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scripttorture · 4 years ago

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Hello! I've browsed this blog a bit and came across the idea that torturers often develop mental illness because of their repeated exposure to the violence/trauma of seeing another person in pain, which I'd never considered before. A) Do you believe torturers can therefore be a type of victim as well, depending on the circumstances, and therefore deserving of compassion/therapy? B) Can you point me to more information about this/what kinds of mental illnesses develop in torturers? (1/2)

C) Do you think it's possible for a mass murderer/torturer character to have a realistic, satisfying redemption arc? Do you know any media that's pulled it off believably? Thank you so much for taking the time to read/answer this if you do! And for this excellent resource!

The most accessible sources that cover this are O’Mara’s Why Torture Doesn’t Work (good grounding, start with him), Rejali’s Torture and Democracy and the appendices to Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth where he describes treating two torturers.

The most current research is about 600 pages of print on demand untranslated French. If you’re fluent in French (I am not and lock down etc has got in the way of me getting this translated) Sironi Comment devient-on tortionnaire?

Broadly speaking the symptoms appear to be the same as those survivors and witnesses develop.

And I will go into this in more depth later but keep in mind there is not anywhere near enough research on torturers for us to be entirely sure about most of this. I’m working with the best information we have right now.

The other two questions are subjective and sort of complicated. By definition a lot of this is going to be my opinion because well that’s what you’re asking for.

I think we need to be really careful about describing torturers as ‘victims’.

Yes they’re put in this situation by social structures beyond their control. It is not their fault that they weren’t given training or support in their job. It’s also not their fault that we have this global message that violence is effective or that so many workplaces are unnecessarily pressured/stressful. Most of the time they are drawn in to abusing others because of the social groups and structures within the organisation they join.

Oversight (with a drive to eradicate torture), funding, training and clear consistent messages about the right way to handle difficult situations would probably prevent most cases of torture.

This does not change the fact that on an individual level each of them chose to hurt other people.

Some of them will have made that choice understanding there was a threat to their own safety if they did not. Some of them will have made that choice just because it was what everyone else was doing. Some of them genuinely believe what they did was the ‘right’ decision at the time.

They still made that choice. And given that we have records of people in similar positions refusing, even when it put them at risk of attack or death, I don’t have a lot of sympathy with the choice torturers made.

The fact I’m a pacifist factors into this. Consider my biases.

Torturers typically show a very low understanding of the impact their actions have had on other people.

They might regret their actions but this is typically framed in a very self-centred way. They usually don’t express more then cursory regard for the victims. They regret it because they’re suffering now, because they have nightmares, because they can’t keep a job. And oh it’s all so unfair.

I don’t know why this is the case. But it’s a feature Sironi described in interviews about her work. And I’ve seen it over and over again in interviews with torturers.

Yes torturers suffer. The symptoms they develop are terrible and have a lasting impact on their lives. They typically can’t hold down jobs and struggle to re-integrate into society in any meaningful fashion.

And yes I believe they should be treated. I believe that anyone with a disease or condition which requires treatment should have access to care and treatment. Whoever they are. Whatever they did.

I believe that as fellow human beings torturers are entitled to a degree of compassion. When I say that torture and mistreatment are wrong I mean it. My position doesn’t change just because the theoretical victim is a former torturer.

I do not think that treatment and compassion should be dependant on a person being suitably victimised. For me the only thing it depends on is their need and their humanity. In the literal physical sense of them being a human.

But we tend to think of ‘victim’ as a simple category that doesn’t overlap with mass murderers.

And I don’t believe the position of torturers is that simple.

Especially when so few of them are charged. Torture trials are rare. Convictions are rare. And sentences are short.

And their victims deserve justice too.

I feel conflicted about calling torturers ‘victims’ because of this complex reality. And because in fiction we have a tendency to focus on the torturers prioritising their voices over the survivors. I feel like presenting torturers as simple victims of society could risk adding to that.

For me the focus has always got to be the survivors.

And I think all of this feeds into how we handle redemption arcs.

I don’t think that writing redemption arcs for villains, even torturers or mass murderers is ‘wrong’. In fact I think that it can be a really good idea. Showing how toxic the environments these people are in is a good thing. Puncturing the way it’s romanticised is a good thing. And showing a way out of it, even if it’s imagined, is not a bad thing.

But if we’re going to do that in our stories then I think we need to think about what redemption means and in whose eyes the character is redeemed.

There’s also a small problem: we don’t really know what recovery for torturers looks like.

There isn’t enough research on them. Partly because of lack of interest but partly because the low conviction rates means sample sizes are small. We’re talking about a limited number of individuals who are jailed and we can’t really ‘prove’ that individuals who weren’t convicted were torturers. We don’t really know what the long term outcomes are, what treatments might be effective or- Much of anything.

Studies on torturers are typically based on very small numbers of individuals. (For a long time Fanon’s work was the only example of a mental health professional talking about torturers specifically. He saw two of them.) They are not statistically sound. And a lot of resources were simply journalists or mental health professionals compiling notes on the handful of individuals they talked to.

Everything I say about torturers is based on things like interviews, a handful of studies that have flaws and anecdotal evidence. Unfortunately as of right now it’s the best we’ve got.

Personally I don’t think there’s enough research on torture generally. Or enough attempts to collate relevant research from other fields. But that’s a rant for another day.

Let’s get back to that central question: what does redemption mean?

I think that it’s pretty easy to write a character changing for the better. You can build up the character’s level of insight into what they’re doing/did over the course of the story. You can show them choosing to stop. You can show them shifting to oppose their former allies.

But bundled up in the idea of a redemption arc is this: is it enough? And who is it enough for?

I don’t think survivors should be obliged to forgive former torturers. I also don’t think they’re likely to interact positively.

I’ve talked about this now and again when asked about the difference between legally defined torture and abuse. Because of the organised and widespread nature of legally defined torture there are usually communities of survivors. And communities that are collectively moving through a recovery process because even those people who weren’t directly attacked are likely to be witnesses, carers and relatives or friends of survivors.

These things echo down generations.

Cyprus gained independence from the British in 1960, my father is too young to have any real memory of the violence during the colonial period. But he referenced it in arguments with my English mother during my childhood. There are people throughout China today who won’t buy anything Japanese because of Japanese war crimes there during World War 2. There are people who won’t eat fish from the Black Sea, because the bodies of their ancestors were thrown into that sea during a genocide over a hundred years ago.

I know that as a both a Greek Cypriot and an English person there are people all over the world who will not want anything to do with me based on what my people have done to theirs. And the fact I wasn’t alive at the time does not really factor into it.

What I’m trying to illustrate here is that this is much bigger, broader and more complex then individual acts of forgiveness.

Survivors are a highly varied group of individuals. And each torturer can have thousands or tens of thousands of victims. Expecting each impacted individual, and any witnesses and all their family members and friends, to forgive these people is… let’s say ‘unlikely’.

So does redemption require forgiveness from the wounded party? Is there any possible action that can atone for the sheer scale of these atrocities?

If we play a simple number game causing this level of harm can be achieved in months or years, but saving the equivalent number of lives takes decades of skilled, dedicated work. If we look at concepts like wergild or jail as ‘paying your debt to society’ then how do we measure something like torture where the numbers are so big?

I haven’t seen a piece of fiction seriously tackle these questions. But then again I also haven’t actively looked for that fiction.

I feel like a lot of fictional redemption arcs judge a character to be sufficiently redeemed based on audience sympathy and the main cast forgiving the character. They don’t typically go on to broaden the scope of the narrative and question whether any one else impacted by the former villain’s actions also sees the character as redeemed.

One of my stories has a former torturer as a major character and I think they are a sympathetic character in many ways. I think that my readers would empathise with them through a lot of the story (which takes place decades after they stopped torturing).

They’re a mentor figure to some of the younger cast members. They’ve acted as a protector to them and taught the younger generation a lot about the minority culture they themselves are from. And they do genuinely care about these people that they helped to raise, consistently sacrificing to protect these ‘kids’. (The ‘kids’ are 30s-20s at the time of the story.)

But they’re also incredibly self centred. They don’t really interact with or have a lot of sympathy for the people they hurt. And while this particular family loves and forgives them society at large views them as a monster. Albeit one that is now leashed.

Is this a redemption story? Is this character redeemed? I genuinely don’t know. In fact that’s part of my interest in writing the story: trying to work out if there is a point, as this character grows, develops and helps others, when I believe they’ve done ‘enough’.

I think that redemption means different things for different people. A satisfying redemption story is different for different people. And if we can disagree so strongly about it with much simpler, smaller scale crimes then where does that leave us with torture?

There isn’t a simple answer or a one-size-fits-all writing solution. There can’t be.

My approach is to try and use the story to see if I can find an answer. Even if it’s only a limited one. For me the story itself is a forum for exploring human complexity and difficult ethical questions.

I don’t think we have a good solution for how to deal with these people in reality yet. But I do hold out hope that a good solution is possible. Fiction is an arena where we can safely explore possible solutions.

I guess in the end I’m not sure if there’s any story or arc that will work for everyone. I don’t think there are any hard rules for writing anything and I don’t think there’s ever a way to please everyone.

Redemption and forgiveness are complicated topics. I think we do a much better job when we engage with that complexity then when we assume a character just has to do a, b and c in order to achieve it.

When you consider someone to be truly redeemed is an ethical question that I can’t answer for you. I don’t think I should. The chances are you’ll know when you think your character has done enough.

Just be open to the fact that it won’t be enough for everyone. Consider reflecting that with the characters, because that can make for truly powerful moments.

In Midnight’s Children Shiva never forgives Saleem, even though Saleem isn’t responsible for Shiva ‘losing’ his life and family because they were both infants at the time. And damn there are a lot of flaws in the movie adaptation but that scene between them in the jail, when Saleem throws that in Shiva’s face hits hard. It shows us so much about both characters.

And I think that’s a better way to approach it then trying to figure out if a character is redeemed yet: figuring out how they’ve progressed, how others respond to that progression and why.

I hope that helps :)

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script-a-world · 4 years ago

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How do I keep my worldbuilding consistent when I have multiple timelines and alternate universes? Especially when memories can bleed over too.

Constablewrites: Really, really good notes. You’re gonna need something that allows for a high level of organization and categorization. That might be a tool like Scrivener or Evernote that lets you create folders and tags, or if you prefer physical notes you can use different colored pens, sticky notes, or even multiple notebooks. (There are probably tools out there specifically designed for such a purpose, but I’m not personally familiar with any.)

However you keep your lists, you’ll want to have one set of notes for each timeline and universe that impacts the story. If you have characters hopping around, you’ll also want to have notes for each character’s personal timeline (so the order in which they experience events, which timelines/universes they travel between, what they remember when, etc.). These lists don’t have to be super long or involved--just a brief phrase describing the scene or event can be enough to keep it straight.

Even for writers only working with a single timeline, it can be useful to have a calendar of events. You can call your start point Day 1 and go from there, assign events to arbitrary dates on our calendar, or go into detail with your own system, whatever works for you. The key is just to have a way to be sure of how much time has passed, so you don’t have something like characters saying they’ve only known each other a couple of days when it’s established elsewhere that it’s been a month.

Also, this doesn’t have to be done in advance. Doing it as you go is fine, and so is assembling the lists as you’re preparing to edit and untangle everything. You might save yourself some effort down the line if you sort that stuff out before writing, but not everyone’s brain works like that and that’s okay.

Tex: It’s difficult to make lists and notes if you don’t know what information to put in them. This is a fairly common issue, since the plethora of information available to particularly worldbuilders can easily become a sensory overload.

A calendar of events is an excellent idea, if you’ve got events to catalogue (and dates to go along with them!). Unfortunately that won’t cover the rest of a world, so you’ll need to be careful in how your organize your notes. Please note that both of our suggestions are but one of many methods to arranging worldbuilding notes, especially when it comes to multiple timelines.

