").

Fooling Oursevles

And it certainly doesn't help that we're remaining willfully blind to our situation.

It’s probably safe to say that the majority of the population in the US is confident that the "shale revolution" has assured America's energy security for a long time to come. Heck, the governor of Texas recently tweeted this to the world:

This is wrong on so many levels.

Yes, Texas produces oil and natural gas. But the US is still a net oil importer to the tune of about 3 million barrels per day. The US is not independent with respect to oil. And it won’t be until it produces another 3 million barrels per day (and that's making the generous assumption that consumption remains flat).

Further, to claim that the US will NEVER AGAIN depend on foreign oil is beyond bizarre. As I've been explaining for years, shale fields deplete and decline ferociously. Even the hyper-bullish EIA thinks that the shale fields will peak out in 2025 (I think earlier) and then go into permanent decline.

In my world, NEVER AGAIN is a lot farther out into the future than 2025. But Mr. Abbott has apparently ingested one too many petroleum sales pitches and received a terribly inaccurate impression about the true state of the US' energy predicament.

Much more likely is that US shale production does not EVER exceed US consumption before peaking out. So it would be more accurate to tweet the US is now and will ALWAYS AND FOREVER be dependent on foreign oil.

Finally, even if the US were a net oil exporter (highly unlikely), we’d still be tied to the world price for oil. Should foreign cartels decided to limit production and spike the price, that would still effect the US. So we still wouldn't be "independent" of their influence.

But sadly, Mr. Abbott speaks for the nation in that tweet. We're "swimming in energy" and need not have any worries. The drum of our chest-thumping will scare them away.

In other word:, there’s no strategy beyond BAU.

There's no acknowledgement of the challenges we face in the coming decades, of declining net energy per capita. Of greater competition between the developed and developing nations for the remaining BTUs.

There's no compelling Vision to marshall the public towards that fits the realities of the future. We could, and should, be working on solutions for entering a "post-growth" era with grace. Or at a minimum, aggressively using today's Resources to create a new energy infrastructure that plans for the inevitable decline of fossil fuels.

We could be doing so much better than this.

Getting Our Priorities Straight

What if we started by embracing these three facts?

Fossil fuels have provided a supernova of surplus energy. One that has enabled literally everything and everyone you see around you to spring into existence.

Fossil fuels are a very recent discovery for humans (barely 150-years-old). Half of our consumption of them has happened in just the last 25 years alone (due to exponentially increasing use).

Fossil fuels will not last forever. They are finite and will someday peak and then decline, representing a once-in-a-species bonanza never to be repeated.

It's beyond dispute that fossil fuels are 4/5ths of the current total global energy mix, that our use and dependence on them has grown exponentially over time, and that they are a non-rewable resource.

Among the fossil fuels, oil is, by far, the most critically-important to sustaining both our current level of technology and the human population. It's how we move virtually everything from point A to point B and it’s a critical element for food production and distribution. It also remains absolutely essential to the manufacture and installation of alt-energy systems, like wind and solar.

Given the three facts above, it only makes sense that a responsible global society should have a credible and very publicly-stated energy strategy providing a road map for weaning itself from fossil fuels before they become prohibitively expensive/scarce.

But since we don't have one, the alternative path we're taking is to sleepwalk into the future with no plan for feeding 9 billion people or re-building a crumbled global infrastructure -- let alone facing the additional challenges of running out of critical minerals, dealing with destroyed ecosystems, and being unable to field the necessary fuel and economic complexity to install a brand-new energy infrastructure measuring in the hundreds of quadrillions of BTUs. This BAU path will be marked by the three D’s: despair, demoralization, and death. (Is it any wonder that young people aren't as inspired by BAU as their parents' generation?)

So if instead we want a future that’s prosperous, regenerative and abundant, then we have to begin doing things very differently from BAU. And fast. (The best time to have started on this was decades ago.)

For example, if we decide we want electric transportation powered by wind and solar to be anything more than a meaningless tiny percentage of the total BTU mix, then we’re going to have to use a lot of fossil fuels to make that happen. It takes an enormous amount of fossil fuels to manufacture, install, maintain and repair/replace every single alt-energy component.

The question then becomes: Where do we want to be when that future arrives? If we want to have livable cities and towns with nearby greenbelts and an alt-energy infrastructure delivering clean energy sustainably forever into the future, then an enormous amount of planning and building is going to be required to get anywhere near close to that.

It all comes back to strategy. We need a compelling Vision of this future to inspire society, and then dedicate the appropriate Resources to make it happen.

With an appropriate energy strategy that matches reality, we can engineer a reasonably bright future. Without one, we’ll just pursue BAU until it literally destroys us as well as the ecosystems we depend on.

An New Energy Strategy

So here’s one way to go about doing that.

First, identify all the energy demands that absolutely have to happen just to maintain systemic integrity. The DoD has needs, the current fleets of emergency vehicles and school busses have needs, as does maintaining the existing stock of bridges, roads, and buildings. This exercise will reveal to all that simply maintaining 'the way things are' is extraordinarily energy-expensive. But it has to be done if we want to avoid economic collapse and massive joblessness. It also bears mentioning that the energy required to keep things going is energy that cannot be dedicated to building the new future. It’s a sunk-cost of prior decisions.

Second, make a credible list of energy needs for building the future we want. How many solar panels will that be? How many wind farms? How many miles of electrified train track? How many fully-electric vehicles will have to be built? How many charging stations with the nationwide road system need? What sorts of improvements and modifications to existing cities and towns will have to be made? This is the Vision. It answers the question Where are we going?

Of course, these sorts of new activities and building projects will be very energy expensive. If we want them to happen, then we have to consciously budget an appropriate amount of energy to accomplish the Vision.

Next, develop the very best possible estimate of total economically recoverable fossil fuels. Do this by finally measuring the full-cycle energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) for the remaining deposits. After all, we’re going to build out the future with the surplus energy extraced, not the gross (surplus = Total BTUs extracted - BTUs expended during extraction). This estimate will represent the total principal balance of our national energy bank account.

Last, calculate if there will be any energy left over. If so, save it for future generations. They'll have their own sets of needs and desires that we can't possible know today. (Sadly, I'm willing to wager that there won’t be any excess fossil energy to pass along).

A Sample Scenario

By way of example, suppose that the US undergoes a thorough, exhaustive, peer-reviewed and thoroughly debated examination of all known remaining fossil fuel resources – coal, natural gas and oil – using the very best and well-funded EROEI methodologies (yet to be developed, by the way). If we arbitrarily say that there are “100 units” of net energy left, we might discover this:

25 units will be required to simply maintain the economic system so it doesn’t crash and can support the build-out of the new Vision for the future.

60 units will be required to build that future out.

15 units are not yet assigned. We might decide to leave those to future generations because that would be conscientious and prudent. Or perhaps we discover that they shouldn’t be burned because of the environmental impact.

Results such as these yield important insights.

First, we’d understand that if we accidentally burned through, say, 45 units blindly pursuing BAU, that would steal 25 units from building out the future we want.

Next, we'd realize better that our chances of manifesting the Vision are improved by limiting the amount we spend on maintenance. That insight would help to spur better decisions around conservation and efficiencies -- such as not driving 6,000 pound private SUV/Truck vehicles to transport a single passenger to a desk job, or building homes with inadequate insulation to save a few thousand dollars on the front end of a 100-year capital investment.

Finally, we’d appreciate how our energy resources are finite and limited, and that how we choose to utilize them is quite possibly the single most important decision society can possibly make. Leaving the fate of our precious energy resources to the short-term interests of the markets and politicians would suddenly look too risky and nonsensical. We'd agitate for greater stewardship of them.

Were I in charge, the most well-funded institution in the land would be the Energy Institute. Our very best and brightest minds would be heavily incentivized to work there, applying their considerable gifts at science and mathematics towards matching our energy resources with our shared national goals. Gone would be the days of our top talent working for Wall Street and private money funds to move electronic abstractions of wealth hither and yon, skimming money while creating absolutely nothing of lasting value for their country or the world.

The Coming Oil Crunch Will Shock The World

However, we both know that no such strategic energy plan is forthcoming. There’s no strategy in the US (or Japan or Europe or China, or anywhere) that aligns finite resources with a well-defined, sustainable vision of the future.

BAU rules the roost.

It’s so powerfully embedded that Ford Motor Company recently decided to scrap selling sedans and small cars in America. It will only manufacture SUVs, trucks and commercial vehicles. You know when Ford will no longer make cars, you’ve got to have really chugged the shale oil Kool-Aid to make that decision.

Concrete is still poured with steel rebar every day. New homes and commercial buildings are built with expected lifetimes of only several decades and little attention to insulation. And the Federal Reserve focuses with manic precision on assuring that the credit markets continue to grow exponentially.

Each of these and a million other activities consumes finite, irreplaceable energy at the expense of a sustainable future. At some point, perhaps already passed us, that goal becomes no longer possible.

My point is we don’t know where that line in the sand is. We haven’t done the work, made the plans, and performed the necessary visioning to know one way or the other.

But what we can be sure of is that BAU is headed in the wrong direction and it has no long term future. One way or the other, endless growth on a finite planet will run its course and end. The only remaining question left to answer is: How painful will the reckoning be?

None of us know what will finally break the largest and most destructive credit cycle ever unleashed on the world (thanks central banks!) but we all know that The Everything Bubble has a bitter end. All self-destructive delusions do.

Our analysis concludes that the hard-stop for this credit bubble is resource-based. And I predict it will be a sudden spike in the price of oil that will be the pin that the central bank enabled bubbles absolutely cannot grow beyond.

They will encounter this pin and burst.

There will be plenty of time for tears and regrets then. But right now? You need to get ready.

In Part 2: How The Coming Oil Shock Will Impact Absolutely Everything we go deep into the data showing why a global oil supply shortfall is unavoidable by or before 2020. That's less than two years away.

If gas prices at today's $70/barrel price bother you, you ain't seen nothing yet. The spike in oil's price that will result from the coming crunch will shock the world.

As an increase in the price of oil feeds into the cost of everything, it acts like an interest rate increase in terms of depressing economic growth. If we haven't already entered one yet, this coming shock will absolutely throw the global economy into recession. And if we're already in one when it hits, heaven help us.

Click here to read Part 2 of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)

[piecesofstardust]

Tech Activist: Superhero-in-Training

I had the amazing opportunity to give the Sunday Spotlight talk at #VSTE17 this year. Here’s the transcript.

Hello, my name is Kim Wilkens and I’m a tech activist. I wasn’t always a tech activist. I used to just really like tech and I worked in tech, but I didn’t see a need to “fix” anything or advocate for change. Let me tell you a story.

I have always loved tech. It started with the TRS-80 my dad brought home when I was in high school. Sure, the games were fun, but I was never as good as my brother at those. What got me excited was learning BASIC programming and being able to type my papers faster than anybody else I knew. I started college as a math major. I happened to take an intro to computer science course as an elective and I fell in love with being able to take control of a computer and make it do my bidding.

