#i have so many thoughts and zero skills of articulating them but <3

[rubylane]

friend... why would you do this to me. i watched it. my heart is broken. like i am crying my eyes out rn... how did they convey the feeling of nostalgia, friendship, love, and heartbreak in 2 hrs like this. if im being honest i went into it not expecting to be attached to the story that much cus its only 2 hrs, they wont make me feel what baekdo has (sorry i had to compare) but it was.. so freaking sweet? like her loyalty and love to her friend that she went out of her way to put her feelings first cus she loves her friend that much but her friends feelings are valid too she shouldve told her ;-; but oh man... i fucking bawled my eyes at the train scene... then got confused as to why in the world did he go MIA (i had baek yijin flashbacks) and honestly wasnt even thinking the worst. her crying on her blind date cus they had the same name was REAL i felt it... (also this is how i felt baekdo would've been tbh) only for me to find out he passed away I HATE IT HERE AND THE VIDEO AT THE END ARE U KIDDING ME IM SO FUCKING SAD.. he was going to see her. i wonder what happened 😭 they weren't even dating for real yet and all these memories were the sweetest things. i dont even know how to talk about it. i felt a lot. like i was thinking about a love i can't even reach anymore, but when someones gone gone 🥺 i guess it can still be the same pain if that makes sense. i was pleasantly surprised how much i enjoyed them. im sad but a good sad 🥺

AAAAAAAAAAA I AM SO SORRY ))))))): i feel like you've properly laid out my exact experience as well because i went into the movie thinking 1) oh omg 90s! maybe this one won't hurt me like 2521 and i looooove love love when things take place in earlier decades 2) oh it's only a movie? ok i probably won't be as invested 3) and then i was wrong <3

the last like, thirty minutes of the movie HITS you when you least expect it and i think that was what really got me?? because i'm thinking wow, he moved on, he got too busy, he just couldn't make time for her (basically following the same thought process that bora might have had) and then....................THAT.

tHE TRAIN SCENE WAS SO BEAUTIFUL AND HEARTBREAKING AND WHO KNEW THAT WAS GOING TO BE THE LAST TIME THEY SAW EACH OTHER !!! I AM SO SAD AND UPSET !!!

also ur not wrong for making a baekdo comparison, i've seen a few posts talking about how if 2521 followed the plot of 20th century girl, it could've been a better ending in terms of a "well-done sad ending"

THERE'S JUST SO MUCH TO FEEL AND THINK AND PROCESS !!! I FEEL YOU COMPLETELY ))): IT'S SUCH A GOOD, BEAUTIFUL, BITTERSWEET STORY ))): i think one of the things i loved about it was that they had such a strong bond, despite being in the "early" stages of their relationship? like the use of "like" as opposed to "love" makes it that much more heartbreaking because you can't help but think of what could've been. in a way, they're almost like that "almost" tragic poem. like they almost could've had it all, they almost, almost almost ............. but couldn't.

there are some theories about what happened to woonho, like him dying on the plane back to korea when surprising her ( though i feel she would have heard about it ). i *personally* think it was either a case of him being terminally ill and dying before he could see her one last time, or a car accident of some sort. either way. P A I N .

thank you for going on this journey with me, i'm glad you enjoyed the movie nonetheless ))):

[lumiereandcogsworth]

hiii!! I was wondering if you had any head cannons about adam and belle when they get in a serious fight ?? may seem silly lol

i’m not gonna lie i’m so bad at thinking about actual conflict dialogue between them. i fully know that they do argue, because they’re both so stubborn, and they’re a married couple and that’s just part of it, but usually when i imagine their arguments, it’s like a silent film sjdksj. but here are some thoughts i have about it!!

the main thing that they argue about is, ironically, lack of communication skills. adam has quite literally never shared his deep feelings with anyone, even himself in many ways, so suddenly having a partner who is a million times more emotionally stable is quite a change! and it’s difficult at first, and at least for a little while. especially since belle is sooo inquisitive, and so enamored with him, she always wants to dig deeper into his mind! but that kind of insistence just shuts him off. and, in the early days, that’s gonna result in him getting angry/defensive and biting back at bit

but belle is, of course, persistent with him. so they have their argument about stubbornness and just not quite being in sync about emotions, and then they have their time to cool off, and then they come together later and there’s quiet but sincere apologies. on both ends! adam is always working on his temper, he understands that she’s just trying to help, he just can’t articulate himself yet. and belle very much needs to learn patience. he’s starting at level zero in vulnerability, it’s gonna take some practice!! she just gets frustrated when she can’t immediately solve a puzzle. but adam is her favorite puzzle, so she’ll keep at it!! <3

over the years though, adam Does get better about sharing his feelings with her. i think i have a silly line in one of my fics set further down the road and it’s something like “after twelve years of marriage, adam was almost certain that belle did want to hear about his problems.” afjskdj. like yeah my guy that’s your wife of twelve years. you traumatized goober. anyway my point is the vulnerability and communication DOES improve! but it absolutely takes time and he’ll still never be as free with his feelings/thoughts as belle is. he’ll always be the black cat of the relationship, lmao. so those bickering matches won’t ever truly cease, but they get less intense.

another thing they very occasionally argue about is work. this is rare because they, in general, do different things. belle, as queen, focuses a lot more on human relations, social structures, the people themselves. i’ve always said that working on improving the education system is her number one priority. so she’s always in that line of committees, community action, local infrastructure. that kind of stuff. adam, as king, does more of the overarching government type of crap. bigger political decisions, taxes, business with allied kingdoms. gosh, he hates it lmao. but he just hates working in general so that’s not gonna change. my point HERE is that, while their lines of work don’t regularly cross, every now and then they do have to collaborate, and i think they butt heads when this happens because they work very differently. (adam is more organized and detail-oriented, whereas belle is. more loosey goosey and doesn’t always get things done on time. and belle says “oh you mean on Adam Time🙄” and he’s like “no i mean ON TIME!!”) but in general their work is kind of separate, which is nice! they have different things to talk about at the end of the day <3

(i can’t help but note though that when there are actual huge big political decisions to make, adam absolutely includes belle. like he intentionally made sure that they were coronated together, and that they’re equals on the throne. and politically speaking they generally agree about those kinds of big decisions, or at least they come to a good agreement after debating each other for a bit. but anyway just had to add that.)

another thing they definitely argue about is founded in adam’s worries about belle. i go into more detail about this here, but when belle is pregnant, adam gets overprotective, to the point of being very annoying to belle. so they have lots of very little arguments about him needing to CALM DOWN and her needing to BE CAREFUL and it just goes back and forth. they also obviously bicker while raising their children, but again it’s nothing more than normal. i think the hardest arguments are when they have their first child, and adam is just so uncertain about how to care for her, and belle sometimes offers too much help, to the point where adam gets insecure and thinks that She Thinks that he’s doing everything wrong. so he gets all defensive again and blah. but they work it out. that’s in the same period of time as him not being able to communicate his feelings well so it’s just all a lot.

the first couple years of their marriage are just insane because not only are they learning how to be a partnership, but they’re also learning how to be king and queen, and not before too long, they’re learning how to be parents. and they’re a great team! but they are different and have such different life experiences that it, of course, will inevitably lead to heads butting and unintentional words. but they’re always just as easily able to apologize and forgive and carry on. it’s difficult to navigate but they love each other so endlessly that it’s never truly hard. even when adam feels at his worst, or when belle feels so out of her depths, they know that they CAN always rely on the other. so while things may be intense in the moment, there’s always love there, and things always get figured out together 💖

[langxue]

Avengers Endgame Initial Thoughts

Okay. I have some Thoughts about Endgame, most of them fairly critical. Also highly subjective. So here goes. Spoilers abound, for Endgame and other MCU content.

1. OMFG they completely wasted Captain Marvel.* In her own movie, Carol is a fairly laid back, adaptable, competent, and Silly person. She has a wonderfully casual charm and sarcasm that’s really fun to watch. She’s also a powerhouse, and by the end she definitely knows it. (Like seriously, she destroyed multiple of Ronan’s ships in under a minute. In GotG, it took a whole fleet just to slow one of them down, plus a team on the inside to blow it up. And then Carol’s just like “nah, you’re done now.”) And then you hit Endgame. And we have a stoic, closed off Captain Marvel, who shows up, talks a lot about how awesome she is, and then spends fucking 80% of the movie on a shelf on the justification that she’s helping other worlds that are also in trouble. Which is a fine justification to keep her away for some of the setup. But the heroes’ main plan is time travel. Which means it’s not time sensitive, and they keep making a big deal about only having one shot. Why, in that case, wouldn’t you wait until you could get Carol on your team?? Thor is a psychological mess. Keep him on the bench and bring in Carol. OR have her on hand to use the gauntlet after all the stones are collected. But no, they just went with “eh, we’re not sure how to contact her, so we’ll just skip over that option entirely.” So they wasted her character as a character with minimal interactions with the others, and zero of those interactions actually being in character (except maaaybe with Peter at the end, but that very much felt like two actors trying very hard with very little to work with), and then also wasted her as far as plot impact, opting for a heroic re-entrance most of the way through the movie.

