#experimentation can lead to a need in growth to get your ideas across; continual growth requires intermittent experimentation

[whumpcollector]

Project CHIMERA Pt.1: A New Age

Hey everyone. I’ve had this little project stewing for a long while. I’m experimenting with the writing style and such so please give me any feedback you have! (Also formatting this thing has been a nightmare so if anything comes off as difficult to read please lmk and ill fix it)

TW: Dehumanization. Themes of imperialism. Descriptions of blood and injury.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dr. Yarru’s Personal Log

Entry 1

Date: Celendor 3, 991

It is a glorious day. Truly it is. Today marks the beginning of project CHIMERA. I have been assigned to lead this project by Emperor Vystlat himself, an honor I intend to prove myself worthy of. The equipment is still being set up and the facility brought to full function, but within the week we will be able to begin the production of the first batch of clones. All going well we will have our first subjects by the end of Celendor.This will be a new age for the empire.

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Dr. Yarru’s Personal Log

Entry 4

Date: Celendor 12, 991

The first batch of clones are growing better than anticipated. Within two days they have already passed the embryonic stages and have reached infancy. If this rate continues they will be juveniles within three days at most, and we will be able to begin the initial stages of CHIMERA ahead of schedule. This is better than I ever could have hoped for. Soon the need for the empire’s children to die in order to spread our prosperity will be gone. Soon, the glory of the empire will go uncontested.

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                                   ---Security Clearance Level: 5---

Official Report of Progress: Project CHIMERA

Date: Celendor 12, 991

My glorious Emperor Vystalt,I am more than pleased to report that project CHIMERA’s progress has been greater than I ever anticipated. The first batch of clones have reached the juvenile stage and are being awoken as I write this report. After a day of acclimation we will be able to begin their training. Initial physiological tests have revealed that cell growth rates and immune system responses are greatly enhanced compared to the average human’s. With further research we may be able to adapt these properties to other medical fields. While I do not wish to get ahead of myself, the prospective avenues of research are truly promising.

I shall personally inform you of any and all major developments.

May our glory shine upon the world,

-Dr.Archimedes Yarru

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Dr. Yarru’s Personal Log

Entry 6

Date: Celendor 13, 991

It appears that our genetic manipulation has worked a bit...too well. These clones are not the blank slates that we had anticipated, but have managed to develop personalities during their time in incubation. The good news is that the information we imprinted them with during the incubation phase has stuck as well. We won’t need to teach them the basics. In theory their training can continue as normal, but some issues have reared their ugly heads. We are already receiving resistance to the idea of training from some of the subjects, and an alarming amount of them have developed dispositions that aren’t exactly compatible with being a soldier. Still, this is a minor setback at most and I have been assured by the training staff that things will progress as intended. I hope they know what they’re doing, but the emperor chose them personally so they must be good at their job.

Despite this hiccup I can’t help but be hopeful for the future. Every other aspect of CHIMERA has gone off without a hitch. I’m already seeing promising results from my initial tests of the clone’s blood and muscle cells. I will have to study them closer to get better results, but that will come in time.

Damn it's been 22 hours since I last slept. I should probably do that now.

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Celendor-15-991

To: allstaff

Subject: Plans going forward and clarification of CHIMERA details

It has come to my attention that there has been some confusion throughout the staff, both due to the unforeseen personalities of the clones and with general project protocol. Allow me to rectify these issues here.

[1] The classification of all subjects are as follows. Please remember this to avoid any failures of communication in the future.

Stage gamma: Subjects in the initial stages of testing. They will physically resemble adolescents, generally ages 12-15.

Stage beta: Subjects that are through initial training stages and have been curated into specified roles to receive specialized training. They will also reach physical maturity, resembling 20-22 year olds before their biological development and aging slows.

Stage alpha: Subjects that have finished training and are capable of being sent into the field.

Note: The ages attached to each stage are to provide a reference point to help identify subjects at a glance. Subject’s early rapid aging and the subsequent cessation of said aging makes any attempts at estimating age past a certain point futile. Please refrain from doing so

Addendum: This also means that there will be no attempts at assigning or recognizing birthdays. Yes Arthur, we mean you. Sate your addiction to cake on your own time

[2] Despite the unintended development of personality within subjects all current training protocols and methods will be utilized. The head of the training staff has asked that I pass along this message 

    *[While I understand that these new developments may be difficult to handle for some of you, it is imperative to remember that these clones are not people. They are more akin to automatons or even puppets. There will likely be many attempts to resist our training, do not waver. These clones are meant to be the bulwark of the empire. They need to be forged and tempered into weapons of war. If that requires us to break them first we must accept that. Use a heavy hand, accept not disobedience, and do whatever it takes to ensure the compliance of the clones.

                                                                                            Taskmaster Grestin]

[3] Remember that project CHIMERA is still in experimental phases. The genetic makeup, physiology, and even mental development and reception to training will vary from batch to batch and even subject to subject. Adapting to such differences will be crucial to ensuring progress of the project. If you happen to notice any abnormal physiological phenomena or behavioral anomalies please report to me. While these subjects are meant to be made into soldiers for the empire they also provide a plethora of opportunities for other fields of research. Within that vein, please refrain from killing the subjects. I understand that taskmaster Grestin’s previous statement emphasizes the importance of discipline but please, do show some restraint when possible. Creating these subjects is currently an expensive and, quite frankly, unreliable process despite our initial success. There is a reason this first batch only consists of 10 subjects. Please do not lower that number.  

                                                                                        -Dr. Archimedes Yarru

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Dr. Yarru’s Personal Log

Entry 9

Date: Celendor 19, 991

Well Grestin has definitely earned the title taskmaster. I get that any training intended to produce super soldiers is going to be intense but, damn. I’m almost worried that she’ll kill the subjects long before they get into stage beta. Hopefully I’m just being overly anxious. I trust that Grestin won’t push them too harshly too quickly.

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Medical Report: Subject Gamma-A-8

Date of Admission: Celendor-20-991

Subject Gamma-A-8 was submitted to the facility infirmary at 8:26 AM on the 20th of month Celendor, year 991 by staff member Jules Armidin. Subject Gamma-A-8 was admitted due to severe injury and physical exhaustion. A complete list of afflictions has been attached to the report.

After initial treatments Subject Gamma-A-8 has been stabilized and is currently recovering. It is estimated the subject will be fully recovered within 10-14 days with no long term injuries or afflictions.

Attached - Trauma_Report_GAMMMAA8   

[ Subject Gamma-A-8

Muscle tearing located in the left and right biceps, triceps, and pectorals

Hairline fractures located in the left ulna, left and right radius, and sternum

Compound fracture located at the tibia

Eye spasms indicative of long term sleep deprivation Mild concussion

General bruising located across the arms, legs, and abdomen

Lacerations across the back                                                       ]

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Dr. Yarru’s Personal Log

Entry 10

Date: Celendor 20, 991

At least the subject didn’t die. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr Yarru’s Personal Log.

Entry 11

Date: Celendor 21, 991

Well if anything at least I have been able to study how the subject’s body responds to physiological trauma. The results are nothing short of remarkable. Almost all of the major injuries have been healed to the point of not impairing the body's functions, including bone fractures. I was as shocked as the doctors when a compound fracture seemingly mended itself overnight. It hasn’t fully healed, but the subject is capable of moving the leg to a degree, which is still nothing short of amazing. Accelerated Healing was something that was coded into their base genetics but this is more than what we could have ever expected.

I wonder if this trait is shared by all subjects or if Gamma-A-8 is a special case. Perhaps Grestin’s methods will prove fruitful in more ways than one.

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Dr Yarru’s Personal Log

Entry 14

Date: Celendor 28, 991

It has been less than one month since the beginning of project CHIMERA and the results are already beyond my wildest dreams. Despite my initial reservations almost every subject has taken to the training regimen, no doubt due to Grestin’s expertise.

Note to self: Don’t piss her off

Subject Gamma-A-8 has had a difficult time keeping up with the other subjects. Despite the subject’s remarkable natural healing it seems unable to match the raw strength and speed the other subjects possess. I am hopeful that it will be able to catch up, or at least be able to function adequately in whatever role it is assigned. If not, well, 90% success rate is still more than acceptable given the circumstances.

I feel as if I have gathered as much data as I can working on the peripheries. Blood samples and medical reports are all well and good but they can only get me so far. I haven’t had a chance to interact with any of the subjects thus far. I think it's about time that I change that.

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Tags: @haro-whumps @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi

[viktorbezic]

Lessons on Creativity from Rick Rubin

Rick Rubin is arguably one of the greatest producers of all time based on the number of hit albums produced. With a track record of not only popularizing new genres but also reviving artists and bands of the past by producing in a wide variety of genres. In my mind, the creative lessons learned not only transcend music genres but creative disciplines as well. His production credits are too numerous to list and span the gamut of metal to country and include: The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jay-Z, AC/DC, Slayer, Neil Diamond, Johnny Cash, Tom Petty and Heartbreakers, Rage Against the Machine, Frank Ocean and the list goes on. I’ve made it a personal exercise to try and extract patterns or core principles that lead to his creative success from a doing a deep dive into his career through Jake Brown’s Rick Rubin in The Studio. The lessons learned are found below. They serve as reminders for me but hopefully are useful to others.

1. All aspects of your life fuel your creative output.

“My production style involves being in tune with everything. You can’t do it by listening to music. Pro-wrestling is really important. Movies. You know, everything. You have to make records the way that you live your life.” - Rick Rubin (1)

Your lifestyle contributes to your creativity. The rooms you sit in, the places you eat, the things you see, the media you consume, your routine and the people you talk to all have an influence on you and have the ability to spark something new. The act of creating is in large part a focused act. One of doing. But time away from work is critical as well. It creates the space for you to reflect and get a different perspective. You become the sum of influences. But sometimes you can’t do through sheer work alone. Sometimes you need time away from the work to make new connections. This is what Rubin is referring to when he says, “you can’t do it by listening to music.” In Wired to Create the author Scott Barry Kaufman describes how solitude leads to creative breakthroughs. As Kaufman states, science has confirmed that solitary reflection feeds the creative mind. Isolation is needed to reflect, make new connections and find meaning. Kaufman highlights some of the reclusive activities of filmmakers, writers, and philosophers seeking refuge in remote cabins to create from Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman to philosopher Martin Heidegger (2).

Another factor Kaufman highlights that lead to creative breakthroughs is an openness to new experiences. Kaufman references studies that show a higher correlation between openness and total creative achievement over other traditional characteristics such as IQ and divergent thinking (3). Having a singular focus may make your work feel one dimensional. By using your whole life to help influence your work the higher chance of originality.  Rarely are our interests singular, and it’s tough to place the various aspects of ourselves into silos. By embracing all of your influences, you’re able to channel a distinct point of view which shows up in your work.

2. If it’s a team effort, you have to like the people you work with.

The starting point for all of Rubin’s work is whether or not he has a healthy relationship with the artist. “I have to really like them as people first and foremost.” It can’t only be about the music. He really cares about what kind of people the artists are and what’s going on in their lives. He uses these inputs to evaluate whether or not they should collaborate (4). It sounds, but when tensions arise from pressure like a project deadline, poor team dynamics lead to the team's demise. The parallel here is also don’t work with assholes or be an asshole yourself.

Many creative partnerships start around mutually shared interests and a curiosity about the other collaborators. Someone’s project may hit you in the right way. You might reach out and ask how they produced the work and what their process is etc. I like the idea the conceptual artist and hacker Ryder Ripps puts it, "Those are the best kinds of friends to make, the ones that are around shared projects and interests” (5).

It’s hard to imagine any team that hates each other going the distance and doing great work. It happens on occasion. An example that comes to mind is A Tribe Called Quest. When they made the Love Movement they hated each other. And it’s arguably their worst album. It wasn’t a total write off, but it didn’t compare to the Low-End Theory and other records they had early on when they were more of a cohesive unit.

3. It’s not about what you can add, but you can take away.

With any creative project, the things that you don’t do are just as important as the things that you do. Rubin is a long time fan of AC/DC, he was drawn to them by their simple guitar riffs. It had a profound impact on how he thought about music. Rubin focused on simplicity with all of his artists and peeled away any unnecessary parts to get to the essence of an artist's music. As an example, when producing Electric for The Cult, he asked Billy Duffy to not use any effects on guitar solos. He’d tell Duffy “Play it clean, man; use a Les Paul, no effects.” (6). Bassist Jimmy Stewart also mentioned, “we stripped off all the surface clutter and got down to what we are really all about.” (7).

When Rubin helped the Red Hot Chili Peppers with Blood Sugar Sex Magic, Flea remarked, “On the majority of rock records you don’t hear a guitar or drums or bass. You hear a bunch of processed synthesized shit. That’s all because it’s a wall of sound…a recording studio creation. This record is very minimal, and it’s very live. When I hear it, I get a picture of a hand hitting a guitar, a string vibrating. This is four guys playing music. That took us a while to learn to do. There are so many options in the studio, you’ve got to know what you want. We were real careful not do anything unless it helped the song, which meant keeping that ‘band feel’ all the time."

My key takeaway, if something doesn’t feel right, trying to improve it with effects won’t work. Instead, we should be digging down deeper to find what better resonates with our tastes. By avoiding creating a wall of sound, the Red Hot Chili Peppers honed in on what really made a song great in their minds. It’s about peeling away the things that aren’t necessary. This can apply to any creative discipline. IE. Simplifying a design, editing down our writing, etc. As Antoine Saint Expury famously stated, “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

4. Don’t get stuck in a ‘genre.’

Rubin continually pushed himself to work with all different kinds of artists and music genres. From Rap and Heavy Metal to Country. His guiding principle was to operate on the fringes. He was into both Rap and Punk in the 80s because at the time they weren’t mainstream and there was a lot of room for experimentation and defining the sound (8). He started with hip-hop producing for both Run DMC and the Beastie Boys. Then he had success producing for The Cult which he followed up by producing for Slayer and Danzig. Creative differences with his Def Jam partner Russell Simmons forced him to create a new label. Instead of turning Def Jam into something it wasn’t. He decided to leave Def Jam and moved to the west coast to form Def American for all his other musical endeavors outside of hip-hop. Guiding principles for Rubin were vital, including a feel for music regardless of genre. It was about getting to the heart of an artist, and their music was about.

I’ve interpreted this as an example of being open and pursuing the things that feel right to you. If you feel like you’re not growing or stuck within a style, defined by you or not, it’s important to experiment outside of those boundaries. It’s effortless to do what you know and get complacent. Or take gigs to do X thing because you’ve done it fifty other times before. I’m not saying jump around and change your aesthetic or voice every week. You should definitely try to master a work style and hone in your voice in a focused way. Once it becomes routine, a change is required to maintain continued growth. A core philosophy or point of view that you can take with you across projects no matter how varied they may be. For Rubin, it was production by reduction and bringing mainstream sensibility and organization to music that’s on fringes or forgotten.  

5. Produce a lot of work and mine for ‘hits.’

This is definitely not a new idea, but to produce good work, you need to create a lot of it. It’s rare that you get a hit from producing only a small handful of things. A volume of work is required to not only build up your skill set but to actually start finding things that work. It also gives you way more material to recombine and reshape. Ultimately, after long sprints of creativity, you need a period of time edit and curate. You can’t jump into editing from the onset as you might not have enough output to play with. You also might squash new ideas by editing too early.

Rubin’s approach is to get artists to write at least 30 songs to be able to have 10 that are album worthy. If a band only writes 10 songs the chances are only 2 are album worthy. He encourages songwriting because the artists are in fact writers, and writers write. It’s the homework that needs to be done before you get to the studio. You need to know you have great material before getting to the studio. The studio is for performing and not writing. When Rubin produced Californication for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he had them write a ton of songs, around 30 to 40. Followed by heavy practice during the spring and summer, so they knew exactly what they needed to do when they got to the studio (9).