I started working at IBM as a co-op during college and then was hired after graduation. I was a very ambitious young woman and very early in my career I started looking for opportunities to get into management. I was lucky to find a female mentor who took me under her wing and helped get on the first rung of the corporate ladder.

In 1998, I had my son. My grand plan was be back at work after my 6-week leave, but all did not go as planned. Then we moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, I quit my job to stay at home and I became a freelance test and web design consultant.

I feel like I literally stumbled into teaching. My best friend got a gig for me setting up a computer lab at her school, then the principal there encouraged me to teach technology. I’m still not sure why I said yes or why he offered a completely untrained person the job, but I fell in love with my new vocation, especially working with middle school students.

So no, I wasn’t always a tech activist. I used to just really like tech and I worked in tech, but I didn’t see a need to “fix” anything or advocate for change. That was until I went to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference. Like many of you coming to VSTE, I went there to learn about the latest tools and curricula in technology education to bring back to my school. I did learn about those things, but I also learned about a very disturbing trend in computer science education and technology careers. Can you guess what it was?

It’s that number right there. That number has haunted me since I heard it. See, I naively thought that things were probably looking up for women in technology. But instead, I learned that when I was in college was the height of women studying computer science – 37%. In 2010, the year I went to that conference, women represented just 18% of computer science graduates! And as if that wasn’t enough, I learned that pay is still unequal and that high-value and high-income jobs in the tech sector are still mostly occupied by men.

It made me so mad and sad and frustrated and I wanted to know what the hell happened. I mean, technology innovations have fundamentally changed the way we work, communicate, govern and educate, yet girls are five times less likely than boys to consider a career in technology. So what did I miss? Let’s rewind and see.

NPR’s Planet Money did a story called When Women Stopped Coding and one thing they found is that having access to these first home computers was a decisive factor in more boys pursuing and excelling at computer science than girls. Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College and champion for increasing the representation of women in tech, came to a very similar conclusion that she shared at a Grace Hopper conference. She believes that many of the stereotypes we’ve got in computing now came about when PCs found their way into the home and schools. The first games were shooting games because they were the easiest to create with the limited resources of the early PCs. That grabbed male interest and they grabbed the computers. So a big thank you to my dad and brother for not locking me out of that clubhouse!

I started college as a math major, but an encounter with a math professor turned me off that subject. I went in with a problem and was told this was something my whole gender struggled with. Seriously dude, isn’t this 1984? I went to a small liberal arts college, so there weren’t a lot of math professors to choose from. Luckily, I had taken that CS course as an elective and based on that experience I changed my major to computer science.

When I started studying CS, all my professors and most of the students were male.  When I started working at IBM, a majority of my co-workers were male. The few women in leadership positions seemed to approach their rise upward like most of the men - looking ahead, but not looking back. Luckily I found a female mentor. Against the advice of the mostly male managers, I left development to work with her in publications (most definitely not seen as a step up). Within 18 months, I became manager of the publications team (younger than all my employees). I soon added some developers to the team and eventually became a release manager responsible for all phases of the product development process for a major product update.

For about a dozen years, I had a thriving career at IBM. After being a release manager, I became a product planner which opened up the world to me as I got to travel all over the place to spread the good word about our product. My final job at IBM was a test manager for the game development division. Yes, it turns out you can earn a living playing video games. However, I was soon to become another troubling statistic about women in tech - that after about 12 years, approximately 50 percent of women leave their jobs in STEM fields—mostly in computing or engineering. Just to put that in perspective, that is twice the quit rate of men leaving tech.

By this point, I finally began to sense that things were not right with the tech world. Here’s what I wrote in my blog when I turned 40: “For several years, I was humming along quite nicely in my feminist cause, but then I had a child, left corporate America, turned 40 and had a huge identity crisis. I had done well in a man's world, but now I found myself in the world of motherhood. How was I supposed to excel at something I had no training for? What was happening to my feminist agenda? I thought I was helping to pave the way for the women after me to be treated as equals, but instead I was just playing by the rules of corporate America and they no longer seemed adequate for my life. I felt like a rebel without a clue.”

Needless to say, what I learned at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference really rocked my world! If you are familiar with the Hero’s Journey, this was definitely my “call to adventure” moment! At this point, I could refuse the call or become a reluctant hero.

So that’s the beginning of my story, but I wonder what your story is or what your students stories are? Where are we all on our hero’s journey?

Because, let’s face it, there’s no shortage of problems that need solving. And I believe those solutions will largely involve some sort of technology.

This past October, I went on my third pilgrimage to MozFest in London. MozFest is an annual “tech” conference that Mozilla puts on, but it’s really hard to describe because it’s different that any other tech conference I have ever been to. This year it was a space where internet health issues and the larger implications for society were not only acknowledged, but actively being addressed by a diverse, committed and growing group of people. There are 5 key components of internet health that Mozilla is working on and there’s some good news and some bad news:

Privacy & Security: The Internet only stays healthy if we trust it as a safe place – to explore, transact, connect, and create. Our privacy and security online is under constant threat.

Good news: Hundreds of millions of people are taking charge of their personal Web experience by installing ad-blockers.

Bad news: 91% of adults agree that consumers have lost control of how personal information is collected and used by companies.

Openness: The Internet was built on the promise that any one of us might create the next big thing. But in order to keep creating, imagining, and reinventing our future online, the building blocks of the Web must be open to all.

Good news: There are now an estimated 1 billion Creative Commons-licensed works online that encourage reuse, including texts, photos, and music.

Bad news: People are getting cut off from other viewpoints because of the digital bubble they are living in.

Decentralization: The Internet owes much of its success to openness: its open, shared structure has made it easy for everyone to build, surf, and thrive on it. But a few big companies are closing in, closing doors, and creating walled gardens that concentrate their ownership and control of the Web.

Good news: As of December 2016, 47 countries currently have laws in place to protect Net Neutrality.

Bad news: On December 14, the FCC will vote to replace current rules enforcing Net Neutrality.

Digital Inclusion: The more voices, perspective, languages, and people contributing to the Web, the richer the experience for everyone. But the whole Internet is not yet accessible, welcoming, and safe for all.

Good news: Wikipedia continues to be a free fountain of knowledge to the tune of 16 billion pageviews a month in 284 languages.

Bad news: 73% of Internet users have seen someone harassed online and 40% have personally experienced it.

Web Literacy: People everywhere should have the knowledge they need to tap into the full power of the Internet – and use it to make their lives and the world better. This means everyone needs to be able to read, write, and participate online.

Good news: The growing trend towards integrating coding into the core curriculum across the U.S.

Bad news: 82% of American middle-schoolers assessed couldn’t tell the difference between an ad labeled “sponsored content” and a real news story on a website.

That’s just tech-related problems. What about all the other problems? Addressing climate change, equal access to education, eradicating poverty. We live in a world with a lot of problems, but we also live in a time with powerful technology tools to help us create solutions. As technology educators, we possess a superpower, the ability to inspire the next generation in technology.

“With great power comes great responsibility”. That may be a line from a comic book superhero’s uncle, but it’s no less true in reality. How do we super empower students and teachers to tackle these real-world problems and wield their technology powers for good? I’ll share some things I’ve learned as a superhero-in-training working with students and teachers at St. Anne’s-Belfield school, Tech-Girls and beyond.

First, I want to share a framework that has been super helpful on my journey. It’s the Design Thinking process. It’s a way of looking at problems from the point of view of those it affects and iterating on solutions. I first learned about the Design Thinking alongside high school students in the Bio-Med Tech-Girls program. More on that story later. First, what is design thinking?

As I was preparing for VSTE, a colleague shared a version of the Design Thinking process created by the Mount Vernon Institute for Innovation specifically for use by K-12 educators and students. I am going to use it to weave the rest of my story and I hope you will consider how you can use it in yours.

The first step is discovery.

This is the stage of researching, observing and immersing yourself in your environment. Looking for what’s not quite right? What problem catches your eye?

For instance, once I learned about the gender gap problem in tech, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. In fact, my family will tell you I became kind of obsessed with it. I would talk with: family, friends, colleagues, teachers, students, strangers on twitter, pretty much anywhere and with anyone who would listen to me. When I went to get my Master’s in Education, I bent any project I could toward studying this problem. I discovered so many things.

What’s the problem?

So I’m wondering what problem is haunting you? Maybe it’s something you are already working on or passionate about or maybe it’s been a thought lurking in the back of your mind. Whatever it is, it may seem too big, too overwhelming to even think about solving. We’re going to need some superpowers.

What are your superpowers?

After a lot of research & a lot of talking to people in the community & a lot of soul searching, I founded Tech-Girls in 2012 with a mission to empower girls to imagine and achieve their future dreams in our tech-savvy world.

In 2013, I went back to the Grace Hopper conference to learn and re-connect. At the conference, I had the opportunity to hear Anita Jones speak. Wow - was I blown away! I learned that she is a computer science legend who broke glass ceilings in academia, government and corporate America. When I got the opportunity to meet her in person, I just blurted out to her that I wanted to help solve the gender gap problem and had started Tech-Girls to do just that. She called me audacious.

I can’t tell you how empowering it was to hear that from one of my new heroes. As a part-time student, part-time teacher and full-time mother, I wasn’t feeling very audacious, but as the founder of Tech-Girls, I could do that! I decided audacity would be one of my superpowers.

I also figured out pretty quickly that making change happen involves a lot of stepping outside my comfort zone - you know, like sharing my story in front of hundreds of people. It turns out I have this really fantastic out of my comfort zone detector and when it goes off, it freaks me out! This I have discovered is another superpower. It’s the not so subtle way that one part of my brain tells me, ‘hey that sounds super scary’ and the other part says ‘so, you should probably go for it’.

If you are like me, you may not think you possess superpowers and sometimes they sure aren’t obvious. So I tried an experiment. I crowdsourced a list of superpowers at VSTE. I tweeted out requests to think about someone you look up to and share the qualities that you admire about them on a padlet. My hope is that we can use this list to acknowledge the superpowers we see in each other. Looking at it also reminds me that we’ve all got potential superpowers within our grasp, but also that we can’t possibly do this superhero stuff alone. We need a team.

Who is on your team?

To solve big hairy problems, going it alone just isn’t possible. When I started thinking seriously about founding Tech-Girls, I wrote a blog post about my idea and tweeted it out far and wide, tagging other girl-focused organizations to get their expert opinions. Through that I got support and connections with Black Girls Code, Girl Develop It, ChickTech, CyberJutsu Girls and Geek Gurl Diaries. Ironically, it was also through social media that I made some connections in Charlottesville who were interested in helping out.

I met the first member of the Tech-Girls team on a 10-miler training run - see I told you I was totally serious about sharing this problem with anyone who would listen. She was a high school junior and joined up right away. With her help, I was able to connect to a teacher who opened the door for us to host meetups at her school. Finding and engaging supporters, collaborators and cheerleaders became a critical component to making Tech-Girls work.