2. The time travel felt extremely poorly explained, which is really bad when your plot completely hinges on it, and is especially bad if you’re gonna rag on other movies with time travel. Back to the Future is paradoxical nonsense, but it’s self-consistent paradoxical nonsense. Endgame was some kind of multiverse with zero clear understanding of how different timelines/realities could and could not interact with each other. I’m still trying to wrap my head around all of the possibilities and whether there actually is an internal logic, but at the very least, while watching the movie, it entirely felt like they were doing whatever they wanted to suit the plot. Which is a bad sign when dealing with time travel. (My general approach to time travel is that you either have to completely handwave it or completely explain it. And that explanation doesn’t have to be an info dump! It can just be apparent in the story itself, such as with Time-Turners. Though I personally don’t mind time travel info dump tbh.)

3. Relatedly, the secret to time travel is to model an inverted Möbius strip and get the eigenvector of that one particle there. I don’t think I’ve been that annoyed but technobabble in a long time. That’s math word salad, as far as I can tell (though I’m admittedly not a mathematician. If any mathematicians can clarify how this makes any sense, I’d appreciate it, but in the mean time, I’m going to assume it’s garbled nonsense.)

4. Still on time travel but I’m having one hell of a time figuring out Steve’s ending. Like, how can he do that within the confines of the time travel mechanics? Why wouldn’t he come back and spend that time with Bucky?? Since, you know, they’ve like barely spoken being reunited?? For Pete’s sake, don’t set up their bond like that, spend two full movies on the turmoil cause by Bucky’s return, and then just fucking drop the plot line on the floor because you wanted to stick Steve back with Peggy. What in the fuck.

5. IM. SO. MAD. ABOUT. GAMORA. (And also Natasha, though that’s a slightly different anger.) GAMORA’S DEATH WAS THE MOST BS THING IN INFINITY WAR AND WAS ALSO THE DEATH I WAS MOST CONCERNED THEY WOULDN’T CORRECT. AND GUESS WHAT. THEY DIDN’T. SHE’S STILL DEAD.** The soulstone mechanic can get Fucked, because Thanos should never have been able to get it like that (and relatedly, should Hawkeye have gotten it, since Natasha threw herself, rather than being sacrificed? I’m undecided, but mad either way).

6. Is Loki still dead? Was he ever dead? We just don’t know. If he is dead, that was an amazingly dumb end and I object. If he’s not dead, that is a dumb cliffhanger and I object.

7. I don’t love Thor + Guardians’ dynamic? It feels very off, and I can’t tell if that’s just because it’s Avengers and therefore all the characters have gotten slightly flattened or if it’s just an unappealing dynamic to me. But we already had Quill vs Rocket leadership tension. I don’t was more of that but with Thor. That’s dumb. I’m hoping that it gets more nuance/resolution going forward, but I’m not holding my breath.

8. Relatedly, why would you put Valkyrie in charge of Anything but a battle plan? Nothing I’ve seen of her makes me think she’s well suited to general leadership, and I think she’d chafe under it just as much as Thor does. She’s not the Responsible One to take things over so Thor can go have another finding himself adventure. Ffs.

9. Probably no one’s fault because actor contracts are complicated, but I’m still salty about Lady Sif being 100% absent and unacknowledged for this whole thing. Largely because I haven’t gotten to see her interact with Valkyrie OR Carol and I feel cheated.

10. Some quick minor things before I go on a big rant. It bothered me that Thor’s depression and poor coping was just a joke, basically just “Oh look he’s fat and scared now, isn’t that funny?” I’m so tired of Tony vs. Steve, and I hate that they waited until the last fucking movie to sort of kind of resolve it. You don’t get to pull on found family heartstrings and tropes when you’ve done such a bullshit job of actually showing us a family. You’ve had 20-odd movies to do so. Do better.

11. Okay. I like battle scenes. They’re fun! They’re dramatic! If done correctly, they can give a very tangible sense of odds and stakes. But. Not every movie with high stakes needs a big final battle.

Okay, to clarify a bit, I’m specifically referring to army vs. army battle scenes here. Big punch outs between titans, or scrambling to minimize damage from a disaster are different, and have their own applications and pitfalls. All clear? Great.

Battles, with two armies facing off against each other in fronts, look cool, but fundamentally make no sense in the context of Endgame. Battle lines exist so that you have not very many people actively fighting at once, and so that you can protect the people next to them. When the frontline gets tired, they rotate back and others take over. Battles are not the same thing as skirmishes and they are not mass melees. If a battle turns into a mass melee, something has gone very wrong and you should in all likelihood pull back immediately to regroup.

All of this breaks down when you have an opponent who can break up or ignore your battle lines. Historically, this was artillery and guns—things that forced battles into a cover-based issue. In superhero movies, it’s... pretty much every character of note.

Thor’s lightning —> broken battle line

Black Panther’s suit discharge —> broken battle line

Falcon attacking from above —> pointless battle line

Wanda or Carol doing... anything —> pointless battle line

All of Thanos’ many flying troops —> pointless battle line

Thanos’ warship overhead —> what are you doing pls stop this

All of which is to say that traditional battle tactics don’t apply to this conflict. But the battle we’re shown doesn’t reflect that, and it feels very... weird as a result. Where who’s winning is entirely arbitrary, rather than any kind of steady build.

This tends to lead to a very episodic battle, where you show off individual characters or small groups of characters fighting. Which is fine, though contributes to battle progress being unclear. But there’s a temptation then to give everyone equal levels of badassery in their vignettes, and I think that’s a mistake. The avengers et all are a complementary group. They have members suited to a battle field and members that aren’t. That isn’t to say that Hawkeye and Black Widow can’t hold their own, but their skill sets aren’t specialized for something like this, and so any attempt to make them seem equal in this way is going to either fall flat or cheapen the battle suited heroes’ specialty.

And this tendency to level the field of badassery can also lead to situations where Okoye is backing up Carol for a charge, and I just.... gah. I love Okoye. So much. Carol does not need her help to rush a group of enemies. Carol doesn’t need help from any of the women who showed up behind her except for maybe Scarlet Witch. I get what they were going for. I get that it was supposed to be a Girl PowerTM moment. It wasn’t. It was dumb. It was so very much the wrong time for that moment, because this was not a context where Carol needed help. She just flew through a spaceship. She can fly through some enemies no problem. And it’s probably easier if she’s not worried about her allies getting caught in the blast. And then they had to make the backup team useful, so they made Carol struggle in a moment where she just shouldn’t have. You don’t get points for Girl PowerTM if you have to de-power one of your women just to make it make sense. Give me more scenes with Gamora and Nebula helping each other through Thanos’ abuse. Give me scenes with Carol and Okoye bonding over putting up with impractical people. Don’t give me this battle scene bullshit, I don’t want it.

11. I remain pissed off that there are no actually articulated arguments against Thanos’ fucking stupid plan. What the actual fuck, this is not that hard. 

Okay. Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, some things I actually really liked.

1. Steve wielding Mjolnir was fucking amazing and I’m so pleased.

2. Any time Scott was on screen.

3. Peter Parker is a precious child and he needs to be protected.

4. I actually really like the set up for the time travel nonsense, and I liked that they seemed to be doing something other than a mass melee battle. That the group was divided into manageable teams, and sent on different kinds of missions that required them to be clever and play to their different strengths and help each other through. And then they shoved in a giant battle anyway, because fuck you that’s why.

5. I can appreciate what they were trying to do in giving all of the non-returning Avengers decent send-offs, even if I didn’t like some of those conclusions.

6. There were some genuinely funny moments, but I’m struggling to recall them right now.

7. Oh wait! “It’s an earthquake in the middle of the ocean. We handle it by not handling it.” That one was great.

Okay, that’s all for now. I might have more later, once I’ve picked apart the time travel a bit more and dined some processing.

I think it’s also worth noting that like... ensemble movies with a cast this big are *hard.* character are going to end up feeling confined, and there’s less time to grow because there’s just less time per character. But I think we could’ve had better, and I think if they focused more on group growth in the group movies instead of just drama, then they would’ve been in a better place and had a better story.

It’s probably also worth noting that I really liked Thor: Ragnarok, really like Captain Marvel and really didn’t like Infinity War. So I sort of went into Endgame feeling like it had to make up for Infinity War and live up to the higher at from the recent solo movies. And I really wanted to like it. I really wanted them to pull it off. But those are high and fairly specific standards, and so they fell quite short.

*This should be taken with a grain of salt, because I’d been dreading Endgame as an obligation to watch, and the Captain Marvel movie was the only thing that sparked my interest again. And then Endgame massively dropped the ball as far as I’m concerned.

** there was some stuff at the very end that makes me wonder if there’re plans to still bring her back in a later movie. But it doesn’t change me call bullshit on everything that Infinity War/Endgame has done to her.

[expensive-glitter]

January 27th, 2021: WITCHY!!

I’ve written about my interest in witchcraft before, but I’ve been thinking about it a little extra today. I’ve been feeling particularly existential & spiritual today in general. Fun fun. I thought it was a full moon, but tomorrow’s the full moon. Today is just a super duper waxing gibbous. I’ve been thinking about transforming my blog into a witch journal or something.

