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dukeofonions · 5 years ago

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How do you feel about the upload schedule for sanders sides? It’s been 10 months since the last proper episode. Also, I read a post on another blog about how they feel him hiring his friends leads to a slower production process due to messing around. Thoughts on that? Also also, do you think that since YT is his job, he should upload more? these are things I am thinking of tonight.

Not to worry anon, these are things I think about a lot because I have nothing better to do with my life.

Seeing as I joined the fandom shortly after Can Lying Be Good? came out, the longest my first wait for a new episode wasn’t that long actually. The video came out in February but I didn’t see it until early March. The next episode Logic vs Passion, came out in April. So it didn’t bother me much. And right after that we got Crofters: The Musical so I was on the hype train and fully invested.

Then we didn’t get another episode until October which left me a bit antsy, but I was still excited anyway and didn’t mind the wait. Embarrassing Phases then came out that December. So we got two videos within a fairly short time span.

SVS Part 1 came out that next year in March, again, bit of a wait, but it’s becoming standard now that we get a couple of new episodes every few months. No biggie. We get Dealing With Intrusive Thoughts in June, Asides in November... This newest one just came out now in May...

Yeah, if we hadn’t been given that Asides, we would have had almost a year-long wait for this next episode. And we did have a year-long wait for the follow up to a video that honestly, kinda made me think “Why do we still care about this? I’m not really invested in the “Wedding or callback” dilemma anymore” which, when you’re trying to tell a story using this medium, the last thing you want is your audience to lose interest in something that’s meant to be this big of an event within the series.

And what do all these videos have in common? Each one uses some kind of gimmick. CLBG and SVS had them filming in different locations, Logic vs Passion, LNTAO, and POF involved them using different mediums to tell the story (animations and puppets) Crofters and DWIT both had music in them, and Embarrassing Phases had the costumes.

Before that, the videos were all fairly simple. Maybe a few gimmicks here and there, but none of them went to the same level as these other ones.

Basically, what’s happening here is that with each new episode, the team is trying to bring something new to the table each time, and their solution is to use a different gimmick. Which, in theory, is fine. But I honestly believe these are doing more harm than good. For one thing, not everyone is a fan of these gimmicks and while sometimes they can be used to benefit the story, other times they just take over and the writing suffers for it.

The main reason (as far as we know) that this newest episode in particular took so long was because of the video game animations they wanted to use, but after watching the video besides a few instances, they really weren’t necessary to have.

And I plan to make a whole other post on this topic so I’ll leave it there for now. In regards to Thomas hiring more of his friends to work on episodes? Again, it’s good in theory, but I for one have noticed a certain change in the episodes since they brought on more writers, which officially started with Embarrassing Phases where Thomas said in the live stream following it that it was the first episode he really didn’t work on and it shows (but more on that in another post) I do think the other writers are talented people, but maybe all of them shouldn’t be working on Sanders Sides.

Each one is gonna have their own preferences for each character and ideas that may clash, and if these were simply coworkers, it wouldn’t be as much of a problem shutting down ideas that go too far. But when they’re literally all your friends, you have that connection to them and you don’t want them hurt, which can make saying “No” to certain things much harder. I’m not sure exactly how the writing team gets along so I can only speculate based on what I’ve learned from live streams.

As for their inclusion making the production for videos longer, I can also understand that seeing as you’re more inclined to goof off with people you’re close and comfortable with, especially when you’re not in a professional setting. Which, in Thomas’ case, he’s usually at home with his friends around. This automatically makes things more casual and one would feel more relaxed and not worry too much about being serious. Which, when you’re trying to get things done, can be a problem.

I’m gonna briefly use my own workplace as an example: I work in fast food, and all of my coworkers get along really well. We like to joke around and have fun, especially when we’re slow. But as soon as things start picking up it’s like a switch is flipped and we go from “Fun mode” to “work mode” just like that. Sure, we might continue to quip and joke with each other. But we never let it take precedence over the work that needs to be done. Some of our coworkers, don’t understand this. And when the rest of us are trying to work, they’re still goofing off. And in fast food, if just one person isn’t doing their job, it can bring everything crashing down. We have customers waiting in line for almost ten minutes, they get angry, they get mad at us, even if it’s just because of one person not doing their job. But we don’t have time to argue. We accept their complaints and do our best to fix the issue and get things moving again.

Obviously, what Thomas does is very different from working in fast food, but Youtube is still his job. Logan puts it best in LNTAO, “Thomas made a commitment to regularly sharing content. He must be held accountable.”

Now in fast food, we are most definitely held accountable by the customers if their food isn’t delivered in a timely manner or isn’t made to their liking, and we as the providers of said product, have to heed their words and make the product to their liking in order to ensure their satisfied. If they’re not satisfied, they won’t want to pay. Simple as that.

Thomas, on the other hand, is never held accountable by his fanbase. Now I’m not saying it’s a bad thing for him to have such a supportive fandom, heck I wish the customers I had to deal with on a regular basis were as understanding. But honestly, the way the majority of this fandom blindly follows Thomas and holds him on this golden pedestal is...

Kinda creepy...

He is surrounded by constant praise, hardly any criticism, and I believe that’s why we hardly get content from him.