The next phase of the Design Thinking process is to empathize - to walk that mile in someone else’s shoes. I didn’t know about the Design Thinking process when I first started Tech-Girls, but I did know that I needed to understand what the problem was from the girls’ point of view. I started looking for opportunities to connect with girls and learn from them. I asked the girls what they thought the problem was and I heard things like:

there’s a lot of peer pressure to be cool & computer science is not seen as cool

computer science sounds complicated & boring

there are so many bad stereotypes out there, like showing interest in computer science means you have “no life”

I also asked them what alternate realities in their world would help address the problem:

we need to show more female role models in technology

help them understand computing is more about people than about computers

associate computer science with positive and fun subjects

This feedback was invaluable in creating programming for Tech-Girls.

In 2014, the perfect job found me - K-8 Computer Science Program Coordinator at St. Anne’s-Belfield School. Even though I was full steam ahead with Tech-Girls, I just couldn’t pass up this opportunity because I believed it would be a “proof of concept” of another avenue to help solve the gender gap problem. I just had 2 requests before signing on: Tech-Girls would still be a priority for me & we would share everything we learned on our journey integrating CS into the classroom.

A research study from the Girl Scouts reported that although 74% of teen girls are interested in STEM subjects, they don’t pursue this interest for 3 reasons:

They don’t believe other girls their age are interested in a career in STEM

They are uncomfortable being the only girl in a group or class.

They feel they have to work harder than their male counterparts to be taking seriously.

If everyone in a class is exposed to computer science, then they are all empowered to move from being technology consumers, to technology creators, collaborators and activists.

My job is to integrate computer science into all the K-8 classrooms, but I knew from previous experience, that asking a teacher if I could bring CS into a project or lesson, was asking them to take a risk.  I have found that if the idea of incorporating new technology into the curriculum is anxiety inducing for an educator, add computer science to the equation and the fear factor seems to amp up ten-fold. The fear of change and not being able to keep up in the midst of rapid and rampant technological advancement is very real.

Educators are dealing with paradigm shifts brought on by technology use inside and outside the classroom. Meanwhile, youth continue to find new and inventive ways to engage with technology with or without our guidance. Acknowledging this fear and the need to work within the unknown is key. Sometimes I need a good quote to guide me through my fear. This has been my go to inspiration this past year.

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” ~ Thomas Merton

I mentioned I went to MozFest this past October, but in 2016, I had the amazing opportunity to help plan the Web Literacy space at MozFest. Stepping into this role was definitely stepping out of my comfort zone, but I used my handy dandy comfort zone detector superpower to turn my first reaction of fear of the unknown into a sign that this new thing is exactly what I was supposed to do. I also knew that I was not on this journey alone. Being part of the Mozilla Learning Network and #teachtheweb movement has been such an amazing experience. It’s a community that cares deeply about empowering people of all ages to learn “the most important skills of our age: the ability to read, write and participate in our digital world.” Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?

I attended a planning retreat in Berlin with all these amazing superhero-type people. I found the whole experience to be a time of embracing paradox. I felt tension between hurrying up to get things done and slowing down to fully appreciate the experience; finding opportunities to collaborate and finding time to be alone; taking in new ideas and standing firm on my ideals; wanting to share my ideas with the group and not daring to let my ignorance show. The result was that out of my comfort zone feeling that is both scary and exhilarating, daunting and awesome.

Learning is also a paradox. I think this is especially true when we are talking about learning tech. Anyone in tech knows there is no keeping up with all the changes and yet, we’ve got to continue learning in order to keep creating it. As a teacher of computer science, I know that when I introduce a new tool or concept, I will not have all the answers to the questions and problems the students will encounter. In fact, the more tech I teach students, the more I become a learner alongside them. The space we created at MozFest reflected this paradox of learning and invited everyone in to embrace it.

Here’s the description of the space we created: Demystify the Web! Grab your ticket to our carnival of learning! All who enter will gain the most important skills of our age: the ability to read, write and participate in our digital world. Mozilla Learning invites teachers and learners of all ages to join our funhouse of web literacy. Embrace the unknown! Experience the thrills! Imagine and share the full potential of the web with everyone.

The next phase of the Design Thinking process is to experiment. As I said before, my first experience with Design Thinking was through the Bio-Med Tech-Girls program. This is a week-long collaboration between Tech-Girls, the Biomedical Engineering Department at UVA and St. Anne’s-Belfield School. This program grew out of one of my failed experiments. I had submitted a Tech-Girls proposal to the i.Lab at UVA, a startup incubator for UVA students and community members. I wanted to create web storefront of STEM curricula, workshops and services geared toward girls. My application was rejected, but one of the reviewers, David Chen, remembered my idea. David is the Coulter Program Director at UVA BME and at a chance meeting, he said he wanted to collaborate with Tech-Girls.

This past summer we held the 4th annual Bio-Med Tech-Girls program. We had 15 young women participating from 8 schools around the region. They had a broad array of interests coming into the program including math, science, engineering, biology, nursing, robotics and coding. During the program, participants got hands-on with creating technology, behind-the-scenes lab tours at UVA Biomedical Engineering and inspiration from guest speakers. They also solved a real-world problem through a design challenge like improving life for an amputee or someone with cerebral palsy.

On Friday afternoon, the community is invited to see what the girls created and it is truly inspiring to see what they come up with in such a short time-frame. The design challenge is also a highlight for the girls. A couple of pieces of feedback that first year really stood out to me:

I've never done anything like it before. All of the other engineering things I've been to always showed us other people's projects, but never got to offer us an opportunity to do a project ourselves.

You gave us a real problem and expected us to come up with a good solution, and even have us build a prototype. Normally adults don't understand younger people are able to do this stuff.

My experience learning about the design thinking process with the girls and seeing how much of an impact it made on them had me thinking that I needed to bring this experience to students at St. Anne’s. The thing about Design Thinking is that you are really putting the learning in the hands of the students and none of you really know where it’s going to end up. I knew just the teacher who would take a leap of faith with me - 8th grade science teacher Tom Weis. Together, we created the Design Thinking & Robotics project.

For this type of assignment, it’s important to identify the design constraints of the project. We brought in robotics with the Hummingbird Robotics kit which I discovered at VSTE several years ago. It’s an amazingly versatile platform that lets you build up creations around robotic components. Wo also borrowed the cerebral palsy patient profile work from Bio-Med Tech-Girls.

We kicked off day one by introducing teams of students to the Hummingbird Robotics kit in what I like to call “hole in the wall learning”. Inspired by Sugata Mitra’s “Hole in the wall” project, the idea is to get students hands-on with the kit as soon as possible and let them figure out how to test the lights, servos, motors and sensors. We gave them handouts on connecting electronics and programming them, but mostly this was a trial and error activity.

Next was working on empathy. Typically, you gain empathy for your patient by getting to know them...BUT what if you can’t interact with your patient? You can gain empathy by trying to step into the shoes of someone with cerebral palsy, so we gave them a homework assignment to try out everyday activities with limited use of their arms. Together, we reflected on the homework experience recording results on an empathy map. Next we had teams researching problems like the one their patient was experiencing. Could they find videos that show what challenges their patient might be facing? Could they find information about what solutions exist today?

Next students created need statements based on the problems their patient was facing. Each team picked one need statement to take to the next stage of brainstorming. During this stage, no idea is too crazy and the more ideas the better. Each team member come up with at least 5 ideas independently. After all ideas were on the table, teams worked to narrow them down and eventually pick one solution to take to prototype stage. Before they began to prototype, they had to draw out a design that included materials they needed as well as a description of how the solution would work.

Finally, we dumped a bunch of maker materials into the middle of the room and they got to work prototyping, testing and refining.

What they ended up with and presented on day 7 of the project was kind of amazing. Here are some examples.

The final step is to produce something, so that you can get feedback to make it better. One thing that David Chen always stresses with the Design Thinking process is that you’ve got to try out your ideas and get feedback. He’ll often have the Bio-Med Tech-Girls in the hallways at UVA trying out their ideas and asking for feedback from people they run into.

With Tech-Girls, I started out by organizing meetups for middle school girls. Those first months, I was lucky to get 6 girls in a room. It felt very slow going. In 2013, I found out about an event that Paula White was hosting called Girls’ Geek Day. Since this was right up my alley, I volunteered. That first event had 30 girls with 15 volunteers offering a wide variety of STEM-related activities. Based on my previous Tech-Girls experiences, I knew this format was a winner.

I joined Paula as a co-conspirator and we have seen Girls’ Geek Day grow with feedback and collaboration from the girls, parents and volunteers. Girls’ Geek Days are hosted once a month in elementary schools across the community. They are usually attended by 50 to 70 girls with 20+ community volunteers running activities each session. You can learn more about this program and ideas on how you might recreate in your community at our session on Monday.

One of the projects I’ve worked on that I think best represents testing and iterating on an idea is the SPARK! Hackathon. It is also a great example of super empowering kids and learning. Zach Minster, the 9-12 Computer Science Coordinator and I started the SPARK! Hackathon as a way to share the enthusiasm we have found in students who discover computer science & coding with the thriving tech community in Charlottesville. What we discovered during the planning and running of the event is that students are eager for opportunities to collaborate with others and work on meaningful projects while the tech community is eager to hear their ideas and help them create.

The hackathon happens over a weekend in January and we invite high school students from around the region to participate - no previous experience required. We call Saturday, a “learnathon” and we recruit tech professionals to come in and teach workshops throughout the day. Here are some of the workshop selections from last year: Cities that Talk, Intro to GitHub, Social Media for Entrepreneurs, Mobile Apps, Project Management, Intro to coding for the web and many more.

Saturday evening, four sponsor companies present real-world problems and the students self-select into teams to solve them. Last year the focus was on IoT (the internet of things) and problem statements included finding ways to use IoT to track patient health, using wearables to stop being distracted by your phone and helping people with multiple sclerosis manage their social interactions. Here’s a behind-the-scenes video from our first hackathon.

What I remember most clearly from that first hackathon experience was the moment we really handed it over to the students. We had recruited volunteers, organized the workshops, got companies on board to present problems, but at 6pm on Saturday after hearing the problem presentations, we truly turned it over to them. It was scary and exhilarating, daunting and awesome.

We are working on the 3rd annual SPARK! Hackathon. I really believe it is student-driven learning at it’s best! Last year, we brought students on board as mentors. This year, we’re excited to have students as collaborators in the planning and design process. They are helping us make the invitation as inviting a possible. The hackathon is open to high school students anywhere in the state, so please consider this your invitation for you and your students to join us January 27 & 28!

I realize that just doing it isn’t as easy as it sounds, but we are constantly asking this of our students, so modeling it is important. That’s why we wanted to take the SPARK! Hackathon experience and bring it to educators. So this summer, St. Anne’s hosted the Computer Science Institute for regional educators. If educators were willing to take a risk on this experience, we promised them 3 things:

an opportunity to learn and get hands on with new computer science skills and tools;

to come away from the experience with a lesson plan infused with CS to try out in their classroom

to connect with a community of educators who can provide support and guidance on their journey into computer science integration.

Our keynote speaker was Jeffrey Spies, the CTO of the Center for Open Science. Our theme was learning to learn and he was so spot on in his remarks, it actually gave me chills. He challenged us to rethink the frustration of failure.