I tried one day to work on my aura. I was at work having a shit ass pretty rough day, and I simply did not want to be approached by customers. It worked pretty well because hardly anyone talked to me, but I got tired of it by the end of the day (it’s a LOT of work) and just dealt with being approached after that. Lucky for me, my work hours are back down to part-time, so I’m only working 8 hour shifts three days a week, which is perfect. I had the day off today & I’ll have the next three days off, so that’s pretty exciting. The only thing is that I get zero social interaction with anyone other than my parents outside of work, but I’m not an overly-social person anyway, so it’s really not too big a deal. Let’s talk about social interaction! Now that I mention it, I realize it’s something I have some thoughts on.

For many years throughout middle & high school, crippling loneliness was a major root of my depression. I went to public school (how do you do, fellow kids?), and I’ve talked before about how I’ve had the makings to live a normal life. I really did, it was my own head that ruined everything for me. I wasn’t super popular. Basically, now that I look back on it, I realized that things happened like this:

1. I was extremely extroverted, not afraid to insert myself in a conversation, but with quite an annoying personality. People didn’t always appreciate that, which lead to people not always being super duper nice to me.

2. I started feeling sorry for myself, getting too far into my own head, which led to my social anxiety. For the most part, I wasn’t really angry, I was just sad.

3. I slowly started my supervillain transformation. I refused to believe that I was in the wrong, because I knew I was never an ill-intentioned person. I thought that it was the rest of the world that was out to get me. I’m still not entirely over this feeling.

4. I really stopped taking care of myself. I was always a little bit fugly, primarily because I had biracial girl hair & had no idea what to do with it. Growing up around primarily white people, I felt insecure with my natural hair & tried to fry it, tie it up, cover it, everything. But that didn’t necessarily mean I lacked self-care skills. But this phase in my life (like, mid-middle school), I genuinely did stop basic personal hygiene, I ate like hell, but I still wore cute clothes though!!!

5. The lack of self care made everyone like me even less.

6. I started to get better again around mid to late high school, made more friends, but I don’t think a lot of people were able to shake the image they always had of me.

And yeah, I generally had to watch everyone have friendships while I lived with being alone most of the time, and had very few friends. And I use the term “friends” loosely. I just moreso talked to them because I didn’t want to be entirely alone all the time. And either they didn’t like me, or I didn’t connect with them. Often times, both. I’m trying to articulate as best as I can, so I’m sorry if my thoughts don’t translate well.

But now that I’m an adult who’s out of grade school, I’m wondering a few things. I always thought I needed friends because I needed somebody to talk to & somebody to care. I still rely on the idea of having somebody to care about me, but in a more romantic ( and dare I say, sexual?) way. But even though I’m not averse to the idea of friendships, I don’t necessarily need them either. Which makes me wonder, did I ever really need friends as badly as I thought I did? Would they have made me happy at all? Or did I just want them because I was too influenced by everyone else around me? I guess kids need social interaction more. Puberty is a wacky time, and it makes sense that, with hormones all over the place, your wants will change when you get older. 

I’m not sure what to think about it. I would like to someday reconnect with the child version of myself to see what I can do to make her happy. A lot of the things I do today, I don’t necessarily do them because I have a real desire to. I do them to fulfill some sort of a prophecy, so I can say “I always wanted to achieve this thing when I was younger, and now I’ve got it”. To be able to say that my dreams did come true in a way, even if those things aren’t my dreams anymore. I don’t know, it makes me feel good, like maybe my current dreams will come to fruition. I just hope my wants & needs won’t change so often as I grow older. But I think my wants are in the right place today. When I was a kid, I wanted specific friends, wanted specific clothes, wanted very specific things because I thought those things were the keys to happiness. Now, a lot of my desires are more general. I want happiness & love on top of it all. Of course, I still like to think about material possessions, and things like that. Who doesn’t? But I understand now that those things will mean absolutely nothing to me if I’m not in the right state of mind to truly enjoy & appreciate them to my greatest capabilities.

My thoughts are a little more muddy than usual tonight, but if you’ve felt the things I’m talking about here, you’ll probably understand, at least to a degree. Peace & prosperity,

- Jasmine

[perfectirishgifts]

What Angel Investors Want To Know Before Investing In Your Startup

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/what-angel-investors-want-to-know-before-investing-in-your-startup/

What Angel Investors Want To Know Before Investing In Your Startup

By Richard Harroch

Angel investors can be a great source of capital for an early-stage company.

Angel investors invest in early-stage startup companies in exchange for a stake in the company. Angel investors hope to replicate the high-profile successful investments made in companies like Airbnb, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Uber, and more. Angel investors typically make small bets ($25,000 to $100,000) with the hopes of getting “home run” returns.

Angel investors understand that startups have a high risk of failure. So ultimately an angel investor needs to feel confident that the potential upside/rewards from investing are worth the downside risks.

Angel investors review a variety of key issues and undertake due diligence before they invest in a startup. In this article I discuss the key items angel investors analyze in deciding whether or not to invest in a startup.

1. Is there a great founder/management team?

Many investors consider the team behind a startup more important than the idea or the product. The investors will want to know that the team has the right set of skills, drive, experience, and temperament to grow the business. Anticipate these questions:

Who are the founders and key team members?

Have members of the team worked together before?

What relevant domain experience does the team have?

What key additions to the team are needed in the short term?

Why is the team uniquely capable to execute the company’s business plan?

How many employees does the company have?

What motivates the founders?

How do you plan to scale the team in the next 12 months?

Ultimately, the investor will need to make a judgment about whether the founder and team will be enjoyable to work with. Does the investor believe in the team? Is the CEO experienced and willing to listen? Is the CEO trustworthy? Also, involving experienced advisors can be very helpful in the early stages to help bridge an early-stage team that is still growing.

2. Is the market opportunity big?

Most investors are looking for businesses that can scale and become meaningful, so make sure you address up front why your business has the potential to become really big. Don’t present any small ideas. If the first product or service is small, then perhaps you need to position the company as a “platform” business allowing the creation of multiple products or apps. Investors will want to know the actual addressable market and what percentage of the market you plan to capture over time.

3. What positive early traction has the company achieved?

One of the most important things for investors will be signs of any early traction or customers. A company that has obtained early traction will be more likely to obtain investor financing and with better terms. Examples of early traction can include the following:

The creation of a beta or minimally viable product

Initial or pilot customers, especially brand name customers

Strategic partnerships

Customer testimonials

Admission into competitive programs such as Y Combinator or other technology accelerators or incubators

Investors will want to know how the early traction be accelerated? What has been the principal reason for the traction? How can the company scale this early traction?

Don’t forget to show early buzz or press you have received, especially from prominent websites or publications. Feature the headlines in a slide on your investor pitch deck. List the number of articles and publications mentioning the company.

4. Are the founders passionate, determined, and in it for the long haul?

Many venture capitalists look for passionate and determined founders. Are they individuals who will be dedicated to growing the business and facing the inevitable challenges? Startups are hard, and investors want to know that the founders have the inner drive to get through the highs and lows of the business. Investors want to see genuine commitment to the business.

5. Do the founders understand the financials and key metrics of their business?

Investors look for founders who truly understand the financials and key metrics of their business. You need to show that you have a handle on all of those and that you are able to articulate them coherently.

Here are some key metrics that angel investors will care about:

Monthly burn rate of the business

Projected growth in revenues

Gross margin

Lifetime value of a customer

Customer acquisition cost

Key components of gross revenues and gross expenses

EBITDA

How long it will take to get the company to profitability

How much additional capital will need to be raised in the future, and when

Other key performance indicators of the business (KPIs)

6. Does the investor know the entrepreneur? If not, has the entrepreneur been referred by a trusted colleague?

If the investor already knows and likes the entrepreneur, that is a big advantage. If the entrepreneur doesn’t know the investor, the best way to capture their attention is to get a warm introduction from a trusted colleague: an entrepreneur, a lawyer, an investment banker, another angel investor, or a venture capitalist. Angel investors get inundated with unsolicited executive summaries and pitch decks. Most of the time, those solicitations are ignored unless they are referred from a trustworthy source.

7. Is the initial investor pitch deck professional and interesting?

The first thing the investor will expect is to see a 15-20 page investor pitch deck before taking a meeting. From the pitch deck, the investor hopes to see an interesting business model with committed entrepreneurs and big opportunity. So make sure you have prepared and vetted a great pitch deck. Reviewing other pitch decks and executive summaries can help you improve your own. See A Guide to Investor Pitch Decks for Startup Fundraising.

8. What are the potential risks to the business?

Investors want to understand what risks there might be to the business. They want to understand your thought process and the mitigating precautions you are taking to reduce those risks. There inevitably are risks in any business plan, however, so be prepared to answer these questions thoughtfully:

What do you see as the principal risks to the business?

What legal risks do you have? Will the business model comply with applicable laws, including expanding privacy protections?

What technology risks do you have?

Do you have any regulatory risks?

Are there any product liability risks?

What steps do you anticipate taking to mitigate such risks?

Startups that can show they have reduced or eliminated product, technology, sales, or market risks will have an advantage in fundraising.