Scrivener, Evernote, OneNote, or even a set of notebooks or word documents can be very versatile depending on your style of note-taking. I deeply prefer an iterative process to worldbuilding, wherein I slowly collate and organize scraps of notes into a polished whole that functions as an archive. Usually I keep multiple versions, in case I need to roll back to certain timelines of development and branch off in a different direction, and keep the discarded versions in case there’s a new way to incorporate the research and ideas.

There’s a lot of debate about digital vs physical copies. For digital, the pros are that you can easily edit and transmit files to a high volume capacity, as well as store them in a comparatively small container or even purely online. Its cons, however, are that they’re easily lost, corrupted, or stolen.

For physical, the pros are that the copies are tangible, easy to visually reference in large volumes, and can usually withstand long-term storage without corruption issues. Its cons, however, are that they have a physical weight, can be cumbersome to carry around, and are difficult to edit while retaining coherency.

One of the most successful note-taking styles I’ve seen is a blend of digital and physical. When you’re still developing an idea, a digital format is very useful until you’ve gotten some concrete decisions down. You can do this with some throwaway notebooks or loose paper, too! Just make sure it’s collected in the same place, or at least is annotated in a way that’s easy to identify (e.g. headers of the same colour, washi tape, dedicated ink colours, dedicated folders, etc).

The intermediary point is usually the difficult part, because transitioning into firm decisions about your worldbuilding is where packrat tendencies kick in. “But what if I need this?” is a very common refrain. However, if you’ve isolated your first step, you’ll still have all of your sketches and ideas and notes!

A basic sorting process of “I’ll keep working on this” versus “I’ll set this aside in case I still need this” will tamp down on a lot of that inevitable anxiety. This will give you control over the flow of development, and you’ll always be able to incorporate things from that second pile if necessary.

The main characteristic of the intermediary point is the filing system, and is incredibly useful even when dividing a world into multiple timelines.

The best method that I’ve found for working on multiple timelines is to start from the most common details. Since these notes are likely to be stored with other stories, the first order is fandom vs original work. If you only write original work, it may be helpful to arrange things by title and/or genre.

I’ve made a sample worldbuilding folder on Google Drive (available here) that can be downloaded locally or into your own Drive, and am narrating the main path way; any additional folders you see will largely be blank in order to allow others to learn the overall structure. You can always copy the folders and files I mention into the additional folders, and rearrange as best suits you!

Since I made this for primarily fandom (re-title as necessary for original work), this means choosing Fandom 1 and then World Name 1. Traditionally the first world is the “canon” world, or the original seed, so it gets first pick.

I have in World Name 1 some things pre-seeded:

Timeline 1

Timeline 2

Unsorted

World Name 1 - Meta Info.txt

All of the individual files in there - usually .txt or .docx - have information on them regarding suggestions how to use them. If you already have a method, then disregard and populate as you prefer.

The Unsorted folder acts as a catch-all, and there’s going to be one of these at roughly each level. For the Timeline level, this means working in conjunction with the Meta Info text file - usually discarded snippets and/or research. While you can definitely create subfolders in this one, I would recommend keeping it loose so you don’t create a stressful, nitpicking situation that loses focus on your main goals.

If you have a main timeline, then that’s going to be Timeline 1. However you choose to prioritize the other ones, just make sure you’re consistent with it, and clearly label everything.

Within Timeline 1, you’re going to have the following items:

Story folder

Plot folder

Unsorted folder

Culture folder

World Name 1 - Timeline 1 - To Do List.txt

You already know how the Unsorted folder functions, so pass that one by. I’ll cover the file before delving into the folders. It’s a text file (that’s a bit oddly sized, apologies for that - it can be resized upon opening with Notepad or a similar program), and left without any instructions or suggestions. World Name 1 - Timeline 1 - To Do List is, as it says on the tin, meant to keep track of things that need doing for this timeline. Be it items that need updating, necessary tweaks, reminders for other things, it’s a relatively isolated way to keep track of this timeline on a meta scale.

Moving on to the rest, the Story folder contains two of its own - Chapters and Master Story. I’ve found this method useful, since it’s dumping drafts into a virtual outbox on an as-completed basis. Master Story has a preseeded doc, while Chapters is meant to contain each chapter unto its own folder (Chapter 1 has its own preseeded doc, as well). The guide docs are colour-coded and contain notes for both fanfiction and original work.

The next folder in Timeline 1, Plot, comes with three pre-seeded guide docs of its own:

World Name 1 - Timeline 1 - Characters.docx

World Name 1 - Timeline 1 - Plot Unsorted.docx

World Name 1 - Timeline 1 - Plot.docx

You see how there’s still an Unsorted folder, albeit in file form? That’s for information that can’t be put into Characters.docx or Plot.docx. All three have notes and some sort of sorting and colour-coding applied to them, with some modularity for copying and pasting. Plot.docx functions a lot like programs like OneNote and Scrivener, so the formatting can be ported over if you prefer a more literal digital notebook style.

The last folder in Timeline 1 is Culture. I’ve divided this into Non-Physical and Physical. There’s a readme text file in both detailing the types of things would go into each folder, though otherwise both left blank so you can dive right into creating sub-folder systems of your own. As with the higher-level folders, you can always duplicate the methods of unsorted folders and meta docs!

#pylons #timelines #organization #Anonymous

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creativity-is-rebellion · 5 years ago

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My Experiences Whilst Undertaking a PhD (and Advice for Those Who are About to Take the Leap)

I entered into my PhD having already taken on a Masters thesis, and thought my PhD would be somewhat similar. I thought, I’ve done this before, and so it will just be a replica of the formula I have already used. It wasn’t. Unhelpful supervisors, revising ad-nauseam, and soul-crushing stress were just a few of the things I experienced whilst undergoing the most gruelling academic milestone of my life.

Maybe it would have been easier if I had gone to an older, established school with a more organised law school. But I didn’t. And besides, there seems to be a long-established culture, no matter where you decide to do your PhD, that supervisors are barely involved in what you do, for either apathetic or selfish reasons. It has been this way for years, and gets passed down through the generations of students completing their PhDs, so that when these students become supervisors, they treat the next generation of academic hopefuls with the same distain that was shown them. It’s little wonder that 1 in 2 PhD students feel severely depressed and isolated. Working so consistently and rigorously on one project by oneself can be very isolating, as, unlike when you undertake your bachelors and/or coursework masters, there are no classes or peer-group that you come into contact with regularly, and the truth is that if your supervisors are unsupportive, you can feel this depression and isolation ten-fold.

It’s almost like a kind of hazing process you need to go through to prove you have the mettle for academia. Put up with unhelpful supervisors, get through months of only seeing the same four walls, write, re-write, and re-write again, eat a lot of unhealthy food, live a rather sedentary lifestyle, neglect your family and friends, and speak to barely anyone for days on end. If you can pull through all of this with your sanity in-tact, you get to walk down the aisle in a fancy gown, and claim to be a leading expert in your field. Even the Thesis Whisperer, who is often cited as a guru blogger on all things thesis-related, calls the middle of your PhD, which is usually the time when you have to collate all your information and make it into a cohesive whole calls this stage “The Valley of Shit.” It’s pretty apt, and demonstrates the extent to which it is expected that gaining a PhD is an unhealthy and gruelling process, with no relief or counselling being offered to students who are, more often than not, mentally beleaguered with high anxiety and depression at best, or suicidal ideation at worst.

And when you pull through it all, it’s hardly worth it. An increase in casualisation for academic staff at universities has meant that the traditional, permanent tenure-tracks die with the professors who already have them in favour of non-permanent contracts and casual academic positions that do not include being paid over the holidays. This was a phenomenon which started in the United States, but has trickled down into Australia, with universities here employing more casual staff than the retail sector. And because of the greed of Australian universities accepting and churning out more PhDs than can be given any kind of employment, you’re lucky to even get a casual job at all. In the U.S., it is said that as many as 5,000 people who list their occupation as being janitors also hold PhDs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that is also the direction in which we are headed here. So, ultimately all you gain for your blood, sweat and tears is a title, a collection of journal articles likely only to be read by a select few, having to leave your PhD off of your C.V. for fear that it might make you “unemployable,” crippling debt, and being stuck on Centrelink unemployment benefits (a position I was lucky not to find myself in, because my husband has a good job, and I was able to find seasonal work in academia, and other, irrelevant work when the university was closed during holiday season).

I completed my PhD feeling at an all-time low. It didn’t feel like an achievement when I finally handed in my last revision, because it felt more like I had survived a cataclysmic event, and was so worn out by it. I am quite elitist and academically-minded, so I did enjoy receiving a title, and was happy to be published. I also enjoyed teaching students, and participating in research, as long as the other academic staff in my faculty didn’t push their agendas on me. I entered into my PhD with a romanticised vision of what it would be like, imagining the days of old where academics were dedicated to the process of learning and accumulating knowledge, innovating, and serving as catalysts for social change. These days, they are often forced to research what the universities want them to, and they are governed by the adage “publish or perish,” churning out papers that are not necessarily of high quality. In other words, the whole academic community have become sell-outs who don’t rock the boat for fear of losing their jobs. I also found that I had more general knowledge than my supervisors, because of the blinders they wear by going so deep into subjects at the expense of other interesting information that could perhaps even be relevant to their current research. Considering academia has always been portrayed as a beacon of enlightenment in an otherwise fractured society, the voice of reason when everything else around us is wrong, all of this is an especially worrying development.

Which brings me back to my plight. In order to earn big money, I have to study more, complete my Juris Doctor and become a lawyer, leaving me to be a highly-educated woman in a world that couldn’t care less. I also hope to make some money from my creative writing, and from my small business where I make jewellery, and although I have made a modest income off of both of these endeavours, there are never any guarantees. I’m still not sure it was worth it. Buyer beware.

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jarroddesign-blog · 7 years ago

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GCAP17 Summary - Day 1

So GCAP17 has come to a close, and being my first time i have a lot of thoughts about the experience as someone that is trying their best to find a place to start.

[WARNING LONG READ]

As a whole i managed to get around and meet some really cool people, and the talks were so inspirational. I’ll do my best to go through summaries of the talks that i went to over two days as a way for me to decompress my thoughts and take away’s from each.

(A quick disclaimer, my notes were a bit haphazard in places so if i miss crediting anyone for a talk please let me know and i will update it)

Opening Keynote

After registration was the opening keynote got underway with Steve Gaynor and Karla Zimonja started us off a talk getting us thinking about this years theme, the ripple effect. The basic premise of which was about the connections you make in your life as a dev and how over time those connections turn into a network as those people scatter to the winds with their connection to you with them.

Main take away’s

Make connections so that you can make connections that make connections.

Apply for jobs even if you think you aren't qualified as you never know where they can lead.

Nobody can do this by themselves, get help from your peers.

Design Hindsight's From Long Running Games

This was the first of the many design talks i was planning on going to in GCAP. Emilie Poissenot gave a fantastic speech about long running games or games as service as another way of putting it. It covered things like how documenting everything is ten times as important in games that you need to keep working on for five plus years and how the industry changes so quickly that it is impossible to plan for it, so plan that your plans won’t work.

Main take away’s

Plan for mistakes due to industry changes.

Readjust to those changes by making informed decisions with as much current relevant data as possible.

Creating A World And Making It Stick

Following on from one design talk to another this time with David Gaider talking about the creation of the Dragon Age universe and the pitfalls that it fell into. The talk was a very interesting look at what kind of diverging paths your team can naturally go down if you don’t touch base and make sure that your team is working on the same product. Again this talk went into the importance of documentation and how even if you have written an encyclopedia full of information, if you don’t have the cliff notes somewhere no one will read it.