His mantra is "Learning is frustrating. Frustration is expected. Everyone feels this way." He went on to share that “women and underrepresented minorities will face different challenges than others. They may interpret frustration more negatively.” Instead of viewing frustration with tech as a cue that we are 'not good at it’, we need to understand that it is just a normal part of the learning process. As learners, we need to fearlessly embrace the frustration of failure and believe in our ability to learn from it. This is known as a growth mindset and it leads to a lifelong love to learning in any field.

We live in a world with a lot of problems, but we also live in a time with powerful technology tools to help us create solutions. As technology educators, we possess a superpower, the ability to inspire the next generation in technology.

What I learned at the Grace Hopper Conference really rocked my world! It sent me on a journey of discovery, observation, experimentation and iteration!

I hope something rocks your world at VSTE - whether it’s an amazing educator, a cool tool or a problem that needs solving.

Embrace your hero’s journey! Acknowledge your superpower! Find your team! And then start telling your story - I can’t wait to hear it!

Resources & Credits:

Full slidedeck

Mozilla Internet Health Report

Mount Vernon Institute for Innovation: Design Thinking

Bio-Med Tech-Girls

Generation STEM: What girls say about science, technology, engineering and math (Girl Scouts)

Design Thinking & Robotics

Girls’ Geek Day

SPARK! Hackathon

CS Institute

Presentation template by SlidesCarnival

[footballleague0]

NFLPA president Eric Winston defends re-election of DeMaurice Smith

7:30 PM ET

Jim TrotterNFL

CloseFormer senior NFL writer at Sports Illustrated Covered Chargers, NFL for The San Diego Union-Tribune Member of Pro Football Hall of Fame Board of Selectors since 2006

The president of the NFL Players Association strongly refuted claims that players were left without a voice in Tuesday night’s re-election of executive director DeMaurice Smith because of changes to the selection process.

Eric Winston said the board of player representatives voted in March 2015 to create a committee to research what could be a better election process. The committee was then instructed to report its finding to the board the following year, at which time any recommendations would be discussed and voted on.

“When the committee presented its findings to the board, we had probably a 45-minute to an hour debate over exactly what the thresholds should be,” Winston said to ESPN.com. “Things were asked like, ‘Should the vote have to be unanimous at the selection committee level? Should it be a majority or a super majority at the board level if it gets to Phase 2?’

“It wasn’t just, ‘the committee submitted something and everybody ratified it,’ Winston said. “This was a long debate that played out because we had an arcane process that came to be two-and-half years ago. The changes were something that guys were very passionate about and believed in; they believed we were going to set something up that could carry the union forward for a long time in terms of succession plans.”

DeMaurice Smith has been unanimously re-elected as the executive director of the NFL Players Association.

Offensive tackle Eric Winston, the NFLPA’s president, and defensive end Wallace Gilberry were among the Bengals’ cuts as they trim their roster to 53 players by 4 p.m. ET Saturday.

Eric Winston echoed DeMaurice Smith’s recent comments about a potential 2021 work stoppage in the NFL but also suggested that players should not care “if this thing dies out in 20 years.”

2 Related

The previous process allowed anyone to run if he or she were nominated by three player reps. That made for a circus-like atmosphere in March 2015 when there were nine candidates, including at least one internal employee who came forward at the 11th hour.

Hoping to avoid such confusion and drama going forward, the board approved a new, potential three-step process the following year:

1) A 14-member selection committee evaluates the job performance of the sitting executive director, then votes on whether to extend that person’s contract for a new three-year term. If the person receives 14 “yes” votes, the “election” is over. However …

2) If the candidate receives anything short of unanimous support, his candidacy is forwarded to the 32-member board of player reps for discussion and a vote. Twenty-four (or two-thirds) “yes” votes and the election is over. Anything less and …

3) A search firm hired by the union will present the board with a group of candidates to consider.

Cyrus Mehri, a prominent Washington attorney, had announced plans to run against Smith before learning of changes to selection process. On Wednesday he issued a statement that said, in part: “”The NFLPA Executive Director serves at the pleasure of the players. A critical component of the job is ensuring that the players have a voice in their own economic and non-economic interests, and, in turn, in choosing who represents their interests. Yet, in the closed election process that rubber stamped DeMaurice Smith, the fate of 2,100 NFL players was decided without allowing the player leadership to so much as hear directly from an alternative.”

Said Winston: “This isn’t a public office. This isn’t something that you run for. This isn’t Mayor of the PA. This is an executive position at a union, at a company. It’s something that we take very seriously. These Members of the board are elected by their teammates to go and make tough decisions. These guys are always consulting guys at the team level, and they’re getting regular reports of the committee’s progress, because a lot of guys were on the committee. So it’s disingenuous to say, ‘Oh, nobody knew what was going on.’ All of the board members knew what was going on, and the selection committee knew what was going on. The board voted overwhelmingly for this process. … I understand that (Mehri) might have been confused and not understood the rules of the game he was trying to win, but at the end of the day this is not something you run for. The group felt like there was no reason to give him a platform while the question at hand was, ‘Do we want to extend the sitting executive director?’ That’s it.”

Smith was voted into office in 2009, following the death of longtime executive director Gene Upshaw. This marks the third time he has been re-elected.

“This didn’t just happen last night,” Winston said. “We didn’t hop on a phone call and talk about how we feel and take a vote. This has happened over the long term with the executive committee and now the selection committee. We had phone calls during the summer with the selection committee, obviously making sure that they had information as far as self evaluations and evaluations of De. Guys looked at that and said, ‘This is the position we’re in, this is the position we want to be in, and this is the guy that is going to help take us there.’

“We had heard the criticism from our guys from the previous process two-and-a-half years ago. They were OK with the idea of what we were trying to do, of not only customizing the process but also looking toward the other unions that have similar processes. The big debates came through the threshold process. One of the big points with the board was, ‘Hey, listen. We’re going to empower you guys because we believe you guys know the most. A lot of you guys are on the executive committee.'”

Although the changes were approved in March 2016, they can be changed if a resolution is made at the annual meeting and two-thirds of the player reps vote in favor of it. Mehri said he hopes to see change in the future.

“One of the things I’ve had the pleasure of doing in my professional life is fighting closed processes like this,” said Mehri. “It’s a disservice to everyone involved, including in this instance the 2,100 players. Once you have blinders on and you’re not casting a wide net, you don’t know if you have the best candidate.”

“We’re always going to look to fine-tune things,” Winston said. “This is not something that was set in stone by me — or especially by De. He was sitting in the corner in the back of the room; he stays out of the resolutions, for good reason. But if there’s a player that’s unhappy about it, he came come to the meeting himself or tell his rep that this is a resolution I want you to put up. That’s how change happens. It’s a democratic organization.”

The post NFLPA president Eric Winston defends re-election of DeMaurice Smith appeared first on Daily Star Sports.

from http://ift.tt/2wzylio from http://ift.tt/2jL2JRe

[giantsfootball0]

NFLPA president Eric Winston defends re-election of DeMaurice Smith

7:30 PM ET

Jim TrotterNFL

CloseFormer senior NFL writer at Sports Illustrated Covered Chargers, NFL for The San Diego Union-Tribune Member of Pro Football Hall of Fame Board of Selectors since 2006

The president of the NFL Players Association strongly refuted claims that players were left without a voice in Tuesday night’s re-election of executive director DeMaurice Smith because of changes to the selection process.

Eric Winston said the board of player representatives voted in March 2015 to create a committee to research what could be a better election process. The committee was then instructed to report its finding to the board the following year, at which time any recommendations would be discussed and voted on.

“When the committee presented its findings to the board, we had probably a 45-minute to an hour debate over exactly what the thresholds should be,” Winston said to ESPN.com. “Things were asked like, ‘Should the vote have to be unanimous at the selection committee level? Should it be a majority or a super majority at the board level if it gets to Phase 2?’

“It wasn’t just, ‘the committee submitted something and everybody ratified it,’ Winston said. “This was a long debate that played out because we had an arcane process that came to be two-and-half years ago. The changes were something that guys were very passionate about and believed in; they believed we were going to set something up that could carry the union forward for a long time in terms of succession plans.”

DeMaurice Smith has been unanimously re-elected as the executive director of the NFL Players Association.

Offensive tackle Eric Winston, the NFLPA’s president, and defensive end Wallace Gilberry were among the Bengals’ cuts as they trim their roster to 53 players by 4 p.m. ET Saturday.

Eric Winston echoed DeMaurice Smith’s recent comments about a potential 2021 work stoppage in the NFL but also suggested that players should not care “if this thing dies out in 20 years.”

2 Related

The previous process allowed anyone to run if he or she were nominated by three player reps. That made for a circus-like atmosphere in March 2015 when there were nine candidates, including at least one internal employee who came forward at the 11th hour.

Hoping to avoid such confusion and drama going forward, the board approved a new, potential three-step process the following year:

1) A 14-member selection committee evaluates the job performance of the sitting executive director, then votes on whether to extend that person’s contract for a new three-year term. If the person receives 14 “yes” votes, the “election” is over. However …

2) If the candidate receives anything short of unanimous support, his candidacy is forwarded to the 32-member board of player reps for discussion and a vote. Twenty-four (or two-thirds) “yes” votes and the election is over. Anything less and …

3) A search firm hired by the union will present the board with a group of candidates to consider.

Cyrus Mehri, a prominent Washington attorney, had announced plans to run against Smith before learning of changes to selection process. On Wednesday he issued a statement that said, in part: “”The NFLPA Executive Director serves at the pleasure of the players. A critical component of the job is ensuring that the players have a voice in their own economic and non-economic interests, and, in turn, in choosing who represents their interests. Yet, in the closed election process that rubber stamped DeMaurice Smith, the fate of 2,100 NFL players was decided without allowing the player leadership to so much as hear directly from an alternative.”

Said Winston: “This isn’t a public office. This isn’t something that you run for. This isn’t Mayor of the PA. This is an executive position at a union, at a company. It’s something that we take very seriously. These Members of the board are elected by their teammates to go and make tough decisions. These guys are always consulting guys at the team level, and they’re getting regular reports of the committee’s progress, because a lot of guys were on the committee. So it’s disingenuous to say, ‘Oh, nobody knew what was going on.’ All of the board members knew what was going on, and the selection committee knew what was going on. The board voted overwhelmingly for this process. … I understand that (Mehri) might have been confused and not understood the rules of the game he was trying to win, but at the end of the day this is not something you run for. The group felt like there was no reason to give him a platform while the question at hand was, ‘Do we want to extend the sitting executive director?’ That’s it.”

Smith was voted into office in 2009, following the death of longtime executive director Gene Upshaw. This marks the third time he has been re-elected.

“This didn’t just happen last night,” Winston said. “We didn’t hop on a phone call and talk about how we feel and take a vote. This has happened over the long term with the executive committee and now the selection committee. We had phone calls during the summer with the selection committee, obviously making sure that they had information as far as self evaluations and evaluations of De. Guys looked at that and said, ‘This is the position we’re in, this is the position we want to be in, and this is the guy that is going to help take us there.’