Quick note, I understand that part of why this video in particular was delayed due to the pandemic and I respect their decision to not put themselves or anyone else at unnecessary risk for the sake of a Youtube video. However, plenty of Youtubers are still making and posting regular content on their channels despite this. To me, the main issue with Thomas’ content as of late is that he tries to put too much into what should be simple things. I understand wanting to give your audience the very best, but honestly, in my opinion, his newer content isn’t as good as the older stuff. It all had just such a simple, wholesome charm to it, that’s now been replaced with a fancier production and flashy editing. Not only that, they tend to start way too many projects at once, which result in never getting done.

You guys remember when they said they’d be bringing back Story Time Madlibs? That was last year, and the most recent thing we’ve heard about it is that they want to add more to it by including animations made by different people! Which will only increase the amount of time it will take to make what should have been a simple video that shouldn’t have taken more than a couple of weeks to film, edit, then post.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t try new things, but they’ve been trying to do so much that we end up getting nothing, and the fandom just seems okay with this.

At the end of the day though, this is just one opinion from a random faceless, nameless person sitting behind a computer screen. I doubt anyone on Thomas’ team will see it. I doubt a majority of the fandom would agree with any of it. But with more people starting to voice their opinions, it’s only a matter of time before it becomes too much of a thing to ignore. And if it becomes apparent that there’s a group in the fandom that is being ignored, that’s definitely going to cause problems.

Because in short if someone is out there, producing content for people, and they have complaints about it, then if those complaints are legitimate and can be fixed, then I believe it is the responsibility of that person to consider what they are saying and do their best to heed their words. If no one is ever criticized, then how will they ever improve? Criticism is not a bad thing. And once people get that out of their heads I think things will go much smoother for this fandom. But honestly, that’s just wishful thinking at this point. Sorry this answer got so long, I really should have just made a whole other post about this. XD

#fandom criticism #ts unpopular opinons #creator gripes #dukeofonions

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unixcommerce · 6 years ago

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Raju Vegesna of Zoho: High School Grads Get Tuition Free Training through Zoho University – and 1800 Get Jobs with the Company

I’ve been on a bit of a kick to start the year on the theme of “doing good and doing good in business.” The result can make for win-win outcomes and opportunities for small businesses to build important relationships. And during this week’s Zoho Analyst Day among the presentations focused on the road ahead for the company in terms of product roadmaps and what it mean for customers, there was a lot of discussion on corporate culture and philosophy. And while there are a number of areas where Zoho blazes their own trail and does things differently than most vendors in the industry, one of the most interesting and impactful is Zoho University. Zoho University provides kids who might not be able to attend a traditional university an opportunity to learn important math and technology skills – tuition free!

To learn more about the program, my CRM Playaz partner Paul Greenberg and I had a chance to sit with Zoho’s Raju Vegesna to learn more about the program, how it fits with the company’s overall culture and philosophy, and how the program has led to Zoho hiring 1,800 Zoho University graduates – equating to roughly a quarter of the company’s 7000+ employee base. This definitely is a case of doing good and doing good in business leading to a win-win outcome.

Below is an edited transcript of our conversation. To see the full interview, watch the video or listen to it using the embedded SoundCloud player.

Small Business Trends: This is Analyst Day number four, and it’s already bigger and better than the previous three years, so congratulations.

Raju Vegesna: Thank you. Thank you for joining us.

Small Business Trends: One of the things I think we can talk about is what you guys are doing with Zoho Academy (University), and some of your social good stuff. So, why don’t we talk a little bit about that.

Raju Vegesna: Sure. Zoho University is something that started back in 2004. A long time already. The fundamental idea was different. One, we don’t believe in a few things, which is student debt. People getting into debt, making them debt slaves, and we philosophically are opposed to that. We said, “What can we do about it?” And so, we started … And that’s the point number one.

Second point, where there’s no correlation between your performance in school and your job work. Then we said, “Why are we even asking peoples resumes, and college degrees for hiring? Why don’t we radically not do that, and then hire people?” So, we said, “Okay. Let’s start hiring young kids out of high school.” And then instead of just hiring any kids, obviously, we looked and went to high schools, talked to the management and said, “Point us towards kids who would otherwise not consider higher education, not have the resources, or they would have very significant debt to even consider higher education.” We said, “Why don’t you point us to them?” And they did.

So, we went to six different kids and to their parents, and said, “Hey. This is a program we are thinking where we will train your kids for about a year and a half, and basically for free.” And on top of it, because in some cases they come from some stressed and tough economic situations, we said, “Instead of you paying us we will pay you, so that you don’t have to go through …” The last thing you want to do is them going through additional stress, because they are taking this education-

Small Business Trends: Okay. Let’s stop right there for a second. So, you are basically looking for folks, kids that might have had a tough time to get into a college anyway whether it’s a financial hardship, or maybe their grades weren’t up to snuff. So, you’re giving them an opportunity to come in, and learn a valuable skill and trade, in technology-

Raju Vegesna: Technology. Yeah.

Small Business Trends: And you’re saying not only do you not have to pay tuition, you actually make money while you’re doing this.

Raju Vegesna: Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Greenberg: God.

Small Business Trends: I just want to make sure I got it. Can I sign up for this?

Paul Greenberg: I was just thinking the same thing. I want to go back to school, can I get my MBA here?

Raju Vegesna: And fundamentally at the human level you realize that people have talent. Everyone has some talent, or another. Now, it’s the responsibility of the team, of the manager of the young technician, to recognize what that talent is, and put them in the right place to succeed. When a company hires someone, you just hired someone for the job, and if they don’t meet the requirement you usually just replace them with someone else. We don’t look at it that way.