Main take away’s

Don’t work in a bubble making assumptions about the work of others.

The lore and gameplay should serve into each other, they are not entirely separate things.

You are writing a guide for your team, not an encyclopedia.

You don’t get to decide what statements your decisions make. analyse what statements you could potentially be saying and ask yourself if you are okay with that.

Designing Ethical Interfaces

Onto a talk very close to my heart, accessibility. Alayna Cole and John Kane were fantastic in getting into the nitty gritty of the issues to do with not only what we traditionally think of as accessibility such as colourblind options, subtitles etc. But also the kind of accessibility options that not having push people away from your game such as representation of queer people in your media that when done poorly puts those people off of your game. It went in depth into how all of these things you should be talking to people that the options are for so as to make informed decisions on how they are implemented.

Main take away’s

There is no excuse for not thinking about accessibility for your game

Act early, with language especially as there are many design impacts that easy to implement early but hard to put in after the fact.

Consult with people whenever possible, get a wide range of perspectives for you game.

If you offend someone use it as a learning opportunity.

Tackling The Fear

Moving away from design talks for a bit and onto some business, Producing. Emre Deniz from OPX talked a lot about pitching your idea and how getting funding for your studio is not straight forward as it took 5 months of iterating on how the game presented before the idea was sold. It also touched on the idea of planning for failure and having contingencies in place that helped OPX adapt to the declining VR market. In amongst this were the themes of cultivating a healthy and rewarding company culture.

Main take away’s

Pitch a business that you would invest in

Pay people properly so they can focus on the work and deliver a better product in the end.

Think about how your going to defend your idea.

Stress is corrosive not explosive, avoid burnout by taking healthy breaks from your project if needed.

Positioning - How To Discover And Amplify What Is Remarkable About Your Game

This talk AKA “why should anyone give a F###”, was one of the most applicable talks i went to as an aspiring indie/solo dev. Marla Fitzsimmons, Felix Kramer, and Chris Wright talked about how to position your game for widespread appeal by mainly standing apart from the crowd and understanding what makes your game special.

Main take away’s

Think about your potential competitors and how you stand out from them.

Elevator pitches should:

What is it about

What makes it special

Described in easy to understand terms

Should create intrigue that leads to deeper questions about your game

Do as much research as possible to find out what is remarkable about your game and how you can push that.

Day 1 - Final Thoughts

At the end of the first day i was just so overwhelmed with information and inspiration. The speakers were all so amazing and i would like to thank them for their time and effort in making a fantastic day of learning. I will be collating and posting my summary for the second day in the coming days, as i have so many notes to go through so i will be taking my time with it as i let it all sink in.

#GCAP17 #MIGW17 #GCAP #MIGW #game dev #game industry #video games #the ripple effect #game connect asia pacific

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222258-ihiwehi · 5 years ago

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A third of NZ university students are sexually assaulted, a study suggests

Stuff Article

The moment Tess laid eyes on Victoria University, she knew she was looking at her future.

"I was so excited," she says, now. "I'd visited with my mum for the open day, I saw the law building and thought I just wanted to study there, it just called to me. I was also terrified – my whole family dropped me off, and my mum cried the whole way home.

"I was so ready to be like an adult, and live a new life in Wellington."

Her stomach a tangle of nervous knots, Tess worried about her classes, and making friends.

She didn't envisage the incident a few months later, when a young man would attempt to rape her at her university hostel, Weir House.

She didn't consider the self-blame and doubt that would creep in whenever she thought about the sexual assault.

And, really, something like that? To be honest, she just didn't think it would happen to her.

For the thousands of high school students who pack their bags for tertiary study each year, and their parents, sexual violence is unlikely to be top of mind. But new research suggests it should be.

Preliminary results from the biggest New Zealand study into the prevalence of sexual victimisation at university suggests one in three students will be sexually assaulted while they are studying.

The perpetrator will most likely be a young male student, who will assault his victim while they are drunk, asleep, or otherwise incapacitated.

The research involved 2700 students at a New Zealand university, who were asked if they had a non-consensual sexual experience. The survey was sent to all students at the university and participants chose to be involved.

More than a third, or 36 per cent of total respondents, said they had experienced some form of sexual assault, from being groped or made to remove clothes, perform oral sex, or forced digital, anal, or vaginal penetration. Broken down by gender, 41 per cent of women reported assault, and 22 per cent of men.

When it came to assailants, 88 per cent of reported perpetrators were men and 17 per cent women. (Students sometimes reported more than one incident.) Two-thirds of participants were assaulted by students from the same university.

Otago University PhD student Kayla Stewart used the academic Sexual Experiences Survey tool to assess the students, collating the data alongside dozens of one-on-one interviews. She says the results show sexual assault is a widespread issue universities have an obligation to tackle.

The most widely-used statistics in the United States suggest one in five university women are sexually assaulted. Stewart's research suggests that in New Zealand, the chance of a woman being forced into a sex act at university is more than one in three.

Prevalence studies must be interpreted cautiously, and results can not always be generalised. But they provide valuable insights into the commonality of assault, including intoxication and the nature of perpetrators.

"There needs to be acknowledgment that this is an issue, because for too long it's been hidden or universities have failed to acknowledge it," Stewart says.

"I really want to bring attention to what perpetrators are doing, and shift the focus to their actions. The most commonly used tactic is altered consciousness, through alcohol or drugs or sleep. Perpetrators sexually assaulted one in four people this way, taking advantage when they were drunk or out of it."

The fact so many assailants also attended university showed it was a community problem. "There's such a culture of entitlement, and we have to tackle that. On the one hand it is a societal problem, but it's also a university problem."

'IT WAS JUST PAR FOR THE COURSE, I GUESS'

Tess used to tell this like a joke.

It was first year, and Tess and her friend were out at a bar. They started chatting to a guy who began to get "uncomfortably grabby," before Tess decided she wanted to leave.

The friend brought the man back to their university hostel. Both women were drunk. Tess left her friend's dorm room, but not before giving her a lifeline.

"I told her I was going to bed but I would leave the door open for her if she wanted to come and stay in my room."

Instead, the man later entered Tess's room. "I was asleep at that point and he came and got into my bed and was like, insistent. I kept on falling asleep and waking back up and trying to say no. I was trying to say 'no, you don't have a condom,' just trying to justify the no, I guess. I just didn't know what to do."

Tess eventually got the man to leave, telling him she had an early lecture.

She didn't report the attempted rape, out of fear people would find out it was her. She felt ashamed, like she might be labelled a slut. Around the same time, she said another friend did report a sexual assault to hall management and was dismissed and told to "get over it."

(Victoria University say all halls of residence staff are now trained in how to respond to disclosures of sexually harmful behaviours, taking a confidential, survivor-led approach. This includes access to counselling and support to make formal complaints.)

It also didn't seem too out of the ordinary. "It was just par for the course I guess, and that sounds horrible, but I knew other girls in halls who had very similar experiences. It seems to be something that happens in that part of girl's lives."

It was only last year, when conversations about sexual violence were brought to the forefront with Me Too movement – and locally, with the sexual misconduct exposed at the Russell McVeagh law firm – that Tess realised what happened to her was not funny.

"Now it just makes me really sad. It was so horrible. Alcohol is such a huge part of first year culture, it's how you bond. I feel like a lot of guys – and girls – aren't taught what healthy sex is meant to be like. No-one has a frame of reference.

"You're taking a bunch of kids that maybe haven't had sex or the freedom to have it as frequently and they just don't know what good sex looks like, how to communicate and how to read someone else's communication."

Tess has never told her parents. "I think for my dad in particular it would torture him to think about. I could tell my family, but you don't really want to open things up because there was nothing they could have done.

"By the time I was ready to acknowledge it and talk, I had a support network of friends."

Other young women spoken to by Stuff who were victims of sexual assault at university struggled with self-blame, and had often tried to internally dismiss or downplay the event so they could continue with their lives and studies.

One woman, who was raped while a student at an Auckland University, only felt strong enough to lay a complaint with police years later. It is currently being investigated.

Others do complain, but hit brick walls. A PhD student at a North Island university told Stuff she has reported a sexual assault by a fellow student to police. It was so violent she had to be hospitalised.

She told the university, who she says told her they can do nothing until he is charged. In the meantime, she is not attending university for fear of seeing him on campus. He still goes to class every day.

A Stuff investigation in 2018 found dozens of alleged sexual misconduct complaints recorded by staff at university halls of residence nationwide in the past two years – only a handful of which were reported to police.

And in April, Otago's Knox College faced questions about its cultureafter several sexual assault, rape and harassment claims between 2011 and 2017 were revealed in student magazine Critic.

WHAT IS BEING DONE?

There are no nationwide guidelines or legislation around sexual misconduct protocol.

Universities New Zealand, the umbrella body, says it has established a working group into sexual violence, which involves representatives from all universities and two students.

In the meantime, students are mobilising to put pressure on university management to act. New Zealand University Students' Association rape prevention campaign Thursdays in Black, mired in a sexual harassment scandal of its own in mid-2018, has been re-established and is pushing for comprehensive misconduct policies.

It conducted a nationwide survey on sexual violence in 2017, with more than half of respondents saying they had experienced some form of it.

At Otago University, Students Against Sexual Violence has been leading this drive. Co-president Niall Campbell, 23, says Stewart's research does not come as a shock. "All of our members know multiple people who have been effected by sexual violence. There's no doubt in our minds it's an issue.

"It's an unfortunate combination of students who are actually quite young, and who have been inadequately educated around sex and sexuality. Contrary to popular belief, we are not the progressive nation we'd like ourselves to be."

A 2018 Education Review Office report found sex education has not improved in a decade, with a lack of education around consent, pornography and sexual violence.

This isn't helped by a culture of chauvinism, hyper-masculity and sexual conquest, particularly in first year, Campbell says.

Stuff asked all universities if they considered sexual violence prevention a university responsibility, and to advise on initiatives. Most pointed to their student code of conduct and discipline regulations. None would provide details of how much was spent annually.

When it came to specific action, Waikato University said it has appointed a violence prevention coordinator this year and begun providing training on sexual violence and healthy relationships for hall staff and students.

Auckland University said students are given information on family violence at orientation and have access to "comprehensive online material."

Auckland University of Technology ran an online preventing bullying and harassment programme and had launched a course, Consent Matters, at the cost of $16,000.

Massey University said its hall staff members were given training on victimisation, and it had a sexual assault pastoral care team.

Victoria University was developing a standalone sexual violence prevention policy, had a Sexual Harm Prevention working group, had appointed a new sexual harm counsellor and was increasing training for staff on dealing with disclosures.

The University of Canterbury said it had set up an End Sexual Violence Now working group, and gave new students an induction that included sexual violence awareness. Complaints could be made through online anonymous tool Report It.

Otago University opened Te Whare Tāwharau, a sexual violence support centre, last year. A sexual misconduct policy has been completed and a sexual misconduct action response team set up to oversee processes and investigations.

This is promising, Campbell says, but it's easy to point to documents. His group wants outcomes.

"Until very recently, almost nothing was done about the issue. And it's still early days - whether these policies end up being substantial and actually work is the question."

And others think action needs to be nationwide, rather left to each university. In the United States, Title IX is a federal law which makes universities accountable for disciplining perpetrators and supporting victims. There is no such legal requirement in New Zealand.

Lily Kay Ross is a sexual violence researcher and workplace consultant on sexual harassment procedures, and was a consultant on Otago's policy.

She is advocating for the establishment of an independent body to conduct investigations. It should be neutral, and have staff trained in the dynamics of sexual violence. Data and outcomes should be publicly reported.

"This is how universities can achieve accountability to the public and rebuild trust," Kay Ross says. "It signals that the cases we already know are happening are being responded to appropriately."