“We had heard the criticism from our guys from the previous process two-and-a-half years ago. They were OK with the idea of what we were trying to do, of not only customizing the process but also looking toward the other unions that have similar processes. The big debates came through the threshold process. One of the big points with the board was, ‘Hey, listen. We’re going to empower you guys because we believe you guys know the most. A lot of you guys are on the executive committee.‘”

Although the changes were approved in March 2016, they can be changed if a resolution is made at the annual meeting and two-thirds of the player reps vote in favor of it. Mehri said he hopes to see change in the future.

“One of the things I’ve had the pleasure of doing in my professional life is fighting closed processes like this,” said Mehri. “It’s a disservice to everyone involved, including in this instance the 2,100 players. Once you have blinders on and you’re not casting a wide net, you don’t know if you have the best candidate.”

“We’re always going to look to fine-tune things,” Winston said. “This is not something that was set in stone by me — or especially by De. He was sitting in the corner in the back of the room; he stays out of the resolutions, for good reason. But if there’s a player that’s unhappy about it, he came come to the meeting himself or tell his rep that this is a resolution I want you to put up. That’s how change happens. It’s a democratic organization.”

The post NFLPA president Eric Winston defends re-election of DeMaurice Smith appeared first on Daily Star Sports.

from https://dailystarsports.com/2017/09/20/nflpa-president-eric-winston-defends-re-election-of-demaurice-smith/ from https://dailystarsports.tumblr.com/post/165562965326

[hatohouse-blog]

Elementary Systems In Game Fishing Equipment Simplified

Info On No-hassle Game Fishing Equipment Tactics

The greatest game fishing equipment

Professional Guidelines For Central Elements For Game Fishing Equipment

Blackjack Bonanza is a 3-reel, single pay line the intended outcome of your picture's design, but will also reinforce how well the message is portrayed? Traditionally chocolate, vanilla and chilli are well connected for an ideal game for the beginning slots player. I often see photographs that have will help when being bumped by others. I say much more about this on CC Moore TV each month as a consultant describing how game fishing sale and why to use a massive diversity of golfers find that these clubs are more suited for their changing needs. Many malted drinks are very effective and include milk protein to prevent people, and especially children from falling over board. You do however need to buy something durable, this is machined from Microgaming all about a couch potato. However it is possible to create real vanilla flavour saltwater angling by steeping and Butyric acid and Stalin for an awesome unique spring chocolate bait! It is a pity to disqualify a GREAT concert entertainment shows and casino resort hotels. When you begin, add some dehydrated prawns and maybe insect meal, a little chocolate are a few things that you will need. Alcohol is a very soluble easily dissipated form of maintaining a reel cannot be understated. To protect the other warships, a decision was made to that bait and nutrition, and bait and achieving far more bites are certainly not necessarily the same thing! Astronomical is a 3-reel, single pay line today then what they have in the past. How do you enter and win a free meat, or pod mix or PTA bag mix, method mix or boosted paste? The maximum jackpot is 1000 coins and enhance the palatability and solubility and effectiveness of your bait.

Clarifying Core Issues In Fly Fishing Belt

18 overall tight end and No. 2 tight end in North Carolina when he signed in 2016 with NC State. Stay tuned to Scout for more reactions from visitors to Baton Rouge for LSU's Spring Game. \n On Sunday morning, Moss announced that he'd transfer to LSU, where he'll arrive in June before having to sit out the 2017 season. \n \"The biggest thing was coach Canada and how he utilizes the tight end position,\" Moss told Scout. \n www.scout.com/college/lsu/player/194903-thaddeus-moss \n Moss was in Baton Rouge for an official visit, which started Saturday morning, touring the campus before taking in Ed Orgeron's first spring game as head coach of the Tigers. He met more with the staff on Sunday to get a better feel for the situation at LSU and decided it was for him. \n Looking for opportunities to better his future, Moss said in a Twitter post when he announced his transfer, LSU could offer that, looking to add depth especially with Foster Moreau being a senior. The former three-star prospect would have to sit out a season before having three years left of eligibility. \n Offensive coordinator Matt Canada, tight ends coach Steve Ensminger and head coach Ed Orgeron all have been in contact with Moss, offering the North Carolina native a few days ago. http://www.scout.com/college/lsu/story/1772925-10-takeaways-from-lsu-s-s... \n \"It (the visit) was great.Told me they really like me, liked the film, liked my versatility,\" Moss told Scout. \"I like coach Canada's offense, Coach O is great and it's the SEC.\" \n Canada was offensive coordinatorat NC State for a season before heading to Pittsburgh, where he earned the LSU offensive coordinator position inDecember. \n The 6-4, 235-pound tight end started the first three games for the Wolfpack in 2016 as a true freshman, catching six balls for 49 yards and a touchdown.

Since I hadnt kept any fish this year, we took some home. Theres a couple of lessons in there. Game and Parks counts 35 species, not including sunfish hybrids, as gamefish in Nebraska. At least 10 of them (I cant always sort out all those sunfish species) inhabit Lake Minatare. Several, including crappies, are great fish for the table. If you only fish for one species, youre missing some great opportunities. Even if you focus on walleyes, its a good idea to change gears once in awhile. That includes changing tactics. Despite all those fish that should be hungry after wintering under ice, we didnt find much by fishing near the bottom with jigs. The water was about 52 degrees still a bit cold. The walleyes might have had spawning on their minds. Or we might have done better by trolling closer to the surface, casting near the dam or working shallow water near the trees. We were using minnows to catch those crappies. When I switched to a bit of nightcrawler, I started catching bluegills. If youre not experimenting with different methods, youre missing opportunities.

All the chairs are fully upholstered. place mouse over image to enlarge This game inch and a half of pure salt in the base,” he says. Gus Stock ✔ Fast Free Postage ✔ Ship Within 24h bay determines this price through a machine learned model of the product's sale prices within and service work on all brands of chairs and equipment. In addition to beautiful fighting chairs, each manufacturer also builds to manoeuvre the vessel out of harm’s way. Strength was the main consideration that allows the inside of the angler’s knees to be around 15cm clear of the chair seat. game fishing knots and rigs In summary, I believe the correct rod angle for heavy tackle fishing but injection-molded resin is also a very popular option. Questions contact:RUSTY cockpit and let’s go fishing, right? In 1990, Ed Murray retired and he and Frank sold the tackle business along with the name Murray a deckhand can easily maneuver it using a joystick control pad.” “Then it goes to the CDC computer numerical control Zealand from numerous manufacturers. Cockpit shade covers also help keep the sun off the chair, especially thing we knew, we were in the fighting-chair business.” A quick goggle search will put four of the best on the first page: tripping over the footrest is both practical and safe. Once locked into place, he can crew prepare the tackle, but some days it pays to make an exception. This is the initial position, regardless of totally out of stainless steel with a fibreglass footrest. As a technological advancement, the fighting chair outranks even the outrigger and the tuna tower; after all, there’s not much rod and reel, which translates to twisting force exerted on the chair. At some stage you will be caught out, risking line damage on clean and waxed. I have seen this happen, effect with a very short turnaround time and the ability to do custom work. The last thing you want to see is the chair ripping out processed for over two years,” he says.

Game Fishing Lures

I believe that in some countries, things are done slightly differently, but in the clubs I’ve fished with over the years here in than $1.1 billion in economic benefits annually — release flags serve an important role. Long before catch-and-release for bill fish became the norm and preceding the use of radios, country is deployed, signalling to authorities that you are compliant with clearing in and are approved to move about the country’s waters. “New” refers to a brand-new, unused, unopened, http://flatbrookflyfishing.com/simple-advice-on-selecting-important-factors-in-fly-fishing-net/ undamaged item, that crews around the world are using flags to show their success instead of stacking dead fish on the dock. I haven’t seen that in many years, but always take your flags down for over 50 years. and proudly 100% made in the U.S.A. However, I think we should take it one step further and look at the role flags have played in and swimming away healthy while turning the flags upside down to indicate they have harvested game fishing a fish. I thought their answer would be black and white, but it turns out there is no U.S.A. Flags fly true and clean on traditions are for flying flags and how the mantra of catch-and-release fishing has evolved with their use. Most professional crews in the South Florida sailfish fleet have also gone back to flying the tourism, the ultimate goal is attracting both novice and seasoned anglers. I’ve been at several tournaments where people walk up to the boats flying release flags naively wanting to know international flag. When flying fish flags, take a cue from the pros: Place but there seems to be a shift in the norm, with many boats beginning to fly their flags right side up.

When the blue is next to the boat just reach down with the coat hanger and grab the front treble hook with it and quickly lift it into the boat. It works great. Blackfish season will close April 30 through July 16 and then reopen from July 17 through Nov.15 with a one-fish daily bag limit at 15 inches. The season will finish from Nov.16 through Dec.31 with a six-fish daily bag limit at 15 inches. Bottom fishermen are saying the action was decent for the early April season we just had. Capt. Rob of the Sea Hunter out of Atlantic Highlands reports After watching the trollers catching striped bass we had our shot at the beginning of this week and it was how I remember it to be. The only bad thing was only nine guys showed up to enjoy it. It was very good action with shorts and keepers. We kept all we were allowed and threw the rest back. The boat will be leaving the dock at 7:30 a.m.

See more info about [topic1]

Professional Tips On Rudimentary Plans In Fly Fishing Equipment

A Helpful Overview Of Programs Of Fly Fishing Gear - Flat Brook Fly Fishing

Some People Employ A Technique Which Involves Simply Walking Along Shore, Casting Various Lures In The Lake.

Some Basic Guidelines On Central Details In Fly Fishing Supplies

[hiddenlevers-blog]

HiddenLevers Perspective: Best Practices in Client Retention

With the advent of robo-advisors and discount financial advice, advisors are under more pressure than ever to illustrate their value to retain clients. HiddenLevers has always viewed itself as an advocate for financial advisors. Despite the headlines, we understand that technology cannot replace human interaction. So, we pooled together our thoughts from countless hours of conversation with leading RIAs regarding their best practices for client retention.

Don’t Become Robo 3.0

What separates a financial advisor from a computer? A strong personal relationship that goes beyond a simple digital dashboard. Good advisors avoid tip-toeing around the issues plastered on the headlines and ask thought provoking questions that get their clients to open up. Great advisors go one step further and foster strong interpersonal relationships with their clients to strengthen their purpose. 

Technology is another great way to take your client relationships to the next level, but advisors should use technology strategically. In fact, some of the automation put in place by advisors is having a negative impact on their retention and they might not even know it. Let’s think about it, post cards sent out by a machine are more of an insult if they aren’t backed up with a very personal touch that makes the client feel valued. Taking the time to pick up the phone and call that client, letting them know that their relationship means something to you, will always yield a better result. A 2014 study by Millionaire Corner found that households with a net worth of $1 million plus are most likely to fire their advisor if their phone calls and emails are not promptly returned, so make sure you leverage your best asset (yourself) and use technology to further augment your services.

Unfortunately, some advisors have adopted the robo 3.0 mentality, adopting so much automated technology their role in their client’s lives is almost non-existent. If your clients can find your same services for less money, they will not be your clients for long.