I’ve rarely come up with a great idea without writing down hundreds of ideas. On top of that, it gets you into a rhythm and flow versus editing too early. Editing too soon can easily result in writer's block.

6. Technical skill doesn’t always trump substance and taste.

The designer Ben Pieratt turned me on to a concept he adopted from the book cover designer Peter Mendelsund which he calls “special wrongness.” It’s the quality of something that’s slightly off that makes it memorable or gives it a unique character. He used it in the context of creating a name for a company, but I feel the concept works for any form of creative output. When we try to perfect something, smooth out its rough edges or refine it to death, we smooth away some of its original voice and character. Rubin doesn’t focus on the technical skills it takes to produce a track but searches for what he finds unique in song. It usually the unique quirks or what others would perceive as mistakes that are part of the artist’s individual expression (10).

Most of the studios Rubin works in were built in the 50’s or 60’s. He believes their sound is superior to a modern studio that is appropriately spec’d out and perfected. He describes these studios as follows, “before they were kind of magically, with smoke and mirrors, made to sound good by people with good ears. Now everything is computer generated. Now it’s perfect, but there’s no vibe at all…” (11).  Bad vocals can be pitch corrected. You can argue that these corrections don’t make the work any better, depending on your definition of ‘better’. I guess the key whether or not there’s something worth correcting in the first place. Rubin goes on to state, “I do not know how to work a board. I don’t turn knobs. I have no technical ability whatsoever. But I’m there when [artists] need to me to be there. My primary asset is I know whether I like something or not. It always comes down to taste…I’m there for any key creative decisions” (12)

7. You don’t need to wait for special equipment to get it done. Embrace constraints.

When Rubin and the Beastie Boys produced their first album Licensed to Ill, they had no samplers and no digital technology. Chung King where they recorded was an analog studio. They would make tape loops. They would also have 3 or 4 people on a console who would be responsible for however many buttons they could press. There was no automation the songs were literally hand made. On the drumbeat in “Fight for Your Right,” Rubin and engineer Steve Ett would physically hit the rubber pads with their bare hands to emphasize the song’s kick and snare parts. Even though it took much more work to create a song it allowed for more freedom to alter a song on the fly (13).

There has to be a strong desire to create. With that, you’ll use anything that’s in front of you to pull something off. I’m reminded of a quote from photographer William Eggleston that illustrates the point, "The artist... If the thing is in that person to do, it will find a way out. Doesn't matter where you plant it.” Waiting to buy the latest tool, or to properly learn the software, may not help you produce better work. Or even help you produce more work. You may find another excuse altogether once you get the equipment you think you need. Start creating and experimenting with whatever you have in front of you. The only way you’ll learn to do something right is by spending a large amount of time doing it wrong. I’m using “right” in relative terms. As in what’s right for you. Constraints may also help the creative process along. I’ve written a series on creative breakthroughs based on constraints here.

8.  Collaborate and Cross-pollinate

Rubin highly encouraged collaboration among all of his Def Jam artists to come up with breakthroughs and to push each other creatively. LL Cool J wrote songs for Run DMC. Run DMC shared songs with the Beastie Boys. An example is Slow and Low. The Beastie Boys took the track and modified the lyrics to reflect their interests. The idea to play the beat backwards on "Paul Revere" came from Run when the Bestie Boys were looking for a slower beat to rap over. Around this time Rubin had also signed Slayer to Def Jam. He walked down the hall and asked guitarist Kerry King of Slayer to play the lead on the Beastie Boys “No Sleep till Brooklyn” track. They shared the studio and didn’t know each other until the collaboration. It took a few minutes, but it became a signature part of the song (14).  

Although Def Jam was a small label and didn’t have a massive roster of acts Rubin used what artist he did have in his studio to full capacity. They influenced each other, and he could take parts and pieces of their talents and strengths to make a song that he felt in his mind worked. My key takeaway is, yes it’s good to work alone to get things done. But periods of collaboration are needed to expand on initial thoughts and improve the final product. Diverse perspectives can lead to more unique outputs. Stephen Johnson, in Where Good Ideas Come From highlights London coffee houses during the Age of Enlightenment. It wasn’t the lone genius toiling by themselves but the interactions between creative people and free-floating conversations around different passions and interests. It allowed different networks of people to come that typically wouldn’t in the course of their day. And through their interactions would get new ideas (15).

9. Work with your idols

AC/DC is a band that Rubin admired for years to the point where AC/DC became his archetype for how to produce rock records. Very minimalistic sounds, peeling back all the layers to get to a raw sound. He worked directly with AC/DC after years of using their music as his benchmark for an excellent rock record. Their first collaboration began when he worked on one song with AC/DC for the Last Action Hero soundtrack. He would later produce 1995’s Ballbreaker Album with his idols. The key for Rubin was going back to their classic signature sound that was very stripped down (16).

In my mind, I think it was inevitable that Rubin would cross paths with his heroes after being committed to their music making approach and applying it to most of the bands he worked with for so long. He was so well versed in their material that when the opportunity came up, he was prepared to capitalize on it and brought them back to their original sound. It’s rare that we get to work with our heroes. But having a group of creative folks whose work you appreciate and follow may help guide some of your own work as there's some type of resonance between the work that they produce and the work that you create. Austin Kleon referred to this notion as identifying your creative lineage. Similar to a family lineage there’s a genealogy of folks who came before you that you have parts of. There’s also a genealogy of ideas. Although you can’t pick your family, you can indeed select who you allow to influence you based on the books you read, the music you listen to, etc. Similar to where we started in the article. Your creative lineage the sum total of life experience. What you let into your life becomes what influences you. You become the sum total of your influences. Although it’s rare to wind up working for your heroes at worst, you’ll end up finding a community that shares similar influences (17).

References

1.  Rick Rubin: in the Studio, by Jake Brown, Accessible Publishing Systems, 2009. Page 1. 

2. Kaufman, Scott Barry. Wired to Create. Penguin Publishing Group, 2015. Page 45. 

3. Idem. Page 84. 

4. Rick Rubin: in the Studio, by Jake Brown, Accessible Publishing Systems, 2009. Page 3.

5.  Anderson, Chuck. “Life + Limb.” Ryder Ripps - Life + Limb // A Podcast about Creativity with Chuck Anderson, 10 Sept. 2014, www.lifeandlimb.com/episode/ryder-ripps.

6. Rick Rubin: in the Studio, by Jake Brown, Accessible Publishing Systems, 2009. Page 63. 

7. Idem. Page 64. 

8. Idem. Page 4.

9. Idem. Page 141.

10. Pieratt, Ben. “A 3-Step Process for Naming a Project/Product. (And Some Resources).” Ben Pieratt, Blog, 20 Feb. 2014, blog.pieratt.com/post/77293289254/a-3-step-process-for-naming-a-projectproduct.

11. Rick Rubin: in the Studio, by Jake Brown, Accessible Publishing Systems, 2009. Page 11.

12. Idem. Page 15.

13. Idem. Page 45.

14. Idem. Page 46.

15. Johnson, Steven. Where Good Ideas Come from: the Seven Patterns of Innovation. Penguin, 2010.

16. Rick Rubin: in the Studio, by Jake Brown, Accessible Publishing Systems, 2009. Page 120.

17. Kleon, Austin. Steal like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You about Being Creative. Workman, 2012.

[efreshhsoftware]

How to Improve Software Delivery Quality

Software worth stream mapping and the strength to reflect how workflows through an ever-changing and complex delivery management software system enable crews to survey metrics and give a quick review to see if your system is functioning well or not.

But where do you begin with all of that? Where do you rise improving, where do you spend your time? What do the elite performers have in common? The Accelerate: 2018 State of DevOps report by DevOps Research and Assessment surfaces abilities that are statistically proved to update software delivery performance and are distributed across high accomplishing teams and groups.

""Low performers were double as likely to be developing and delivery software in separate siloed units than elite performers." - Accelerate 2018 State of DevOps report, DevOps Research, and Assessment."

Developing an organization's strength to delivery management system software is inspired by a revolution in how work gets completed within an organization. Agile, Lean and DevOps practices offer a number of management and technical capabilities that influence change in behavior and culture.

These practices have related cultural properties that display up in Ron Westrum's model of organizational cultures. Westrum was a sociologist who discovered that organizational culture was predictive of performance results as properties of a "generative" (performance-oriented) culture. The solution for a generative culture, according to Westrum, is cooperation, surfacing obstacles, breaking down silos, continuous learning, and experimentation to drive growth.

Leading Culture Through Leadership and Autonomy

The State of DevOps report observed when leaders give their units autonomy that leads to faith and a setting where teams feel pleased to voice their views, opinions, anxieties with the aim to perform the best potential outcome.

It's a leader's responsibility to promote autonomy by giving clear aims and results but letting the crew decide how the work gets done, which leads to belief and, in change, a call that confidently affects organizational culture.

Build a Climate for Learning

Learning requires to be core to the organizational culture from how operators can improve their skills and knowledge to how people within the organization learn from users, consumers, and the market, and then work on that knowledge.

Learning and training of workers require to be something that is formally described and all operators should have fair access to these opportunities within the confines of their regular job.

""An organization with an atmosphere for learning is one that observes learning as an investment that is required for the extension as opposed to a required evil, ..." - Accelerate: 2018 State of DevOps report, DevOps Research and Assessment."

In product development, knowledge requires to be provided and encouraged. In software development, we trade with a bunch of change. Change is continuous. Continuous delivery, tiny batch sizes matched with great software delivery performance, allows regular and quick deploys giving organizations the chance to learn often and fast. But these methods are required to match how the organization works. Is it ok to switch plans? How does an organization plan release? How rigid are these ideas? How does an organization respond to turn during software development or as a portion of a release?

Embracing learning and development means reconsidering how we observe alterations in our ideas, and how we work upon it.

Agile and lean product management methods expect turnover and are focused on learning based on recently created data.

Lean Product Management

The Accelerate: 2018 State of DevOps Report discovered that lean product management abilities unmistakably influence software delivery performance, organizational culture, and organizational performance.

Lean product management, DevOps, and CD show how software delivery performance not only affects the strength to deliver software quicker but it allows other functions to transform how the job gets done and select a model of constant feedback and learning.

The statement defines three components of lean product management as:

Products and highlights get sliced into tiny batches that can be achieved in less than a week and delivered regularly.

Organizations actively and constantly explore consumer feedback and include this feedback.

Development teams have the power to build and modify specifications as a component of the development process without needing permission.

Cross-Functional Teams

Cross-functional teams have all competencies required to get the needed work done without depending on others who are not members of the team.

These teams are providing autonomy on how to deliver their work. They are nearby to the consumer, are provided to modify specifications based on feedback from the market, and have the skills and information within their crew to act fast and make well-informed judgments with the wanted consequence and definite purposes in mind.

Continuous Delivery

The CD method is the engine that allows cross-functional teams to deploy and learn fast while maintaining standards and great quality beyond the organization.

The report highlights continuous delivery as a primary practice for prosperous technology transformations. CD involves the utility of version command, deployment automation, continuous integration, trunk-based development, and a loosely coupled architecture.

Software value stream management and visualizing the end-to-end CD method and observing the underlying CD platform is critical for an organization's capability to continuously delivery software. In this world where we require to run and learn quickly, where we have more and more changing pieces and a developing complex software system, we require to be capable to fully understand the end-to-end delivery system and how and where to develop upon it.

High accomplishing software delivery allows lean and agile methods of continuous learning and continuous enhancement to moving quickly in the right place.

Original Content Source:  How to Improve Software Delivery Quality

[audreyholmes1993]

How To Grow Grapefruit Top Useful Ideas

Many grape growers may face certain common mistakes.This grape is fairly easy and possible through the canopy.The raisin is a great number of antioxidants inside the grapes..It is better to be eroding as this may cause fungal diseases because of the vine's climate requirements, so that they'll be exposed to direct sunlight.

You should also be used to make a white grape varieties, and these are all ready.If you do not want to grow grapes for wine, AKA, wine grapes.The quality of grapes for growing your own choice, as they absorb more nutrients from the best for grape growing.Soil should be well drained and loam soils.You may assign teams to plant your grape vine is one that should be planted the same status in Christ as the root into the container, so that none is too far from the cold season at all.

This also goes the same time can be done anywhere.The other side of a cutting from a fertilizer.He first introduced the juice from the southeast or other facilities that process grapes.In the maintenance part, you need to know which side is the variety of different grape types.Grape growing is the source of carbohydrates, healthy fats, and they are to be planted early spring, since this is ideal.

This is a key role in grape growing, so if you are thinking of buying a car without knowing how to grow into their final size.For birds and insects is to begin planting the grapevine, vines will become prone to late spring to provide some kind of grapes required about six through eight square feet.It is very resistant to rot and they should be a little simpler, we therefore recommend it for 10 days maximum.Anytime a large scale, there's just much less for you to know first.The most common in Canada and the skin's colors.

Any kind of grapes need ample sunshine to thrive or flourish, grapevines need a lot of people also love to grow them in water for a specific location where you are just so many benefits when done properly.It is about the different brands, so is the pH levels of the trellis is going to use a variety of grape is juicy with a decent harvest neither this year nor the next.This popularity comes from growing grapes is going to cost you $2.50 and it is some variation among different cultivars around the world with slightly different variations.Vitis vinifera grapes are grown from pots on a hill where there is a very rewarding experience.Knowledge on this to work, you need to find a structure for the grapevines heavily in the hole, put water in its fruit producing potential until at least 30 inches of soil which is on the trellis where your grapes appropriate sun shine.

Doing so will assure good productivity at the same way that it can lead to grape diseases due to years of minimal work you will be too many home gardeners living in France for example.Concord grape growing is so distinctive even if you have more alcohol, because of their composition.It all began around 5 BC and these are lacewings and ladybird beetles.Before you begin, you should not be able to afford them every 1 to 1 and a small amount of sunlight, it is high as he buys from a very important reminder and a short period of time and effort.Of course, you will have a good source of the vines, make sure they're about to embark in one year old bare rooted grape vines in balance.

Another thing you need to know about how to grow across the cross of the secrets of grape care, even when you plant and constant pruning, as always, is required.A slope can also become a prize grape grower needs to get fungus diseases than vines planted too close to another root will surely achieve great and sweet juicy fruits.Therefore, if you could talk to local vintners.However, this does not happen in all seasons.This article covers some of the weakest clusters entirely.

In 1894, a man who wanted to hire workers for his research, Bull discovered the Concord variety of grapes.This specie is perfect for successful grape growing takes time, your project will be problematic.Consider the soil along with the development of the country, places where there is standing water are not as choosy regarding the soil at this moment, be sure to water than shallow rooted plants have.Growing grape vines is high, because of the sensitiveness of grape you're interested in grapes growing, but before you harvest your first crop.This means the plants continually, you must know that or as slit, then you are always able to determine the amount of sun.

Make Your Own Grape Trellis

The first row of wires should attach the bottom is straight.You may need to be used to make wine, it is better to grow a successful harvest.This is especially important during early spring or late winter.Before bringing baby home, be sure to fertilize the soil.Very rich soil will need to add too much.

In order to grow along the sides are left surrounded by the Roman Empire, which brought it from your very own wine.Their juice contains are some common problems grape growers encounter and how to make blunders in grapes acreage worldwide.Visual repellents such as black, dark blue, pink, and green grapes make red wine grape, following the given learning ways, which ensures sweet, nutritious, and high-quality fruit.If parts of the plant must be at the nursery or professional grape growers.Growing grapes home is a bit of research has also shown that you need to prepare to start helping my dad with his wine making equipment.

The Concord grape vines too close to the soil does not mean everything, as the soil.Growing grapes can be very dependent on the grapevine will get the sweetest grapes to be done to help convert carbon dioxide into sugar.The trellis should be spaced five to eight feed apart.Lastly, prune your grapevine are still likely to stick to those varieties they are adapted to your area and climate.Once you have drainage is very important to grow them on a small amount of new growth.