We hire people who became excellent programmers, but then we realized that they have a different talent. They’re also an artist, or a musician. In some cases they are good with, say, public speaking. We said, “Okay. Why don’t you do that too?” And that is part of the culture.

Now, we really cannot take it for granted, but that’s another thing when we take someone into Zoho University program we don’t say, “You’re being brought in for the programming thing.” No. What we teach them is basic math, basic science, communication skills, and programming. But programming is just one portion of it. If you realize that they are good at marketing, well, that’s one of our field that helps us identify what their talents are, because at that age they themselves don’t know what they’re good at. So, it’s also helping them realize what they are good at, and then making sure that we put them in a position to succeed.

That’s a fundamental idea behind the Zoho University. It started with six folks in the first batch. Now, here we are in 2019 we now run two batches. Each batch is now, I think, 200, 250 people. About 1,800 of our 7,000 employee base came through Zoho University.

Small Business Trends: That’s amazing.

Raju Vegesna: I was about say that about 1,800 employees do not have a college degree.

Small Business Trends: Or college debt.

Raju Vegesna: Or college debt. That is more important. They’re happy with what they’re doing, and more important thing is you cannot tell the difference between the person with a college degree, and the person who went through this-

Small Business Trends: That’s really good.

Paul Greenberg: Well, that your culture is just generally like that. I remember two or three things that really struck home with me, not when I was first meeting you … What? We’re close to 18 years now-

Raju Vegesna: 18 years. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right.

Paul Greenberg: One was that, as you said, you’re encouraging people internally to utilize their other talents and skills. And I remember a story that Sridar, your CEO, told me about a farm he had where he was examining, I think, it was a dozen ancient grains for seeing which one was sustainable. And that struck me, amazingly, first of all. But then he told me the person running the farm used to be a Zoho programmer, who when he found out her degrees, and so on he said, “Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ll pay you in fact you’ll do better, and I will make you the head of this so you can actually live out the dream you actually set out to have, and at the same time certainly makes the farm work better, and potentially significantly advance humanity.”

The other thing that blew me away, I remember, I think it was you, or Sandy, or someone telling me about you have your own dance troupe. Right?

Raju Vegesna: We have in house dance troupe, we have in house, I would say, pretty much the entire music thing. We have in house artists. We have in house construction team. We have in house designers, architects, and all sorts of crazy things you can imagine. And, of course, like the farm that we grow the food we bring them to our campus, employees go pick it up, and take it home.

Paul Greenberg: That’s amazing.

Small Business Trends: And, actually, the way this particular office is designed he [Raju] actually had a hand in it.

Raju Vegesna: That’s another thing that Sridar noticed; that I’m interested in design. He came to me and said, “Hey. Why don’t you design this?” And I actually had a design up, and then realized that- It’s part of the learning, and that learning is spread to other divisions as well.

What we noticed was this external person cannot design an office, because we know the culture, we know how the company works, we think the spaces should reflect the culture. It should enhance this. But an interesting piece in absence of art … Like take this particular table I handpicked this particular table. Why? Because this is not a conference table, this is a dining room table. There is no work table anywhere. I made it specific to this. Why? When people come to the office I want them to feel like they’re going home. They want to come to the office. So, every element here is actually purchased from your home element from sofas to dining room tables to everything single element.

So, again, the space should reflect the company.

This article, “Raju Vegesna of Zoho: High School Grads Get Tuition Free Training through Zoho University – and 1800 Get Jobs with the Company” was first published on Small Business Trends

https://smallbiztrends.com/

The post Raju Vegesna of Zoho: High School Grads Get Tuition Free Training through Zoho University – and 1800 Get Jobs with the Company appeared first on Unix Commerce.

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junker-town · 8 years ago

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In 2017, Memphis’ full football potential might finally be realized

After 27 wins in three years, the Tigers still look like they’re just getting started.

We're located close to and easily accessible to good football locations. Mississippi's been very good to us, and we have a bunch of guys with ties in Texas, which isn't very far away. Texas kids understand the offseason part of it; it's so strong there. It's pretty easy to access several states with our location. We've tried to draw a big circle. But I think, first and foremost, you have to do a great job servicing the city we live in, doing a great job with the coaches in Memphis, evaluating those kids and getting them to stay in town. There's a lot of talent in the city.

— Justin Fuente, Memphis head coach (2012-15)

Memphis’ last head coach identified the upside of the job. You are in a talent-heavy city, and you don’t have to drive far to find even more. Recruiting is lifeblood, and the Tigers should always succeed at it.

Granted, you still need a program to sell to recruits. For large swaths of its history, Memphis has not had that. And while certain programs are known for hiring up-and-coming head coaches, UM hasn't had the same luck.

Over the last 60 years, Memphis has hired only two coaches who succeeded enough to move on to bigger jobs. Fred Pancoast did in the mid-1970s, winning 22 games in three years before moving down I-40 to Vanderbilt.

Fuente was the second. He took over in 2012 with the Tigers having won just five games in the previous three seasons. They won seven combined games in Fuente's first two years, then won 19 in his next two. Administrators and boosters had reinvested, and there was nothing that seemed particularly unsustainable about the way Fuente had built the program. But when he left for Virginia Tech, there had to be unease.