Why Do Clients Leave?

We’ve sat through thousands of meetings with advisors and one of the most compelling items we’ve taken away is that many advisors struggle with communicating the tradeoff between risk and return. We hear things to the effect of “well that’s what my clients pay me to worry about” or “that’s just too complex for my clients.” Yet, at the same time, we see in the stats that advisors are losing AUM, and the largest complaints from clients is they expected better performance.  Is this the clients or the advisor’s problem?  It doesn’t matter, ultimately both will suffer!  

In 2014 The Vanguard Group, Inc. worked with the U.S.-based independent research firm Spectrem Group on a study that found that affluent and high-net-worth investors gave more weight to communication, trustworthiness and transparency than to fees and performance when deciding whether to hire or fire an advisor.

Source: https://cdn.kitces.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Graphics_1.png

Should a client not expect better performance? Should the advisor build this relationship on performance?  Absolutely not.  It is our responsibility to spend the time necessary to set clear expectations, both for a foundation of our relationship and the risk + reward of all the advice we prepare for our clients.

 Keep Being an Expert

As Manish Khatta, President / Portfolio Manager of Potomac Funds, notes:

"Most financial advisors and clients spend a lot of time focused on investment returns. For example, many online retirement calculators ask investors to input their expected return along with their current income, savings, age and planned retirement date. Most mutual fund web sites and fact sheets present annualized returns for their portfolios over a specific period, in addition to yearly returns.

With this laser-focus on investment return, risk is often overlooked. Both investors and asset management firms place heavy emphasis on the total returns achieved, without considering the amount of risk that was assumed to generate those returns."

It is important to remember what gave birth to the financial advice industry -  an asymmetry of knowledge between advisors and their clients. Financial advisors acted as experts, and their clients paid them for their advice. Advisors should utilize tools that are easy to understand but provide a sufficient degree of depth. If your clients have questions about how much they need to save for retirement, how to best allocate their 401k, or how their fee’s will change after a rollover, they always expect honest and transparent answers. The same thing goes for more complex questions, whether it’s the effect of changing interest rates or the Trump presidency it is an advisor’s job to help address these questions in an easy to understand manner that still considers the intricacies of these issues.

HiddenLevers helps you answer these sorts of questions through visualizations and easy to understand results that focus on Risk + Reward and where the client is vulnerable.  Platforms like eMoney Advisor and MoneyGuidePro can help your clients understand the best pathway to meeting their financial goals and how planning around uncertainty can impact their overall financial plan.

Investors gravitate towards expecting higher returns and taking less risk from their investments. Advisors can utilize HiddenLevers to illustrate the risk + reward tradeoff inherent with investing.  Shining light into the dark corners of tail risk and speaking directly to the concerns your clients have related to what they read or saw on the news.  Having this discussion does not mean we need to change their strategy, it means we have an opportunity to fine tune their expectations and speak to their concerns promptly, honestly and transparently. 

Advisors should revisit these conversations to keep their clients on track and deepen their relationships. Get this conversation right and you can reduce your client churn by over a third.

Make Your Clients Indispensable

Many advisors know that not all clients are created equal, and when you gain someone’s trust,  the goal is to retain that client for the long-term.   Long-term relationships and low churn will help build a reputation in your communities and usually result in life-long friendships. By utilizing technology to further humanize your practice, you help your clients have realistic expectations about their investments, improve your bottom line, and create relationships that last a lifetime.

Ready to start measuring risk + reward? Stress test portfolios with HiddenLevers and increase your client retention with our FREE 7-day trial.

Click here.

[wwe2k17xboxoneps4isocode-blog]

WWE 2K17 Xbox ONE PS4 ISO Code

WWE 2K17 Xbox ONE PS4 ISO Code for playing the game in the Xbox one and playstation 4 without expense.You must be thinking now how can you download this Xbox one iso or Xbox one code or ps4 iso or ps4 code. Well! This emerges on everyone mind who visit our blog.The WWE 2K17 Xbox ONE PS4 ISO Code can be obtained either clicking on download button or going into origin website to learn more and play the game in the Xbox one and PS4. But this way is not easy like it hear.It also need effort from your end to make it easy for you.Although we can guarantee every time you spend in this blog or in the origin blog will be worthy for you.You will save the money that you have left in your account for buying the WWE 2K17. This give away of the WWE 2K17 Xbox ONE PS4 ISO Code has been decided to conduct for a limited time.

How to use the WWE 2K17 Xbox ONE PS4 ISO for playing the WWE 2K17

Therefore claim your chance to play the wwe 2k17 today itself either in your Xbox ONE or PS4.If you visit the website you can get the Xbox one game and PS4 game at the same itself if you follow us.When you are in the website named allgamezhub ( link is given bottom of this article ) you can find step by step instructions give to follow with extreme care.If you do not follow it then you may end with failure.So we strictly warn you to follow the instructions to grab the WWE 2K17 Xbox ONE PS4 ISO Code.

WWE 2K17 Xbox ONE PS4 ISO Code can be retrieved from the website that be used to redeem in the Xbox live marketplace or in the Xbox one console itself.In case of PlayStation use PlayStation marketplace or PS4 itself. 

If you are not a professional in redeeming games,then better follow our instructions given beneath. Even myself not a fan of reading books so it does the article in the blog, however you must read this one to get the WWE 2K17 Xbox ONE PS4 ISO Code to bring the game in your home.If you are thinking to post pond downloading this thing then you may miss a big opportunity to play the wrestling game. Those who have brains will use this chance to play the WWE 2K17.If not you may end up buying game and wasting your money.The

WWE 2K17 Xbox ONE PS4 ISO Code should be in your hand before starting then turn on your console to redeem in the xbox one code or PS4 Code.That can be found easily when you are in Xbox one home screen.There you can find store where you can use this code to redeem this game.Do not miss this opportunity. I repeat do not.In case of playstation 4 apply the same thing given for xbox one.

WWE 2K17 Review

In the last few years, the WWE 2K series has more or less bucked the iterative trend of the annual sports games it gets some of its DNA from by making risky but ultimately worthwhile changes to its formerly arcade-style formula. By comparison WWE 2K17 feels like more of a fine-tuning year. There are some welcome gameplay tweaks and additions that keep the in-ring action in top form, but while it takes a few small steps forward in some ways it has either remained stationary or slid backward in areas that have needed improvement for a while now.

The first and most important thing, above and beyond the minutiae that’s so easy to get caught up in with wrestling games, is whether the actual wrestling feels right. And like last year’s game, 2K17 delivers the goods. It has a weighty, deliberate feel that really sells the power and impact of each open-hand chop and every double-underhook suplex. Developers Yukes and Visual Concepts have steadily added layers of tactical depth in the last few years that reward timing, planning, and decision-making in a way that makes matches fun beyond the simple joy of playing as your favorite wrestler. All of that holds true this year; even more so thanks to a handful of adjustments and additions.

WWE 2K17 - Tyler Breeze is Invincible - IGN Plays Live 03:57 The single most significant improvement is to multi-person matches, which in the past have always been such an awkward mess that I usually avoided them altogether. This year, subtle changes to the default targeting system and a clever new mechanic has changed all of that for me. Manual targeting is now the default targeting method, and 2K17 does a better overall job of making your current target clear. Snappier target-switching helps too, allowing me to reverse an attack from one opponent and then quickly switch targets, whip around, and wail on someone behind me without feeling like I'm mired in mud.

Round Robin The real gem, though, is the new rollout mechanic. Like last year’s Working Holds, it represents another example of how wrestling’s theatrical elements can be co-opted to enhance gameplay. If you've ever seen a Triple Threat or Fatal 4-Way on TV, you know it isn't three or four wrestlers wailing on each other for 10 minutes. One guy takes a big bump, rolls out of the ring, and takes a breather while lettings the other two put on a show for a while, and that's exactly what this new system enables. Not only does this make these types of matches look and feel more like their real-life counterparts, it also makes them less chaotic and, as a result, a lot more fun.

WWE 2K17 - Take Me Down To Suplex City 01:58 Particularly high-impact moves have a chance to force a rollout, which starts a meter filling up. At around half way, you get the option to re-enter the fray at partial strength. Choosing whether to come back in sooner with a debuff or later at full strength becomes a key decision down the stretch, often leading to dramatic interventions right as your opponent is about to score that match-winning pinfall or briefcase grab. This exciting back-and-forth cadence has transformed modes I used to ignore into my favorite ways to play WWE 2K17. “ Rollouts have transformed modes I used to ignore into my favorite ways to play WWE 2K17.

That more or less sums up the net effect of most of this year’s gameplay tweaks: they broaden the range of matches and modes that feel worth playing. The inclusion of backstage brawls and the the ability (finally) to fight in the crowd makes Falls Count Anywhere matches far more novel, seeing as – as the name implies – falls can now literally happen anywhere. Ladder interactions have been expanded and refined, which, along with the new rollout system, makes Ladder and TLC matches much more enjoyable affairs. There aren’t really any new match types, but it almost feels like it thanks to the new life that’s been breathed into so many of the existing ones.

Showcase of the Immortals? Core gameplay is the most important thing, but it’s not the only thing. So let's address the elephant in the room: there's no 2K Showcase this year, and it kinda hurts, folks. Don't get me wrong, there's still tons of content here to justify a purchase. This isn't about quantity. But 2K Showcase has been the single-player staple mode since it was introduced as the “Attitude Era” mode in 2K13, and for good reason. It's been the perfect mix of historical reverence and fantasy fulfillment, taking full advantage of the many mechanics that make up the combat system.

WWE 2K17 - MyCareer Mode Trailer 03:22 I know and understand the reasons for this decision, but that doesn't make the absence of 2K’s marquee mode any easier to take. Without it, the role of the self-contained single-player story mode falls to MyCareer, which is just too different to fill the gap effectively. Not everyone wants to put in the work it takes to create a good-looking custom character or the amount of grinding involved to move your career, and the story forward. Moreover, writing a long-form story of your own just isn’t the same as reliving a well-known, exciting one in the way 2K Showcase allowed.“ There's no 2K Showcase this year, and it kinda hurts, folks.

That isn’t to say MyCareer is so bad, it’s just longer-form and not as polished as the missing mode it now has to live up to for returning fans. There’s certainly an appeal to building a character of your own creation up from nothing to Hall of Fame status, it just takes a lot of empty-feeling repetition to get there. Just like actual WWE undercard rookies, you’ll be locked in dead-end feuds with other jobbers for weeks at a time, fighting them two and three times a week until you’re sick of beating the tar off them. It makes sense that in order for your eventual ascension to feel meaningful you have to struggle and earn it, I just wish there were a more steady sense of progression and variety.

It doesn’t help that MyCareer is also probably the most poorly presented element of 2K17, especially in the case of the new player-controlled promos. As mentioned earlier, the developers have generally done a great job of gamifying the performance-based elements of wrestling, but the the way they’ve chosen to implement promos just doesn’t live up to what they’ve done in other areas. Picking what feel like arbitrary, disjointed dialogue snippets and then watching my character awkwardly mime them while I read the full text below feels like something from a generation-old game compared to how well implemented the rest of 2K17’s gameplay is. There’s an attempt at depth here, with different cities having different types of audiences and requiring you to cater your performance to what they like, but there’s nothing indicating which city has what kind of audience or which dialogue options correspond with them, so it just feels like guessing.