9. Why is the company’s product great?

The entrepreneur must clearly articulate what the company’s product or service consists of and why it is unique, so entrepreneurs should expect to get the following questions:

Why do users care about your product or service?

What are the major product milestones?

What are the key differentiated features of your product or service compared to competitors?

What have you learned from early versions of the product or service?

What are the two or three key features you plan to add?

How often do you envision enhancing or updating the product or service?

Do you have any favorable customer reviews?

10. How will my investment capital be used and what progress will be made with that capital?

Investors will absolutely want to know how their capital will be invested and your proposed burn rate (so that they can understand when you may need the next round of financing). It will also allow the investors to test whether your fundraising plans are reasonable given the capital requirements you will have. And it will allow the investors to see whether your estimate of costs (e.g., for engineering talent, for marketing costs, or office space) is reasonable given their experiences with other companies. Investors want to make sure at minimum that you have capital to meet your next milestone so you can raise more financing.

11. Does the company have differentiated technology?

As many angel investors invest in software, internet, mobile, or other technology companies, an analysis of the startup’s technology or proposed technology is critical. The questions the investors will pursue include:

How differentiated is the company’s technology?

What competitive advantages will there be over existing technology?

How easy will it be to replicate the technology?

How costly will it be to build the technology into each product?

Related to that, the angel investors will do due diligence on the key intellectual property owned or being developed by the company, such as copyright, patents, trademarks, domain names, etc. Is the intellectual property properly owned by the company, and have all employees and consultants assigned the intellectual property over to the company?

12. Are the company’s financial projections believable and interesting?

If your startup presents investors with projections showing the company will achieve $1 million in revenue in five years, the investors will have little interest. Investors want to invest in a company that can grow significantly and become an exciting business. Alternatively, if you show projections in which the company predicts to be at $500 million in three years, the investors will just think you are unrealistic, especially if you are at zero in revenues today.

Avoid assumptions in your projections that will be difficult to justify, such as how you will get to a 400% growth in revenue with only a 20% growth in operating and marketing costs.

In order to believe your financial projections, investors will want you to articulate the key assumptions you have and convince them those assumptions are reasonable. If you can’t do that, then the investors won’t feel that you have a real handle on the business. Expect that investors will push back on the assumptions and they will want you to have a reasonable, thoughtful response.

13. How will the company market its products or services?

Investors know that building a great product or service is not enough. The company must have the beginnings of a well thought out marketing plan. The marketing questions will include:

Who is your target market?

What are the best ways to approach the target market?

What do you anticipate the customer acquisition costs to be?

How will you employ social media to attract customers?

How will you use paid search through Google, Bing, Facebook?

What PR do you intend to employ?

How will you make sure that your website is search engine optimized?

Will you be engaging in content marketing?

Will you be relying on third-party distribution channels? Are those third parties sufficiently excited and incentivized?

14. What are the specific terms and valuation of the financing round?

Angel investors may ask the following questions about the financing round:

How much is being raised?

How much is already committed by investors?

Are any prior investors participating in the round?

Is there a well-known investor leading the round?

Is there a minimum amount of capital being raised before a closing occurs?

Valuation will be an important issue for the investors. If you tell an investor you want a $100 million valuation even though you started the business three weeks ago, or don’t have much traction yet, the conversation will likely end very quickly. Often, it’s best not to discuss valuation in a first call/meeting other than to say you expect to be reasonable on valuation. But the investor also doesn’t want to waste a lot of time on a deal if the valuation expectations are unreasonable or not attractive.

Valuation at an early stage of a company is more of an art than a science. To help bridge the valuation gap for early-stage startups, you often see investors looking for a convertible instrument with customary conversion discounts and valuation caps. These instruments, such as convertible notes and “SAFEs,” have become quite common.

Final Tips for Entrepreneurs Seeking Angel Investors

Here are some concluding tips for entrepreneurs seeking to obtain angel financing for their startup:

Target angel investors who invest in your location (San Francisco, New York, L.A., etc.). Some investors will only invest in companies located near them.

Target angel investors who invest in your space (software, internet, mobile, biotech, cleantech, etc.).

Have a great 15-20 page investor pitch deck.

Practice your pitch and get feedback. Be prepared to have pitch meetings through Zoom or other video platforms.

Do a product demonstration or have a well-produced video prepared.

Make sure you have researched the competition and anticipate the questions you may get about competitors.

Show the investor that there is an opportunity for a big exit (M&A or IPO) in three to seven years.

Related Articles:

A Guide to Venture Capital Financings for Startups

65 Questions Venture Capitalists Will Ask Startups

Startups Seeking Funding Should Consider Corporate Venture Capital Arms

The Complete 35-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs Starting a Business

Copyright © by Richard D. Harroch. All Rights Reserved.

Richard D. Harroch is a Managing Director and Global Head of M&A at VantagePoint Capital Partners, a venture capital fund in the San Francisco area. His focus is on Internet, digital media, and software companies, and he was the founder of several Internet companies. His articles have appeared online in Forbes, Fortune, MSN, Yahoo, FoxBusiness, and AllBusiness.com. Richard is the author of several books on startups and entrepreneurship as well as the co-author of Poker for Dummies and a Wall Street Journal-bestselling book on small business. He is the co-author of the recently published 1,500-page book by Bloomberg, Mergers and Acquisitions of Privately Held Companies: Analysis, Forms and Agreements. He was also a corporate and M&A partner at the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, with experience in startups, mergers and acquisitions, and venture capital. He has been involved in over 200 M&A transactions and 250 startup financings. He can be reached through LinkedIn. Read all articles by Richard Harroch.

This article was originally published on AllBusiness.

From Entrepreneurs in Perfectirishgifts

[nancydsmithus]

15 Questions To Ask Your Next Potential Employer

15 Questions To Ask Your Next Potential Employer

Robert Hoekman Jr

2019-09-20T12:30:59+02:002019-09-20T10:34:39+00:00

In my book “Experience Required”, I encourage in-house UX professionals to leave companies who refuse to advance their UX intelligence and capability. There are far too many companies these days who understand the value of UX to waste your time being a martyr for one who will only frustrate you. Your best chance of doing a good job is to avoid a bad position.

Smartly, during a recent Q&A about the book, an audience member asked how we can avoid taking these jobs in the first place. What kinds of questions, he wondered, can you ask during an interview to spot red flags before the company stabs the whole flagpole into your sacred UX heart?

Know What You Want To Know

There’s the usual stuff, sure, such as asking why the position you’re applying for is currently open. What the company’s turnover rate is like. Why that turnover rate is so low or high. A little Googling will easily enough net you a decent list of broad questions you can ask any employer.

But what you really want is to get UX-specific. You want to hone in on precisely what your life might be like should you take the position.

Your best chance of doing a good job is to avoid a bad position.

“

Sadly, I lacked a great answer at the time to the question about interview questions, so I let it eat at me until I woke up at three a.m two days later and started writing notes. That morning, I emailed my reply to the moderator.

Ask A Great Question, Then Shut Up

To devise the list below, I considered what kinds of things I’d wish a company knew and understood about UX prior to working with them. I can operate in all kinds of situations—as a UX and process innovation consultant, this has been my job, and pleasure, for nearly 13 years now—but I want to know from the start, every time, that the effort will be set up for success. These questions aim to uncover the dirty details that will tell me what I’m walking into.

Much like a good validation session or user interview, these questions are open-ended and designed to draw out thoughtful, long-winded responses. (One-word answers are useless.) I strongly recommend that when and if you ask them, you follow each question with a long, stealthy vow of silence. People will tell you all about who they are if you just shut up long enough to hear them do it. Stay quiet for at least ten seconds longer than you think is reasonable and you’ll get the world.

People will tell you all about who they are if you just shut up long enough to hear them do it.

“

I’d ask these questions of as many individuals as possible. Given that tech interviews are often hours-long and involve many interviewers, you should be able to grab yourself a wealth of good answers before you head out the door to process and sleep.

If, on the contrary, you are given too little time to ask all these questions, prioritize the ones you’re personally most concerned about, and then consider that insufficient interview time might be a red flag.

Important: The key to the answers you receive is to read between the lines. Listen to what is said, note what is not said, and decide how to interpret the answers you get. I’ve included some red flags to watch out for along with each question below.

The Questions

Let’s get right to it.

1. How does this company define UX? As in, what do you believe is the purpose, scope, and result of good UX work?

Intent

Literally every person on Earth who is asked this question will give a slightly, or wildly, different answer than you expect or hope for. At the very least, the person interviewing you should have an opinion. They should have a sense of how the company views UX, what the various UX roles have to offer, and what effect they should have.

Red Flag(s)

The UX team has a very limited role, has no real influence, and the team, for the most part, is stretched so thin you could put them on a cracker.

2. How do the non-UX people on your product team currently participate in UX decisions? Follow-ups: Describe a recent example of this kind of participation. What was the UX objective? How was that objective vetted as a real need? What did you do to achieve the objective, step-by-step? How did it turn out? What did you learn?

Intent

Find out how the entire product team approaches UX and how collaborative and supportive they might be in acquiring and acting on good research insights.

Red Flag(s)

They don’t participate in UX decisions.