Memphis didn’t end up hiring a Fuente assistant in the name of lineage. Instead, the program ended up betting on itself. Instead of pretending that Fuente’s recipe was the only one that could work in the River City, UM hired another up-and-comer: Todd Graham protege Norvell.

So far, so good. With a new quarterback and new coaching, Memphis went 8-5 in 2016, actually improving its S&P+ ranking by 11 spots (from 55th to 44th). There were missteps — a 29-point home loss to Tulsa, a 20-point bowl loss to WKU — but the Tigers demonstrated remarkable upside. They beat Kansas and Bowling Green by a combined 120-10. They beat Temple and Houston. A week after the Tulsa humbling, they went to SMU and won by 44.

One season is not a referendum, but this becomes even more encouraging when you realize Memphis returns a lot of last year’s upside. The Tigers bring back their quarterback (Riley Ferguson), top four running backs, top three receiving targets, four starting offensive linemen, five of six defensive linemen, four of five linebackers, an incredible punter, and incredible return man.

Turnover in the secondary is a concern and, depending on the replacements, could lead to regression. But with the AAC undergoing its annual transition from one set of up-and-coming coaches to another — Temple, Houston, USF, and Cincinnati are breaking in new leaders — the Tigers might be the most known quantity this side of Navy, only with more upside.

We could be witnessing the birth of a fully realized Memphis football program. According to the 247Sports Composite, Norvell just signed the second-best class in the conference, a year after signing the third-best. He inherited a large base of athleticism, and he’s building on it. And in his first year in succeeding Memphis’ most successful coach in a generation, he maybe have improved the product.

Fuente will always be known as the guy who got Memphis off the ground, but there’s a chance Fuente’s success was only the beginning. If Norvell continues to build, he, too, will move on — it’s the AAC circle of life — but he might leave behind a program even more attractive than the one he inherited. This is a good time to be a Memphis Tigers fan.

2016 in review

2016 Memphis statistical profile.

On average, Memphis was an exciting, high-upside team, one of the best in AAC. But that was the average; from week to week, the plot twisted.

First 3 games (3-0): Avg. percentile performance: 77% (~top 30) | Avg. score: UM 52, Opp 9 | Avg. yards per play: UM 6.5, Opp 4.1

Next 5 games (2-3): Avg. percentile performance: 36% (~top 80) | Avg. score: Opp 38, UM 29 | Avg. yards per play: Opp 6.3, UM 6.0

Last 5 games (3-2): Avg. percentile performance: 68% (~top 40) | Avg. score: UM 41, Opp 32 | Avg. yards per play: UM 6.4, Opp 6.1

Memphis began by playing awesome defense against bad teams, then finding an offensive groove in a 77-3 humiliation of Bowling Green. From that point, the offense was steady, but the defense experienced drastic ups and downs.

The Tigers finished having allowed 5.8 yards per play; that’s an accomplishment considering they didn’t allow between 4.5 and 5.9 per play in any one game all year. It was either 4.4 or fewer or 6.0 or greater. They allowed 40-plus points five times and held six opponents to 17 or fewer. The Tigers’ bend-don’t-break approach either completely worked or comprehensively failed, and it was partially determined by whether or not an opponent could run the football.

Memphis’s defense ranked 104th in Rushing S&P+ and 58th in Passing S&P+ and now has to replace a good portion of its secondary. Strength and weakness could flip, and how well the Tigers defend the pass could determine whether we’re looking at the best team in the AAC or a team dependent on winning shootouts.

With this offense, by the way, the Tigers could win plenty of shootouts. At least, that will be the case as long as a new/old coordinator hire pays off.

Offense

Full advanced stats glossary.

Norvell’s first offensive coordinator hire was inspired. Chip Long, a member of both the Todd Graham and Bobby Petrino trees, crafted a fast, pass-heavy system that relied on efficient passing and big rushes, and after a slow rushing start, everything clicked.

Leading rusher Doroland Dorceus rushed 21 times for just 61 yards (2.9 per carry) in early wins over SEMO and Kansas. From that point forward, he averaged 6.7 per carry. Meanwhile, backups Patrick Taylor Jr., Darrell Henderson, and Tony Pollard — all freshmen — combined to average 5.6 yards per carry while splitting about 16 carries per game.

Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

Doroland Dorceus

That was more than enough help for Riley Ferguson. After some early ups and downs of his own, he found one hell of a cruising altitude.

Riley Ferguson, first 3 games: 67% completion rate, 13.8 yards per completion, 2.2% INT rate, 180.3 passer rating

Ferguson, next 3 games: 64% completion rate, 11.1 yards per completion, 3.8% INT rate, 119.4 passer rating

Ferguson, last 7 games: 61% completion rate, 13.9 yards per completion, 1.6% INT rate, 156.7 passer rating

Ferguson threw three interceptions in a 48-28 loss to Ole Miss, then played things safe against Temple and Tulane. He was mostly awesome from that point forward.

Either the run or the pass worked in basically every game, and Memphis was never held below 24 points. It was an impressive enough performance that Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly, looking to bring in new energy, hired Long away from UM.

Norvell stayed in house for Long’s replacement. Darrell Dickey served as Memphis’ offensive coordinator in 1988-89 before moving on and eventually becoming North Texas head coach from 1998-2006. Fuente brought him back to town to serve as the resident old hand and offensive coordinator.

Dickey stayed on as co-coordinator in 2016, then took back the solo OC job this offseason. Assuming continuity in philosophy, there should be plenty of continuity on the field.