Victoria University student president Tamatha Paul says nationwide standards – enforceable by law if necessary – would be welcome. "Yes, it's awesome universities are starting to get these policies, but what about polytechs and other training establishments? What about what goes on at halls of residence?

"There needs to be a consistent policy covering every space that a student occupies."

WALKING THE TALK

On a leafy Friday at Auckland University, students stream through the campus. It's almost the weekend, and there are parties to organise, gigs to attend.

Life goes on. And, instead of waiting for change from above, many are working to initiate it themselves.

Students Gabriella Brayne, 19, and Ollin Raynaud, 25, are co-ordinators and founders of the Consent Club, which aims to normalise consent culture.

The group train volunteers to become "consent guardians," teaching them techniques in non-confrontational bystander intervention. The guardians attend festivals and events, stepping in to diffuse situations where it looks like a "consent breach" could be occurring.

This might involve offering a drunk young woman help finding her friends, or dancing alongside someone who is being cornered on the dance floor to give them an out.

In their view, the problem isn't so much that young men don't know what consent is - it's that they think they can get away with it, Brayne says.

"In the moment they still go ahead with the assault because there's a situation that can be exploited."

Having active bystanders who will intervene reinforces the idea that you can't get away with these acts. "We're like their sober mates, who will step in.

"We just want people to feel safe."

0 notes

douglassmiith · 5 years ago

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[POLL] How Local Marketers Are Dealing with the Business Impact of Covid-19

Covid-19 has undoubtedly disrupted the local landscape – shuttering many businesses worldwide, and changing ways of working for those staying open.

We wanted to find out the challenges our users have faced over the last few weeks, but more than this, we needed their advice. From changing priorities, to keeping up client comms, and learning new skills there are many things local marketers can do now to prepare for life post-lockdown.

But, while productivity is beneficial, it’s also important to remember that these are unusual and frankly scary times, so the best advice is to please prioritize your physical and mental health above all else.

Below, we have collated the challenges faced by respondents to help us understand what our users are facing. We have also picked out 25 of our favorite pieces of advice from local marketers working in businesses, agencies, and as freelancers. We hope you find our community’s messages of positivity and proactivity as inspirational as we did.

Thank you to the 325 BrightLocal users that took the time to share their experiences and advice with us. Your thoughts are instrumental in making sure we can be as useful as possible over the coming months. If you had any further advice, please let us know in the comments.

What’s the impact on local businesses?

Many countries around the world are seeing lockdowns in action, with non-essential businesses closing or changing their working practices to help keep customers safe. We asked users working in local businesses to tell us how they have been affected, and what they expect to happen to their business in the near future.

Some areas are still seeing restrictions come in, but at this relatively early stage, the main ways respondents report being affected are losing customers (35% of respondents), shutting up shop (27%), or pausing marketing agency (8%). A quarter hasn’t seen any impact on their business yet.

Local businesses will have a very different experience over the coming months, with niches and locations seeing alternative levels of change. Below, we have collated some of our favorite advice from local business users of BrightLocal – we hope it gives you some idea of the challenges faced by businesses worldwide.

Tips from local businesses

Focus on the customer

Ramp UP marketing agency for customers that may still be going. NOW is not the time to stay silent and fade away, just to start marketing agency efforts later that would need more budget when restarted because they’ve stalled.

Get really good at providing online and phone customer service! Be clear in your messaging about what your store hours and policies are moving forward.

Rethink priorities

I’m spending my time working on my website/SEO Company and social media as I usually never have time for those two. I think this is the perfect opportunity to turn a sour situation into a productive one.

We’ve completely cut our marketing agency budget, but have still continued working on projects that we can do at virtually no costs: link building, cleaning up NAP issues or claiming listings.

Do maintenance on your website and social media accounts, do research on how you can improve their business so when you come back you come back stronger

Face the future

Be patient and creative in your spare time. Learn new skills, spend time with your family, clean that room that you didn’t have time before. Read that book that you left behind years ago or that one that you’ve been thinking about reading and you didn’t have time! This is the time to LEVEL UP!

Cut costs, and cut them much quicker and deeper than you can first imagine. Then immediately start planning for the future. The middle ground (next 3 months) is unknown, start planning on your business for reopening.

Take stock of what you have, take care of yourself, show support for your family, friends, and community, and plan for a future that will come. This too shall pass…

What’s the impact on local marketers?

The most common impact felt among freelance and agency respondents is seeing clients pausing marketing agency efforts, with a further 23% losing or expecting to lose clients soon. It’ll come as no shock to see marketers losing local business clients during this downturn, but for many, these changes will only be temporary.

We were so pleased to see a great many marketers focusing on helping their clients through their difficulties – working together to ensure local businesses can come out of this as strong as possible.

Local marketers working in agencies and as freelancers may see some slowdowns, but our users have some great advice on what can be done.

Tips from freelancers

Keep information accurate

Update your Google My Business business description to include any updates relating to the business impacts/changes of Covid-19, including updating opening hours. Update websites and communicate through social media so people do not need to make unnecessary trips.

Provide full disclosure to the client base whether you’re open or closing. Local businesses, really all businesses, are the leaders of our communities. Politicians can be ignored, but a business owner provides a sense of security to the public. Our job is to provide positive honest information that gives our communities hope for a fearless and productive existence.

Pause all paid advertising if you are closed. Keep working on SEO Company and local as much as automated systems allow

Don’t stand still

Now is a good time to tackle major website updates or other larger digital projects. Get out ahead of your competition while you have time to be more thoughtful.

In down markets the most successful companies do not stop marketing agency, they push it. When everyone else is cutting back, it’s the perfect opportunity to move forward.

We are working on keeping our clients calm and crafting announcements and content for them to be posted about how their seasonal/regional hours will be affected.

Put comms first

It’s a really important time for communication with your customers to let them know what’s happening. Even if you’re carrying on as normal because you work from home anyway, it’s a good idea to let your clients and potential clients know, otherwise they might assume you’re not.

Client relations is more important now than it was before (and it was pretty damn important before). No matter what kind of business your clients may run, they’re going to need a friend right now. A lot of my client work in the past two weeks has essentially just been lending them an ear so they could vent their newfound worries and frustrations. Not only does this help give them peace of mind, but it gives me a chance to re-examine their situation and identify new pain points, which can then be addressed with a specific strategy. This kind of relationship rarely just happens–I’m lucky to have clients that treat me like one of their own because of the rapport we’ve developed over time–but the chaos caused by Covid-19 may be a great opportunity to start building those bridges and taking those client relationships to the next level (which can take your business to the next level, if you play your cards right).

Tips from agencies

Keep the client relationship alive

We recommend keeping calm, kind, and in contact. The worst thing that could be done is panic. Everyone is scared and the future is murky at best, but if we stand strong and craft messages of acknowledgment and hope, then the customers and clients alike will bounce back from this time of uncertainty stronger and more profitable than ever.

Stay in contact with clients even if they’re not paying at the moment. I’ve had several email and Linkedin messaging threads that have turned into interesting conversations during the quarantine that we’d have never had otherwise. I think the relationship after the virus is no longer a threat will be stronger and clients will be open to more services that I offer.

Get creative!

Take the time that you have been given as an opportunity to engage in deep thought and brainstorming of how to improve your business post-Covid-19 and make a list of 5 initiatives and plan them out on paper.

Do what you have to do to help your business survive, first and foremost. In terms of marketing agency, now is a time when a lot of people are at home and will be in the research stages of the purchasing funnel. Now is the time to boost your brand presence and optimize your website. Yes, leads will be low now – but hopefully, customers will remember who you are and what you do when this is over and a sense of normality is returning.

If you do not have much client work, now is the time to do all of the things for your company that you have been putting off until you had time. Update your website, create those SOPs, improve your sales process, look for contractors, and if this is a big blow to you, figure out ways to prevent this big blow from ever happening again.

Keep visibility front of mind

For SEO Company, would you rather come out of the lockdown further down in the SERPs or higher up in the SERPs. It’s a good time to gain ground and be ready for the strong upswing when the market comes back.

Keep going, there is a decline in searches and such but the little business that is being generated is worth fighting for. Our clients need to remain at the top so that when this does blow over they will be in the best position to climb back up.

Right now is the time to continue marketing agency as it will be beneficial when all this is over. It is an especially good time to work on SEO Company and local SEO Company as the benefits of this work will be felt in the future.

Keep up with social media posting and engage with clients who are sitting home and spending a lot of time on digital devices.

Focus on you

Don’t worry about what you can’t control. Concentrate on learning new skills and diversifying your services.

Take this time to evaluate your situation. Maybe now is when your innovative ideas can be implemented. Was it time for a big change anyway? Just do it!

In this tough time, we want to help local businesses and marketers get through this the best they can.

Take a look at a message from our CEO, Myles Anderson, for more information on the steps we’re taking to help local marketers right now – starting with a weekly roundup of the news and resources available to local marketers. We’re also running a weekly webinar with a leading local SEO Company expert to answer your local marketing agency questions – check out our webinars page to sign up!

Do you have advice for local businesses or marketers facing disruption from Covid-19? Let us know your tips in the comments below!

The post [POLL] How Local Marketers Are Dealing with the Business Impact of Covid-19 appeared first on BrightLocal.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

Via http://www.scpie.org/poll-how-local-marketers-are-dealing-with-the-business-impact-of-covid-19/

source https://scpie.weebly.com/blog/poll-how-local-marketers-are-dealing-with-the-business-impact-of-covid-19

0 notes

riichardwilson · 5 years ago

Text

[POLL] How Local Marketers Are Dealing with the Business Impact of Covid-19

Covid-19 has undoubtedly disrupted the local landscape – shuttering many businesses worldwide, and changing ways of working for those staying open.

What’s the impact on local businesses?

Tips from local businesses

Focus on the customer

Get really good at providing online and phone customer service! Be clear in your messaging about what your store hours and policies are moving forward.

Rethink priorities

We’ve completely cut our marketing agency budget, but have still continued working on projects that we can do at virtually no costs: link building, cleaning up NAP issues or claiming listings.

Do maintenance on your website and social media accounts, do research on how you can improve their business so when you come back you come back stronger

Face the future

Take stock of what you have, take care of yourself, show support for your family, friends, and community, and plan for a future that will come. This too shall pass…

What’s the impact on local marketers?

Local marketers working in agencies and as freelancers may see some slowdowns, but our users have some great advice on what can be done.

Tips from freelancers

Keep information accurate

Pause all paid advertising if you are closed. Keep working on SEO Company and local as much as automated systems allow

Don’t stand still

Now is a good time to tackle major website updates or other larger digital projects. Get out ahead of your competition while you have time to be more thoughtful.

In down markets the most successful companies do not stop marketing agency, they push it. When everyone else is cutting back, it’s the perfect opportunity to move forward.

We are working on keeping our clients calm and crafting announcements and content for them to be posted about how their seasonal/regional hours will be affected.

Put comms first

Tips from agencies

Keep the client relationship alive

Get creative!

Keep visibility front of mind

Keep up with social media posting and engage with clients who are sitting home and spending a lot of time on digital devices.

Focus on you

Don’t worry about what you can’t control. Concentrate on learning new skills and diversifying your services.

Take this time to evaluate your situation. Maybe now is when your innovative ideas can be implemented. Was it time for a big change anyway? Just do it!

In this tough time, we want to help local businesses and marketers get through this the best they can.

Do you have advice for local businesses or marketers facing disruption from Covid-19? Let us know your tips in the comments below!

The post [POLL] How Local Marketers Are Dealing with the Business Impact of Covid-19 appeared first on BrightLocal.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/poll-how-local-marketers-are-dealing-with-the-business-impact-of-covid-19/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/614222045714268160

0 notes

scpie · 5 years ago

Text

[POLL] How Local Marketers Are Dealing with the Business Impact of Covid-19

Covid-19 has undoubtedly disrupted the local landscape – shuttering many businesses worldwide, and changing ways of working for those staying open.