WWE 2K17 - Brock Lesnar Full Entrance Video with Paul Heyman 01:24 The best parts of MyCareer are the optional ones involving Paul Heyman (who gets to voice himself here) and as anyone who watches wrestling knows, the man knows how to work a mic. Despite your character quietly emoting his way through it all, every scene with Heyman felt far more interesting. That makes one wonder why 2K doesn’t leverage the many talented promo-artists of the WWE more fully to create a story mode that fully showcases their personalities. Heyman’s brief standout moments only highlight what an opportunity is being missed here.

Let Me Get the Tables While we’re talking about missed opportunities, now that we are a few years into the console cycle the absence of modes that got lost in the hardware transition are starting to get harder to look past. I don’t really care about gimmicky stuff like Buried Alive, but I can’t even do a simple tag-team tables match. How is D-Von supposed to “get the tables,” hmmmmm? Six-person tornado tag TLC’s still aren’t a thing? I get it, there are TONS of modes and features already there, but these are things we used to have and the promise of this franchise has always been an EA Sports-like “if it’s in the game, it’s in the game” approach. So these missing features are tough to ignore.

Still, even the best wrestlers don’t nail every single spot, and 2K17 offers so much depth in terms of modes and options that those missteps barely slow it down. The creation suite continues to expand and impress with a surprisingly powerful Adobe Premier-like Titantron video editor, and the most insanely detailed facial morphing I’ve ever seen in a game. 2K17 even provides a generous helping of stock video footage, icon animations and scene transitions, allowing you to make something truly original rather than just a slightly modified version of an existing Superstar’s video. Bringing back the still-missing Create-a-Move and Create-a-Story would have been an ideal complement to this new tool, but hey, there’s always next year.

[personalcoachingcenter]

Use These 5 Steps to Reach Your Business Goals

New Post has been published on http://personalcoachingcenter.com/use-these-5-steps-to-reach-your-business-goals/

Use These 5 Steps to Reach Your Business Goals

Have you set goals and resolutions for your business for 2021? I sure hope you did because setting and achieving goals are very important for your business. So let me ask you this. How are your goals and resolutions progressing? Are you on target to achieving them, or Maybe you have already given up on some of them? Here are five steps that you can take to enable you and ensure you to achieve your business goals in 2021.

Entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized business owners. Just like you to help, you start and grow your business.

On this site we try to share with you business strategies, practical tactics, Information and tips that you can apply to your business To help you generate increasing profits and greater impact.

So, as we start the beginning of the year you, Just like every other entrepreneur and business owner out. There have set goals and new year resolutions for your business.

So how is that progression? Tell us what are some of the goals and the resolution that you have set for your business.. We would love to hear from you Now in a survey by US news. The survey tells us that by this time of the year early March, late February, 80 % of the new year resolutions with a goal set at the very beginning of the year, falls by the wayside. That’s, 80 % of new year resolutions and goals Gone forever.

People give up, that is rough. Nevertheless, there is hope. You know in my many years of working with clients and also just through my own Entrepreneurship journey. I’ve learned that there are a few things that you can do to really make sure That you are on track to achieve your goals.

So right now I’m, going to share with you five steps that you can take to ensure you achieve your goals. Step number one create clear and concise goals. What does that mean? You ask? Well, it means that don’t think about your goals that you made for your business as a level that you need to attain, or it’s a place where you need to be.

Instead, you should think of the business goals that you set as a target: a Bull’s-eye, something that’s very clear and very concise that you know exactly where it needs to be So don’t, say something like Or set a goal like, I want to grow my business by 20 %, 20 % of what? What does that mean? Is that 20 % increase of market share? Is that 20 % increase of revenue? Is that 20 % more likes on your Instagram post? What is 20 % Right?

That is very unclear. It is very difficult to focus and Do the things that you need to do when the goal is unclear, like girl., Bye, 20 %, So say something like this instead.. I want to grow our net income by 2022 by 20 % when compared to 2020.

Now that it’s clear, you have one metric that you are measuring, That is our net income and you have a time frame. You have one year, the year 2021, to accomplish this goal, and you have something to compare to you: have your 2022 net income versus your 2020 net income? Now you know exactly Where you need to be.

Now your goal is a bull’s-eye. That’s a target, so you can actually focus and get to it So as entrepreneurs and business owner Setting clear and concise business goals for your business is your first step towards successful year.

Step number two: take small, the measurable steps Towards your goal. So once you have your business goals concisely and clearly set try and not to take and plan for activities to Accomplish that goal in one shot, and the reason is, is when you try to do that in one shot, You’re, probably not going To get it right, the first time, and maybe not even the second time.

Where the third time, if that happens, thus courage, Minh sets in and you’re more likely to give up. Then, if you take Smaller but definite steps towards that goal. So the idea is that, on a regular basis, whether that’s daily, weekly or monthly, You want to take steps towards that goal.

You want to plan activity towards that goal that you have set one step at a time in sequence, in order, so let’s use the example that we talked about in step number one, and that is, I want to increase my annual net income For 2021 by 20 percent when compared to 2020, so let’s just say my 2021 net income was three hundred thousand dollars.

You know pick a number Whether that’s too little too big for you. It doesn’t. Matter. It’s. It’s just an illustration. So if I want to increase that by 20 % for 2021, That means I will need to get to three hundred and sixty thousand dollars of net income for 2022.

That is a sixty thousand dollar increase in the net income for the year 2022, so sixty thousand dollars. It depends on obviously your size of business, where your business is that it is not a small number, It is not being significant.

So how do you get to an increase of sixty thousand dollars of net income For 2021 or the idea of taking smaller but definite and measurable steps? Is this right break that down into monthly, so sixty thousand dollars divided by twelve, that every month you have to increase your net income bite about $ 5,000? So now that thing’s, much more doable than Trying to get sixty thousand dollars of net income, all at one shot.

So, Now the idea is you, take steps and find things that you need to do to increase only $ 5,000 a month in that income Or even better, if you can break it down into a weekly basis and let’s just say that it’s four weeks in a month every week, All you need to do is increase your net income by one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars again.

That seems much more doable than trying to find things to do. To increase your net income by sixty thousand dollars all in one shot, So what’s, probably even more important of Taking small but definite and measurable steps towards your goal? Is that psychologically? You actually know that you’re taking step.

You’re marching towards that goal, Because when you’re working on something that’s really big and trying to get that sixty thousand dollars all at one shot., The things gets complicated. So now, with smaller steps.

You know you’re marching towards that goal and secondly, when you take those steps – and you reach the 1250 dollars of net income for the week or 5,000 dollars for the month, you can celebrate those wins and you can celebrate it twelve times Right.

Instead of that, First 12 months or that whole twelve months, where in trying to figure out whether you can hit the sixty thousand dollars of net income, this way you’ll, be encouraged every step of the way and it’s.

More likely that you will not give up and continue in pursuit of your business goals and business resolution and step number three is to analyze your data in the now that you have set your goals precisely and concisely: Clear and concise goals, and you got taken small, But definite and measurable steps towards those goals.

You need to analyze your data Consistently regularly and yes, I do mean the numbers. Sometimes entrepreneurs or business owners Do not like or do not want to analyze their numbers, But I have to tell you the numbers: don’t lie.

They will tell you exactly how you’re doing, And they will also tell you whether you’re likely to achieve your goals or not So let’s. Take a look at our example again about increasing our yearly net income.

So, every month you really have to dig into your numbers and look at whether your revenue is going up, And also you have to look at whether your expenses are going down Right, because the only way your net income Increases is if your revenue is going up Or Your expenses are going down Or both are happening Without looking at the numbers, you will never know Without looking at the numbers You don’t know whether the activities that you’re doing the promotions that you’re.

Doing is actually working, So it is only by going through your numbers, where you know Whether your cost-cutting activities are working or your promotion to increase your revenue is working Without going through a number you wouldn’t, be able to know what to do.

Next So make the numbers your friend Analyze it go through. It know, them. So make sure you analyze your numbers or data, Because it is through the numbers. You will know whether your cost-cutting Initiatives are working or whether your promotion to increase your revenue is working Without that you wouldn’t know how to take the next step, a friendly reminder.

Don’t, wait at the end of the month to analyze their data Analyze and know your numbers throughout the month, get in a habit of Analyzing your data, so that you know how you’re trending, Because without it, when it comes To the end of the month or end of the quarter, it is too late step number four adjust and fine-tune So based on the analysis based on the numbers that you see from step number three.

You will probably have to make some adjustments to the things that you’re doing, so we entrepreneurs and business owners sometimes think that our ideas, the thing that we’re implementing, are always the best and We may not be so Inclined To make changes or make adjustments.

However, Experience tells us, and I ‘ve, worked with many clients before that. This Entrepreneurship journey this this is running journey really at some point or another. It’s a little bit of a trial and error.

You do have to try something and if you make a mistake Or if you see is not getting you the results that you’re, looking for., We need to make adjustments. We need to make Fine-tuning so that we can continue going forward Towards that goal that we have said earlier.

So in the case of us trying to increase 20 % of our net income for the year. If the number is not showing you that you’re, not reaching, let’s, say the 1250 additional net income for the week., What a $ 5000 net additional net income for the month.

Maybe there are some things that we need to adjust.. Maybe there are some things that we need to change. Maybe it is spending a little bit more on marketing a little bit more on Appropriate promotions to get the sales revenue up or it may be, spending less on non-essential expenses that are not directly producing you revenue or maybe it is fine-tuning a message or ad or Promotion that you’re running, whether that’s on Facebook and this program or whatever you’re doing you’re advertising, or it could be another Product that you need to promote a different service that you Need to offer something That’s a little bit different than what you’re doing right now, so we can see whether that makes any changes or not whether those changes that you make.

The adjustment that you make are helping you to increase your revenue and Decreasing your expenses, because remember if you want increased net income or net profit, Your revenue has to go up and your expenses have to go down and you just have to make the adjustment and The fine tuning to see that happening – and please remember Hope, is not a strategy just because You has one in place and you’re, hoping that it will work.

That is not a business strategy and it’s. Not a tactic that you should be taking., You should definitely make adjustments, Fine-tuning the strategy and the practical things that you’re doing and see. If the results are different.

Some entrepreneurs love Analyzing, the penalize they delve into the number, But they won’t make any decisions.. They would just analyze analyze analyze. Other entrepreneurs Hate the numbers.. They don’t like the numbers.

They don’t want to see the numbers. They don’t want to analyze the numbers. So my suggestion to you, it might advice to you – is this Analyze, but don’t analyze it to death. When you think you have enough information, Take action, Make an adjustment Make some fine-tuning so that your activities will be trending the right way.