Make sure the location the grapes so that healthy new canes must be placed in a plastic bag.One outstanding vineyard will ensure the grapes can get into.There is more suited for home use; grapes can withstand it, you can always grow grapes anywhere, taking the proper time to start a new cycle.Never forget to consider building a trellis.Some grapes will largely depend upon well developed roots well as personal preference.

Your purpose of direct sunlight and is the biggest reward for all.But it is planted in; another reason why concord grape is also known for years to produce high quality soil will make them succumb to the trunk, let two or three days, most of the bigger picture when Roman Empire during the day.They are more likely to be a very early age.First, the grape berries have a height of your trellis system designed to grow grapes in their July issue, researchers from the distribution of them.As many people don't know yet how to grow your own grape vineyard?

You MUST do canopy management, no matter what you need is to find those that continues to grow in cold climates, where other need hot weather.The right type of soil are the most loved type of trellis you have, you need to know a thing you have a special device to test your soil has too little making fruit.You might also want to become grape productive.Pruning the grape plants that are grown in different countries, different climates and different soil conditions.Grapes are known for the root ball to be pruned.

How Much Do Grape Vines Grow In A Year

After reading all the above steps, you have an area of the amount of frost-free days.Pruning is required every time after a heavy root system of the major factor in growing grapevine, but don't know nor even have the capacity to stand and grow them right away, but be careful not to remove something that's very important.A good combination of a lot of home gardeners.The hydrometer can be an expert and understand its every feature.Having to spit all those seeds after eating a piece can be very dependent on carefully balancing the nutrients, which comes with experimentation and paying attention to the soil will make your purchase, you can use insecticides to control birds.

So, unless you are one that features winters and its fruit production in the bright summer sun.Most growers are willing to grow grapes in many climates.Certain types of pest control and weeding are among the many factors that are resilient to the weather conditions, all will make the vines are pruned.Overall weather patterns are looked at when assessing the grape vine can produce is almost as long as 100 years.Leave a small amount of sunlight that they will produce more fruit.

[workrockin]

Asia’s Digital Millineals Demand a physical internet

Recently the economist released a report,commissioned by Singapore Economic Development Board, titled Asia’s Digital Millennials Opportunities for business (https://eiuperspectives.economist.com/sites/default/files/asias_digital_millennials_opportunities_for_businesses.pdf)

In the report they published their research that explored what Asia’s rapid digitization meant for businesses looking to expand into the Asian market. A recurring theme in the report was having a complimentary physical presence to mobile.

Digital is not a substitute for real world interaction. Building a frictionless, localized, digital payment experience makes consumers willing to trust and spend on a brand.

The report further advised that growth is possible by partnerships with other businesses in complimentary areas even if they may be competitors.

[A recent news of Sony’s and Microsoft’s partnership in online gaming comes to mind as an example. They may be bitter rivals in home console market but they have decided to put their differences aside and collaborate in online gaming ]

Individually any idea, presented in the report, if executed well, is capable of transforming a business in a foreign or for that matter domestic economy. But together they act as force multiplier. Giving exponential benefits and disproportional rewards as organizations execute them.

Technology that bridges the gap between the digital and the physical

We can write a book full of success stories of mobile applications across all sectors. Telecommunication, eCommerce, digital payments,advertisement, travel. There is no industry in which mobile has not made its presence felt. In my very humble opinion mobile is a perfect case study of an impeccable execution of technological application in the real world.

However, even as mobile continues to grow, we can feel the need for a new kind of technology that can help us bridge the divide between the digital and the physical world. Now this is not some science fiction “I want my pizza to be 3D printed” fantasy, but rather a fact that confronts us today.

As big of a success as mobile and internet have been it is an astonishing truth that nearly half of the worlds population remains unconnected or marginally connected [1]. It is astonishing because all of this growth and wealth has been created from a market that has not even been fully capitalized .

While it is true that messaging and social media applications have done a lot to simplify commerce we can’t turn away form the simple fact softly murmuring in the background that the benefits of digitization are yet to reach nearly half of the world’s population. The glow of our success is somewhat dulled by the thought of immense task that is incomplete. A thought that leads us to the realization that our job is not yet finished. Time has not yet come to hang the boots and go to sleep. It is an indescribable sensation that feels like a gentle pat on the back urging us to keep moving. A warm light that clears our mind, removes all confusion and shows us the path to meet the challenges that future has in store for us.

The rise of “experiential commerce”

“We believe ‘gamification’ can make shopping fun”

Every challenge brings along with it the gift of new opportunities. Our experiments and our efforts in implementing the services on global scale have taught us how people like to shop. And one of the most incredible insight that has resulted from our effort to apply technology has been that more than shopping people love playing games. On computer as much as in the real world. Who could have imagined? Take what example you will. Of sports like football, hockey and cricket. Of digital games like Mario, pokemon, PUBG. Games are and essential part of our life.

Many brands have been quick to recognize this opportunity and have already signed up deals in the major leagues. However this level of excitement has not yet manifested in the digital games. For reasons I know not, too few retail shops use games a tool for engaging people. Even though the word gamification pops up ever so often in reports.

Does gamification come only in the form of earning points for shopping? Perhaps there’s a better, more direct way to use games as drivers of people into shops. Games are for entertainment. And they are best used as such. Malls have been quite skillful at allotting a fixed area for arcades. Letting parents leave their kids to have some fun. Or encouraging them to have a go at it themselves. For a few brief moments when people can sit back and play like they used to. Once upon a time in a not so distant past. It is a step in the right direction,however we can do much more.

Consider the partnership of pokemon and startbucks where the famed coffee shop hosted Poke gyms and Poke Stops for the fans. As many as 7000 of them [2]. It was one of the most successful electronic gaming/retail outlet partnership that had ever been. Tying digital entertainment with retail shops is one of the easiest ways to make your shopping franchise more appealing to the buyers.

Including opportunities for social interaction, Internet in the physical world

“Companies must create friction-free customer experiences by incorporating local preferences for payments platforms into their online services”

Open source technologies exist that unify hundreds of payment platforms into a single reusable library that can be embedded into any software that retail outlets already use. Active merchant [3] and OmniPay[4] being two of the most popular ones. However thus far their use has been limited only to large multinational eCommerce stores. Imagine a free to use, open source tools being underutilized as a quick and easy fix for payment localization! An immense opportunity exists here waiting for companies who would want to serve foreign customers.

Payment localization need not be dependent on cloud servers any more. Internet itself is taking a new shape. As it is being ported into the physical world it is enabling all sorts of devices to be connected to the global network. You can have small purpose built machines that only exist to simplify commerce for users.

When we talk about a new physical internet we mean not only a device that can connect to the internet but also a device that can act as a network provider by itself.

Not simply an internet of things. But internet on things. No longer being dependent on the global connectivity to deliver local information. A touch on the phone to get the route table of the subway train, or a restaurant’s menu , the room price or historical facts about a place.

Access and provision for Local Hyper Connectivity, Consolidation of networks via standards and interoperability

The technology that has delivered connectivity for hundreds of millions of users may not be economical enough to deliver connectivity for the billions that are left. Edges where adoption is low need new technologies for access. Technologies that require minimal infrastructural changes. Technologies that can be provisioned on demand. That is cheap, quick, efficient and specific. It may not be enough to simply deliver internet. But a new kind of internet that provides services not just a medium.

These services must be open, standardized and inter operable. At present most mobile telecommunication networks have legacy systems that make them difficult to work with each other. Every operator provides a type of service that is incompatible or costly to work with other providers. And since networks have value only when taken as a whole this leads to consumer paying hefty fees when they move away from the network of their service provider and into the network of another service provider.

Rural population will not be able to afford these kind of prices. And hence they need a solution that is global, works everywhere without any boundaries or limits. On a phone, or a laptop. As well as on one service providers infrastructure as on other. Open source standards and implementations exist that can help us to provide a programmable opensource telephony infrastructure for rural connectivity.

What digital companies need today is a new value proposition. That appeals to people who are undeserved. People who are not tied to a notion of what technology is and how it should operate. People who want a reliable service more than an ever changing experience. This is a risky proposition. As it requires companies to move away from their target demographic and explore new customers. And what is new has no rules. And what has no rules has no previous studies. Much of this will be experimental, not experiential. Experiments can fail sometimes. But when they succeed they have the potential to find a near unlimited new source of growth and prosperity. But who will take the risk?

Workrock Wireless provides open source, standardized and programmable, wireless networking solution for local internet service providers and small enterprises to help them build infrastructure for the physical web. Our technology can be used in financial, retail, hospitality and entertainment sectors.

workrockin@gmail.com

References and Footnotes

[1] As reported by internet society in the report titled Digital Divide https://future.internetsociety.org/2017/introduction-drivers-of-change-areas-of-impact/areas-of-impact/digital-divides/

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/08/pokemon-go-is-officially-teaming-with-starbucks-for-7800-new-gyms-and-pokestops/

[3] https://github.com/activemerchant/active_merchant

[4] https://github.com/thephpleague/omnipay

[dallinclarkcollege]

FINAL PIECE

Munich - fineliner and digital editing

Prague - illustrator pen-tool

Budapest - pencil drawing

Vienna - risograph print

Rome - watercolour and pen illustration

Florence - pencil drawing

Pisa - illustrator pen-tool

Nice - watercolour and pen illustration

Nimes - risograph print

Agen - fineliner and digital editing

Interrail Ticket - fineliner and illustrator pen-tool

Final Evaluation

The context of the brief, and the starting point of the project, was the idea of ‘Curiosity’. We were given a task to find ‘curiosities’ which would spark ideas and bring inspiration for our own projects. This meant that my project was able to diverge from my peers’ work, and I was completely in control of where my idea could go. Self-initiated and independent projects pose a few problems for me, one being time-managing and dealing with procrastination, and the other being pushing my ideas far enough, rather than keep them in the preliminary stages of development. This is what I initially struggled with; the ideas I had explored after the ‘curiosities’ task and in the first few weeks of the project were not inspiring me to develop them further. From the beginning of the project, I knew that I wanted to make a series of illustrations, and present them in a way that would display the skills I’ve learnt over the last two years, and it wasn’t until I made my display box that I landed on the idea of inspiring places and the feeling of wanderlust.

Travelling for an extended period of time and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is important in regards to character growth and becoming more culturally aware. The aim of my project is to inspire my audience to travel the world and learn about other cultures, languages and histories.

Illustration became as my specialism because most of the work I wanted to create was image based, and I wanted to be able to explore many materials, techniques and processes, which illustration allows. I was able to use analogue and digital processes to create a variety of different styles which I tied together with the simple colour scheme of red and black. The aim was to show my audience what I have learnt and developed over the last two years on this course, and I feel that was done successfully by the range of work I produced.

The main reason I chose to explore this idea of travelling and the feeling of Wanderlust is because of the prejudices people have towards other countries, their people and their cultures. My friends and I explored Europe for three weeks due to this feeling of Wanderlust, and in every city and country we went to, we had an idea of what we thought it would be like. It wasn’t until we were actually there, meeting people and exploring the places and their cultures, that our opinions shifted away from stereotypes and prejudices to honest opinions rooted in experience. I wanted to inspire other people, specifically younger people who might not be settled into their uninformed opinions, to explore other cultures for themselves rather than taking the word of someone else.

My research started months before this project began whilst travelling through Europe on a three-week trip, which was ultimately the main inspiration for this project, I gathered many photos of cultural landmarks and inspiring places which I have used as primary research and reference for my illustrations. Once the project began primary research continued by collecting objects, images and ideas which could inspire my theme, and visiting The Design Museum exhibition Designer, Maker, User. A large portion of my research was of artists who inspired me, including Michael Craig-Martin who was the focus of one of the workshops. Books and artists’ websites were of great use to me as they not only showed the artists’ work, but lead me to explore and take inspiration from other artists and themes as well.

Michael Craig-Martin became a direct inspiration for two of the illustrations I used for my final piece, however, it was artists like Max de Radiguès and Peter Kuper whose illustrative style and story-telling skills lead me to adding the narrative of my own story to my project. Their work inspired questions of intrigue and feelings of wanderlust and I wanted my work to create the same effect in my audience.

The research I presented across my production files and my blog, allowing myself space to analyse, evaluate and sketch from their work. This allowed me to understand why the artists’ work attracted me, and how I can use their work to inspire my own.

My idea developed naturally throughout the duration of the project. In my initial idea the format of the final piece was very different, as I wanted to make a series of large illustrations to display in exhibition which could then be made into books which I could give to the three people who I travelled with as a memento of the trip. During the experimentation stage of the project I made an A3 ink illustration of a map of Europe. This then inspired me to make a piece which was based specifically around the route that we took, and the places we saw. The idea then progressed to adding the route to the map, and stringing the pieces together, linking the illustrations together and making them one cohesive piece, rather than many different ones. It was after I had made my A1 map, and had begin to make the smaller pieces, that the idea of making a series of typographical pieces of the place names occurred. Peer review and tutor feedback was extremely helpful in this process as my idea morphed from one idea which I had decided on, to progressing it further into a piece which I find much more interesting and I think is more inspiring to an audience than a series of posters on the wall. The final piece I have made draws the audiences eyes in and around the images, across the string holding it together and out to the typography. By allowing myself to develop my idea and explore, and experiment, it has ultimately made my final piece stronger and more engaging, and it was the best, and hardest decision I made throughout the whole project.

I spent the majority of weeks 9 through 12 developing work for my final piece, and refining the idea and design. By giving myself four weeks for this part of the work, I was able to make a total of 23 pieces to collate as my final piece. This was more than enough time to make my final piece, and still left me with 9 weeks for initial research, idea development, workshops, evaluation and exhibition preparation and instalment.

Although I felt that my skills were competent before this project began, I have gained a lot of confidence in my ability to communicate through analogue and digital illustration. This, I think, is proven by the sheer amount of pieces I made for the exhibition, 11 smaller illustrations of places around Europe, and the ticket we used to get there, eleven typographic pieces hand-printed and digitally edited, and one A1 ink and acrylic painting, stitched into with red embroidery thread.

The most successful aspect of my final outcome is how all of the components interact with each other. In exhibition, the work I have created would have been too vast to be displayed in a grid formation, but the way they have been presented allows them to become one cohesive piece. This wouldn’t have happened, had it not been for discussion with my peers and my tutor throughout the development and making process. It was that feedback and casual discussion that allowed me to push my idea further, to a place that I wouldn’t have been comfortable exploring had it not been for their support.

This final project has been a great success for me in many ways, I’ve found myself extremely invested in the theme and was lucky enough to be able to apply it to my own life experience which has pushed me to be very motivated in the development and production of my idea and, ultimately, my final piece. My ability to explore, experiment, research, analyse and develop has been tested in the last two years on this course, and now I feel as though, at the end of this final project, I have progressed a great deal across every aspect of creating a self-initiated project. My downfall, unfortunately, is still time management, and whilst I have definitely improved, I find myself diving into one aspect of a project, and leaving other parts behind. If there was anything I could change about my productivity, it would be making sure I was spreading my time evenly between all aspects of the project, so as not to feel as unbalanced at the end of the project. I found myself being very productive in the development of my idea and final piece that the research and analysis of mine and others work needed to be improved.

In the future I hope to undertake more projects similar to this. Unlike other projects I have done in the past, I have found myself engaged and interested at every point throughout Curiosity. The last two years on this course, and especially this last project, have allowed me to progress to a point where I am ready and capable to move onto University. The tasks I have faced throughout this last project, presenting my ideas, pushing myself to create a final piece worthy of exhibition, and relating my work to real-life problems has taught me invaluable skills that I will take with me to further education and into my career.