What’s the impact on local businesses?

Tips from local businesses

Focus on the customer

Get really good at providing online and phone customer service! Be clear in your messaging about what your store hours and policies are moving forward.

Rethink priorities

We’ve completely cut our marketing agency budget, but have still continued working on projects that we can do at virtually no costs: link building, cleaning up NAP issues or claiming listings.

Do maintenance on your website and social media accounts, do research on how you can improve their business so when you come back you come back stronger

Face the future

Take stock of what you have, take care of yourself, show support for your family, friends, and community, and plan for a future that will come. This too shall pass…

What’s the impact on local marketers?

Local marketers working in agencies and as freelancers may see some slowdowns, but our users have some great advice on what can be done.

Tips from freelancers

Keep information accurate

Pause all paid advertising if you are closed. Keep working on SEO Company and local as much as automated systems allow

Don’t stand still

Now is a good time to tackle major website updates or other larger digital projects. Get out ahead of your competition while you have time to be more thoughtful.

In down markets the most successful companies do not stop marketing agency, they push it. When everyone else is cutting back, it’s the perfect opportunity to move forward.

We are working on keeping our clients calm and crafting announcements and content for them to be posted about how their seasonal/regional hours will be affected.

Put comms first

Tips from agencies

Keep the client relationship alive

Get creative!

Keep visibility front of mind

Keep up with social media posting and engage with clients who are sitting home and spending a lot of time on digital devices.

Focus on you

Don’t worry about what you can’t control. Concentrate on learning new skills and diversifying your services.

Take this time to evaluate your situation. Maybe now is when your innovative ideas can be implemented. Was it time for a big change anyway? Just do it!

In this tough time, we want to help local businesses and marketers get through this the best they can.

Do you have advice for local businesses or marketers facing disruption from Covid-19? Let us know your tips in the comments below!

The post [POLL] How Local Marketers Are Dealing with the Business Impact of Covid-19 appeared first on BrightLocal.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/poll-how-local-marketers-are-dealing-with-the-business-impact-of-covid-19/

0 notes

laurelkrugerr · 5 years ago

Text

[POLL] How Local Marketers Are Dealing with the Business Impact of Covid-19

Covid-19 has undoubtedly disrupted the local landscape – shuttering many businesses worldwide, and changing ways of working for those staying open.

What’s the impact on local businesses?

Tips from local businesses

Focus on the customer

Get really good at providing online and phone customer service! Be clear in your messaging about what your store hours and policies are moving forward.

Rethink priorities

We’ve completely cut our marketing agency budget, but have still continued working on projects that we can do at virtually no costs: link building, cleaning up NAP issues or claiming listings.

Do maintenance on your website and social media accounts, do research on how you can improve their business so when you come back you come back stronger

Face the future

Take stock of what you have, take care of yourself, show support for your family, friends, and community, and plan for a future that will come. This too shall pass…

What’s the impact on local marketers?

Local marketers working in agencies and as freelancers may see some slowdowns, but our users have some great advice on what can be done.

Tips from freelancers

Keep information accurate

Pause all paid advertising if you are closed. Keep working on SEO Company and local as much as automated systems allow

Don’t stand still

Now is a good time to tackle major website updates or other larger digital projects. Get out ahead of your competition while you have time to be more thoughtful.

In down markets the most successful companies do not stop marketing agency, they push it. When everyone else is cutting back, it’s the perfect opportunity to move forward.

We are working on keeping our clients calm and crafting announcements and content for them to be posted about how their seasonal/regional hours will be affected.

Put comms first

Tips from agencies

Keep the client relationship alive

Get creative!

Keep visibility front of mind

Keep up with social media posting and engage with clients who are sitting home and spending a lot of time on digital devices.

Focus on you

Don’t worry about what you can’t control. Concentrate on learning new skills and diversifying your services.

Take this time to evaluate your situation. Maybe now is when your innovative ideas can be implemented. Was it time for a big change anyway? Just do it!

In this tough time, we want to help local businesses and marketers get through this the best they can.

Do you have advice for local businesses or marketers facing disruption from Covid-19? Let us know your tips in the comments below!

The post [POLL] How Local Marketers Are Dealing with the Business Impact of Covid-19 appeared first on BrightLocal.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/poll-how-local-marketers-are-dealing-with-the-business-impact-of-covid-19/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/04/poll-how-local-marketers-are-dealing.html

0 notes

clarencenicholsonata · 6 years ago

Text

How We Drove $11,283 with a Single Webinar

I love doing webinars.

They allow me to meet and talk with other marketers. I love sharing experiences and tactics that help other businesses grow.

I'm not going to lie though, they're also a fantastic way to connect with prospective customers.

Our last webinar has driven over $11k in sales, and the registrants are still being sent emails.

In this article I want to share exactly how you can find the same kind of success with your business.

This is an actionable post, and there's a lot in here. If you have any questions whatsoever, reach out in the comment section and I'll be sure to answer them.

Step 1: Choose a topic which ticks all the boxes

There's no point in running a webinar unless it's focused on something people care to learn about.

You want your webinar topic to meet a few criteria. Choose...

A topic which only your target market would be interested in learning

A webinar on Justin Bieber may get people to register, but those people wouldn't be particularly interested in buying your email software after the fact.

A topic related to your business enough that an offer related to it would be desirable.

Your target market may care about sales optimization, but if your business sells Wordpress themes, your post-webinar offer won't get a lot of interest.

A topic you know, and are a genuine expert in.

This one goes without saying. You are the primary reason people register. You need to have a demonstratable expertise in your webinar's subject matter to get them in the door.

A topic that can be visually-represented, or has visual elements.

You talking without a slidedeck or screen capture gets boring fast. Choose a topic which engages your attendees visually.

A topic which stands out from the crowd in some way.

You're not the only business or marketer running webinars. Tie your topic into a current event, or put a spin on it (original research, perhaps) which helps you stand out from competitors.

For instance, my last webinar focused on Black Friday sales strategies: timely, interesting to our target market, and delivering strategies which attenedees wouldn't have seen before.

Step 2: Create a webinar landing page designed to get the most registrants possible

The page to which you drive all your visitors is the focus point of your whole campaign.

It needs to be optimized to turn those visitors into registrants.

Here's the landing page for my most recent webinar:

What's essential in a webinar landing page:

The form: You should collect exactly the information you need, and nothing more. More fields will reduce conversion rate. Fewer fields, and you won't be able to personalize your follow-up emails.

The countdown timer: Countdown timers increase urgency, and have shown to increase webinar landing page registration rates significantly. Wishpond's editor enables you to drag-and-drop a countdown timer just like this one.

The "About your Host" section: You need to prove that you, or whoever is hosting your webinar, is an expert on their subject. "Why should I listen to this person for 40 minutes?" is a pretty serious question you need to answer.

The "What you'll learn" section: After all, people need to know exactly what they stand to benefit from your webinar. Don't hide this.

Step 3: Create website popups to drive people to your landing page

An entry popup or a welcome mat ensures everybody who visits your website in the weeks before your webinar knows exactly when it is and how valuable it's going to be.

If you have a business blog, create a hello bar to show at the top of your blog (above the nav bar) propting people to learn more on your landing page.

Here are a couple examples from my most recent webinar:

A sidebar scroll popup:

A welcome mat:

Want to get started immediately?

The easiest way to add popups to your website is with the Wishpond popup tool. My recommendation is to book a call with a Wishpond marketing expert to talk about your business objectives and get a hand to set it all up.

An entry popup, welcome mat or hello bar takes only a few minutes to set up and add to your website, and they can drive serious traffic to your webinar.

With the right messaging and placement, expect about 5% of your website visitors to click through to your landing page, and about 40% of those people to register.

Step 4: Send a newsletter with sharing incentives to drive people to your landing page

Normally this would be the part where I talk about ads - essential if you want to drive people to your webinar, right?

No. In fact, I'm not going to recommend you run ads for your webinar at all.

That's going to be controversial, but I want to be honest with you.

We've tried to make ads profitable with webinars, but it just doesn't happen.

If I pay $5/click for a Facebook Ad…

Only 40% of them register on the landing page

Only 10% of registrants book a demo

Only 25% of people who book a demo sign up for a trial or a subscription

... the math just doesn't work. At least with our customer value.

You'll get more bang for your buck if you ignore ads and, instead, get webinar registrants from your website traffic or past customers (i.e. popups and newsletter mailouts).

So send a newsletter or two to your past and current customers. Something like this:

Hey [First_name],

[Your Name] here from [Your Company]. I'm super excited to finally be able to announce something big!

I'm running a free webinar on [topic] on [date], and I would love to see you there.

This webinar has been in the works for a couple of months now, as I've collected data and talked with marketers just like you, asking them what their business' biggest pain point is.

I'll be sharing [#] of actionable tactics you can use to [Achieve desirable, concrete result].

I'll also be sharing [Exclusive secret] which we've never shared with the public before. So be sure to attend, at least for that!

Spots are limited, and we're closing entry on [Date], so Register today.

Can't wait to see you there!

Cheers,

[Your Name]

Step 5: Boost attendance with 4 reminder emails

The biggest barrier between a profitable webinar strategy and a failed one isn't the design of the page or the content of the webinar, it's attendance.

On average, only 25-50% of your webinar registrants (those people you've worked so hard to get) will show up on the day.

Let's make sure we're closer to 50% than 25%, with these 4 reminder emails.

1. Send an auto-responder email

Something like…

Important webinar information

Hi [First_Name]

Thanks for registering for [Webinar Name]!

Webinar Details:

Name of Webinar

Date:

Time:

I'm excited for the big day, and can't wait to share the strategies we've used to [achieve concrete, positive result].

To make sure you don't miss it, use this link to add the webinar to your Google calendar: .

And be sure your friends don't miss it! Share with your network and get a free Starbucks coffee on me, to drink during the webinar! - [Link]

Looking forward to it!

To add "Add to Google Calendar" links to your emails, check out this url generator.

2. Send an email 24-hours before webinar starts

Subject Line: Only 24 hours left!

Hi [First_Name]

Only 24 hours before we get rolling with [Webinar Name]!

Can't wait to see you there at [time].

If you haven't already, be sure to share the webinar your friends to get a free Starbucks coffee on me, to drink during the webinar! - [Link]

Cheers!

To send your registrants a free coffee from Starbucks (which is more than worth it, believe me), check out the Starbucks website.

3. Send an email 1 hour before webinar starts

Subject Line: [Webinar Reminder]: 1 hour left to get your free coffee

Hi [First_Name]

We're going live with [Webinar Name] in about 55 minutes!

And you still have time to earn that free Starbucks coffee by sharing this link with your friends: .

Only by attending will you get my exclusive [secret strategy] which won't be in the recording!

Can't wait to see you there!

That's a bit of a gamble, that last sentence. Whether you do want to hold back something exclusively for attendees is entirely up to you. My recommendation would be to test it. Do you get more people to attend (and buy from you) if you do hold something back, or do you get more if you record the whole webinar and send it to all your registrants?

4.Send an email 15 minutes before webinar starts

Subject Line: [Webinar Reminder]: 15 minutes left

Hi there

Start settling in!

We'll be going live in about 15 minutes.

Grab your coffee and log in to the waiting room by clicking this link: .

Can't wait to see you there!

I will give you some strategies below for how you can still turn registrants into customers, even if they don't attend your webinar.

Run your webinar

Before I can get into recommended tools or software, there's one thing I need you to hear: Rehearse this thing.