3. What UX roles exist in the organization, and what do they do?

Intent

Determine where you’ll fit in, and how difficult it might be for you to gain influence, experience, or mentorship (depending on what you’re after). Also, build on the previous question about who does what and how.

Red Flag(s)

UX people at the company are heavily skilled in graphic design, and not so skilled in strategy. The current team members have limited influence. Your role will be similar. Strategy is handled by someone else, and it trickles down to the UX team for execution.

4. Who is your most experienced UX person and in what ways does that experience separate them from others?

Intent

Determine the range of UX intelligence on the team from highest to lowest. Is the person at the top whip-smart and a fantastic leader? Does that person mentor the others and make them better?

Red Flag(s)

The interviewer cannot articulate what makes that person better or more compelling than others. If they can’t answer this question, you’re speaking to someone who has no business making a UX hiring decision. Ask to speak to someone with more inside knowledge.

Noteworthy, but not necessarily a red flag: If you learn that the most experienced person on the team is actually someone with a very sleight skill set, this can mean either there’s room for you to become an influencer, or the company puts so little value on UX that they’ve selected only employees with a small view of UX. The latter could mean you’ll spend all your time trying to prove the value of bigger UX involvement and more strategic work. You may like that sort of thing. I do. This would not be a red flag for me. It might be for you.

5. What are the company’s plans for UX long-term? (Expand it? Reduce it? How so, and why? Is there a budget for its expansion? Who controls it and how is it determined?)

Intent

Map out your road for the next couple of years. Can you rise into the role you want? Or will you be stuck in a cul-de-sac with zero chance of professional growth?

Red Flag(s)

We plan to keep doing exactly what we do now, and what we do now is pretty boring or weak. Also, we have no budget—like, ever—so if you want to bring in a consultant, attend a seminar, hire another person, or run a comprehensive usability study with outside customers, well, good luck with that.

6. How do UX professionals here communicate their recommendations? Follow-up: How could they improve?

Intent

Learn how they do it now, and more importantly, whether or not it works.

Red Flag(s)

The interviewer has no answer, or—far worse—has an anti-answer that involves lots of arm-waving and ideas falling on deaf ears. The former can, again, mean the interviewer has no business interviewing a UX candidate. The latter can mean the UX team is terrible at communicating and selling its ideas. While this can be overcome with your much better communication skills, it will almost certainly mean the company has some baggage to wade through. Poor experiences in the past will put other product team members on defense. You’ll have to play some politics and work extra heard on building rapport to get anywhere.

7. Who tends to offer the most resistance to UX recommendations and methods and why? Follow-up: And how much power does that person have?

Intent

This person will either give you the most grief or will give you the great opportunity to improve your communication skills (remember: design is communication!). Knowing who it is up front and how that person operates can tell you what the experience will be like.

Red Flag(s)

Executives, because they distrust UX. If you lack support at the top, it will be a daily struggle to achieve anything substantive.

8. What do UX practitioners here do to advance their values and methods beyond project work? Please be specific.

Intent

See how motivated the UX team is to perpetuate UX values to the rest of the company and improve how the team works.

Red Flag(s)

They don’t.

9. What do you think they should do differently? Why?

Intent

Discover how your interviewer feels about UX. This is, after all, a person who has a say in hiring you. Presumably, this person will be a big factor in your success.

Red Flag(s)

Keep their noses out of product development, stop telling the engineers what to do (speaks to perception of pushy UX people).

10. Describe a typical project process. (How does it start? What happens first? Next? And then?)

Intent

Find out if there is a process, what it looks like, and how well it aligns with your beliefs as a UX professional.

Red Flag(s)

You’ll be assigned projects from the top. You’ll research them, design a bunch of stuff in a vacuum with no way to validate and without any iteration method, and then you’ll hand all your work to the Engineering team, who will then have a thousand questions because you never spoke to each other until just now.

Bonus Question

How and when does the team try to improve on its process? (If it doesn’t, let’s call that a potential red flag as well.)

11. How has your company learned from its past decisions, and what have you done with those learnings?

Intent

UX is an everlasting experiment. Find out if this company understands it’s supposed to learn from the work and become smarter as a result.

Red Flag(s)

No examples, no thoughts.

12. If this is an agency who produces work for clients: What kind of support or backup does this agency provide for its UX recommendations, and how much power does the UX group have to push back against wrongheaded client ideas? Follow-ups: How does the team go about challenging those ideas? Provide a recent example.

Intent

Find out how often you’ll be thrown under the proverbial bus when a client pushes back against what you know to be the right approach to a given problem. Your job will be to make intelligence-based recommendations; don’t torture yourself by working with people who refuse to hear them.

Red Flag(s)

The interviewer says the agency does whatever the clients demand. You will be a glorified wireframe monkey with no real power to change the world for the better.

13. How does the company support the UX group’s work and methods?

Intent

Determine how the company as a whole thinks about UX, both as a team and a practice. Is UX the strange alien in the corner of the room, or is it embraced and participated in by every product team member?

Red Flag(s)

UX is a strange alien. Good luck getting anyone to listen to you.

14. What design tools (software) does your team use and why? Follow-ups: How receptive are people to trying new tools? How does evolution happen?

Intent

Know what software you should be familiar with, why the team uses it, and how you might go about introducing new tools that could be better in some situations.

Red Flag(s)

Gain insight into how the team thinks about the UI portion of the design process. Does it start with loose ideas drawn on napkins and gradually move toward higher-quality? Or does it attempt to start with perfection and end up throwing out a lot of work? (See the next question for more on this.)

15. Does a digital design start low-fi or high-fi, and what is the thinking behind this approach? Follow-up: If you start lo-if, how does a design progress?

Intent

You can waste a lot of hours on pixel-perfect work you end up throwing out. A company who burns through money like that is also going to be the first one to cut staff when things get tight. No idea should be carried through to its pixel-perfect end until it’s been collaborated on and vetted somehow, so you want to know that the company is smart enough to start lo-fidelity and move gradually to hi-fidelity. Hi-fi work should be the result of validation and iteration, not the start of it. A lo-fi > hi-fi process mitigates risk.

Red Flag(s)

All design work starts and ends in Photoshop or Sketch, and is expected to be 100% flawless and final before anyone sees what you’ve produced.

Running The Interview

In an unrelated Q&A years ago, a hiring manager asked how to spot a good UX professional during an interview. I answered that he should look for the person asking all the questions. I repeated this advice in Experience Required.

Now you can be the one asking all the questions.

And in doing so, not only will you increase your odds of being offered the gig, you’ll know long before the offer shows up whether to accept it.

If you, dear reader, have more ideas on how to scavenger-hunt a company’s red flags, we’re all ears. Tell us about it in the comments below.

(cc, il)

[rustykagee]

Mastery Journal

1.     Mastery: Personal Development and Leadership

Probably like everyone else in the class, I was very nervous about heading down a different path and trying to obtain my graduate degree. I just finished my bachelor’s in computer Animation and was looking to head into the industry. I found out quickly that It was going to be very hard for me to land a job, and I was told that getting my master’s would help me tremendously. So, I dove into my graduate’s degree, not sure of what I was doing, or even if I could do it. In the mastery class, we learned about my peoples who had obtained mastery over their chosen field, and at the time, it seemed so far away. It was discouraging, but at the same time, I wanted to be just like those people one day. So, I started the class doubting it If I could even complete it, to ending the class, daring anybody to stop me. That class helped to set my will for completing this graduate degree. This class helped me with my thesis because I had to argue mastery over the DLO’s, and if I had not taken this class, I would not know what mastery truly meant.

2.     Defining Clients Needs

In this class, we learned just what research was. I had no idea how important it was to design, and just how deep one needs to go to understand their client's needs. Having to develop mind maps, to think outside the box and develop unique ideas was a new concept to me, and it took me a second to let go and open up. This was also our first time with logo creation and the concept of iteration. Having to create so many logos for our chosen city, helped me to craft a unique design that I would have never created if not for having to sit down and just throw every idea at the wall. This was the class that I started to gain a bit of confidence and began thinking that I could actually reach my goal. This class also helped me to be more decisive about my designs and not to get too complicated. We learned through our readings in this class specifically that the best designs are the simpler designs, and that translated directly to my thesis project.

3.     Brand Development

This class was our first-time using InDesign, and even though I worked in this particular software before, we went much more in-depth. This was the first time we were able to learn about the significance of color to a brand, and how typography affects its visual identity. This class solidified the significance of the Adobe Creative Suite to media design, and the design industry in general. This class helped me to make sure that everything from narrative to the color pallet is cohesive. This helped me to argue mastery over the Connecting, Synthesizing, and Transformation section of my thesis project.

4.     Effective Copy Writing

This was the class that I learned I was a horrible writer, and I had no clue just how much work it would take for me to learn how to get better. I knew about APA style formatting but had no clue how complicated it was. Correctly using intext citations and understanding how to reference each correctly was my biggest weakness. I would get confused as to what exactly was the correct way, and even though I finished with a good grade, it was by far the hardest class for me during my graduate studies. This class helped me to begin understanding APA and have been working diligently ever since to get better. This class directly helped me with my thesis project when it came to Copywrite and making sure that I was creating a professional and academic website that was clear and precise.