Ferguson brings back last year’s top three targets, including the incredibly underrated Anthony Miller. The AAC had plenty of offensive standouts in 2016, and the diminutive Miller got overshadowed a bit. Still, his raw numbers — 95 catches for 1,434 yards and 14 touchdowns, 10.7 yards per target, 52 percent success rate — were incredible. He had eight 100-yard receiving yards, including a 250-yarder against Tulsa. In his last two games of the year, he caught 26 passes for 320 yards and five scores. Damn.

Senior Phil Mayhue and sophomore utility man Pollard also return, and while tight end Daniel Montiel does not, sophomore returnees Kedarian Jones and Sean Dykes combined to catch 12 of 20 passes for a decent 122 yards. Throw in other youngsters like sophomores Pop Williams, Mechane Slade, and Damonte Coxie, plus maybe 2017 star recruit Nick Robinson, and you’ve got a hell of a receiving corps.

Memphis will likely pass to set up the run once more, and it will probably work. The run, then, should also thrive. Dorceus and the sophomores all return, as do six players with starting experience. The ground attack was volatile last year — 120th in stuff rate, 37th in rushes of 20-plus yards — but experience should smooth that out.

Losing a star coordinator can frequently lead to a change in fortunes, but it’s not hard to see Norvell’s attempt at continuity paying off. Dickey knows the job and the personnel, and that personnel could do big things.

Justin Ford-USA TODAY Sports

Riley Ferguson (4) and Phil Mayhue (89)

Defense

The defense was the first thing to click for Fuente’s Memphis. Fuente hired Barry Odom, who oversaw rapid improvement; the Tigers ranked 117th in Def. S&P+ in 2011, then improved to 61st, 40th, and 20th over the next three years. Following the departure of both Odom and a lot of starters, however, it fell back to 79th in 2015. And in 2016, an attempt at havoc resulted in drastic ups and downs.

Defensive coordinator Chris Ball also comes from the Todd Graham tree, which means he believes in speed and aggression. Memphis ranked sixth in DB havoc rate last year in 29th in PDs-to-INCs, the percentage of opponent incompletions that were the result of an interception or breakup. Ten Tigers defensed at least three passes, and four DBs defensed at least eight.

This would have resulted in more success had the run defense been better. Memphis allowed a 48 percent rushing success rate, 110th in the country, and couldn’t come up with enough stuffs (85th in stuff rate) to make that work. This became a bend-don’t-break defense of sorts, much better at preventing big plays than making them but not really all that great at either.

There’s an optimistic and a pessimistic way of looking at Memphis’ defense in 2016.

Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

Genard Avery

Pessimistic: The run defense stunk, and now the secondary has to replace five of last year’s top seven. One of the returnees is a sophomore (Austin Hall). Corner Arthur Maulet was by far the best play-maker on the team with 7.5 tackles for loss and 15 passes defensed, and he’s gone. The pass defense will definitely regress, and there’s not enough talent up front to make up the difference.

Optimistic: Yes, there’s turnover in the back, but there’s still talent and experience. And the front seven does boast some play-makers in guys like linebacker Genard Avery (11 TFLs, five sacks), end Ernest Suttles (5.5 TFLs), tackle Jonathan Wilson (six TFLs), and linebacker Jackson Dillon (6 TFLs in 2015). Experience up front could counter turnover in the back.

The defensive front should indeed be better, but Memphis’ fate is pretty closely tied to how quickly the secondary can rebuild. And there’s an old-versus-new vibe here.

Senior Shaun Rupert (a Missouri transfer) was solid in a backup role, and seniors Christian Slaughter, Jamil Collins, and Caelon Harden could play a role. And they’ll be challenged by a lot of high-upside newcomers — redshirt freshman safeties Josh Perry and Thomas PIckens, JUCO transfers Tito Windham and Marcus Green, mid-three-star freshmen Terrell Carter and Quindon Lewis, etc. Find a decent rotation, and the defense should make enough stops to serve the offense well. That’s obviously not a given, though.

Justin Ford-USA TODAY Sports

Jonathan Cook (14)

Special Teams

Memphis had one other thing going for it in 2016: maybe the best special teams unit in the country. The Tigers ranked second in kick return success rate (Tony Pollard averaged 28.1 yards per return with two scores), fourth in kickoff success rate (68 percent of Jake Elliott’s kicks were touchbacks), fifth in punt success rate (Spencer Smith averaged a booming 45.1 yards per kick), and 16th in field goal efficiency (Elliott made an incredible 12 of 15 field goals longer than 40 yards). And the relative weakness (punt returns) wasn’t all that weak — Memphis still ranked 42nd there.

Pollard and Smith should ensure that Memphis still has strong special teams, but the loss of Elliott hurts. Maybe this is only a top-15 or 20 unit instead of top-1. Regardless, Smith and Pollard ensure it’s a strength.