Step 1: Rehearse beforehand

Rehearsal of your webinar does several essential things:

Allows you to get a feeling for how long you should be talking

Allows you to record yourself, to see where you're weak and where you're strong

Allows your colleagues to give notes

Gives you confidence in your subject matter and your webinar content

Rehearsal is huge. Don't even attempt a professional webinar until you've done the entire thing (with recording) a couple times.

Step 2: Have moderators

Not only do moderators give you that extra little "this is professional" kick, they are also super helpful.

Moderators do a number of essential things:

Moderate: As in, they kick out anyone who's spamming or trolling the comment section

Provide relevant links: If you mention your Twitter handle, email address or a demo link, your moderators can put it in the comment section for attendees.

Collate questions for the Q&A: Rather than you having to scroll through all the comments at the end of the webinar, have your moderators put all the questions in one place. Then you can answer them more smoothly.

Top Tip:

This tip is a bit cheeky, but it's worth it: if there's some information you'd really like to share with attendees but you don't want to appear too salesy, have your moderators "ask" some pointed questions as if they were attendees.

For instance, in my last webinar I had a "total stranger" (my colleague) ask "How do we book a demo, again?" as well as "What software do you recommend we use to create the website popups you showed us?"

But let's just keep that between us, yeah?

Step 3: Give people a two-minute buffer

Once you go live, intoduce yourself and say how excited you are to start the webinar.

Then, and this is crucial, give your attendees a couple minutes to arrive.

If your webinar starts at 11am PST, go live at 11:02 and tell everyone you'll get rolling at 11:05. This gives latecomers time to enter the webinar.

Have you ever turned channels to find a movie which started 10 minutes ago? You've missed the beginning, which is everything. You can spend the next 2 hours wondering "Wait, who's that guy? Is that the main character or the bad guy? What's he trying to do?"

What's the chance you'll stick with that movie?

Webinars are no different. A big part of keeping people to the end of your webinar is ensuring they're there when you start. Give them some time.

Step 4: Use this recommended software

Demio.

No I don't get anything when I recommend them.

But here's the deal. Like above, when I told you not to use ads, I want to be honest.

We've tried several different webinar providers. I won't name them, as it's unnecessary, but trust me when I say we've been around the block.

Moving to Demio was a great decision.

Now I'm not going to wax on and on about it, as I'd much rather talk about Wishpond's awesome webinar landing pages and popups than I would promote another piece of software, but you should check them out.

Step 5: Turn registrants into customers

Once your webinar is done, if you're anything like me you'll be sweaty, your heart will be pumping, and you'll feel like you could take over the world.

Give yourself five minutes to enjoy the after-glow.

Then get down to business.

This article is entitled "How We Drove 524 New Leads With Webinars (And Turned Them Into Customers).

It's time to focus on that last bit: let's get that money.

Create a three-email drip campaign

Email 1: Post-webinar essential info

Thank you so much for a successful webinar!

Even if you didn't attend, I wanted to send you the recording/slidedeck.

Exclusive to webinar registrants, I'd like to give you a [X%] discount to [Your Business] until the end of the month.

If you have any questions about anything in the webinar, let me know!

Email #2: Webinar follow-up

Wanted to make sure you received my last email?

We're offering a [X%] discount exclusively to webinar attendees until the end of the month, and I didn't want you to miss out!

Let me know if you have any questions!

Email #3: Won't keep bothering you

I won't keep bothering you, as I haven't received a response and I don't want to clutter up your inbox.

I did want to send you one last thing. This [resource related to the webinar content], which can [concrete positive outcome].

I'm always here if you have questions about [webinar content]!

To set these up, I recommend Wishpond's marketing automation tool. You can trigger a series of emails based on someone's registration for your webinar.

Here's a snapshot of what it looks like in Wishpond:

The conditions of your email series:

The actions, when those conditions are met:

Want a hand setting it all up?

Creating a successful webinar funnel can be a bit intimidating. If you want a hand, Wishpond's marketing experts can help you get rolling (or do it all for you). Book a free, no-obligation call today.

Final thoughts

We used this exact strategy to get 524 new leads from our last webinar, and i'm doing another one next month.

Those 524 leads have turned into thousands of dollars in sales, and you can do the same.

If you have any questions whatsoever, don't hesitate to reach out in the comment section and I'll get back to you.

Related Reading:

How to Create the Perfect Webinar Landing Page

How to Build a Complete Facebook Marketing Campaign from Start to Finish

Ecommerce Optimization: Smart Website Additions Guaranteed to Boost Sales

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nuttytriumphenthusiast-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Archaeology would possibly not be the perhaps position to search out the newest in generation — AI and robots are of doubtful software within the painstaking fieldwork concerned — however lidar has confirmed transformative. The newest accomplishment the usage of laser-based imaging maps 1000’s of sq. kilometers of an historical Mayan town as soon as thousands and thousands robust, however the researchers make it transparent that there’s no technological change for revel in and a just right eye.

The Pacunam Lidar Initiative started two years in the past, bringing in combination a team of students and native government to adopt the most important but survey of a secure and long-studied area in Guatemala. Some 2,144 sq. kilometers of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Petén had been scanned, inclusive of and round spaces identified to be settled, advanced, or in a different way of significance.

Preliminary imagery and knowledge illustrating the good fortune of the venture had been introduced previous this yr, however the researchers have now carried out their precise analyses at the information, and the ensuing paper summarizing their wide-ranging effects has been revealed within the magazine Science.

The spaces lined through the initiative, as you’ll be able to see, unfold over in all probability a 5th of the rustic.

“We’ve never been able to see an ancient landscape at this scale all at once. We’ve never had a dataset like this. But in February really we hadn’t done any analysis, really, in a quantitative sense,” co-author Francisco Estrada-Belli, of Tulane University, advised me. He labored at the venture with a large number of others, together with his colleagues Marcello Canuto and Stephen Houston. “Basically we announced we had found a huge urban sprawl, that we had found agricultural features on a grand scale. After another 9 months of work we were able to quantify all that and to get some numerical confirmations for the impressions we’d gotten.”

“It’s nice to be able to confirm all our claims,” he stated. “They may have seemed exaggerated to some.”

The lidar information was once amassed no longer through self-driving vehicles, which appear to be the one automobiles bearing lidar we ever listen about, nor even through drones, however through conventional plane. That would possibly sound bulky, however the distances and landscapes concerned authorized not anything else.

“A drone would never have worked — it could never have covered that area,” Estrada-Belli defined. “In our case it was actually a twin engine plane flown down from Texas.”

The aircraft would made dozens of passes over a given house, a selected “polygon” in all probability 30 kilometers lengthy and 20 huge. Mounted beneath was once “a Teledyne Optech Titan MultiWave multichannel, multi-spectral, narrow-pulse width lidar system,” which just about says all of it: that is a heavy responsibility software, the scale of a fridge. But you wish to have that more or less device to pierce the cover and symbol the underlying panorama.

The many overlapping passes had been then collated and calibrated into a unmarried virtual panorama of exceptional element.

“It identified features that I had walked over — a hundred of times!” he laughed. “Like a major causeway, I walked over it, but it was so subtle, and it was covered by huge vegetation, underbrush, trees, you know, jungle — I’m sure that in another 20 years I wouldn’t have noticed it.”

But those buildings don’t determine themselves. There’s no laptop labeling device that appears on the three-D type and says, “this is a pyramid, this is a wall,” and so forth. That’s a process that handiest archaeologists can do.

“It actually begins with manipulating the surface data,” Estrada-Belli stated. “We get these surface models of the natural landscape; each pixel in the image is basically the elevation. Then we do a series of filters to simulate light being projected on it from various angles to enhance the relief, and we combine these visualizations with transparencies and different ways of sharpening or enhancing them. After all this process, basically looking at the computer screen for a long time, then we can start digitizing it.”

“The first step is to visually identify features. Of course, pyramids are easy, but there are subtler features that, even once you identify them, it’s hard to figure out what they are.”

The lidar imagery printed, for instance, a number of low linear options which may be natural or synthetic. It’s no longer all the time simple to inform the adaptation, however context and current scholarship fill within the gaps.

“Then we proceeded to digitize all these features… there were 61,000 structures, and everything had to be done manually,” Estrada-Belli stated — if you happen to had been questioning why it took 9 months. “There’s really no automation because the digitizing has to be done based on experience. We looked into AI, and we hope that maybe in the near future we’ll be able to apply that, but for now an experienced archaeologist’s eye can discern the features better than a computer.”

You can see the density of the annotations at the maps. It must be famous that many of those options had through this level been verified through box expeditions. By consulting current maps and getting floor fact in particular person, they’d made positive that those weren’t phantom buildings or wishful considering. “We’re confident that they’re all there,” he advised me.

“Next is the quantitative step,” he persisted. “You measure the length and the areas and you put it all together, and you start analyzing them like you’d analyze other dataset: the structure density of some area, the size of urban sprawl or agricultural fields. Finally we even figured a way to quantify the potential production of agriculture.”

This is the purpose the place the imagery begins to move from level cloud to educational learn about. After all, it’s widely recognized that the Maya had a massive town on this house; it’s been intensely studied for many years. But the Pacunam (which stands for Patrimonio Cultural y Natural Maya) learn about was once supposed to advance past the normal strategies hired prior to now.

“It’s a massive dataset. It’s a massive pass phase of the Maya lowlands,” Estrada-Belli stated. “Big data is the buzzword now, right? You truly can see things that you would never see if you only looked at one site at a time. We could never have put together these grand patterns without lidar.”

“For example, in my area, I was able to map 47 square kilometers over the course of 15 years,” he stated, quite wistfully. “And in two weeks the lidar produced 308 square kilometers, to a level of detail that I could never match.”

As a consequence the paper comprises a wide variety of latest theories and conclusions, from inhabitants and financial system estimates, to cultural and engineering wisdom, to the timing and nature of conflicts with neighbors.

The ensuing file doesn’t simply advance the data of Mayan tradition and generation, however the science of archaeology itself. It’s iterative, in fact, like the whole thing else — Estrada-Belli famous that they had been impressed through paintings finished through colleagues in Belize and Cambodia; their contribution, then again, exemplifies new approaches to dealing with massive spaces and big datasets.

The extra experiments and box paintings, the extra established those strategies will change into, and the better they are going to be authorised and replicated. Already they have got confirmed themselves helpful, and this learn about is in all probability the most productive instance of lidar’s possible within the box.

“We simply would not have seen these massive fortifications. Even on the ground, many of their details remain unclear. Lidar makes most human-made features clear, coherent, understandable,” defined co-author Stephen Houston (additionally from Tulane) in an e-mail. “AI and pattern recognition may help to refine the detection of features, and drones may, we hope, bring down the cost of this technology.”

“These technologies are important not only for discovery, but also for conservation,” identified co-author Thomas Garrison in an e-mail. “3D scanning of monuments and artifacts provide detailed records and also allow for the creation of replicas via 3D printing.”

Lidar imagery too can display the level of looting, he wrote, and assist cultural government supply in opposition to it through being acutely aware of relics and websites prior to the looters are.

The researchers are already making plans a 2d, even better set of flyovers, based at the good fortune of the primary experiment. Perhaps by the point the preliminary bodily paintings is finished the trendier equipment of the previous couple of years will make themselves appropriate.

“I doubt the airplanes are going to get less expensive but the instruments will be more powerful,” Estrada-Belli prompt. “The other line is the development of artificial intelligence that can speed up the project; at least it can rule out areas, so we don’t waste any time, and we can zero in on the areas with the greatest potential.”

He’s additionally keen on the speculation of striking the knowledge on-line so citizen archaeologists can assist pore over it. “Maybe they don’t have the same experience we do, but like artificial intelligence they can certainly generate a lot of good data in a short time,” he stated.

But as his colleagues indicate, even years on this line of labor are essentially initial.