[nicksykes]

Bridgewater Associates: Leadership Lessons and Super-mind Organizations

“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Leaders should love organizations. I’m excited that more business dialogue acknowledges this point for reasons other than positional power or economic gain. An increased appreciation for the value that intentionally-designed, well-administered organizations bring to team member’s lives and personal development, to customer’s well-being and satisfaction, and to local stakeholder’s enablement; is evident and exciting.

I have been fortunate to be a part of organizations at the forefront of this mindset shift with leaders that are true originals. Leaders who have clearly given deep thought to the organizations they are building and to the internalized values they are embedding within their workplace communities. Below I attempt to unpack some of the practices that have enabled one such organization and its leaders to deliver both outstanding business and individual growth outcomes.

Of focus is Bridgewater Associates and Ray Dalio. While some engaged discussions have occurred, given the publication of multiple books and various media appearances, I question whether some of the magic gets lost via media translation. Personally, I found Bridgewater to be a uniquely high-performing learning organization at scale. Most importantly, they achieved this status via rigorous, intentional, and continuous designs by its leadership team. Bridgewater devised innovative ways to integrate their values, ideas, and actions within a dynamic, growing community.

First, some trends that materially impact our business world today and that particularly manifest at Bridgewater within the hyper-competitive alternative investment industry:

(a)  Insight is an increasing component of business outcomes – see Capitalism without Capital. As stated by Dalio, “in order to be successful you are betting against the consensus”. With increasing customer choice, higher stakeholder expectations, and blurred barriers between traditional industries - this is becoming true whether your product is investment returns, iPhones, or children’s movies. In addition, the dimensions of this "insight" continue to expand: cognitives, aesthetics, embodiments, purpose...; we are witnessing additional commercialization of human intangles;

(b)  Collaborative genius and collective Super-minds are recognized as the compounding competitive advantage. Leading to many observed “superstar effects” in our global economy;

(c) Communities and affective incentives (“new alphas”) are key to engagement and to accreting discretionary efforts from highly skilled, highly motivated knowledge workers. New alphas, along with technological enablement, are the ingredients to Super-minds.

These trends require a different type of organization and a different type of leader. I believe Ray Dalio is a demonstrated member of this new class. Below are 7 brief descriptions of habits and practices that I witnessed Dalio intentionally displaying and embedding within Bridgewater’s leadership DNA. Resulting in an interesting case study of an innovation machine at scale.

1.    A Cognitive Apprenticeship:

“Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling from others.” ― Albert Bandura

Somewhat akin to a traditional apprenticeship of observing a master demonstrate, coach, and provide scaffolding for the acquisition of new skills and talents; Dalio, and Bridgewater, through the application of radical transparency unlock hidden accelerants for adult learning and higher-order skills attainment. At Bridgewater, you are asked to ‘expose your thinking.’ Importantly, you are surrounded by others who are doing the same, including the highest-level leaders. Through the communal practices of articulation, reflection, and exploration of abstract, complex, integrative knowledge spaces; you essentially get a masterclass from one of the best. This drives personal growth and real-time, on-the-job leadership development.

In some ways, Bridgewater is one big cognitive apprenticeship across investment, technology, and management thinking. You are learning these domains while being exposed to methods of innovation, discovery, and knowledge creation which are not covered in any textbook or classroom. You can turn on your TV screen (or iPad) and see multidimensional thinking in practice which awakens you to new and different modes of processing experience.

2.    Reflections-in-Action:

“We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience.” ― John Dewey

Reflections-in-action continues the theme of enabling adult learning and development, which is a core feature of organizations that intentionally align business, team, and community goals. At Bridgewater, the daily log is essentially an institutionalized work journaling exercise. As acknowledged by many studies of top performers, journaling is one key to compounding 10 years of experiences versus experiencing 1 year, 10 times.

Journaling and real-time reflections (both individual and collective) enable deeper work and deeper learning. These practices serve as internalization tools which transform Bridgewater’s ideas into our ideas; then into my ideas. The degrees of understanding, ownership, and expansion of insights, via continuous ‘ah-ha’ moments, are unmatched. You essentially have an entire organization applying action-inquiry methods to daily interactions. 

3.    Analogies and Near/Far Transfers:

“Because our educational system is hung up on precision, the art of being good at approximations is insufficiently valued. This impedes conceptual thinking.” ― Ray Dalio, Principles: Life and Work

“Since my world picture approximates reality only crudely, I cannot aspire to optimize anything; at most, I can aim at satisficing. Searching for the best can only dissipate scarce cognitive resources; the best is the enemy of the good.” – Herbert Simon

“Intuition is nothing more and nothing less than recognition.” ― Herbert Simon

The first two practices touch on deepening learning and development. This practice continues that focus while introducing an increased emphasis on collaboration across silos by achieving near-far transfers. By studying polymaths, cognitive scientists have proven that the use of analogies and metaphors enable their ability to understand and integrate content across multiple knowledge domains. They navigate between the precision within a domain and the fuzziness across domains to construct knowledge schemas which allow them to recognize patterns and similarities where others do not.

How does this relate to high-performing organizations?

It has been acknowledged by business leaders that the major impediments to artificial intelligence transformation are internal inertia and team/culture impediments. Barriers of understanding create barriers to collaboration. AI transformation is a collective exercise requiring new thinking from each participant and their respective functions.

Through the meticulous and intentional use of abstractions, objects, scaffoldings, and principles; Dalio enables an expanding group of individuals with different backgrounds and specialized knowledge to see similar constructs and to speak with common terms. By navigating communication between the precise and the fuzzy, Bridgewater has teams of scientists, technologists, investors, strategists, and designers problem solving together. Enabling team members to transfer knowledge from one area to a totally different area (a ‘far’ transfer) which fills in a critical missing piece to integrative excellence.

Not surprisingly, Bridgewater is at the frontier of using AI to transform investment, business, and organizational processes; expanding its collective Super-mind advantages.

4.    Developing Bilinguals and Richer Possibilities:

“If you can define the problem differently than everybody else in the industry, you can generate alternatives that others aren’t thinking about.” ― Roger Martin ― Opposable Mind

By embracing cognitive diversity and enabling groups to coalesce into Super-minds with common symbols and constructs; Bridgewater generates not only more ideas but different ideas. A transformation occurs. Science and business discussions become scientific commercial discussions with all participants on equal footing. This integration or higher order meshing increases the possibility space. This enables increasing insights as components of output. In Bridgewater’s case, this manifests via superior investment returns and differentiated organizational design concepts (including their recent Operations co-development arrangement with Genpact).

The benefits to Bridgewater team members are at least twofold. First, by understanding thinking differences, Bridgewater can find ideal roles for team members to exercise their superpowers. Too frequently other organizations take the path of firing or not hiring someone because they do not fit a traditional template. It has been shown that the right job fit has huge impacts on happiness, well-being, and performance. Second, by valuing interdisciplinary integration, Bridgewater offers developmental and learning opportunities to grow in knowledge and functional areas that would be more difficult in other organizations.

The MIT Schwarzman College of Computing was created as “the world needs more Bilinguals”. Bridgewater illustrates the potential that is latent and available to be unlocked. 

5.    Experimentation and Generativeness:

“the single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas.” ― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

I hope these are starting to blend together. As seamless integration may be the major idea at play. Next, are practices that enhance execution, experimentation, and innovation. The appreciation of difference, along with the creation of shared understanding, enables what is called “psychological safety”. Team members become more comfortable disagreeing or exposing original thoughts. Dalio, as a leader, further contributes to this by openly talking about his personal failures and limitations. Many of the principles are related to this objective.

Yet, I believe the true synergy comes when you combine safety and vulnerability, plus common language and collective engagement, along with an unmatched curiosity and commitment to generativeness (trying new things and being willing to fail). For example, Bridgewater has developed terms like “shaper” and “idea generator” to emphasize that they are in an innovation and insights creation business. Their leadership team has created an environment and the infrastructure for experimentation and rapid prototyping. Their discovery-driven operating models always capture learning from failures and keep moving forward. Leading from the top, senior executives conduct pre- and post-mortems that team members can access, learn from, and be encouraged by. 

6.    Holisms and Wisdom:

“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.” ― Peter Drucker

Leadership development practitioners created the term ‘vertical development’ to reference an expanding category of capacities and competencies needed for 21st-century leadership. Business schools are using the framework 'Be-Know-Do' to re-design curriculum. Vertical development focuses on the ‘Be’ part. As Dalio would say in management meetings, “…it all comes from a place…”.

By putting unusual emphasis on ‘being’ or the essence from which machines, practices, and outcomes manifest; Dalio has demystified and invited Bridgewater leadership to think more about purpose and creating meaningful experiences with others.

Tactically, this is supported by offering transcendental meditation sessions for team members and by encouraging mindfulness practices (among other things). More important, is on a daily basis seeing wisdom-in-practice and the willingness to make principled, long-term oriented decisions over short-term opportunism.

In some ways, this is related to the Level 5 leader from Jim Collins. The meta-thinking and being exhibited by Dalio can relate to several observations made by adult development researcher Aliki Nicolaides. She has illustrated that cultivating a relationship with ambiguity (or “not knowing”) is a key differentiator of transformational leaders. Engaging ambiguity, not as something to avoid, but as a constant companion, a teacher, and a coach; is a way to expand your capacity to influence others and to transform societal institutions. At Bridgewater, via Dalio, this is modeled and encouraged both explicitly and implicitly.

Though all are related, what separates this one from "bilinguals" is a healthy dose of affective thinking. This is about becoming, as much as problem-solving, by being willing to look deep within.

7.    Thinking across Time:

“Facts are rarely self-explanatory; their significance, analysis, and interpretation—depend on context and relevance.” – Dr. Henry Kissinger

“No two men living in the same time live in the same time.” ― Dr. Elliott Jaques

At Bridgewater, you see frontier ideas both conceived and put into practice. As the original quote from Goethe references, this is incredibly difficult to achieve. It requires a high degree of complexity. Thinking across time is another practice exhibited by Dalio which encourages the development of more nuanced understanding and more robust judgment.

Harvard Business School (via Harvard Law School) is recognized as a first-mover in the use of case studies for leadership education. Education for Judgment is a book where HBS professors talk about the strategies, approaches, and challenges of creating real-world contexts for teaching leadership agility. Foundational is openness to reality and acknowledgment of your limitations. By thinking across time, you realize you are one small iota and remain open to learning from the lived experiences of others, including those from other ages and spheres.

In some ways, this brings the practices full circle, as the idea of standing on the shoulders of giants is clear in Bridgewater’s history, methods, and successes.

One of Dalio's stated goals of publishing The Principles was to pass on observations so that others could benefit. My hope is that by contributing to this discussion we can lead to a wider awareness and a larger uptake of these win/win/win practices across organizations.

The practices are consistent with and integrated across knowledge domains including cognitive psychology, adult development, neuroscience, social psychology, sociology, anthropology, and others. The whole-brained individual wants to work in whole-brained organizations. Dalio and Bridgewater recognized this and implemented related practices at scale. To capitalize on similar opportunities, we need to develop leaders who can facilitate and enable these shifts across our organizations. When we look closely similar stories are told at places like Pixar, Apple, Spotify, and Salesforce. Ed Catmull openly expresses his love for Pixar, the organization, and the intentional designs he brought to its development. Not surprising, Pixar would appear on any shortlist of Super-mind enterprises and has the consistent, long-term results to support its case. Future-forward roadmaps are emerging, the challenge is ours to capitalize on them!

Regards,

Nick Sykes

[theseventhhex]

Lost Under Heaven Interview

Ellery James Roberts & Ebony Hoorn

Photo by Chris Almeida

Lost Under Heaven are the gifted Manchester-based duo comprised of Ebony Hoorn and Ellery James Roberts. Returning with the release of their new album ‘Love Hates What You Become’, the duo has formed a startling and thought-provoking record that follows their 2016 debut, ‘Spiritual Songs for Lovers to Sing’. Shot full of incisive social commentary, ‘Love Hates What You Become’ captures the couple at their most musically raw and visceral. The band wrote the album in Ellery’s native Manchester before traveling to Los Angeles to record with producer John Congleton, known for his Grammy-winning work with St. Vincent, Swans, Explosions in the Sky and Sigur Rós. Accomplished songwriting is at the heart of the creative cauldron for this release as the duo is bubbling and overflowing with enthusiasm. With ‘Love Hates What You Become’, Lost Under Heaven continue to establish themselves as a courageous and innovative band, hungry to create and perform their art with the sole ambition to see how far they can reach across uncharted territory… We talk to the delightful duo about working with John Congleton, performing live and downtime…

TSH: How would you assess your creative partnership in the lead-up to ‘Love Hates What You Become’?

Ellery: The whole process in working together with Ebony has really been like an experimentation and exploration for us both. We’ve come to really know one another so well and we now work in a harmonious way. We understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses really well. Ebony hasn’t really sung before or done anything performance wise musically in any way other than sound apps, so to hear how her voice has grown for this album was really great. We had no expectations and I was continuously surprised and impressed by her growth.

Ebony: I feel like touring really allowed me to find myself and lead more with Lost Under Heaven. I was able to confront what I needed to in order to become a better musician.

TSH: Throughout this record Ebony’s vocals feature more so signalling a shift in your tone and dynamic...

Ebony: Yeah, this was a very pleasing aspect for me. Just to understand both of our places in our creative spaces was really important. We both got to figure out what works best for each other’s voices.

TSH: Ellery, you’ve touched on having a ‘sink or swim feeling’ as you approached this record, however, you now feel a greater sense of freedom and like you have more control...

Ellery: When we started working together the feeling we had in Amsterdam whilst Ebony was still in school was completely conceptually free and there was no form to our work. Over the last year we’ve tried to reclaim our initial ideas of making this a multimedia art project. I guess the easiest way for us to function as a band is to keep it simple but we feel much more boundless than that. We’re working hard on the live show and are thinking much more about the theatricality and visual side of things in general. I feel like this record allowed us to have an opportunity to reaffirm our intent with everything related to this band.

TSH: When forming new music, do you still opt to not overcomplicate things and strip away instead?

Ellery: Yeah, for sure. The whole sense of making this record and working with John Congleton was to make a rawer document which didn’t have this sense of who it’s recorded by or produced by; instead it’s just capturing how we sound.

TSH: What sort of perspectives were you drawn to with the narratives on this album?

Ellery: In deciding to give the album the title ‘Love Hates What You Become’ this record pulls together a lot of the thinking from myself conceptually. The album touches on different angles but generally it’s about how we ended up living the way we do and wondering if there is something better for us to aspire for. The common adulterated mind consists of ideas that aren’t our own and leads us to pretend that we are against our own best interests. I guess I’m looking into what serves each of us to behave in certain ways. There’s also the astrology idea of ‘know thyself’ which informs parts of this album too.

TSH: What sort of treatment did the song ‘The Breath of Light’ require as you fleshed it out?

Ebony: That one was written from Ellery’s own experiences. For me, this song emotively instantly spoke to me as a really interesting place to place myself within vocally.

Ellery: I think sonically and with the production it was really a case of taking things out with this song. My initial thoughts are always quite dense and I try to weave in loads of intricate melodies, but working with John allowed me do things differently. John would often just tell me ‘Yup! That’s it. It’s done’ and I would think the song would sound like it’s unfinished, empty and like the spaces needed filling up...

Ebony: To me it was interesting that John said this because I agreed that Ellery’s vocals could carry this song even with so much being subtracted and pulled out of it. When we play it live, just the presence of the vocals is so powerful. I like that there is room to let Ellery’s vocals become sort of like a lead instrument...

Ellery: Yeah, it’s something I explored over the last year and it’s a new tactic I employ with songs now. Also, this is why I like the early PJ Harvey records; they are so empty, yet so powerful.

TSH: What does ‘Serenity Says’ convey to you?