5.     Design Research

In this class, we learned the significance of voice and tone when it came to creating a unique brand. This was the first time we were able to create a narrative for our chosen city and put it together with the research and logo creation we completed the class before. The culmination of these pieces was our very first vision board. The vision board also gave us a chance to learn about layout and color management. Having to create a color palette that connected well with the chosen city, and conveyed the emotion outlined in the narrative was hard but very gratifying. We also touched on visual hierarchy and how that could draw the viewer's eye through the vision board. From this class, I took away newfound respect for layout and the visuals (color, typology, hierarchy) of any brand design. This class helped me to create a story when it came to my thesis project. The instructor kept reminding us that telling a good story was a needed attribute to get a good grade on my thesis project.

6.     Organizational Structures

This is the first class where I was able to combine the skills I gained in my undergraduate studies for Computer Animation and the new-found skills I have gained through my graduate studies. Having to create a Dynamic vision board was so fun for me because I was able to do something different, and boy did, I take it far outside my comfort zone. I was able to fully animate my dynamic vision board, even if it was a bit abstract. Because of this, I gained a great deal of confidence, and that lead into a motion graphic we were asked to create for our chosen city. This is where I was able to put everything together and create one image with the motion that would encompass everything we created about our chosen city.

7.     Design Strategies and Motivation

This class took over the mantel as the hardest class for me when I had to step outside my comfort zone. I have always been a quiet person, content with blending into the background, and never really being the face of anything significant. So, when I knew we had to interview people face to face, I just wanted to quit. In the past, if I have to do essays or speak in public, I would just take a zero because I was that afraid. This was something I had to break, and it took everything I had to complete the task. This class even just for a moment, helped me to push past my boundaries and step out of my comfort zone. This class helped me because the information I gathered from the research in the class I used to argue mastery over problem-solving in my thesis project.

8.     Design Integration

This is the class where we began developing the brand visuals for a city near us, and because my chosen city, was Jesup, the city I live in it made it a more personal assignment. I wanted to do the best I can, and we were allowed to create a dynamic vision board for the city, which again let me tap back into my skills as an animator. This class also allowed us to create a design brief for the city, and that was essentially a road map for the rebranding of the city. This taught me how to create a tailor-made set of design /criteria for the rebranding. This class also helped me to understand that as a designer, I must not leave any detail to be discussed. This class also helped me to argue mastery of Problem-solving in my thesis website because it was in this class I created my problem statement and began creating what would end up being my design for the city of Jesup.

9.     Multi-Platform Delivery

In this class, we were finally able to create assets for our city, four to be exact. This allowed us to connect all the information we have been creating for the city, into what could be real physical visuals assets for the city. In my case pole banners, billboard, decals, and apparel, each one conveying the new logo and branding guidelines. We also completed a brand guide, yet another way to convey the guidelines and what is expected so that the design stays on brand. This class also showed me that even though I think the assets connect well with each other and the brand, that this may not be the case. The instructor thought my pole banners were perfect but thought the other assets were bad. This helped me to understand that I need to pay attention to the details and make sure that every aspect of the design is cohesive and makes sense together. This class helped me to understand the importance of the physical media assets, and these assets helped me to argue my mastery over innovation on my thesis website. I was visually able to show how my design was superior to that of the existing design for Jesup as well as its competitors.

10.  Measuring Design Effectiveness

This is the class where we created our own surveys about our new brand redesign, and how well it connects with the city. We had to determine our target audience and then survey that audience to get feedback on what they thought about our design. This gave us clear qualitative and quantitively feedback quickly and helped us to determine if we were on the right track when it pertains to the design. It helped me to understand that surveys are important to design because it gives us important information from the target audience so that we could cater to the design or product specifically to them. Even though the survey information was not directly used in my thesis project, it gave me the confidence to know that the design was strong and I was able to argue this in the innovative section of my thesis project.

11.  Presentation of Design Solution

This, by far was the hardest class for me, in which we had to create a thesis website. The most difficult part for me was trying to argue mastery over the four DLO’s. I knew how I felt about them, and could even articulate those feelings somewhat successfully, but it was hard for me to figure out different ways to argue the same point, and then provide examples so that I could showcase that my designs were the better option. To me it seemed counterproductive because I am usually not one to take apart someone else’s design and express what I feel is wrong about it. However, I eventually began to understand that without critique, especially in the design profession, no one would grow to become better. With the knowledge, I was then able to argue my mastery over the DOL’s with much more confidence. The first part of the class helped me with determining the layout for my thesis website. Because we created an abstract of the website, this helped me to determine if I was on the right track and if there was a section lacking, it gave me time to come up with a solution. This part helped me to create my thesis website.

12.  Professional Practice

In this class, we began learning about the moral and ethical duties of a designer and what copyright in tells. We also were able to learn what an experience map is and how they can be used to determine the wants and needs of the target audience. The experience map was just one more tool that a designer can add to their bag of tricks to help understand and connect to the client/audience.  Leaving this class, I have learned just what being a professional design is and how to be morally reasonable and ethically sound.

This is my Experience Map with this assignment we were asked to convey our journey through this graduate program, how we felt, what we were thinking and what actions we took to get through each class. We had to visually convey the emotions we felt and also showcase our personality. 

[shaizstern]

Article from WSJ: The Secret to Asking Better Questions

Most bosses think they have all the answers. But the best bosses know what to ask to encourage fresh thinking. Here are six ways to build that skill.

L.J. DAVIDS

By Hal Gregersen

May 9, 2019 

It is often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different outcome.

Well, the same can be said of questions: Keep asking the same kind of question, and it is insane to think you are going to get a different kind of answer.

If you want a dramatically better answer, the key is to ask a better question.

In that one simple statement I have found a career’s worth of research, teaching and advisory work. No one raises an objection when they hear it—who could argue with the value of brilliant reframings? But at the same time, that statement alone is rarely enough. Most people want to be handed the five paradigm-smashing questions to ask.

Unfortunately, that isn’t possible. But what is possible is creating the conditions where the right questions are more likely to bubble up. To that end, here are some clear, concrete, measurable steps that any boss—or anyone, for that matter—can take to come up with those paradigm-smashing questions we all seek.

1. Understand what kinds of questions spark creative thinking.

There are lots of questions you can ask. But only the best really knock down barriers to creative thinking and channel energy down new, more productive pathways. A question that does has five traits. It reframes the problem. It intrigues the imagination. It invites others’ thinking. It opens up space for different answers. And it’s nonaggressive—not posed to embarrass, humiliate or assert power over the other party.

One CEO I know is aware that his position can get in the way of getting honest information that will challenge his view of things. Instead of coming at his managers with something like, “Competitor X beat us to the punch with that move—how did we let that happen?” he gets more useful input with questions like, “What are you wrestling with and how can I help?” He asks customers and supply-chain partners: “If you were in my shoes, what would you be doing differently than what you see us doing today?”

Think about how these questions change the whole equation. People don’t start off defensive. The problem isn’t already tightly framed. The questions are open-ended, and the answers can be imaginative—rather than telling the boss what he wants to hear.

If you want to turn this first point into a trackable activity, how about this: Start noting in a daily diary how many questions you’ve asked that meet the five criteria.

2. Create the habit of asking questions.

Many bosses simply aren’t used to asking questions; they’re used to giving answers. So in the early stages of building your questioning capacity, it’s helpful to start by copying other people’s questions. It’s the equivalent of practicing your scales. Once you’ve got the scales down, you can start to improvise.

You could do worse than to follow the questions asked by management thinker Peter Drucker, who liked to jump-start strategic thinking by asking: “What changes have recently happened that don’t fit ‘what everyone knows’ ”?

Another example: A leader in a consumer packaged-goods company constantly asks: “What more can we do to delight the customer at the point of purchase? And what more to delight them at the point of consumption?”

Again, think about what that does. Sure, the CEO could constantly repeat that the company wants to satisfy consumers. But by asking this question, it builds the habit of thinking in questions. And that, in turn, leads to daily inquiry about matters large and small, and an organization that keeps pushing its competitive advantages forward.

3. Fuel that habit by making yourself generate new questions.

Don’t stop with that generic question set, no matter how well you think it covers the bases. It will become just another activity rut reinforcing today’s assumptions if you and others become too familiar with it. Your goal is to generate new and better questions, not to cap your questioning career at the level of playing flawless scales.

Instead, every day, note something in your environment that is intriguing and possibly a signal of change in the air. Then, restrain yourself from issuing a comment on it—or if it’s your habit, a tweet—and instead take a moment to articulate the questions it raises.

Then share the most compelling of those questions with someone else. Engage with it for a minute. To some extent, this is doing “reps,” exercising your questioning muscles so they’ll be strong enough when the occasion demands. But it’s also more than that, because chances are it will actually be one of these many, seemingly small, questions that yields your next big breakthrough.

Let me offer a well-known example. Blake Mycoskie was in Argentina when by his account he noticed a lot of children running around barefoot. He didn’t need to ask why they didn’t have shoes—obviously they were poor—but here’s the question it brought him to: Is there a sustainable way to provide children with shoes without having to rely on donations? And thus he launched the social enterprise Toms, with its famous “one-for-one” business model.