“We have to emphasize: it’s a first step, leading to innumerable ideas to test. Dozens of doctoral dissertations,” wrote Houston. “Yet there must always be excavation to look under the surface and to extract clear dates from the ruins.”

“Like many disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, archaeology is embracing digital technologies. Lidar is just one example,” wrote Garrison. “At the same time, we need to be conscious of issues in digital archiving (particularly the problem of obsolete file formatting) and be sure to use technology as a complement to, and not a replacement for methods of documentation that have proven tried and true for over a century.”

The researchers’ paper was once revealed these days in Science; you’ll be able to find out about their conclusions (which might be of extra passion to the archaeologists and anthropologists amongst our readers) there, and practice different paintings being undertaken through the Fundación Pacunam at its site.

How aerial lidar illuminated a Mayan megalopolis – TechCrunch

How aerial lidar illuminated a Mayan megalopolis – TechCrunch Archaeology would possibly not be the perhaps position to search out the newest in generation — AI and robots are of doubtful software within the painstaking fieldwork concerned — however lidar has confirmed transformative.

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saltysuittaco-blog · 6 years ago

Text

The spaces lined through the initiative, as you’ll be able to see, unfold over in all probability a 5th of the rustic.

“It’s nice to be able to confirm all our claims,” he stated. “They may have seemed exaggerated to some.”

“A drone would never have worked — it could never have covered that area,” Estrada-Belli defined. “In our case it was actually a twin engine plane flown down from Texas.”

The many overlapping passes had been then collated and calibrated into a unmarried virtual panorama of exceptional element.

“The first step is to visually identify features. Of course, pyramids are easy, but there are subtler features that, even once you identify them, it’s hard to figure out what they are.”

Lidar imagery too can display the level of looting, he wrote, and assist cultural government supply in opposition to it through being acutely aware of relics and websites prior to the looters are.

But as his colleagues indicate, even years on this line of labor are essentially initial.

0 notes

clarenceomoore · 6 years ago

Text

Seven lessons from writing the report, Scaling DevOps in the Enterprise

Over the past couple of months I’ve been collating a report about DevOps, which I hope to be out in August (all being well, with a following wind). I’ve taken briefings, had interviews and conversations, and generally made a nuisance of myself. The goal was, and remains, to go beyond “DevOps, is great, come on board” evangelism, and address the simple, yet profound question: how to scale DevOps from small initiatives, towards making it work across the enterprise?

Despite my background in various areas of dev and ops, and the many reports, articles and research notes I have written on the topic, I confess to have started the process with a soupçon of imposter syndrome: what if I was to find this was a non-question: “Oh, come on, man! We sorted it. You know, these days, it just… works!”

Over the period, I have learned that my fears were unfounded; or rather, the challenges were just as big as I thought they might be (and ever were). I’ve also learned a number of lessons about the nature and reality of DevOps, which I thought I would share:

1. It’s not (just) about DevOps. Don’t get me wrong, breaking down the wall between development and operations is a worthy goal and a laudable achievement; however, it isn’t an end in itself. We’ve ended up with a lot of stakeholders trying to crowbar their own interests into the DevOps title, ending up with clunky terms like DevSecOps, whereas perhaps the focus should be elsewhere completely. To whit:

2. It is all about business value delivery. Customer-centricity, done right, gives more to customers and therefore, modelled right a greater return on investment to the business. DevOps can bring speed and responsiveness, and therefore result in more innovative, higher-value solutions. But the drivers for innovation come from the customer, by way of the business. There is not point in meeting the wrong need, however quickly.

3. Reality is the biggest bottleneck to DevOps. Channeling my inner Scooby Doo villain, DevOps would have been just fine if it wasn’t for all those pesky real world challenges. Testing and quality management, security, database and information management, governance, collaboration and so on keep getting in the way, but this is looking at things the wrong way around. To flip it, the question is, how can enterprise reality be made more efficient? This leads to:

4. Man, is there a crapload of DevOps vendors. We are in an apparent fan-out phase, in which hundreds of tools and service companies claim to have some kind of DevOps solution. They are all right, at the same time as being a symptom of, rather than a solution to the DevOps scaling challenge. We will see a massive wave of consolidation and subsumption, triggered when an enterprise-focused software company cracks the code and triggers a buying spree.

5. Cloud is cause, catalyst and now consequence of the DevOps stalemate. Speak to digital-native startups, who have built their infrastructures on the public cloud, and they wonder why DevOps is even a thing. Speak to cloud companies and they say, rightly, that a wholesale move to the cloud would enabler a simpler world in which DevOps could thrive. Speak to enterprises however, and find a continued preference for hybrid models, rendering such simple rhetoric pointless.

6. Enterprises know where they want to end up, but are stymied. Cloud and software vendors present the current smorgasbord of service options as a good thing, but the gleeful fan-out of innovation is getting in the way of enterprise progress. Companies that serve millions of people in complex ways can’t simply change everything wholesale, and would really rather the tech industry commoditised a bit — or a lot — so they could get on with becoming learning organisations without all that distraction. Which means:

7. Tech could start by turning some of that smartness onto itself. Enterprises don’t need a thousand different DevOps pipelines, enabling a thousand thousand different ways of addressing what should be a solved problem. The tech industry tells other verticals about the power of data, of automation, of machine learning of AI: it will have succeeded if it can come up with a business-led DevOps process that all organisations can bank on, and which is enough of a standard to enabled data-driven, predictive automation.

There’s an eighth point of course: it’s a crap name. I’m not a fan of changing labels willy-nilly, but the fact is, DevOps is the kind of name a techie (or two) would come up with, and what enterprises need is a technical basis upon which the business can innovate. No, no, and three times no, this should not be called BizOps or any other derivation. DevOps emerged as a touchstone, but it risks becoming a millstone.

The discipline currently known as DevOps has a way to run, as organisations learn to benefit from new ways of delivering faster. But, as the business moves into the driving seat, so it should also be given the remit to define what success looks like, and the terminology that goes with it. Watch that space.

Follow Jon Collins on Twitter.

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themoneybuff-blog · 7 years ago

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The perfect is the enemy of the good

Im home! Over the past two weeks, I drove 1625 miles across across seven southeastern states. I had a blast hanging out with readers, friends, and colleagues. Plus, it was fun to explore some parts of the country that Kim and I skipped during our RV trip a few years ago. Most fun of all, though, was talking to dozens of different people about money. After two weeks of money talk, I have a lot to think about. I was struck, for instance, by how many people are paralyzed by the need to make perfect decisions. Theyre afraid of making mistakes with their money, so instead of moving forward, they freeze like a deer in headlights. It might seem strange to claim that the pursuit of perfection prevents people from achieving their financial aims, but its true. Long-time readers know that this is a key part of my financial philosophy: The perfect is the enemy of the good. Here, for instance, is a typical reader email: Thirty-plus years ago I was making much less money than when I retired so my tax rate was lower. I sometimes wonder now if it would have been better to pay the taxes at the time I earned the money and invest and pay taxes all along rather than deferring the taxes. You can make yourself crazy thinking about stuff like that! Yes, you can make yourself crazy thinking about stuff like that. This reader retired early and has zero debt. Theyre in great financial shape. Yet theyre fretting over the fact that tax-deferred investments might not have been the optimal choice back in 1986. Regret is one of the perils of perfectionism. There are others. Lets look at why so many smart people find themselves fighting the urge to be perfect. Maximizers and Satisficers For a long time, I was a perfectionist. When I had to make a decision, I only wanted to choose the best. At the same time, I was a deeply unhappy man who never got anything done. Although I didnt realize it at the time, the pursuit of perfection was the root of my problems. In 2005, I read The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. This fascinating book explores how a culture of abundance actually robs us of satisfaction. We believe more options will make us happier, but the increased choice actually has the opposite effect. Especially for perfectionists. [embedded content] Schwartz divides the world into two types of people: maximizers and satisficers. Heres how he describes the difference: Choosing wisely begins with developing a clear understanding of your goals. And the first choice you must make is between the goal of choosing the absolute best and choosing something that is good enough. If you seek and accept only the best, you are a maximizerMaximizers need to be assured that every purchase or decision was the best that could be made. In other words, maximizers are perfectionists. The alternative to maximizing is to be a satisficer, writes Schwartz. To satisfice is to settle for something that is good enough and not worry about the possibility that there might be something better. To maximizers, this sounds like heresy. Settle for good enough? Good enough seldom is! proclaims the perfectionist. To her, the satisficer seems to lack standards. But thats not true. A satisficer does have standards, and theyre often clearly defined. The difference is that a satisficer is content with excellent while a maximizer is on a quest for perfect. And heres the interesting thing: All of this maximizing in pursuit of perfection actually leads to less satisfaction and happiness, not more. Heres what Schwartz says about his research: People with high maximization [tendencies] experienced less satisfaction with life, were less optimistic, and were more depressed than people with low maximization [tendencies]Maximizers are much more susceptible than satisficers to all forms of regret. Schwartz is careful to note that being a maximizer is correlated with unhappiness; theres no evidence of a causal relationship. Still, it seems safe to assume that there is a connection. Ive seen it in my own life. Maximizing in Real Life

For a long, long time, I was a maximizer. When I had to make any sort of decision, I researched the hell out of it. I wanted to buy and do and have only the best. But you know what? No matter how much time I put into picking the perfect product, it always fell short of my expectations. Thats because theres no such thing as a perfect product. In the olden days, for instance, if I needed to buy a dishwasher, I would make an elaborate spreadsheet to collate all of my options. Id then consult the latest Consumer Reports buying guide, check Amazon reviews, and search for other resources to help guide my decision. Id enter all of the data into my spreadsheet, then try to find the best option. The trouble? There was rarely one best option for any choice I was trying to make. One dishwasher might use less energy while another produced cleaner dishes. This dishwasher might have special wine holders while that had the highest reliability scores. How was I supposed to find the perfect machine? Why couldnt one manufacturer combine everything into one Super Dishwasher? It was an impossible quest, and I know that now. Nowadays, Im mostly able to ignore my maximizing tendencies. Ive taught myself to be a satisficer. When I had to replace my dead dishwasher three years ago, I didnt aim for perfection. Instead, I made a plan and stuck to it. First, I set a budget. Because it would cost about $700 to repair our old dishwasher, I allowed myself that much for a new appliance.Next, I picked one store and shopped from its universe of available dishwashers.After that, I limited myself to only a handful of brands, the ones whose quality I trusted most.Finally, I gave myself a time limit. Instead of spending days trying to find the Best Dishwasher Ever, I allocated a couple of hours on a weekend afternoon to find an acceptable model. Armed with my Consumer Reports buying guide (and my phone so that I could look stuff up online), I marched into the local Sears outlet center. In less than an hour, I had narrowed my options from thirty dishwashers to three. With Kims help, I picked a winner. The process was quick and easy. The dishwasher has served us well for the past three years, and Ive had zero buyers remorse. A Trivial Example At Camp FI in January, one of the attendees explained that hes found freedom through letting go of trivial decisions. For things that wont have a lasting impact on his life, he doesnt belabor his options. Instead, he makes a quick decision and moves on. In restaurants, for instance, he doesnt look at every item on the menu. He doesnt try to optimize his order. Instead, he makes a quick pass through the list, then picks the first thing that catches his eye. It sounds silly, he told me, but doing this makes a huge difference to my happiness. For the past four months, Ive been trying this technique. You know what? It works! I now make menu choices in seconds rather than minutes, and my dining experience is better because of it. This is a trivial example, I know, but its also illustrative of the point Im trying to make. Perfect Procrastinators Studies have shown that perfectionists are more likely to have physical and mental problems than those who are open-minded and flexible. Theres another drawback to the pursuit of perfect: It costs time and lots of it. To find the best option, whether its the top dishwasher or the ideal index fund, can take days or weeks or months. (And sometimes its an impossible mission.) The pursuit of perfection is an exercise in diminishing returns: A bit of initial research is usually enough to glean the basics needed to make a smart decision.A little additional research is enough to help you separate the wheat from the chaff.A moderate amount of time brings you to the point where you can make an informed decision and obtain quality results.Theoretically, if you had unlimited time, you might find the perfect option. The more time you spend on research, the better your results are likely to be. But each unit of time you spend in search of higher quality offers less reward than the unit of time before.