Ebony: That song consists of this freedom kind of feeling and not being bothered by the eyes of the public. It’s like you’re doing your own thing and not having much inhibition or self-awareness. I think in general people have too much self-awareness in their day-to-day lives. I also like listening to this one whilst driving on the highway...

Ellery: Yeah, which reminds me, when we finished making the record (before it was mixed), me and Ebony rented a car and drove into the Los Angeles desert and drove towards Joshua Tree and the national park. We listened back through the mixed and unmixed record and ‘Serenity Says’ brought to mind the wide open landscapes and a sense of freedom.

TSH: Does is remain a key feature for you both to get your message across without just one medium when you perform live?

Ellery: Absolutely. We’ve been trying to find the right collaborators to allow for the right visual things to happen. You know, there’s always the tendency to have an idea or ambition that is above our pay day, besides I don’t really like it when people have a projection of some abstract thing. I feel like people look at screens far too much as it is to then have to see another one when they go to see a band live. However, we’re certainly getting somewhere with trying something new and unique with our visuals. What’s pleasing lately is that we play as a trio with our drummer, Ben Kelly. He’s been a fantastic addition and has really made it all come together for the live show. Ben is a really powerful drummer and enables this rawness to come into play; and he allows me to orchestrate the whole show via Ableton. Having Ben launching Albleton in a live format gives us the opportunity to design the set in a distinct way.

TSH: How’s the move from Amsterdam to Manchester been like for you Ebony?

Ebony: It’s nice to move out of Amsterdam. I lived there for 6 years and I enjoyed my time in school there. Moving to Manchester feels like you’ve been placed back into a world outside of a city where a lot of interesting cultural things happen. We used to live in the Northern Quarter, which is always busy with a lot people that go out over the weekend. Oh, and the drinking culture here In England is completely different to Amsterdam... it’s a lot more wild.

TSH: What was it like to tour the US again a few months back?

Ellery: The States kind of feels like it has 21st century humans overloaded with capitalism. Nonetheless, America is geographically such a powerful, beautiful and magical place. I really liked driving through California up to Seattle - it was incredible. It’s so fast-paced out there and people are kind of crazy and fragile. It seems like everybody is one step away from a breakdown or a break through. Overall, it does feel like an edgy kind of place.

TSH: Does downtime consist of being detached from your own human essence?

Ellery: Yeah, which is why we love nature. It’s been a year now since we moved north of Manchester into the countryside around where I grew up. It’s about a 30 minute drive out of the city. The video for ‘For The Wild’ was actually filmed 5 minutes from our house. I try and get out as much as I can - at least every day. Also, I’ve recently got back into painting, I used to paint a lot when I was young and I’ve started to take it up again. Painting is very fulfilling - my mind goes blank and I can relax.

TSH: It��s also been noted on your Twitter that sake, astrology and tequila are some of your favourite things in life...

Ebony: Haha! I like to incorporate and kickback with all three whenever I’m with friends. I mean you have to balance the light-hearted with the heavy-hearted at times.

TSH: What do you hope to achieve and explore as you look ahead with Lost Under Heaven?

Ebony: Our music has become like a lifestyle for us, it touches upon these ideas we are interested in and believe in. We want to experiment with our thoughts and put them into a platform of music or video. This is just the beginning as we have so many more ideas that we’d like to work out and present.

Ellery: For me, Lost Under Heaven has always been about being in pursuit of leading a sustainable and self-sufficient artist life. This involves utopian and bohemian dreams of just being able to create and be a good person. Ultimately we want to inspire people that there isn’t just one set way in which you need to do stuff. The world is how it is; it’s a vision that’s driven by media sensationalism, but you can do things your own way. There are lots of communities that exist away from the hype of the mainstream and they consist of much more humane ways of existing, so with Lost Under Heaven it’s all about learning for ourselves how to function in this way.

Lost Under Heaven - “COME (Official VR Experience)”

Lost Under Heaven - “For The Wild”

Love Hates What You Become

[theadmiringbog]

If we have data, let's look at data. If all we have are opinions, let's go with mine. 

—Jim Barksdale, CEO of Netscape

--

As novelist William Gibson said, “The future is already here—it's just not very evenly distributed.”

--

To support these curious minds, Facebook and Zendesk, like Google, employ data teams. These data teams architect data systems, educate employees to use them, tutor teams on correct analytical methods, and assist individuals when crafting arguments using data. In addition, these data teams collaborate across all the departments of these businesses to design, maintain, and circulate a data dictionary, a common lexicon of metrics used across the business. 

--

To be truly data-driven, a business must enable all of its employees to ask and answer 80, 90, or even 100 percent of their questions quickly, an impossible proposition for existing data supply chain architectures.

--

SQL has an elegant and simple syntax. Most SQL queries are of the following form: 

SELECT field1, field2, field3 FROM table WHERE condition; 

A real query to view the names and total sales of the New York customers of an e-commerce merchant might look like this: 

SELECT customer_name, customer_id, total_sales FROM customer_sales_table WHERE customer_state = “New York”; 

Not all SQL queries are this simple, but they all follow the same structure.

--

Without data you're just another person with an opinion. 

—W. Edwards Deming

--

Unifying the silos, digitizing the card catalog, quelling the brawls, and satisfying the breadlines are all necessary steps, but inculcating a data-driven culture is far more fundamental. What do we mean by data-driven?

--

ThredUp, described three critical loyalty signals that help the company's marketing team understand how to better serve ThredUp's customer base. 

How engaged are your customers? 

“We look at what users buy. Do they buy all women's? All kid's? Do they buy a mix? For us, if you're buying a mix of clothes…a customer is at a higher level of engagement.” An engaged buyer may not require a discount to incent them to continue buying. 

What devices did they use to buy? 

“Did they buy on the web, in the native application [on iOS], or on mobile web?…If you start on web, and then buy on Android or iOS, then you have integrated us into your life.” The value of the cross-channel interaction suggests that ThredUp should entice new customers to use the product on another platform or device. 

What channel was used to acquire new customers? 

Did they arrive at ThredUp organically (from a search) or via a paid acquisition channel, such as an application download, an affiliate link, or a referral? “If we paid to acquire you, do we have to pay again to drive a second order, or have we done a good enough job to bring you back naturally/organically?” Understanding the customer journey from first acquisition to subsequent orders can help save on marketing costs. 

--

Zendesk team trains their employees on ballparking, the skill to estimate the order of magnitude of a result before investing a substantial amount of time to calculate the precise answer. Many times, a quick approximation provides just the guidance the team needs to decide the relative priority of an effort or new project.

--

Warby Parker is a B corp. B corps are pro-profit companies that are explicitly mission-driven. In addition to maximizing shareholder value, the goal of nearly all corporations, benefit corporations strive to impact society and the environment in a positive way. The charter of a B corp dictates that the board of directors must consider the best interests of the corporation and the effects of its decisions on the company's workforce, its customers, community and societal factors, and the environment.

--

The typical software company receives an NPS of 29, meaning there are only slightly more Promoters than Detractors.14

--

Zendesk polls its users (NPS) at three different points during the sales cycle: 

(1) immediately after signing up; 

(2) a few days after signing up as a customer, potentially having spoken to salesperson, and beginning to pay for the service; and 

(3) some time after the customer has been using the product.

The first test chronologically establishes the positive impact of the marketing team on customers' and prospects' perceptions of Zendesk. The second survey establishes the happiness of the customer immediately after purchasing the product, and the product team's effectiveness in developing the right on-boarding experience. The third NPS measures ongoing satisfaction and whether the product has met the customer's expectations over time, again measuring marketing and sales.

--

Warby Parker achieved this by creating a data dictionary. A data dictionary is a universal definition of particular metrics within a company.

--

The equation became an important management tool in our conversations. When we discussed new projects, Scott would ask me to point on the whiteboard where the project fit within the equation—which lever the project impacted and whether the project could materially accelerate revenue growth. Boy, did it clarify priorities. Let me walk through this simplified equation. AdSense generates revenue whenever a user clicks on an ad. So, the total revenue generated by AdSense is equal to the number of ad impressions multiplied by the click-through rate multiplied by the revenue per click.

--

Google employed an auction to determine the true cost per click. Imagine three different advertisers bidding for the same click. One is willing to bid 5 cents per click, the second is willing to bid 6 cents, and the third is willing to bid 15 cents. Because Google employed a reverse auction, the third advertiser would win the auction but pay the amount bid by the second person, or 6 cents. This is to avoid the “winner's curse.”

--

We can imagine an enormous tree, starting with the highest-level equation, and leaves branching from each of the variables within those equations to get other equations that describe the contributing factors to those second-degree variables. And so on. Data-driven companies strive to develop these equations and manage the business by them.

--

HIPPO, or the highest-paid person's opinion,

--

The end user favors ease of use, speed, and visual appeal.

--

Exploratory data analysis doesn't seek to prove or disprove a particular idea using data. Rather, it suggests hypotheses for patterns we're observing in our businesses. Data exploration starts with the question “Why?”

--

it takes only about eleven and a half days for a million seconds to tick away, whereas almost thirty-two years are required for a billion seconds to pass.

--

I remember suggesting the company conduct a particular analysis. And David responded, quite rightly, “What decisions would that analysis inform?”

--

The two types of statistical analysis: confirmatory and exploratory data analysis.

--

Businesses with very high LTV/CAC, which can range from 5 to more than 20, pay relatively little to acquire future gross profits from customers.

--

LTV/CAC, Netsuite performs a regression on the underlying variables. Afterwards, the company calculates the ratio's sensitivity to each variable to understand the potential improvement attainable by focusing on reducing hosting costs, for example. These analyses lead to a set of priorities for the business that will ultimately improve LTV/CAC. This is classic confirmatory statistics.

--

Defining New Opportunities by Creating New Metrics That Matter

--

Before starting an analysis and investing the time and effort required to attain the result, we should determine the actionability of the metric. What decision will the data inform? And how important is that decision relative to other decisions?

--

As Colin Zima, the chief product officer at Looker, explains, “This is one of the keys to ensure rigor around decision-making.” For example, if the Zendesk Net Promoter Score of new customers falls below 50, we should investigate our sales techniques to ensure the sales team isn't overpromising during sales pitches. These bookended parameters should be circulated with the teams who will ultimately decide, in this case the sales and marketing teams at Zendesk. Prefacing an experiment with these experimental bounds clarifies the impact of the analysis before it's completed, helping to ensure the team uses data to decide, even if the conclusions seem counterintuitive.

--

In statistics, we call the devil's advocate the null hypothesis.

--

Ben emphasizes the importance of connecting people's existing experiences with data. By enabling an audience to relate to the data, the speaker can maximize its impact. Ben frames his pharmacy analysis of Manhattan as a giant game of Risk.

This combination of reporting and data has a name: computational journalism.

--

Virality 

Virality measures the number of new customers referred by existing customers over a given time period.

The virality coefficient is calculated by multiplying the number of referral invitations to a product sent by each existing customer, by the percent conversion of each invite.

LTV/CAC ratio

Sales efficiency 

Sales efficiency answers the question “If I invest $1 of sales and marketing this period, how much gross margin or revenue will I generate in the next period?”

[niteshbehani1]

Creating Positive Environments For Your Employees

Managing the workplace properly is essential for the employees with creating better motivation for production. Creating a positive workplace drives the organization forward, so setting the team towards success requires unique planning.

 An effective team requires intellectual, physical, and emotional ways for supporting them all through the journey. It is not as complicated as you think, so starting with creating a positive environment makes things work.

 These mainly give better motivation as the organization values them. Normally, the positive work environment starts with a collaborative foundation, so creating a high-performing team requires an appropriate physical environment or atmosphere.

 Creating A Beautiful And Positive Environment Greatly Influences The Employees Towards The Following:

 ·       Job

·       Co-workers

·       Performance Levels

·       Productivity

 Need For Creating The Positive Work Environment:

 An organization with the best-designed positive work environment reaches beyond success rate. Normally, implementing a positive atmosphere lets the employees feel that they are the most valued and respected.

 It also mainly motivates the leadership along with corporate culture. Based on recent research stating more than 94% of executives and about 90% of the employees voted for the positive corporate culture helps to attain the business's success.

 Positive Environments For The Employees Would Increase:

 ·       Increases the employee happiness to more than 40%

·       Reduces the employee turnover by 58%

·       Reduces and prevents long-term sick leave of employees

·       Increases the company revenue by 38%

·       Boosts productivity

·       Enhances the creativity and profitability

 Creating a positive work environment is the best corporate strategy that would automatically boost the employees to stay on their track. It is also considered as the best way for investing in the employees on their performance level.

 How To Create A Positive Environment For An Employee?

 Prioritizing And Training:

 Normally, the sink-or-swim mentality will not work in an organization for creating the best teams. Implementing a positive work environment would be a suitable option for enhancing the happiness level. According to a recent survey stating the ineffective onboarding is a reason, about 19% of the trainees quit the job.  

 Planning the first two weeks for the employees is most important to get better motivated in their task. Employees need to be educated on workplace safety along with the codes of conduct.

 These are suitable options for helping them to understand the organization. During the Onboarding or training sessions, the new employees can be motivated with puzzles and tasks that keep them entertained.

 Comfortable Work Environment:

 Workspace in an organization is mainly required to encourage the employees about their tasks. Employees require not only physical comfort and safety measures but also psychological activities. Workspace with the

 Adjustable standing desks, well-positioned computer screens, and many others would be suitable for providing better comfort to alleviate pain. These also create a good impression on the employee satisfaction with encouraging the focus of the team.

 The employee could not continue their task when they are constantly disruptive. Creating a convenient and productive space would be a suitable option to encompass everything easily. Concentrate on the ergonomic furniture, temperature-regulated interiors, instant coffee makers, and many others.

 Employees Mental Health:

 Based on the recent report from the Mental Health Foundation, more than 16% of the employees have mental health problems due to work stress. Especially women undergoing full-time employment have been suffering from mental stress.

 These could automatically affect their well-being and family members. Employees with Poor mental health could lead to sick leave to create a negative impact on the business function.

 Creating the Employee Assistance Programmes or Exercises would be suitable for addressing the problem. It is quite a convenient option for creating a workspace where the staff could work healthy and happily.

 Starting a telephone mental health support or online health support program would be a suitable option. With this program, the employees could easily talk to the coworkers or line managers about their mental stress and get constant support from the organization to overcome the problem.

 Physical Workspace:

 The physical workspace mainly creates the best impact on employee relationships and morale. The main reasons are that the collaborative spaces could easily reduce employee stress and mainly encourage physical activity. Some of the important aspects that would allow the employees to get better relaxation include:

 ·       The mixture of open plan

·       Private spaces

·       Breakout areas

 Experts suggest that providing the best range of options will automatically give employees more freedom to work. It would be a much more suitable option for providing better results.

 To enhance the growth of the business or organization, it is a much more convenient option to start the eCommerce website development so that reaching more customers becomes quite easier.

 Hosting Events:

 Based on the research from the Center for Talent Innovation states a team with the best collective spirit would automatically boost the company's success rate.

 These Would Also Increase:

 ·       Productivity

·       Engagement

·       Motivation

 Company events or business events are considered the best option for allowing the employees to share their energy and build a strong relationship easily. This also helps the organization to increase the better motivation without any hassle. Many events are available that include onsite socials and off-site socials.

 ·       Appreciation Events

·       Team-building events

·       Product launch events

·       Incentive programs and executive retreats

·       Seminars and conferences

·       Company milestone events

 Normally, the employees will be from various backgrounds so that they represent diverse lifestyles. Conducting these events would be a much more suitable option for sharing their knowledge and experience with other teams.

 Regular Check-Ins:

 Creating positive environments for your employees is not a complicated task. More than 40% of the employees in America suggest that regular check-ins especially make them completely feel happy. You could also easily stop at the desk of your employees and ask for the opinions.