2017 outlook

2017 Schedule & Projection Factors

Date Opponent Proj. S&P+ Rk Proj. Margin Win Probability 31-Aug UL-Monroe 121 20.8 89% 9-Sep at Central Florida 78 3.1 57% 16-Sep UCLA 34 -2.0 45% 23-Sep Southern Illinois NR 25.1 93% 30-Sep at Georgia State 113 12.9 77% 6-Oct at Connecticut 125 17.0 84% 14-Oct Navy 71 6.5 65% 19-Oct at Houston 49 -3.9 41% 27-Oct Tulane 94 13.6 78% 3-Nov at Tulsa 77 3.0 57% 18-Nov SMU 81 10.4 73% 25-Nov East Carolina 100 14.8 80%

Projected S&P+ Rk 61 Proj. Off. / Def. Rk 27 / 97 Projected wins 8.4 Five-Year S&P+ Rk 2.2 (58) 2- and 5-Year Recruiting Rk 65 / 75 2016 TO Margin / Adj. TO Margin* 8 / -0.4 2016 TO Luck/Game +3.2 Returning Production (Off. / Def.) 69% (87%, 51%) 2016 Second-order wins (difference) 7.1 (0.9)

If the secondary avoids the type of regression typically associated with turnover, Memphis will be awesome.

That’s it. That’s the whole list of “ifs” separating the Tigers from being a top-40 team this year.

That’s a hell of an “if,” though. Turnover in the secondary is strongly correlated with regression, and because of it, Memphis is projected just 61st in S&P+ — 27th on offense but 97th on defense.

Even with this projected regression, though, S&P+ sees Memphis as a favorite in 10 of 12 games and as an under-four-point underdog in the other two. Even with a few relative tossups (five games between 41 and 65 percent win probability), the Tigers should be looking at a minimum of seven regular wins this season and a maximum of ... 12, I guess? And that’s with a pretty bad defense. Imagine if the defensive backfield is stable.

This should be a really fun season at the Liberty Bowl. Trips to UCF, Houston, and Tulsa make Memphis anything but a slam-dunk favorite in the AAC West, but every game is winnable, and the Tigers should take their fair share.

Five years ago, Memphis was coming off of 32 losses in 37 games and hoping that, in Fuente, it had found its program savior. It had. And now, in Norvell, the Tigers may have found the guy who can top Fuente.

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additionallysad · 8 years ago

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Refinishing Your Hardwood Floors: What To Expect http://ift.tt/2kcWSk0

The new floors in our kitchen are easy to forget amidst all of the other big changes (a completely new layout! a wide doorway to the living room! new cabinets! new counters!). But every now and then we’re reminded that the floors are a HUGE reason that space – and heck, the entire first floor – feels so fresh, updated, and open. So we thought it might be helpful to recap the entire process, including time & cost, for anyone else who’s debating a similar upgrade.

This before picture does a good job of demonstrating just how much of a difference the new floors have made. Yes, the photo below was taken from the same exact spot as the after shot above. And no, we don’t miss that faux brick linoleum ONE BIT.

From this other angle (taken from the front door) you can see a little more how our downstairs flooring had been so choppy. We had hardwoods in three main rooms (living, dining, and office) but none of it WAS CONNECTED TO EACH OTHER because of the slate in the foyer and the linoleum in the kitchen. Talk about interrupted flow. We had FIVE doorways that transitioned from one flooring type to another, often with a classy metal strip in between for sporadic toe stubbing. #blingbling

Now it’s all one big even swath of hardwood – no transitions, no steps up or down, no change in color, and no evidence that it wasn’t always like this – which was always our goal. Generally, we just love the warmth of hardwood in the kitchen (we had it in our first house too) and cohesive flooring throughout many rooms can help with flow and make everything feel bigger. But getting there was not necessarily speedy or painless.

We chose to hire out the project because, as you’ll see, it was a weeks-long project even with pros at the helm (remember: we couldn’t get a functioning kitchen back until this was all done). So although we installed all the prefinished hardwoods upstairs by ourselves, seamlessly blending existing boards with new boards and then sanding and staining it all to match perfectly was something we felt best leaving to the pros. Fortunately, we had worked with a local company called Howdyshell Flooring on some of our builder spec projects, so we were significantly less worried and neurotic than we could have been.

Demo

First up – removing the old linoleum and slate. Although we thought we might tackle the slate demo ourselves, Howdyshell quoted it for us and said their team could knock it all out in a day-ish AND that it would include removal/reinstallation of quarter round and plumbing fixtures (like our powder room toilet and sink). Since we’d need to rent tools to get it done, it made our savings margin a lot smaller, and after seeing how quickly they did it – and how dusty & noisy it was – we’re grateful we didn’t try to squeeze it in across a few evenings after the kids went to sleep. Let’s just say they wouldn’t have been asleep for long…

It took a team of guys a full day and a half to get everything out, leaving us with empty plywood throughout the foyer, half bath, and kitchen. Luckily all of the plywood was in good shape, so there was no need to patch or replace any subfloor (we don’t usually have that luck so we savored it! Ha!).

Here’s the view looking back into the kitchen. You can see some of the original hardwood flooring in the living room jutting in on the right side.

Those weird portions of existing hardwood – which you can see better in this older photo – show the footprint of the old wet bar (center) and the living room’s built-in bookcase (left, where the wood wasn’t ever stained since the bookcase was built right on top of it). Patching in the new hardwood to be seamless with the old stuff was a big reason we opted out of DIYing this ourselves. If our attempt resulted in cracked or uneven boards, it’s not like we could hide it under a rug or something – it’d be right in the middle of that high-traffic doorway.