Quality is important. You should absolutely take time to research your investment and buying decisions. But remember that perfect is a moving target, one thats almost impossible to hit. Its usually better to shoot for good enough today than to aim for a perfect decision next week. Procrastination is one common consequence of pursuing perfection: You can come up with all sorts of reasons to put off establishing an emergency fund, to put off cutting up your credit cards, to put off starting a retirement account. But most of the time, your best choice is to start now. Who cares if you dont find the best interest rate? Who cares if you dont find the best mutual fund? Youve found some good ones, right? Pick one. Get in the game. Just start. Starting plays a greater role in your success than any other factor. There will always be time to optimize in the future. When you spend so much time looking for the best choice that you never actually do anything, youre sabotaging yourself. The perfect is the enemy of the good. Final Thoughts If your quest for the best is making you unhappy, then its hurting rather than helping. If your desire to get things exactly right is preventing you from taking any sort of positive action, then youre better off settling for good enough. If you experience regret because you didnt make an optimal choice in the past, force yourself to look at the sunny side of your decision. Train yourself to be a satisficer. Ask yourself what good enough would mean each time youre faced with a decision. What would it mean to accept that instead of perfection?If you must pursue perfection, focus on the big stuff first. I get a lot of email from readers who fall into the optimization trap. They spend too much time and energy perfecting small, unimportant things newspaper subscriptions, online savings accounts, etc. instead of the things that matter most, such as housing and transportation costs. Fix the broken things first, then optimize the big stuff. After all of that is done, then it makes sense to get the small things perfect.Practice refinement. Start with good enough, then make incremental improvements over time. Say youre looking for a new credit card. Instead of spending hours searching for the best option, find a good option and go with it. Then, in the months and years ahead, keep an eye out for better cards. When you find one you like, make the switch. Make perfection a long-term project.Dont dwell on the past. If youve made mistakes, learn from them and move on. If youve made good but imperfect decisions such as the Money Boss reader who wishes they hadnt saved so much in tax-deferred accounts celebrate what you did right instead of dwelling on the minor flaws in the results.Embrace the imperfection. Everyone makes mistakes even billionaires like Warren Buffett. Dont let one slip-up drag you down. One key difference between those who succeed and those who dont is the ability to recover from a setback and keep marching toward a goal. Use failures to learn what not to do next time. I dont think perfection is a bad thing. Its a noble goal. Its not wrong to want the best for yourself and your family. But I think its important to recognize when the pursuit of perfection stands in your way rather than helps you build a better life. https://www.getrichslowly.org/perfect-is-the-enemy-of-the-good/

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andrewdburton · 7 years ago

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The perfect is the enemy of the good

I’m home! Over the past two weeks, I drove 1625 miles across across seven southeastern states. I had a blast hanging out with readers, friends, and colleagues. Plus, it was fun to explore some parts of the country that Kim and I skipped during our RV trip a few years ago. Most fun of all, though, was talking to dozens of different people about money.

After two weeks of money talk, I have a lot to think about. I was struck, for instance, by how many people are paralyzed by the need to make perfect decisions. They’re afraid of making mistakes with their money, so instead of moving forward, they freeze — like a deer in headlights.

It might seem strange to claim that the pursuit of perfection prevents people from achieving their financial aims, but it’s true. Long-time readers know that this is a key part of my financial philosophy: The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Here, for instance, is a typical reader email:

Thirty-plus years ago I was making much less money than when I retired so my tax rate was lower. I sometimes wonder now if it would have been better to pay the taxes at the time I earned the money and invest and pay taxes all along rather than deferring the taxes. You can make yourself crazy thinking about stuff like that!

Yes, you can make yourself crazy thinking about stuff like that. This reader retired early and has zero debt. They’re in great financial shape. Yet they’re fretting over the fact that tax-deferred investments might not have been the optimal choice back in 1986.

Regret is one of the perils of perfectionism. There are others. Let’s look at why so many smart people find themselves fighting the urge to be perfect.

Maximizers and Satisficers

For a long time, I was a perfectionist. When I had to make a decision, I only wanted to choose the best. At the same time, I was a deeply unhappy man who never got anything done. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, the pursuit of perfection was the root of my problems.

In 2005, I read The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. This fascinating book explores how a culture of abundance actually robs us of satisfaction. We believe more options will make us happier, but the increased choice actually has the opposite effect. Especially for perfectionists.

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Schwartz divides the world into two types of people: maximizers and satisficers. Here’s how he describes the difference:

Choosing wisely begins with developing a clear understanding of your goals. And the first choice you must make is between the goal of choosing the absolute best and choosing something that is good enough. If you seek and accept only the best, you are a maximizer…Maximizers need to be assured that every purchase or decision was the best that could be made.

In other words, maximizers are perfectionists.

“The alternative to maximizing is to be a satisficer,” writes Schwartz. “To satisfice is to settle for something that is good enough and not worry about the possibility that there might be something better.”

To maximizers, this sounds like heresy. Settle for good enough? “Good enough seldom is!” proclaims the perfectionist. To her, the satisficer seems to lack standards. But that’s not true.

A satisficer does have standards, and they’re often clearly defined. The difference is that a satisficer is content with excellent while a maximizer is on a quest for perfect.

And here’s the interesting thing: All of this maximizing in pursuit of perfection actually leads to less satisfaction and happiness, not more. Here’s what Schwartz says about his research:

People with high maximization [tendencies] experienced less satisfaction with life, were less optimistic, and were more depressed than people with low maximization [tendencies]…Maximizers are much more susceptible than satisficers to all forms of regret.

Schwartz is careful to note that being a maximizer is correlated with unhappiness; there’s no evidence of a causal relationship. Still, it seems safe to assume that there is a connection.

I’ve seen it in my own life.

Maximizing in Real Life

In the olden days, for instance, if I needed to buy a dishwasher, I would make an elaborate spreadsheet to collate all of my options. I’d then consult the latest Consumer Reports buying guide, check Amazon reviews, and search for other resources to help guide my decision. I’d enter all of the data into my spreadsheet, then try to find the best option.

The trouble? There was rarely one best option for any choice I was trying to make. One dishwasher might use less energy while another produced cleaner dishes. This dishwasher might have special wine holders while that had the highest reliability scores. How was I supposed to find the perfect machine? Why couldn’t one manufacturer combine everything into one Super Dishwasher?

It was an impossible quest, and I know that now.

Nowadays, I’m mostly able to ignore my maximizing tendencies. I’ve taught myself to be a satisficer. When I had to replace my dead dishwasher three years ago, I didn’t aim for perfection. Instead, I made a plan and stuck to it.

First, I set a budget. Because it would cost about $700 to repair our old dishwasher, I allowed myself that much for a new appliance.

Next, I picked one store and shopped from its universe of available dishwashers.

After that, I limited myself to only a handful of brands, the ones whose quality I trusted most.

Finally, I gave myself a time limit. Instead of spending days trying to find the Best Dishwasher Ever, I allocated a couple of hours on a weekend afternoon to find an acceptable model.

Armed with my Consumer Reports buying guide (and my phone so that I could look stuff up online), I marched into the local Sears outlet center. In less than an hour, I had narrowed my options from thirty dishwashers to three. With Kim’s help, I picked a winner.

The process was quick and easy. The dishwasher has served us well for the past three years, and I’ve had zero buyer’s remorse.

A Trivial Example At Camp FI in January, one of the attendees explained that he’s found freedom through letting go of trivial decisions. For things that won’t have a lasting impact on his life, he doesn’t belabor his options. Instead, he makes a quick decision and moves on.

In restaurants, for instance, he doesn’t look at every item on the menu. He doesn’t try to optimize his order. Instead, he makes a quick pass through the list, then picks the first thing that catches his eye. “It sounds silly,” he told me, “but doing this makes a huge difference to my happiness.”

For the past four months, I’ve been trying this technique. You know what? It works! I now make menu choices in seconds rather than minutes, and my dining experience is better because of it. This is a trivial example, I know, but it’s also illustrative of the point I’m trying to make.

Perfect Procrastinators

Studies have shown that perfectionists are more likely to have physical and mental problems than those who are open-minded and flexible. There’s another drawback to the pursuit of perfect: It costs time — and lots of it. To find the best option, whether it’s the top dishwasher or the ideal index fund, can take days or weeks or months. (And sometimes it’s an impossible mission.)

The pursuit of perfection is an exercise in diminishing returns:

A bit of initial research is usually enough to glean the basics needed to make a smart decision.

A little additional research is enough to help you separate the wheat from the chaff.

A moderate amount of time brings you to the point where you can make an informed decision and obtain quality results.

Theoretically, if you had unlimited time, you might find the perfect option.

The more time you spend on research, the better your results are likely to be. But each unit of time you spend in search of higher quality offers less reward than the unit of time before.

Quality is important. You should absolutely take time to research your investment and buying decisions. But remember that perfect is a moving target, one that’s almost impossible to hit. It’s usually better to shoot for “good enough” today than to aim for a perfect decision next week.

Procrastination is one common consequence of pursuing perfection: You can come up with all sorts of reasons to put off establishing an emergency fund, to put off cutting up your credit cards, to put off starting a retirement account. But most of the time, your best choice is to start now.

Who cares if you don’t find the best interest rate? Who cares if you don’t find the best mutual fund? You’ve found some good ones, right? Pick one. Get in the game. Just start. Starting plays a greater role in your success than any other factor. There will always be time to optimize in the future.

When you spend so much time looking for the “best” choice that you never actually do anything, you’re sabotaging yourself. The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Final Thoughts

If your quest for the best is making you unhappy, then it’s hurting rather than helping. If your desire to get things exactly right is preventing you from taking any sort of positive action, then you’re better off settling for “good enough”. If you experience regret because you didn’t make an optimal choice in the past, force yourself to look at the sunny side of your decision.

Train yourself to be a satisficer. Ask yourself what “good enough” would mean each time you’re faced with a decision. What would it mean to accept that instead of perfection?

If you must pursue perfection, focus on the big stuff first. I get a lot of email from readers who fall into the optimization trap. They spend too much time and energy perfecting small, unimportant things — newspaper subscriptions, online savings accounts, etc. — instead of the things that matter most, such as housing and transportation costs. Fix the broken things first, then optimize the big stuff. After all of that is done, then it makes sense to get the small things perfect.

Practice refinement. Start with “good enough”, then make incremental improvements over time. Say you’re looking for a new credit card. Instead of spending hours searching for the best option, find a good option and go with it. Then, in the months and years ahead, keep an eye out for better cards. When you find one you like, make the switch. Make perfection a long-term project.

Don’t dwell on the past. If you’ve made mistakes, learn from them and move on. If you’ve made good but imperfect decisions — such as the Money Boss reader who wishes they hadn’t saved so much in tax-deferred accounts — celebrate what you did right instead of dwelling on the minor flaws in the results.

Embrace the imperfection. Everyone makes mistakes — even billionaires like Warren Buffett. Don’t let one slip-up drag you down. One key difference between those who succeed and those who don’t is the ability to recover from a setback and keep marching toward a goal. Use failures to learn what not to do next time.

I don’t think perfection is a bad thing. It’s a noble goal. It’s not wrong to want the best for yourself and your family. But I think it’s important to recognize when the pursuit of perfection stands in your way rather than helps you build a better life.

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