4. Respond with the power of the pause.

When someone comes to you with a problem, don’t immediately respond with an answer. This is harder than it sounds, because you have probably internalized a sense long ago that you’re the boss because you’re decisive and have good judgment—in other words, you have the best answers.

Instead, make it your habit to respond with a question—ideally one that reframes the problem, but at least one that draws out more of your colleague’s thoughts on the matter. I’m not talking about the cop-out rejoinder of, “Well, what do YOU think we should do?” Help the person think through how the decision should be made, with questions like: “What are we optimizing for?” “What’s the most important thing we have to achieve with whatever direction we take?” Or: “What makes this decision so hard? What problem felt like this in the past?”

The payoff here comes in two forms. You’re teaching the colleague the value of pausing to get the question right before rushing to the answer. And nine times out of 10, you’re going to wind up with a better answer than the one you would have blurted out with less deliberation.

5. Brainstorm for questions.

This is an idea that is so simple, and involves an exercise so fast, that it constantly surprises me how effective it is. Whenever you or your team is at an impasse, or there is a sense that some insight is eluding you regarding a problem or opportunity, just stop and spend four minutes generating nothing but questions about it. Don’t spend a second answering the questions, or explaining why you posed a certain one. As in brainstorming, go for high volume and do no editing in progress. See if you can generate at least 15-20.

Eighty percent of the time, I find, the exercise yields some new angle of attack on the problem, and it virtually always re-energizes people to go at it with renewed gusto.

Here’s an example from an innovation team in a consumer-goods company. Struggling to come up with a new concept to test, we tried one of those question bursts. It started with, “What if we launched a response to [a competitor’s product] and did it better?” But soon enough it arrived at, “Are we stuck on assuming a certain price range? What if a customer was willing to give us 10 times that—what could we deliver that would be that valuable to them?” Bingo—the team zeroed in on that question as having real juice in it, and started generating more exciting ideas.

6. Reward your questioners.

Finally, keep track of how you respond when someone in the room asks a question that challenges how you’ve been approaching a problem or feels like it threatens to derail a solution train already leaving the station.

I remember hearing from executives at one company that the boss always surprised his top team by being willing to hear out even the craziest ideas. When others in the room were shaking their heads and hastening to move along, he would be the one to say, “Wait, say more…” to find the part of that flight of fantasy that could work.

If there’s one constant theme here, it’s the idea that bosses should reconceive what their primary job is. They aren’t there to come up with today’s best answers, or even just to get their teams to come up with them. Their job is to build their organization’s capacity for constant innovation.

Their enterprise’s future—and their own career trajectory—depends on their resolve to ask better questions.

[gabriellakirtonblog]

The Ten Commandments of Personal Training

My fellow personal trainers, we’re in an amazing business. A business that allows us to help people, and each other, become amazing.

Yet each day brings temptations to be not-so-amazing. It’s easy to be led astray by opportunities to make money we’re not entitled to, to take advantage of our proximity to attractive people we shouldn’t pursue, to cut corners, to present others’ ideas as our own, or to provide substandard service for personal gain.

We’ve all heard stories, rumors, or rumblings about fitness pros who gave in to these temptations. Trust me, it’s nearly impossible for a personal trainer to recover from a destroyed reputation. The fitness industry has a long institutional memory.

We need a code. We need guidelines to keep our industry moving forward in positive ways, and to have successful careers with our ethics intact. And you know what? Maybe we need them to be set in stone.

So here they are: The Ten Commandments of Personal Training. Like the biblical commandments, it’s easy to get confused about the order, and different faith traditions have different ideas about the fine print.

But there’s no mistaking the big-picture message about personal and professional ethics.

1. Thou shalt have no other before your client

When you’re with your client, there is no one else. Don’t watch the TV in the background, don’t mess with your phone, don’t yak it up with your peers. Your client is paying you for a lot of reasons: to teach, motivate, hold them accountable, be an ally, and most important, guide them through their workouts.

Don’t worry about filling the air with “good job” and “you’ve got this” between rep counts. Be quiet and watch your client move. Apply specific cues like “knees out” or “chest up” when they need reminding. Your client can’t replicate the trainer-guided workout experience on their own. No matter what app they download, what service they subscribe to, or what research they do in their underwear, they’ll never replace your coaching.

But the best trainers do more than coach. They also know when to stop talking and listen. That’s when they learn what their clients really want.

READ ALSO: How to Make Sure You Aren’t One of the Bad Trainers Ruining Our Profession

2. Thou shalt not make any graven image

If you have to look up “graven image,” I’ll save you the time: an object of worship.

For trainers, it comes down to this: Don’t adhere to a one-size-fits-all approach when you have a diverse group of clients. You may think a certain modality is amazing and infallible, and you may even have evidence it works. But individual clients require individualized guidance.

And no matter how certain you are, there’s always more to learn. Education is one of the most exhilarating and exhausting things in human existence. It’s simultaneously exciting to learn and humbling to realize how much you still don’t know. An expert in one discipline is still a novice in countless others.

You have a responsibility to your clients, the industry, and yourself to keep learning and improving. Whether you study training methodologies, business and marketing, or the hidden history of Westeros, the more you learn, the greater capacity you have for future learning.

READ ALSO: How to Have a Long Career as a Personal Trainer

3. Thou shalt not take the names of your client in vain

Clients are an exciting and frustrating bunch. On one hand they’re the reason you get paid to do what you do. They’re also the reason you so frequently want to scream and rend your garments. Because, well, they’re people.

No matter how infuriating your clients may be in their worst moments, you can’t stop caring about them or their goals. Don’t let a client’s bad attitude or poor effort change your attitude or effort.

You’re paid to care, no matter how tough it gets.

READ ALSO: How to Tell a Client to Cut the Crap

4. Remember the seventh day and keep it as a day of rest

It doesn’t have to be Sunday, but you do need to take at least one day a week away from the gym, your clients, and maybe even your laptop.

It’s harder than it sounds. We train clients because we love training. The gym is our natural habitat. Some of us even fear that if we take a day off, we’ll lose our motivation. But the truth is the opposite: If we don’t temper our motivation now, we’ll pay for it later.

You’ve told clients about the importance of recovery. Make sure you take your own advice.

5. Honor thy elders

It’s safe to guess that few personal trainers get into it with the goal of training people two or three times their age. But if you’re good at what you do and pleasant to be around, you’ll inevitably attract older clients. After all, they have both the motivation to get fit and the means to pay for your services.

So far, so good. You like helping people reach their goals, and you love getting paid.

But there’s a steep learning curve when you’re training seniors for the first time. For one thing, it takes some work just to figure out what they really want from you. When a grandmother of three says she wants to “feel younger,” or a 62-year-old former marine wants to “get back at it,” what they most likely want is to …

Increase or maintain their mobility and physical freedom

Prevent creeping frailty

Prevent injury and potential falls

Prevent or manage chronic medical conditions

They may not share these specific goals with you, or even know how to articulate them. That’s why it’s up to you to figure it out. It takes empathy and respect. But most of all, it takes your full attention. You have to hear what they say and notice what they leave out. You have to observe how they move when they know you’re watching and when they think you aren’t.

READ ALSO: What Are the Rules for Training Older Clients?

6. Thou shalt not put your clients in danger

This should go without saying. But as God is my witness, I’ve seen trainers do things that could’ve caused serious injuries, and possibly death. Like the time a trainer had his client do a jumping barbell back squat from a Bosu ball to a box.

Keeping clients safe is the most basic duty of our profession—a duty that goes far beyond avoiding the organ-donor stunts that end up in YouTube fail videos. It means understanding when a progression might be dangerous, and when a regression is the path to progress. Your clients don’t need to deadlift from the floor, back squat with a barbell, or do Olympic lifts.

What they do need is training that’s appropriate for their current goals, skills, limitations, and fitness level. Train the client you have, not your vision of what that client could become.

When in doubt, think like a doctor: First, do no harm.

READ ALSO: Give Your Clients What They Want and What They Need

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery on the job

Sexually inappropriate behavior may be the original sin of the fitness industry. Personal trainers have made unwanted advances toward their peers and clients for as long as our profession has existed. And from time to time, our clients have made unwanted advances toward us.

We’re now in the long-overdue age of zero tolerance, with clear standards for what trainers can and can’t do, and what we should or shouldn’t tolerate from others.

But we shouldn’t stop with the rules in our employee handbooks. Take, for example, the time I saw a condom fall out of a trainer’s pocket while he was working with a client.

It doesn’t matter that the majority of clients might think it was funny, if they thought anything at all. There’s still a minority who’d be offended, or even threatened. Who needs to carry a condom in his pocket at work? It doesn’t take much imagination to see what that implies.

Even if it didn’t violate the letter of the law, it was still disrespectful to both the client and the trainer’s coworkers. And that’s unacceptable.

READ ALSO: A Fitness Pro’s Guide to Sexual Harassment

8. Thou shalt not steal

While sexual harassment is our original sin, theft comes in a close second. Too many trainers think it’s okay to sell “customized” workouts online while giving everyone the same program. Or take credit for other people’s work. Or double down by taking another trainer’s workouts and selling them as a custom program. (Seriously, I saw someone do this with Eric Cressey’s High Performance Handbook.)