To get a seamless transition, the Howdyshell guys carefully removed some of the existing hardwood planks so they could install the new stuff in a staggered pattern (rather than just cutting it straight and leaving us with a big line between the new and the old stuff that would be a dead giveaway). You can sort of see a faint outline on the subfloor of what used to be covered and what was cut out to make way for new stuff:

Installation

With everything out, they started by patching the new boards in, using wood putty to fill any grooves where it wasn’t perfect. The wood putty also helped fix any boards that were nicked or damaged during the process of removing the old planks.

Once they had “feathered in” the new boards where they met the existing floor, two guys worked the rest of the day to lay out the remaining flooring throughout the kitchen. This was their progress at the end of day one.

I should add that the new wood was delivered to our house a week beforehand so that it could acclimate to our house before installation. Wood expands and shrinks based on the moisture in your home’s air, so it’s best to let it adjust before it gets nailed down, otherwise you might have gaps or buckling later.

It took the same two guys another day to finish laying everything in the kitchen…

…and then they moved on to the foyer, including our half bath and two closets, which carried over to day three.

They couldn’t guarantee the boards would line up with the existing floors in the office and the dining room (you begin laying new flooring wherever you want to guarantee that things will line up – which was the doorway between the living room and the kitchen for us – and the rest of the flooring just falls where it will from there on out). So we opted to do “turnboards” at each of those doorways, which are basically two planks placed perpendicularly at the thresholds. They aren’t raised at all – so they’re completely smooth to walk over, and once everything was stained to match, they ended up adding a nice decorative detail to the foyer floor. RIP metal strips.

You’d think the next step would be sanding and staining, but they actually prefer to install the cabinets first. You may have the same thought we did: “then isn’t the wood not stained under the cabinets??” Both the flooring guys and cabinet guys agreed this was best. Cabinet installation can be rough on floors, so this means you don’t have to worry about scratching up brand new stain while you’re sliding your cabinets into place. Plus, it condensed the overall timeline because we could get our counters templated and into production while the floors were getting stained – both of which required a week or so of waiting time, so it was nice to have them happening simultaneously instead of back to back. Lastly, they argued that by the time you’re likely remodeling or changing your kitchen layout so significantly that you’re exposing anything that isn’t stained, your floors are probably due for a refinishing anyways.

Moving Out

Once the cabinets were installed we began the fun, exciting, mouthwatering, annoying task of MOVING COMPLETELY OUT OF OUR FIRST FLOOR.

Ugh.

This was a big reason we didn’t get all of our floors refinished in our last two houses to be seamless and all the same color/height (especially since those were ranches, so that would’ve meant moving out ENTIRELY). But in the end, I can admit it was totally worth it and a liiiiiiittle bit of me wishes we had bitten this bullet in our previous homes.

Cue the empty room shots.

The dining room was probably the most annoying because we had moved most of the kitchen into it, so it was overloaded already.

Most of the small to medium stuff just got dumped upstairs in random places. Frames and pillows in the guest room. Microwave in our bedroom. Couch cushions in the upstairs hallway. You get the idea. Oh, and appliances went into the garage.

For storing the big stuff, we rented a storage pod for our driveway. We got the smallest one since it turns out we don’t have a crazy amount of “big” furniture. Sherry and I moved it all ourselves in one day using a dolly. At one point her desk might’ve accidentally fallen facedown in the driveway, but other than that there was minimal yelling at each other.

Oh and note the wear on the office floor. The worn down mark in the middle of the room was already there, but those two donut-shaped marks were from us rolling around in our wheely office chairs while working (and possibly thinking about donuts). GAH! We didn’t even realize we were wearing them down until it was too late. So we’ll share how we solved that at the end of the post (patience, grasshopper).

Sanding

We spent one last day in the house while sanding began, which gets the old stain finish off the existing floors and leaves ten million dust particles everywhere (the top ledges of your doorway and window trim will forever be dusty if you don’t wipe it down before moving furniture back in). We holed ourselves upstairs behind this bubble that we taped at the bottom of the steps to keep the dust contained to the first floor. It actually worked!

Sanding was also a two man job. One guy ran the big sander, which took care of all the major areas in each room.

Meanwhile a second guy used a smaller hand sander to get the edges. This is another part of the process I’m grateful we didn’t try to tackle ourselves. That’s one whopper of a sanding machine, amiright?

Here’s what we were left with. The dark lines around the edges are unpainted portions of the baseboards/brick where they temporarily removed the quarter round that would later be added again, so they’re not areas the sander missed.

Staining & Sealing

Our last order of business before getting kicked out of our house entirely was picking a stain color. Our goal was to match what was already on the steps, since we weren’t refinishing those. We did some test spots near the stairway to find the closest match: the bottom one was Jacobean, the next one up was Special Walnut, then Provencial, and the top was a blend of Jacobean + Provencial together. We went with the Provencial (third one up) because it felt like a nice classic medium stain and it looked really close to the color of the stairs (spoiler: it looks nearly identical now that it’s all said and done – phew!).

Since we wouldn’t be allowed to walk on the floors while they were getting stained (and since being trapped upstairs for a week didn’t sound like fun) we made ourselves scarce for the next several days. We stayed at my parents house locally for a couple of nights and then we took a short trip for another few nights. But before we left town, we popped by to see progress. And I’ll be honest – we were MAJORLY NERVOUS at first.

It’s hard to tell in these photos, but it looked very… ummm… French Countryside? Like kinda patchy and very rustic/weathered. It was pretty, but not what we were going for.