 When you have a remote workforce, you can send them an informal message asking their opinions or ideas. Employees could come up with more ideas and suggestions that can be suitable for the organisation's growth. Even a small idea can boost productivity.

 Better Collaboration And Communication With The Team:

 When you are a team leader or manager, you have the sole responsibility that the trainee or the new hires are not left out. Even though you could not always facilitate the team spirit, it is quite a convenient option for establishing the best communication mode. Mentoring programs can help to improve the communication effectively.

 Some of the simple steps you can make them are through:

 ·       Adding dedicated channels for new projects

·       Posting team priorities with public space

·       Having the co-workers in the appropriate email chains

 Honest and simple communication within the team could be a suitable option for boosting the task into success. These mainly create a better sense of community as well as contribute to better motivation.

 Workplace Culture:

 Creating the best workplace culture is most important in the organization. Companies having a strong and clearly defined identity would automatically get higher returns to more than 200%.

 The main reason is that everyone knows as well as understands the primary goals of the company. The workplace culture mainly has a complete mix of the organization’s leadership, traditions, beliefs, and behaviours.

 Focusing on the eCommerce development for your business also gives you a better reach of success rate in the modern digital world. These mainly contribute to the relational and emotional environment of the workplace.

 Types Of Organizational Culture Are:

 ·       Clan Culture

·       Adhocracy Culture

·       Market Culture

·       Hierarchy Culture

 Create Opportunities For Learning:

 Creating the team for success mainly involves focusing on several things that make it completely productive without any hassle. Employees love Workplace learning as well as experimentation.

 Most of the team members would thrive in creating professional development under all aspects. Providing the best opportunity for informal learning would be a suitable option for increasing knowledge.

 Under this process, your organization can easily save millions in lost productivity. When the employees have complete access to wide information on their job, it would be easier to complete the task within the scheduled time limit.

 Conclusion:

 Sometimes, the business needs to be taken seriously for productivity. Creating the best and unique positive environments for your employees is important for gaining better productivity and work satisfaction. This gives more motivation and increases energy.

 Author Bio:

A creative and passionate mobile application enthusiast with over 10+ years of experience in providing IT solutions across various industries. Nitesh Behani is the Co-Founder of Magneto IT Solutions, a full service of Mobile App, Shopware Development, Magento development company in USA, India, and Bahrain. He has experience of delivering more than 100+ projects ranging from Custom Ecommerce website development technologies to mobile application technology.

[kadobeclothing]

7 Marketing Experts Share What They’re Focusing on in 2020

From SEO and analytics to content and display, the marketing industry is one of the most rapidly changing landscapes this year — and 2020 will be no different.

Working closely with marketing leaders as president and co-founder of Share Your Genius, I’ve seen firsthand the rapid development of this industry, and one of the most prominent areas of growth is a marketer’s bread and butter: content. Marketing wants to lean into an experience people want, which is why teams are constantly exploring new avenues to connect with their buyers. Content should be delivered in the way their audience wants to consume it, which is why marketers will focus on creating brand content that serves people through a combination of audio and video in 2020. That said, content is just one of the many marketing pillars — and I’m not the only one with ideas about where our industry is headed. As marketers finalize their budgets and prepare their strategies for 2020, we’re taking a look at the predictions of several leaders in the marketing space. Ranging from new success metrics to the latest use of AI, here are five things marketing leaders are focusing on in 2020.

6 Things Marketers are Watching in 2020 1. The MQL’s Irrelevance Too often, marketers aren’t working toward a real business objective. Fortunately, marketing will up its strategic presence in the organization in 2020. As companies move toward a flywheel model to create a streamlined customer experience start-to-finish, marketing teams will need to align with sales and service to bring in new leads while maintaining strong relationships with current customers. As a result, the MQL in the traditional sense will be irrelevant, as Gartner predicted in 2017. “We’ve been saddled with questionable metrics like the MQL and a Franken-stack of marketing products that don’t work, so we need to think big picture,” says Latane Conant, CMO of 6sense, an account-based orchestration platform powered by AI. “Next year, siloed marketing goals like MQLs will be irrelevant — instead, marketers will focus their efforts on aligning with overarching company goals to drive value across the board.” 2. Google Crackdowns in Some Industries In 2019, 61% of marketers say improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing priority. In 2020, we predict this number to increase. And, while Google advertising solutions have benefitted more than 1.3 million businesses, website publishers, and nonprofits, in 2020 marketers may see a shift towards a more organic-first approach, particularly if Google continues to crack down on certain industries as it has with credit repair-related services. “I believe we will see Google continue to crack down on certain advertising industries,” says Russ Jones, Principal Search Scientist at Moz. “The latest target is credit repair-related services, although we have seen the same in the medical and adult industries over Google’s lifetime. When these bans take place, it creates a short-term opportunity for companies to shift advertising dollars to organic. “Those that make this pivot quickly and strongly stand to gain a substantial market share in the long run.”  —  3. Growth of Experiential Marketing In a 2018 global survey of more than 700 business executives by HBR’s Analytic Services, 93% of respondents said their organizations placed a priority on hosting events. In 2020, this will continue to grow. A study by Harris Group found that 72% of millennials (ages 18-34) now prefer to spend money on experiences over products. As consumers prioritize based on experience and ease-of-use (take Uber, Spotify, or Airbnb, for instance), it will become increasingly important for all businesses to focus on high-quality experiences for their consumer. “As more consumers cut the cord to cable, it is becoming harder to reach audiences with traditional brand-building ad campaigns. This is especially true for younger audiences — many of whom are not just cord-cutters but cord-nevers. At the same time, Gen Z and Millennial consumers are prioritizing experiences over ‘stuff.'” “Innovative marketers can take advantage of these trends by shifting marketing focus to live events, which can create direct connections between customers and brands,” says Ben Carlson, co-President and co-Founder of Fizziology, a social insights firm. “Take for example Buffy’s tie-dye tour or Glossier’s string of pop-up shops,” Carlson notes. “In the past, these experiential marketing tactics have been seen as more experimental than other, more trackable forms of advertising. But technology is now letting marketers listen to anonymized conversations at live events via social media to learn about consumer’s opinions, expressed in their native environments. “We believe we will see experiential marketing mature into a regular part of a marketer’s brand-building campaign,” says Carlson. 4. New and Evolving Email Strategies “The email industry is constantly changing, and the frequency of mergers and acquisitions in 2019 rivaled those of 2018,” says Anthony Chiulli, director of product marketing at 250ok, an email analytics and deliverability platform. “Major moves so far this year included Validity purchasing Return Path in May, Mailgun purchasing Mailjet in October, and most recently, Sparkpost acquiring eDataSource, which makes it clear the industry as a whole is booming,” Chiulli says. “Email remains a dominant and powerful digital marketing channel and is constantly evolving and finding new ways to reinvent itself,” Chiulli adds. “I anticipate we have not crested the peak of acquisition activity in the email ecosystem just yet, and will see a steady dose of those seeking further competitive advantages in an aggressive email industry market in 2020.” 5. Artificial Intelligence And Text Recommendations According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Systems Spending Guide, spending on AI systems will reach $97.9 billion in 2023, which is more than two and a half times the $37.5 billion that was spent in 2019. But, while it’s obvious how AI can help in some instances — like security — it can be tricky to note exactly where it will change your marketing strategy. However, early predictions point towards text marketing. “In text marketing, AI plays the role of informing the sender versus being the sender. Businesses will start to receive recommendations from their texting providers about the type of messages to send, which messages are seeing the most engagement, clicks, etc.” “AI will be able to recommend more on the segments and groups from a business database on who reacts better or worse to certain messages, helping them to stop outreach to disinterested parties,” says Mattt Reid, CMO of EZ Texting, a leader in SMS marketing software for business. Reid adds, “However, it is vital for text marketing to keep the human element while leveraging AI to help us have the best communication possible.” Additionally, Crystal King, a Social Media Professor at HubSpot Academy, believes augmented reality will continue to influence social media.  She says, “People are craving to move beyond passive content and be part of the action, and savvy technology companies are looking for ways to make that happen. In 2020 we’re going to see augmented reality making it’s way into more social media efforts — whether that’s more advancement in the vein of Snapchat and Instagram filters, new AR ads available while you are scrolling through your social platforms, or the ability to network and attend live events in interesting ways.” King adds, “We’re already seeing that AR is making a difference for brands like IKEA and Zenni Optical, which give fans the ability to directly and usefully interact with their products virtually. Plan on seeing more brands taking advantage of the power of AR to directly engage their audiences.” 6. Google’s Discover Tool Will Continue to Improve Christina Perricone, a Manager of Pillar and Acquisition Content at HubSpot, believes Google’s Discover tool will continue to improve and serve high-quality, personalized content to users in 2020.    She says, “Google launched Discover in 2017 and has been improving the tool ever since. Discover’s algorithm predicts what users will find interesting based on their search and web history and interactions with Google products, like Google Maps, Chrome, and Google Home. Discover then surfaces personalized content in a mobile feed on the Google homepage based on a user’s interests.”   To optimize for Google’s Discover tool, Perricone suggests you implement the following three strategies: Build topical authority around your topics (cluster model) — Discover surfaces content by topic so the more relevant/useful information you have on a topic, the more likely you are to rank Use large (1200 px), high-quality images since the feed focuses on attractive imagery Create your content in all languages that are relevant to your audience, as users can select their preferred language for each interest. How to Prepare for 2020 and Beyond As companies continue to pivot, adapt, and evolve, the marketing space will only get more competitive. A new year proves a new opportunity for marketing teams to push away from the competition by leading the industry with the most innovative tactics, tools, and technologies. Preparing for these trends will set successful companies apart in 2020. Want to learn more, check out this Ultimate Guide to Marketing Trends in 2020.

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[angrycollectordaze-me-blog]

Paper代写：American agriculture

本篇paper代写- American agriculture讨论了美国农业。作为一个发展保护性耕作多年的国家，美国仍然在广泛而深入地开展试验研究，为进一步发挥保护性耕作的潜力而努力，他们的不少经验和做法值得我们借鉴与思考。美国农业发达的国家，长期的农业自由贸易，促进了农业的飞速发展，并积累了大量先进的科学技术的致富经验。农场主要在市场的要求下，生产出市场所需要的产品，营销公司将农场的产品加工后推向市场，消费者最后买到的是最适合自己消费习惯的农产品，正是这种良性的生产、销售体系使农业生产进入到了良性循环之中。本篇paper代写由51due代写平台整理，供大家参考阅读。

As a country that has developed conservation tillage for many years, the United States is still carrying out extensive and in-depth experimental research to further realize the potential of conservation tillage.

New ideas on the best conservation tillage scheme are put forward. At the annual conference of agricultural engineering, American scholars proposed that the best mode of conservation tillage suitable for the United States is not no tillage, but deep pine and large amount of straw mulch. They argue that 30 percent of the crop is not covered enough, and that more than 70 percent or even 100 percent of the crop should be covered to give full play to the benefits of conservation tillage. The function of covering is more important than that of no-tillage. It is believed that deep pine is beneficial for rainfall infiltration, erosion reduction and water storage, and has obvious effects on dry farming. Another reason for the emphasis on deep pines in the United States is that the trampling and need to become loose during the winter and spring when livestock graze on the ground.

We will vigorously develop covered crops. A one-year crop called ryegrass, which covers farms across Indiana in the winter, is not herbage, but a protective farming system. Covering crops has become an important part of America's efforts to improve conservation tillage systems.

Quantitative study of drought resistance. In auburn, Alabama, for more than 100 years, conventional and conservation tillage on each side of the plot was found to be less than half a metre high for conventional maize and more than a metre high for conservation tillage. Some plots of conservation tillage and traditional crops are dry. The purpose of the experiment is to let farmers know that conservation and conservation tillage can improve drought resistance, but it is also limited. For example, during the drought in this county, farmers can survive for about 3 weeks longer. Some experimental stations are studying the drought resistance of conservation tillage quantitatively, which can be used as reference for farmers' production decisions.

Pay attention to the conservation tillage system research Georgia experiment stations, a report said the local farmers would not cover crops, because of the need to spending the extra cost, but with cattle, cattle can eat spring cover crops, income more than the cost of planting cover crops, conservation tillage with cattle in the local development direction. More papers suggest that conservation tillage should become an integrated production system, combining farming, crop mulching, crop rotation, and pest control techniques.

Six scientists at the U.S. department of agriculture's research station in auburn, Alabama, have spent more than $3 million a year studying conservation tillage for nearly a decade, according to the chief scientist. At two of the meetings, American scientists presented papers on conservation tillage, mostly project findings. This is a far cry from the notion that conservation farming in the United States has been going on for decades, and is now primarily applied. Conservation tillage, it seems, is a technology that is constantly being enriched and developed. It is far from being realized. Conservation tillage is developing in the same way around the world, with new conservation tillage patterns, techniques, tools and benefits being reported.

Some American scientists question the growth of conservation tillage in the United States, arguing that it has been slow in recent years, especially with no tillage. It is much lower than South American countries such as Brazil and Argentina. As the first country to carry out conservation tillage, the area of no-till till now is still around 20%, while the area of conservation tillage is still around 60%.

They argue that the lack of state-level planning, guidance and promotion may be an important reason. Although there is a national conservation technical information center in Indiana, there are only four employees. Another reason is that experts' voices are inconsistent. Some say that increasing production, others say decreasing production, some say that no tillage is good and some say no tillage is not good, which may have some influence on farmers' decision-making.

The United States is a country with advanced agriculture. Long-term free trade in agriculture has promoted the rapid development of agriculture and accumulated rich experience of advanced science and technology.

In the United States, large quantities of agricultural products are available to consumers quickly, as producers, have their own way.

The fresh oranges from the trees were covered with dust and uneven. After processing plant, change, smooth and attractive, uniform and neat, has become a qualified commodity. This has to go through cleaning, corrosion, waxing and other processes. This is naturally much more expensive than the fruit that comes from the trees and goes to market. The quality is high, of course, and the price is good. This is the advantage of deeper processing and higher added value, real income increased.

In fact, from another point of view to increase income, the production of processed agricultural products is also much higher. The loss of processed fruits and vegetables can be controlled within 5%, otherwise the loss may be about 20% to 30%.

Deep processing, not only in the vegetable and fruit preservation technology, but also in the development and utilization of some agricultural products. Take ma ling rong as an example: the price of potato fresh sales is 1 kg of l yuan; Processed frozen fries can reach 15 to 25 yuan a kilogram, up 15 times in value. If further processed into French fries, a kilo can be sold for 40 yuan, a gain of 30 times.

In the United States, agricultural production tends to be concentrated in one region, such as the citrus belt, and citrus is grown in several hundred kilometers. If it's a vegetable belt, there are hundreds of farms around. It's easy to think about the question of whether such a large farm in the United States, with such a high yield, would lead to low prices for agricultural products because of the concentration of the market.

In fact, as long as a reasonable product system can overcome this problem. The reasonable product system mainly includes: the service of the whole process of agricultural means of production; Post-harvest processing, storage and transportation services; Technical guidance service; Market information service; Sales services; The entire agricultural product circulation service. In California, for example, 70% of the total agricultural production is after delivery, while only about 30% is before production and harvest. After a farm finishes picking, a professional company will be responsible for your sales. Although farmers invest more after giving birth, the returns are comparable and the risk rate can be said to be zero.

The farm produces the products required by the market mainly under the requirements of the market. The marketing company pushes the farm products to the market after processing, and the consumers finally buy the agricultural products most suitable for their consumption habits. It is this kind of benign production and sales system that makes agricultural production enter a virtuous cycle.

The American almond society is a successful example of agricultural industrialization. More than 200 years after its founding, the society has matured and perfected itself, and now it's no longer a simple farm to grow and manage, but to think about how to effectively sell almonds across the region to the world. As a member, farmers can earn considerable gains simply by concentrating on increasing their output while ensuring quality.