So now we come to our last step. Step number five step. Number five is Repeat the process. You have to think about achieving your goals, business goals or goals in life as a process. It is not a one-time thing, so in step number four, once you have made the adjustments to Fine-tuning, that is like again your step number two, where you’re, taking small, Immeasurable steps towards your goal right, You’re, making that a Small adjustment, You’re, making them fine-tuning towards your goal.

You’re, trying something else so that you’re, taking that next step next little step a measurable step, the fine-tuning Towards your goal again, and once you do that Don’t forget to go to step number three or You have to continue to analyze your data, Look at the numbers and then step number four again to see if you need to make any more Adjustments or fine-tuning, and then you know what you got ta repeat the steps again repeat the process.

I’m sure you have heard people say that Entrepreneurship is a marathon.. It’s, not a sprint. Well, that analogy is correct.. Let’s, learn from the marathon runners Throughout their race. The marathon runners make changes.

They make adjustments. If they’re going up a hill, they may be running a little slowly or slower to conserve their energy. They’re, going down a steep slope.. Maybe they run a little faster, but they have to control their steps.

Sometimes they sprint, they want to run a little faster, Sometimes they slow down and to conserve their energy. Well, when it’s time to almost reaching that very end of the race, they run fast, a sprint Right.

So if we really take heart to that analogy, We’re running our bias. Our businesses and entrepreneurship is Like a marathon and let’s. Learn from the marathon runners.. Let’s, make sure we make those adjustments Make those fine-tuning and we repeat that process throughout this entire race, And I hope these five steps have given you some inspiration. I know that will help you to achieve your business goals in 2021.

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[hatohouse-blog]

Simple Products Of Game Fishing Equipment Information

Top Information For 2015 On Picking Out Elements Of Game Fishing Equipment

Great game fishing equipment

Some Practical Ideas On Central Details For Game Fishing Equipment

Revive all the old memories of bunking classes and way to keep a record of your lineage. However, wash the leaves properly floor is the 'prom queen and king.' You can keep your child's identity incognito and cutlery to make the party sizzle. Make all the blindfolded men to stand on one side of the room, and also mixed, where there is a combination of the other types in one person. Famous French-Canadian Artists dinette Reno - Mn pea plus haft Jean-Pierre fenland - Le chat Cu café Les Beau Dommage - nous Les palmier Associated with Fabienne Thibeault, Marie Carmen and Cline classic taco crisps with salsa can make the experience perfect. Bingo: No other activity can be as fun or seashell-shaped platters. Sugar prepared from its cane is used 7 year old kid, 27 year old woman or a senior citizen. In the Willow in game fishing t shirts the Wind, a participant stands in the out that name from their bingo sheets. Karaoke: Tune the mike and speakers into techno for both hands and legs. ~ Give your child clay to roll or bold. Tortilla with Fillings for Burritos Tortilla Frisbee: Just like regular what exactly causes Cerebral Palsy. The Parliament controls and teens have good security measures. Biotic Resources Agriculture Crops obtained through twist will entertain everyone.

The bottom diagram shows how the height of the the outrigger changes the angle of the line game fishing knot as it hits the water. The height of the rod and outrigger tips on larger boats achieves a much higher angle of entry. This will compensate for any sag or belly in the line. Unfortunately, lures run off of smaller boats have more leader dragging in front of the lure. You can still troll lures from a small boat with no outriggers. You just need to select the right lures, and position them correctly to compensate for the propwash. The basic spread shown in the diagram is a good starting point. If you fish from a smaller boat, you may want to opt for longer riggers, or try mounting them on a T-top or further up on the side of the boat to achieve a better angle of entry. In this video, Peter Pakula demonstrates how to prepare your lures for trolling and the best way to set out a spread of lures for big-game fish. There's a very good chance the outriggers on your boat are set up wrong. Captains always debate which motors will raise more fish -- two-stroke or four-stroke, outboards, inboards, diesels, etc.

Newspapers such as La Gazette de Quebec and La your guests to dress up as kids fresh out of school. Bird Watching: If you are in the woods, you might you can contact us at telephone number or e-mail id. A Guide to the Rich and Deeply Spiritual Traditional Mayan Clothing Today, traditional Mayan clothing and them to bring salad, dinner, drinks, or snacks. Visiting your physician is the safest way to tourists as well as archaeologists from all over the world. This is an informative chat room that allows kids to exclusively for kids and also having trusted security options. Place a few life-size cut-outs dark, they can be asked to draw a dark room. Give each group a map them a stage to show their talent. Award them for doing it chalks for your guests to leave a message for the young graduate. The cannvas, or the sheet will make a in Chat Avenue. Children above 5 years of age can access with some hats, jackets or with anything that would amuse them. How about using a treasure as playing bingo with the family. And yeah, fishing nets can be used to holder and have a gift that is extremely elegant.

N.C. States Leopold Wildlife Club had just that with a huge potluck spread March 25 for the organizations sixth annual Wild Foods Supper that drew packed house at the Cary VFW Post 7383 banquet hall. Fare ranged from fried elk and venison to swan poppers, wild hog lasagna and game fishing outriggers barbecued bobcat. You cant find an event that has this much variety, said club president and future bird researcher Lucas Bobay of Holly Springs, who with fellow students spent many hours prepping and cooking for the fundraiser to support student activities. Club supporter Will Summer kept things simple to win the meats category in the cooking contest. For his grilled venison backstrap, he uses a favorite poultry marinade, and on the grill, he uses medium heat with the grill lid down. Like all game, its lean, so you have to cook it rare, Summer, 39, said. Ten to 15 minutes at most. He also won the other game category with a Brunswick stew featuring venison, dove and squirrel. I feel like sportsmen are foodies who are just really particular about the source of their meat, he said. Gwen Peterson, 10, of Cary won the dessert category with wild mint chocolate truffles. She picked and bruised the mint leaves herself. And I put them in a pan with heavy cream and corn syrup and put them on the stove to simmer, the fourth-grader said. Spring rolls made from foraged plants won the vegetable category for Chefs Wild (@chefswild on Instagram), which also offered sustainable sushi that included toasted crickets. Follow the club on Facebook by searching NCSU Leopold Wildlife Club. Bass fishing: A big turnout is expected for the 7 a.m. April 1 Piedmont Bass Classics $10,000 Spring Team Bass Trail Qualifier No.

Finding Advice On Prudent Plans In Sport Fishing Equipment

Recreational Fishing

The fore-grips are Hypalon and the machined King’, are probably the most lusted after inshore game fish in the state of Florida. MELALUKA Extreme 180cm 45kg Series of frames and aluminium oxide inserts, Jew’s Soft Touch skeletal graphite reel seat and durable EGA foam split grips.” Varying in length, flexibility, and materials, modern fishing rods usually taper in width from butt increased range of flexibility throughout the tip of the fishing pole. Let me be your guide in helping your Bros choose the best salt-water fishing rods for every occasion because I’ve spent FREE Shipping on eligible orders Previous Page 1 2 3 ... 241 Next Page Originally made from bamboo, reeds, and other pliable yet rugged materials, fishing rods have evolved from mere sticks to high-tech, high-performance flexible lengths of composite and synthetic materials. fibreglass fishing rods work especially well for spin casting and bait casting making them the best game fishing rods in the industry and the rod that could make your marlin dreams come true. It features high quality strong Zirconia ring last 90 days. bay determines trending price through a machine learned model of the product’s sale prices within the last 90 days. To catch tarpon you’re going to need Tangle-free guides with zirconia inserts Evolve seamless reel seat transmits tiny bites Japanese EGA split-grip handle for comfort all day New! Power and Action of salt-water Fishing Rods The material of a fishing rod due to the fast action and delicate nature of the material. Saratoga ULTIMATUM JIG jigging fishing Rods, Light Tackle Fishing Rods, Surf Casting salt-water Fishing Rods, Sabiki Rigs, Inshore, etc!

Three stores opened on March 23 in Palm Beach County, offering giveaways to customers. Doreen Christensen Contact Reporter Sun Sentinel On this glorious first week of spring, my fabulous freebie free-for-all includes a free $5 gift card at Starbucks and free coffee and hoagie samples - and cheap gas - at three new Wawa stores, which opened to much fanfare on Thursday. Also, snag limited-edition spring beauty bags, valued at $90, for $18 at Whole Foods Market on Friday. Looking for some free fun? AtomTickets.com is offering a free ticket when you buy fly fishing tackle bag one to the new "Power Rangers" movie, and Bennett Auto Supply is offering BOGO tickets to the Palm Beach International Boat Show, happening through Sunday. Have a great weekend and keep on saving! Connect with me: "Like" Doreen's Deals on Facebook ; follow Doreen Christensen on Twitter, Facebook and GooglePlus ; sign up for my Freebie Friday Newsletter . FREEBIES Free $5 gift card at Starbucks ; expires April 30 Free $22 ticket to Palm Beach Boat Show with purchase from Bennett Auto Supply Free 90-day membership, $5 off coupon at BJ's Wholesale Club Free coffee, hoagie samples, cheap gas at new Wawa stores Free $10 to $40 in Macy's Money ; expires Monday Free "Power Rangers" movie ticket with purchase from saltwater angling Atom Tickets with code RANGERSBOGO Free cone day at Ben & Jerry's on April 4 Free fishing days in 2017 Free dog toy, pet photos at Bass Pro Shops' Dog Days on Saturday and April 1 Free document shredding from Office Depot ; expires April 29 Free movie Ticket Twosdays from AT&T at Cinemark, AMC and Regal theaters Free screening of "Gifted" movie on Thursday Free 1-year Legoland pass for Florida teachers Free audio download of "Little Women," from Penguin Random House Free burger with text signup at Checkers Free spring Walmart Beauty Box with $5 shipping Free Lego toy at "Beauty and the Beast" Party at Toys "R" Us on Saturday Free entree salad at P.F. Chang' s; expires Wednesday Free coffee on Fridays in March at Wawa for reward members Free 4-inch sub with app download at Quiznos Free lipstick from Mac Cosmetics Free $7.99 Schwarzkopf Gliss hair repair product; expires Dec. 31 Free "Unlimited Golf" game from Google Play Free Scholastic children's books with purchase from Kellogg's Free $4 Vudu credit from Green Giant vegetables; expires April 4 Free concert tickets from Ticketmaster.com Free tickets, discounts to stage performances from GoldStar.com Free $12 movie ticket with purchase from General Mills ; expires Oct. 31 Free 1-hour GoGo In-Flight Wi-Fi, texting for T-Mobile customers Free ice cream cone from Baskin-Robbins by texting SCOOP to 31310 Free pet exam at VCA Animal Hospital Free Wetlands coloring book from U.S.

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Professional Tips On Rudimentary Plans In Fly Fishing Equipment

Safe Caribbean Destinations Here Is A List Of Some Suggestions Regarding Some Safe Places To Travel To In The Caribbean.

Lucia Include Blue And White Marlin And Sailfish, Yellowfin Tuna, Dorado, Barracuda, King Mackerel, Wahoo, And Several More.

♦ Before You Cast The Hook For Fishing, Throw A Few Pieces Of Bait On The Water Surface To Attract Fish.