So after some deep breaths into a paper bag, we called the flooring guy and he reassured us that it’s just because they hadn’t sealed it yet, which would add richness and a hint of shine to the stain. Made sense – but I’d be lying if I said we weren’t still a little nervous. But we gave them the green light to charge ahead while we went off on our little family getaway.

The reason we had to be gone so many days is that after the stain dries they apply three coats of polyurathane sealer. So they’d come back each morning, lightly sand it, seal it, and then let it dry overnight. Repeat. Repeat. And even once those three coats of sealer were applied, they advised us not to walk on it for 48 hours to let it cure.

So six nights later, we finally returned to see it looking MUCH better. The sealer had evened out the color and added just enough gloss (we went with a satin finish) that it looked just like the stairs. I think we still spent the seventh night away, just because there was still some lingering odor – but boy did it feel good to duck our heads inside and see things coming together so nicely.

Moving Back In

The saga didn’t end there though. We were advised to wait another TEN DAYS before putting down heavy furniture or rugs, since they could leave imprints in the sealer. So we holed ourselves upstairs for another week-ish, coming down basically just to pass through in our socks to leave (we still had no sink or appliances at this point).

We also had little tasks to tackle like cleaning up the layer of sanding dust on everything (they use “dust mitigation machines” but it doesn’t get it all) along with caulking and touch-up painting all of the quarter round throughout the first floor so it looked so fresh and so clean clean against our rich wood floors.

The story has a happy ending – I mean, just look how seamless the floors are – but even in writing this post I’m reminded that it was quite the involved process (it was roughly 16 days from demo to walking on them again, plus another 10 before we could bring our furniture back in). But on the bright side, we didn’t drop any furniture off the dolly during the move-back-in process! #happywifehappylife

And we really can’t say enough about how completely undetectable the transition is between the new floors in the kitchen and the existing floors in the living room. I would honestly have to reference an old photo to pick out where the new boards start and the old boards end. There is literally zero indication that we ever added hardwoods, and when people are over in person they can’t believe it wasn’t always like this (except for the ones who are still scarred by the memory of our faux brick floors).

We’re also really loving having hardwoods in the foyer now too, and not just because it helps the whole first floor feel more connected. They’re smoother and warmer underfoot than the craggier slate used to be, and we worry less about a kid wiping out and scraping themselves in the process (the slate was not kind to little knees, let’s put it that way).

And you can sort of see in this holiday picture how the transition into the office looks. Almost like an intentional decorative detail that lines up with the doorway.

You’ll also notice the rolly office chair is back in the picture above…. but we made a quick modification to both of them so we weren’t scratching up our new floors. We didn’t want to buy one of those big rectangular plastic floor protector things, so we just pried the wheels off and put furniture pads on them, which has been a perfect solution. They still slide around easily (and the chair still spins, since that function remains) so they’re just as easy to use without worrying that they’ll make more accidental-floor-donuts.

In summary, it took a lot of time, a significant amount of inconvenience, and a painful-but-worth-it hunk of cash. It was around $3,400 for the materials (3/4″ solid oak hardwood flooring for three rooms) and around $4,100 for the labor (which included demo, removal of quarter round/plumbing, laying/patching new hardwoods, sanding & staining & sealing the entire first floor, and reinstalling the plumbing & new quarter round after completion).

Having done it, and seeing how it was not a small commitment, I can totally see why we didn’t take the leap in our last two houses… but we’re also basking in the giant leap forward that every corner of the entire first floor took towards feeling more finished.

I’m also extremely grateful that the next time we have to refinish any floors (i.e. the beach house) we won’t have to move any furniture out or live there while it’s happening. Yesssssssssss.

The post Refinishing Your Hardwood Floors: What To Expect appeared first on Young House Love.

#additionally sad home renovations

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unixcommerce · 6 years ago

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Raju Vegesna of Zoho: High School Grads Get Tuition Free Training through Zoho University – and 1800 Get Jobs with the Company

Below is an edited transcript of our conversation. To see the full interview, watch the video or listen to it using the embedded SoundCloud player.

Small Business Trends: This is Analyst Day number four, and it’s already bigger and better than the previous three years, so congratulations.

Raju Vegesna: Thank you. Thank you for joining us.

Raju Vegesna: Technology. Yeah.

Small Business Trends: And you’re saying not only do you not have to pay tuition, you actually make money while you’re doing this.

Raju Vegesna: Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Greenberg: God.

Small Business Trends: I just want to make sure I got it. Can I sign up for this?

Paul Greenberg: I was just thinking the same thing. I want to go back to school, can I get my MBA here?

Small Business Trends: That’s amazing.

Raju Vegesna: I was about say that about 1,800 employees do not have a college degree.

Small Business Trends: Or college debt.

Small Business Trends: That’s really good.

Raju Vegesna: 18 years. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right.

The other thing that blew me away, I remember, I think it was you, or Sandy, or someone telling me about you have your own dance troupe. Right?

Paul Greenberg: That’s amazing.

Small Business Trends: And, actually, the way this particular office is designed he [Raju] actually had a hand in it.

So, again, the space should reflect the company.

This article, “Raju Vegesna of Zoho: High School Grads Get Tuition Free Training through Zoho University – and 1800 Get Jobs with the Company” was first published on Small Business Trends

https://smallbiztrends.com/

The post Raju Vegesna of Zoho: High School Grads Get Tuition Free Training through Zoho University – and 1800 Get Jobs with the Company appeared first on Unix Commerce.

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