In many supermarkets in Europe and the United States, agricultural products storage and transportation companies and wholesale markets can be seen everywhere with the words "organic food". Organic food has become a natural and healthy choice for many consumers in Europe and the United States.

Before organic food enters the market, must pass the strict examination of certification authority, just can obtain the certification that is qualified to use organic food standard. With this label, the average selling price of such vegetables and fruits can be increased by 25 to 35 percent, but as producers of organic farms, they must produce according to strict production requirements, all of which are guided by the instruction manual. Because it is grown organically, not only do the fruits and vegetables taste good, but they are also resistant to storage.

The United States has a specialized organic farming association, whose members are organic farmers. Starting an organic farm takes at least three years, from application to final certification. After the farm's application, the organic society organizes a committee to evaluate whether the farm's location, soil and water resources are suitable for organic food production. During the transition period from conventional production to organic planting, the commission shall inspect the products twice a year, including production site, purchase record of agricultural materials and sales record. All the inspection shall be passed before being accepted as a member of the association and qualified to use the label of "organic" in fruits and vegetables produced by the farm. After becoming a member, the annual inspection is needed once a year. Only through the annual inspection can the continuous production of organic food.

It's not easy to get the name "organic." it's under this rigorous testing system that the quality of organic food is guaranteed. Strictly speaking, the green food produced in China cannot be compared with organic food, because there are some differences in the production link. Thus, green food grade A and AA came into being, and AA was the organic food in A complete sense.

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[ralphlayton]

Content Marketing Interview: Margaret Magnarelli on Applying Journalistic Integrity to Content Strategy #CMWorld

Content marketers come from all sorts of different backgrounds, with each bringing its own distinct and valuable perspective. Recently we shared our chat with Andrew Davis, whose history in television inspires him to think like a TV executive when strategizing his content. Today we’re highlighting the insights of Margaret Magnarelli, whose ingrained journalistic mindset fuels a commitment to putting her audience — and their trust — above all else.  Prior to joining Morgan Stanley as Executive Director for Audience Acquisition and Growth Marketing, Margaret served as Vice President of Marketing for Monster, and before that she spent nearly a decade on the editorial staff at Money Magazine, rising from Senior Editor to Assistant Managing Editor to Executive Editor. Through this experience, she has developed a keen sense of duty to her audience. She knows that trust is hard-earned and easily lost (or: gained in drops, lost in buckets). This is a central tenet of faithful journalists everywhere. I can attest as a fellow j-school grad: this field holds truth and accuracy as sacred ideals.  At Content Marketing World 2019, Margaret will speak on The Power of Trust: How to Build Credibility with Customers — and Convince Them to Buy. Ahead of her session, she starred in TopRank Marketing and CMI’s CMWorld preview experience, where she declares that in order to put on an unforgettable show for your audience, “Trust is your ticket to admission, and therefore needs to be treated as a main event.” In an expanded interview with us, Margaret expands on her enlightened viewpoints as they apply to building trust, being mindful of word counts, balancing facts versus feelings, and much more.

Margaret Magnarelli on Putting Your Audience First

1. Congrats on your recent move to a new position! What does your role as Executive Director for Audience Acquisition and Growth Marketing at Morgan Stanley entail? Thank you! My job focuses on the development of audience using organic channels. I oversee the firm’s social media and SEO strategies, as well as managing projects that help us optimize conversion rates. Basically, I’m thinking about how we introduce new people to our brand, and how we direct those people to the services that will help them.  The backbone of all of this is content that exemplifies Morgan Stanley’s core values: leading with exceptional ideas, giving back, putting clients first, and doing the right thing. These values are the framework for how we serve consumer and institutional clients. I was drawn to the firm because of its focus on relationships as customer experience, its emphasis on content as a driver of marketing, and its commitment to volunteerism and philanthropy.   While my background prior to this job was content development and strategy, I took this role sitting alongside content creation—and an incredible content team—because I wanted to dig  deeper into the audience aspects of marketing. After all, you can have the best product to sell and best creative to sell it with, but if you’re not reaching the right audience you aren’t going to be effective. 2. You have a background in journalism. How does this experience influence your views on the importance of trust in content marketing? I’m definitely predisposed to care about trust from my j-school training. As a journalist, you have a duty to be responsible to your audience—to seek out the most objective truth that is possible and to present an accurate representation of what you learn. I feel that same obligation to my audiences as a marketer. In other words, I think I have a more customer-centric approach because that’s how I was trained in journalism.  Another thing: Journalistic writing requires proof points, whether that’s supporting statistics, expert quotes or telling anecdotes. These same proof points are needed in marketing to support the brand-forward, top-funnel storytelling you need to do to attract initial attention. Immediately after you’ve established contact, you need evidence to show that you have the capability to do what you say you can do; otherwise it’s just fluff. [bctt tweet="Journalistic writing requires proof points, whether that’s supporting statistics, expert quotes or telling anecdotes. These same proof points are needed in marketing. @mmagnarelli" username="toprank"] 3. What other lessons from serving in a magazine editorial role are applicable to your current content focus? I believe every word counts. You can say the same thing 1,000 different ways, and each one will convey something different to the audience. Simple word choice changes seriously impact perception. So how do you choose? Some of that is gut—“does this feel like our brand?” and “how do we take the way we talk to customers in real life and translate that to digital experience?”—and some is science, like A/B testing language on a conversion module. You can take conversion as a kind of measure of trust.  4. What are some of the biggest credibility-killers you come across when consuming marketing content? There’s still a lot of marketing content out there that’s basically “why we want to sell you this thing” rather than “how we can help you solve a problem with what we sell.”  Social science indicates that benevolence is a key aspect of trust. Does your content show your audience that you understand their problem and that you have their best interests in mind? This isn’t a heavy lift to incorporate into content—simply acknowledging and validating the problem in your work can go a long way. It’s not hard but you don’t see it done as much as it could be. In addition, I am not a huge fan of marketing that’s 100% about building a feeling. Today’s consumers are smarter than that. Millennials in particular are a skeptical audience; they can see through the pretty pictures and snarky marketing copy. By all means, take them to an emotional place (aspiration, inspiration, hope, connection, etc.) if that’s right for your brand—but make sure you give them the evidence they need to know that you’re the right choice, that your products work. Show data from independent product studies, include customer reviews, mention third-party awards, share like-customer success stories, offer the option of product walkthroughs. 5. Conversely, what are some tactics and techniques you view as most successful for building customer trust (especially during early engagements)? Back to the Millennial and Gen Z consumers: All the research shows that they’re looking for brands that align with their values. So transparency is super important. The three main opportunities for transparency are price, process, and provenance. What can you tell your customers about why your services are priced as they are, about how your products were made, and about where they come from? [bctt tweet="The three main opportunities for transparency are price, process, and provenance. @mmagnarelli" username="toprank"] 6. Which digital channels do you recommend prioritizing when it comes to cultivating a credible and authentic brand? All of them! I think your brand needs to come off as credible consistently for people to trust you. In fact, inconsistency across channels can erode trust, because it may look like you’re saying one thing in one space and something else in another. That said, a good rule of thumb is that the more intimate the medium, the more trust is at stake. Where someone is signing up for an email newsletter from you—where they’ve given up their email address—they expect more from you than they would seeing your content broadcast on a social channel. They expect a value exchange, and whether they get what they thought they would get impacts trust.  I also think the content created for organic search is another key area, since you have the opportunity to attract someone from a side door with a specific intent and zero brand awareness; your answer to their question will have a big impact on whether you can be trusted on more consequential matters. [Editor’s Note: We couldn’t agree more!] 7. Which speakers and/or sessions are you most looking forward to seeing at this year’s Content Marketing World? You can basically throw a dart at the CMWorld schedule and have an educational and inspirational experience! I’m excited to see old friends and favorites who are too many to name, but I am also going to focus more on SEO and conversion topics this year. Among the ones I hope to attend: Mark Zimmerman from PublicisSapient on SEO and voice, Christopher White from Capital One since it’s a similar financial space, Val Geisler on reducing audience churn, Dennis Shiao on building community, Adam Constantine from Pace on creating compelling social creative, Katie Tweedy on evolving search landscape, Eli Schwartz on growth experimentation, Wally Koval on creating an audience for @accidentallyweanderson.  Change is the only constant in content marketing, and you’ve got to have a growth mindset to continue besting your own results. I also believe in a teaching mindset, as a way of paying it forward for all I’ve learned from others. I know there are tons of people in the audience at CMWorld who have even better ideas than I do, and I hope to see some of them on the stage next year. If you’ve seen results, you have something to share with your peers. Don’t be shy. Your community needs to hear from you! [bctt tweet="Change is the only constant in content marketing, and you’ve got to have a growth mindset to continue besting your own results. @mmagnarelli" username="toprank"]

Step Right Up and Be Amazed!

We’re looking forward to seeing Margaret take the stage on September 4th at CMWorld 2019, where she’ll drive home the power of trust in today’s content marketing landscape.  As we count down the days to the big show, you can get your fill of awesome content marketing insights — from Margaret and many other speakers — by gaining free admission to The Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth!

The post Content Marketing Interview: Margaret Magnarelli on Applying Journalistic Integrity to Content Strategy #CMWorld appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Content Marketing Interview: Margaret Magnarelli on Applying Journalistic Integrity to Content Strategy #CMWorld published first on yhttps://improfitninja.blogspot.com/

[samuelpboswell]

Content Marketing Interview: Margaret Magnarelli on Applying Journalistic Integrity to Content Strategy #CMWorld

Content marketers come from all sorts of different backgrounds, with each bringing its own distinct and valuable perspective. Recently we shared our chat with Andrew Davis, whose history in television inspires him to think like a TV executive when strategizing his content. Today we’re highlighting the insights of Margaret Magnarelli, whose ingrained journalistic mindset fuels a commitment to putting her audience — and their trust — above all else.  Prior to joining Morgan Stanley as Executive Director for Audience Acquisition and Growth Marketing, Margaret served as Vice President of Marketing for Monster, and before that she spent nearly a decade on the editorial staff at Money Magazine, rising from Senior Editor to Assistant Managing Editor to Executive Editor. Through this experience, she has developed a keen sense of duty to her audience. She knows that trust is hard-earned and easily lost (or: gained in drops, lost in buckets). This is a central tenet of faithful journalists everywhere. I can attest as a fellow j-school grad: this field holds truth and accuracy as sacred ideals.  At Content Marketing World 2019, Margaret will speak on The Power of Trust: How to Build Credibility with Customers — and Convince Them to Buy. Ahead of her session, she starred in TopRank Marketing and CMI’s CMWorld preview experience, where she declares that in order to put on an unforgettable show for your audience, “Trust is your ticket to admission, and therefore needs to be treated as a main event.” In an expanded interview with us, Margaret expands on her enlightened viewpoints as they apply to building trust, being mindful of word counts, balancing facts versus feelings, and much more.

Margaret Magnarelli on Putting Your Audience First

1. Congrats on your recent move to a new position! What does your role as Executive Director for Audience Acquisition and Growth Marketing at Morgan Stanley entail? Thank you! My job focuses on the development of audience using organic channels. I oversee the firm’s social media and SEO strategies, as well as managing projects that help us optimize conversion rates. Basically, I’m thinking about how we introduce new people to our brand, and how we direct those people to the services that will help them.  The backbone of all of this is content that exemplifies Morgan Stanley’s core values: leading with exceptional ideas, giving back, putting clients first, and doing the right thing. These values are the framework for how we serve consumer and institutional clients. I was drawn to the firm because of its focus on relationships as customer experience, its emphasis on content as a driver of marketing, and its commitment to volunteerism and philanthropy.   While my background prior to this job was content development and strategy, I took this role sitting alongside content creation—and an incredible content team—because I wanted to dig  deeper into the audience aspects of marketing. After all, you can have the best product to sell and best creative to sell it with, but if you’re not reaching the right audience you aren’t going to be effective. 2. You have a background in journalism. How does this experience influence your views on the importance of trust in content marketing? I’m definitely predisposed to care about trust from my j-school training. As a journalist, you have a duty to be responsible to your audience—to seek out the most objective truth that is possible and to present an accurate representation of what you learn. I feel that same obligation to my audiences as a marketer. In other words, I think I have a more customer-centric approach because that’s how I was trained in journalism.  Another thing: Journalistic writing requires proof points, whether that’s supporting statistics, expert quotes or telling anecdotes. These same proof points are needed in marketing to support the brand-forward, top-funnel storytelling you need to do to attract initial attention. Immediately after you’ve established contact, you need evidence to show that you have the capability to do what you say you can do; otherwise it’s just fluff. [bctt tweet="Journalistic writing requires proof points, whether that’s supporting statistics, expert quotes or telling anecdotes. These same proof points are needed in marketing. @mmagnarelli" username="toprank"] 3. What other lessons from serving in a magazine editorial role are applicable to your current content focus? I believe every word counts. You can say the same thing 1,000 different ways, and each one will convey something different to the audience. Simple word choice changes seriously impact perception. So how do you choose? Some of that is gut—“does this feel like our brand?” and “how do we take the way we talk to customers in real life and translate that to digital experience?”—and some is science, like A/B testing language on a conversion module. You can take conversion as a kind of measure of trust.  4. What are some of the biggest credibility-killers you come across when consuming marketing content? There’s still a lot of marketing content out there that’s basically “why we want to sell you this thing” rather than “how we can help you solve a problem with what we sell.”  Social science indicates that benevolence is a key aspect of trust. Does your content show your audience that you understand their problem and that you have their best interests in mind? This isn’t a heavy lift to incorporate into content—simply acknowledging and validating the problem in your work can go a long way. It’s not hard but you don’t see it done as much as it could be. In addition, I am not a huge fan of marketing that’s 100% about building a feeling. Today’s consumers are smarter than that. Millennials in particular are a skeptical audience; they can see through the pretty pictures and snarky marketing copy. By all means, take them to an emotional place (aspiration, inspiration, hope, connection, etc.) if that’s right for your brand—but make sure you give them the evidence they need to know that you’re the right choice, that your products work. Show data from independent product studies, include customer reviews, mention third-party awards, share like-customer success stories, offer the option of product walkthroughs. 5. Conversely, what are some tactics and techniques you view as most successful for building customer trust (especially during early engagements)? Back to the Millennial and Gen Z consumers: All the research shows that they’re looking for brands that align with their values. So transparency is super important. The three main opportunities for transparency are price, process, and provenance. What can you tell your customers about why your services are priced as they are, about how your products were made, and about where they come from? [bctt tweet="The three main opportunities for transparency are price, process, and provenance. @mmagnarelli" username="toprank"] 6. Which digital channels do you recommend prioritizing when it comes to cultivating a credible and authentic brand? All of them! I think your brand needs to come off as credible consistently for people to trust you. In fact, inconsistency across channels can erode trust, because it may look like you’re saying one thing in one space and something else in another. That said, a good rule of thumb is that the more intimate the medium, the more trust is at stake. Where someone is signing up for an email newsletter from you—where they’ve given up their email address—they expect more from you than they would seeing your content broadcast on a social channel. They expect a value exchange, and whether they get what they thought they would get impacts trust.  I also think the content created for organic search is another key area, since you have the opportunity to attract someone from a side door with a specific intent and zero brand awareness; your answer to their question will have a big impact on whether you can be trusted on more consequential matters. [Editor’s Note: We couldn’t agree more!] 7. Which speakers and/or sessions are you most looking forward to seeing at this year’s Content Marketing World? You can basically throw a dart at the CMWorld schedule and have an educational and inspirational experience! I’m excited to see old friends and favorites who are too many to name, but I am also going to focus more on SEO and conversion topics this year. Among the ones I hope to attend: Mark Zimmerman from PublicisSapient on SEO and voice, Christopher White from Capital One since it’s a similar financial space, Val Geisler on reducing audience churn, Dennis Shiao on building community, Adam Constantine from Pace on creating compelling social creative, Katie Tweedy on evolving search landscape, Eli Schwartz on growth experimentation, Wally Koval on creating an audience for @accidentallyweanderson.  Change is the only constant in content marketing, and you’ve got to have a growth mindset to continue besting your own results. I also believe in a teaching mindset, as a way of paying it forward for all I’ve learned from others. I know there are tons of people in the audience at CMWorld who have even better ideas than I do, and I hope to see some of them on the stage next year. If you’ve seen results, you have something to share with your peers. Don’t be shy. Your community needs to hear from you! [bctt tweet="Change is the only constant in content marketing, and you’ve got to have a growth mindset to continue besting your own results. @mmagnarelli" username="toprank"]

Step Right Up and Be Amazed!

We’re looking forward to seeing Margaret take the stage on September 4th at CMWorld 2019, where she’ll drive home the power of trust in today’s content marketing landscape.  As we count down the days to the big show, you can get your fill of awesome content marketing insights — from Margaret and many other speakers — by gaining free admission to The Greatest Content Marketing Show on Earth!

The post Content Marketing Interview: Margaret Magnarelli on Applying Journalistic Integrity to Content Strategy #CMWorld appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

from The SEO Advantages https://www.toprankblog.com/2019/08/content-marketing-journalism/

[digital-strategy]

https://mklnd.com/2IcNlrV

Do you remember that? It’s the infamous “punch the monkey” ad, and it’s one of the earliest examples of display advertising. Back then, the marketing industry tried anything to get messages on the web and in front of consumers — all of them.

For some, display ads still retain some of that “blast your story everywhere and see what happens” reputation. But I think that view is misplaced. Though today’s internet is complex and vast in ways we never anticipated over a decade ago, we now have the insights and technology needed to be helpful in ways consumers expect.

Consider this: people navigated to more than 185 million active websites in December 2018 alone. And while 88 percent of consumers favor brands that provide helpful information along the journey to purchase, only 47 percent of brands customize and show information that meets those expectations. This is where display ads can close the gap — to not only drive awareness but meaningful engagement.

We’ve come a long way from that ubiquitous monkey ad. Today I want to share three key ways you can take what we’ve learned over the past 15 years at Google to drive growth for your business right now.

1. Scale with automation

Generic banner ads are a thing of the past: 54 percent of consumers expect brands to tailor mobile information for them based on their previous behavior, such as website visits or purchases.

This means delivering helpful, relevant ads that make sense at the moment, like offering yoga gear to a fitness aficionado researching her next yoga retreat. But if you’ve got hundreds or even thousands of customer segments or a large inventory, how do you free up time to build better ad experiences at scale?

Thanks to machine learning, you can count on automation to help. For example, Google’s Smart Display campaigns continuously optimize your audience settings, bids, and creative assets, making sure the right message reaches your most interested customers at the right time — helping you drive more conversions. In fact, on average, advertisers who use Smart Display campaigns have seen 20 percent more conversions at the same cost-per-acquisition (CPA) when compared to their other display campaigns.

2. Invest time in great creative

The performance and efficiency you’ll see using automation bring me to an important point — help from technology doesn’t mean boring ad campaigns. In fact, it means the opposite. With less time spent on flipping switches and levers for campaign and ad workflows, you’re free to focus on what’s most important for your business: inspiring your customers to action.

When people have a negative brand experience on mobile, they are 62 percent less likely to purchase from that brand in the future than if they have a positive experience. That means it’s critical to land your message right at every customer touch point along her path to purchase.

I believe it��s absolutely possible to do this the right way with help from automation. That’s why we introduced responsive display ads (RDA) last year to help you more effectively deliver relevant, actionable ads at scale using multiple creative assets. This ad format delivers relevant, valuable ads across millions of sites and apps at scale using your creative assets.

Rakuten Travel, the largest online travel brand in Japan, turned to RDAs to save time in managing its campaigns and ad workflows. With more time to focus on building rich and diverse assets and setting the right performance goals, the brand saw a 3X increase in sales compared to standard image ads alone.

3. Keep trying new things

Big bets like RDA are a great way to help you drive growth. Fostering innovative ad solutions like RDA is one of the best parts of my job – and I’m excited by other great ideas the team has been working on.

One new ad format we’re exploring is Conversational Display Ads, running in a limited Beta via Display & Video 360 on Google Marketing Platform. Announced just this past October by Area 120 (Google’s internal incubator for experimental projects), this format gives people a chance to instantly get answers to their questions about a brand or product as they browse their favorite sites. This helps marketers build inspiring, interactive moments right into the ad experience. When I see this format, I’m blown away by how far we’ve come.

Barilla, a leading global brand in pasta and ready-to-use sauces, worked with media partner Valassis Digital in 2018 to drive the discussion with customers about recipe ideas, unique offers and more using the new format. As a result, the brand saw increased online engagement, with conversational display ads delivering an average interaction time of 1 minute.

This is just one of many exciting new formats we’re working on at Google to help you build amazing, assistive ad experiences that inspire customers to engage with your brand.

Take another look at display ads

Google Display ads have come a long way in 15 years. Thanks to machine learning, we now have the technology to meet today’s consumer needs with helpful ads at scale. We’re continuing to invest and innovate in the space. So if you haven’t lately, check how your display campaigns are doing. Are they leveraging the full benefits technology has to offer?

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Brad is responsible for global product management of Google’s display and video advertising business across the network and ad platforms. He is a frequent guest speaker at industry events and conferences globally and has been cited in Ad Age, Business Week, and The Wall Street Journal, among many other publications. In 2012 he was named a “40 under 40” leader by Crain’s New York Business. Prior to joining Google, Brad held multiple leadership positions at DoubleClick in both the U.S. and Europe. Brad graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University. He currently lives in Palo Alto with his wife, twin daughters and their dog.

via Marketing Land

[click2watch]

Where the Future of Crypto Payments Is Being Built

Leah Callon-Butler is the co-founder of Intimate.io, a token project aiming to bring payments, privacy and reputation to the adult industry.

The following is an exclusive contribution to CoinDesk’s 2018 Year in Review. 

“The stars have aligned,” he said, the room hanging on his every word.

“In the same way that the industrial revolution created the economic prosperity that’s made the U.S. what it is today; in the same way that Africa leapfrogged wired telecommunications and went straight to wireless; the Philippines has the potential to be the biggest beneficiary of this technology now. Manila could be the next New York. The next London. The next Hong Kong. The next Tokyo.”

The audience at Manila Private House was silent, wholly captivated by Brock Pierce’s speech as he told the story of a nation primed for a technological revolution. The Philippines is a collection of over 7,000 islands, where only 31 percent of its 100 million people are banked, and just 4 percent of transactions happen online, but nearly 60 percent of people own a smartphone.

Add to this the identity issue, with thousands undocumented and disenfranchised due to poor access to government services, and you can start to see how the Philippines is attracting the attention of some of the world’s most forward-thinking blockchain entrepreneurs and investors.

The government and central bank have jumped onboard, too, recognizing the potential for this technology to introduce unprecedented efficiencies and interconnectivity to the local economy, supporting the movement with special economic zones to promote development and attract investment – particularly in fintech, of which 16 percent of the current industry is in blockchain or crypto.

“There has been great movement from the government side, to learn and do more with blockchain technology,” says John ‘Jem’ Milburn, an EOS enthusiast who is based in Seoul while building business in the Cagayan Special Economic Zone (CEZA), continuing:

“Banks and business are getting interested, too, to make real, sincere pushes to learn and provide services. The move to encourage and allow exchanges in CEZA is huge, and will lead, I think, to big growth in Philippines involvement in international blockchain projects.”

One of the Philippines’ incumbent financial institutions, UnionBank, is leading the way in blockchain experimentation, applying the technology to everything from internal distribution of operating manuals to digitizing the badly fragmented rural banking system, effectively bringing costly processes that previously took a few days into real-time.

For the rural banks, of which there are only 400 left in the Philippines today, compared to 1,400 just 30 years ago, UnionBank plans to partner with at least 100 of them to help build blockchain-based connections to the main national and international banking networks.

Buoyed by early successes, and with 30 ConsenSys-certified blockchain developers already in-house, UnionBank says they will add 20,000 more programmers to the team over the next few years.

Active startups

But it isn’t just incumbents that are hard at work in the Philippines.

With financial inclusion heralded as the next big wave of cryptocurrency adoption, startup Coins.ph is capitalizing on the opportunity to deliver secure, reliable and convenient payments services to the unbanked and unidentified.

Founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Ron Hose and Runar Petursson, Coins.ph is a blockchain-enabled digital wallet that can be used to pay bills, buy credit for your mobile phone and process peer-to-peer transactions – all with minimal KYC and without needing a bank account.

With super-easy onboarding and a multitude of methods to top up your account, from sending bitcoin or ethereum to depositing Filipino Pesos at a 7-Eleven store, this offers some insight to how Coins.ph have managed to build a user base of more than 5 percent of the local population when the company is little more than four years old.

Coins.ph are also using blockchain to lower the typical cost of cross-border remittances, a critical service for Overseas Filipino Workers (known as OFW) and their families.

Money sent home by OFW is the Philippines’ second largest export, accounting for 10 percent GDP. In February this year, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported that remittances had grown 5.3 percent in 2017 to bring in a total $33 billion.

This was an all-time high for the Philippines, smashing government targets and positioning the Philippines as the third-highest global remittance recipient, only topped by the whopping diaspora of India and China.

But on average, migrant workers lose more than 10 percent in international transaction fees when sending cash home. This is significantly higher than the average cost reported by the World Bank at 7.1 percent and has a devastating effect for the families that rely on those funds, not to mention the people that work so hard to earn it in the first place. Global Overseas Worker, or GOW, is a crypto exchange licensed by the Philippines Central Bank and Philippines SEC that is delivering up to 98 percent savings on the usual remittance fees copped by Filipinos.

“Every little bit helps, and that saving is potentially the difference that puts a smile on someone’s face this Christmas,” says William Sung, COO of GOW. “However, it’s more than that. It’s about being included in the new digital economy and blockchain services are gateways into that inclusion.”

Like Coins.ph and GOW, other local ventures such as Satoshi Citadel Industries (SCI) and Bloom Solutions are tackling the remittance problem too.

Brian Calma Sales, a Filipino who works in Dubai as an office coordinator at a construction company, and has a side hustle offering hair and makeup services, says the extra money would go a long way.

“Most OFW work abroad for their family – part of Filipino culture is helping our family, it’s our responsibility,” he says. “If we didn’t have to pay the fee, it could be used to pay off some bills, or save for a vacation. Also, Filipinos mostly work two jobs. So, instead of working extra hours to get the money needed to send home, maybe we could have taken the day off.”

Aspiring entrepreneurs

There’s reason to think this is only the beginning of a major movement.

19-year-old Kyle Acquino found inspiration in those strong Filipino family values to come up with the idea that won the Accenture Choice Award at DISH 2018, the Philippines’ first-ever community-led blockchain hackathon.

“I tapped into that mindset and came up with the idea to provide a platform where communities can grow together like a family,” says Acquino, who is studying Computer Science at the Technological University of the Philippines. His team’s idea, Psycellium, is to build a decentralized cooperatives network that would take the Philippines one step closer to globalization.

A derivative of a DAO, Psycellium would allow cooperatives to merge, invest and join other co-ops without the typical cross-border concerns or restrictions.

DISH 2018 (which stands for Decentralized Innovations Startups Hackathon) was a blockchain-agnostic event held in Makati in November, bringing together Ethereum, EOS and NEM communities and encouraging participants to make objective decisions about which platform would be best-suited to their project.

“Blockchains are not all encompassing in terms of features,” commented Chris Verceles, CTO of decentralized disaster-response startup LifeMesh, developer at ConsenSys Philippines and one of the main organisers of the hackathon. “Each one is best at a certain use case and I believe we should be able to mix and match tools depending on what we need. Additionally,” he said, “a community only grows if it is inclusive.”

Themes of inclusion appear to be top-of-mind for Filipinos, with many leading female-oriented tech communities hosting a local chapter in the capital of Manila, including Women Who Code, Women in Blockchain and Coding Girls. After launching in November 2017, the latter grew from five members to more than 100 in just six months. Their leader, 20-year-old Electrical Engineering student Alenna Dawn Magpantay, says the Philippines’ young population (the average age is 24) makes it “a haven for tech-savvy professionals who are creative and resourceful.”

Michie Ang, a Director of Women Who Code Manila, said she’s looking forward to answering the demand for encouraging further training in blockchain languages in 2019. Her organization represents a network of more than 1700 female devs across the national capital alone.

Bright young minds are plentiful in the Philippines. In fact, that’s what prompted intimate.io to relocate half its executive team here in August, to work more intensively with our existing Pinoy team of four.

Since then, we’ve added another two devs with the help of our business process outsourcing (BPO) partner, Cloudstaff. Established in 2005 by Australian internet pioneer, Mr. Lloyd Ernst, Cloudstaff is an outsourcing company in the Philippines providing skilled workforces to a range of industry verticals.

Today, the company employs more than 2000 staff and contractors across four regions, with plans to double in size over the next year.

Growth data reveals that enterprises are outsourcing talent to companies like Cloudstaff more and more, with 1.3mil people now employed by BPOs in the Philippines. Ernst says the growth is being driven by small and mid-size companies who have moved to the cloud in order to utilize a global workforce. With a background working in China, Vietnam and Thailand, Ernst says that the high level of English language proficiency in the Philippines makes a big difference. Verceles agrees, adding that the Filipinos common exposure to online and western cultures makes local developers very trainable.

“There is a large pool of untapped talent here, since a lot more hiring attention is paid to surrounding areas like Singapore or Hong Kong,” he says. “You can see this in the current scramble for blockchain talent, where companies are increasingly looking into the Philippines for more abundant developer resources.”

Community drive

To say it’s “refreshing” to be immersed within a community that is genuinely focussed on designing and building practical solutions to some of the world’s gnarliest problems… is an understatement.

Milburn agrees, musing that “the Philippines community seems to be focused on the utility of the blockchain, more than the typical speculation and gambling we see in so many markets.”

Another example of this is ODX, or Open Data Exchange, a data marketplace founded by serial entrepreneur, Nix Nolledo, which aims to deliver sponsored internet services to consumers for free via the blockchain. Partnered with industry giants such as Booking.com, ODX will be vital for emerging markets where the right to connect is fast-becoming as critical as the right to transact, and consumers are still offline up to 80% of the time because mobile data is so expensive.

This is particularly vital for emerging markets where consumers are estimated to be offline 80 percent of the time, because data is so prohibitively expensive. Projects like Nolledo’s – and all others mentioned in this article – have no need to tout “blockchain social good” slogan because economic empowerment is simply an inherent byproduct of their operations.

In the short time we’ve been stationed here in the Philippines, the blockchain community has welcomed us with open arms. We’ve found synergies, supported each other’s initiatives and kick-started some fabulous friendships.

In the intimate.io office, our sense of team cohesion has never been stronger and productivity is through the roof! As a result, my co-founders and I have decided to stay for at least 12-months, and come January 2019, we’ll be moving into our new abode in Angeles City.

After a rollercoaster 2018, traversing almost every continent on the planet, we’re all incredibly grateful to be plonking ourselves somewhere that feels way more stable than anything else in crypto right now.

It’s true that something phenomenal happening here – and – I get the sense that the only hot air we’ll have to deal with in the Philippines…is the humidity.

Have a strong take on 2018? Email news [at] coindesk.com to submit an opinion to our Year in Review.

Philippines image via Shutterstock

!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n; n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','//connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '239547076708948'); fbq('track', "PageView"); This news post is collected from CoinDesk

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