And how many have no problem with marketing overpriced, ineffective products because the commissions are so high? Or shortchanging clients by starting late, finishing early, and sleepwalking through half-assed programs?

These things may not meet the biblical or statutory definition of theft. But if your business model is based on delivering less than you promised, you’re stealing.

READ ALSO: Stop Lying About Your Accomplishments

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness

Your peers are not your enemies. As Jonathan Goodman once wrote about this business, “If you think you’re competing, you’ve already lost.”

In the big picture of modern life, we’re like the Spartans at Thermopylae, fighting for health and wellness against overwhelming odds. If we don’t stand together, we’ll surely fail on our own.

Don’t undercut your peers. Refuse to talk behind their backs. Actively seek out opportunities to learn and grow from your fellow trainers. And don’t be afraid to challenge someone when they violate this commandment.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s success

Success leaves clues, as the saying goes. But it also leaves something else: envy. It’s far too easy to become motivated by jealousy and greed instead of the desire to become the best version of yourself.

Don’t do things because you want people to see you and applaud you. Do them because everyone in your orbit—from clients to peers to followers on Instagram—needs someone to help them achieve their goals.

That’s how you build your reputation and legacy. You’ll be pleasantly surprised when you see how far it takes you.

    Want to Get Better at Your Fitness Career? Here’s Exactly How to Do It

The steps you followed to become a fitness pro will help you master the other skills you need to succeed, but most aspiring or current trainers are left to figure it out for themselves. You don’t need to go it alone. Instead, buy a copy of Ignite to get the insider knowledge that you need, and your clients deserve.

Now in V2.0, Ignite the Fire is the most positively reviewed book for trainers on Amazon, with an astounding 680-plus 5-star reviews. You’ll learn how to:

Find, market to, and sell your ideal client while seamlessly dealing with objections (pg 64)

Deal with the 10 most common difficult client types (pg 160)

Develop multiple income streams while maintaining your reputation (pg 202)

And more!

Get your paperback copy at theptdc.com/ignite or, if you prefer, get it on audible or Kindle on Amazon.

 The post The Ten Commandments of Personal Training appeared first on The PTDC.

The Ten Commandments of Personal Training published first on https://onezeroonesarms.tumblr.com/

[fitono]

The Ten Commandments of Personal Training

My fellow personal trainers, we’re in an amazing business. A business that allows us to help people, and each other, become amazing.

Yet each day brings temptations to be not-so-amazing. It’s easy to be led astray by opportunities to make money we’re not entitled to, to take advantage of our proximity to attractive people we shouldn’t pursue, to cut corners, to present others’ ideas as our own, or to provide substandard service for personal gain.

We’ve all heard stories, rumors, or rumblings about fitness pros who gave in to these temptations. Trust me, it’s nearly impossible for a personal trainer to recover from a destroyed reputation. The fitness industry has a long institutional memory.

We need a code. We need guidelines to keep our industry moving forward in positive ways, and to have successful careers with our ethics intact. And you know what? Maybe we need them to be set in stone.

So here they are: The Ten Commandments of Personal Training. Like the biblical commandments, it’s easy to get confused about the order, and different faith traditions have different ideas about the fine print.

But there’s no mistaking the big-picture message about personal and professional ethics.

1. Thou shalt have no other before your client

When you’re with your client, there is no one else. Don’t watch the TV in the background, don’t mess with your phone, don’t yak it up with your peers. Your client is paying you for a lot of reasons: to teach, motivate, hold them accountable, be an ally, and most important, guide them through their workouts.

Don’t worry about filling the air with “good job” and “you’ve got this” between rep counts. Be quiet and watch your client move. Apply specific cues like “knees out” or “chest up” when they need reminding. Your client can’t replicate the trainer-guided workout experience on their own. No matter what app they download, what service they subscribe to, or what research they do in their underwear, they’ll never replace your coaching.

But the best trainers do more than coach. They also know when to stop talking and listen. That’s when they learn what their clients really want.

READ ALSO: How to Make Sure You Aren’t One of the Bad Trainers Ruining Our Profession

2. Thou shalt not make any graven image

If you have to look up “graven image,” I’ll save you the time: an object of worship.

For trainers, it comes down to this: Don’t adhere to a one-size-fits-all approach when you have a diverse group of clients. You may think a certain modality is amazing and infallible, and you may even have evidence it works. But individual clients require individualized guidance.

And no matter how certain you are, there’s always more to learn. Education is one of the most exhilarating and exhausting things in human existence. It’s simultaneously exciting to learn and humbling to realize how much you still don’t know. An expert in one discipline is still a novice in countless others.

You have a responsibility to your clients, the industry, and yourself to keep learning and improving. Whether you study training methodologies, business and marketing, or the hidden history of Westeros, the more you learn, the greater capacity you have for future learning.

READ ALSO: How to Have a Long Career as a Personal Trainer

3. Thou shalt not take the names of your client in vain

Clients are an exciting and frustrating bunch. On one hand they’re the reason you get paid to do what you do. They’re also the reason you so frequently want to scream and rend your garments. Because, well, they’re people.

No matter how infuriating your clients may be in their worst moments, you can’t stop caring about them or their goals. Don’t let a client’s bad attitude or poor effort change your attitude or effort.

You’re paid to care, no matter how tough it gets.

READ ALSO: How to Tell a Client to Cut the Crap

4. Remember the seventh day and keep it as a day of rest

It doesn’t have to be Sunday, but you do need to take at least one day a week away from the gym, your clients, and maybe even your laptop.

It’s harder than it sounds. We train clients because we love training. The gym is our natural habitat. Some of us even fear that if we take a day off, we’ll lose our motivation. But the truth is the opposite: If we don’t temper our motivation now, we’ll pay for it later.

You’ve told clients about the importance of recovery. Make sure you take your own advice.

5. Honor thy elders

It’s safe to guess that few personal trainers get into it with the goal of training people two or three times their age. But if you’re good at what you do and pleasant to be around, you’ll inevitably attract older clients. After all, they have both the motivation to get fit and the means to pay for your services.

So far, so good. You like helping people reach their goals, and you love getting paid.

But there’s a steep learning curve when you’re training seniors for the first time. For one thing, it takes some work just to figure out what they really want from you. When a grandmother of three says she wants to “feel younger,” or a 62-year-old former marine wants to “get back at it,” what they most likely want is to …

Increase or maintain their mobility and physical freedom

Prevent creeping frailty

Prevent injury and potential falls

Prevent or manage chronic medical conditions

They may not share these specific goals with you, or even know how to articulate them. That’s why it’s up to you to figure it out. It takes empathy and respect. But most of all, it takes your full attention. You have to hear what they say and notice what they leave out. You have to observe how they move when they know you’re watching and when they think you aren’t.

READ ALSO: What Are the Rules for Training Older Clients?

6. Thou shalt not put your clients in danger

This should go without saying. But as God is my witness, I’ve seen trainers do things that could’ve caused serious injuries, and possibly death. Like the time a trainer had his client do a jumping barbell back squat from a Bosu ball to a box.

Keeping clients safe is the most basic duty of our profession—a duty that goes far beyond avoiding the organ-donor stunts that end up in YouTube fail videos. It means understanding when a progression might be dangerous, and when a regression is the path to progress. Your clients don’t need to deadlift from the floor, back squat with a barbell, or do Olympic lifts.

What they do need is training that’s appropriate for their current goals, skills, limitations, and fitness level. Train the client you have, not your vision of what that client could become.

When in doubt, think like a doctor: First, do no harm.

READ ALSO: Give Your Clients What They Want and What They Need

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery on the job

Sexually inappropriate behavior may be the original sin of the fitness industry. Personal trainers have made unwanted advances toward their peers and clients for as long as our profession has existed. And from time to time, our clients have made unwanted advances toward us.

We’re now in the long-overdue age of zero tolerance, with clear standards for what trainers can and can’t do, and what we should or shouldn’t tolerate from others.

But we shouldn’t stop with the rules in our employee handbooks. Take, for example, the time I saw a condom fall out of a trainer’s pocket while he was working with a client.

It doesn’t matter that the majority of clients might think it was funny, if they thought anything at all. There’s still a minority who’d be offended, or even threatened. Who needs to carry a condom in his pocket at work? It doesn’t take much imagination to see what that implies.

Even if it didn’t violate the letter of the law, it was still disrespectful to both the client and the trainer’s coworkers. And that’s unacceptable.

READ ALSO: A Fitness Pro’s Guide to Sexual Harassment

8. Thou shalt not steal

While sexual harassment is our original sin, theft comes in a close second. Too many trainers think it’s okay to sell “customized” workouts online while giving everyone the same program. Or take credit for other people’s work. Or double down by taking another trainer’s workouts and selling them as a custom program. (Seriously, I saw someone do this with Eric Cressey’s High Performance Handbook.)

And how many have no problem with marketing overpriced, ineffective products because the commissions are so high? Or shortchanging clients by starting late, finishing early, and sleepwalking through half-assed programs?

These things may not meet the biblical or statutory definition of theft. But if your business model is based on delivering less than you promised, you’re stealing.

READ ALSO: Stop Lying About Your Accomplishments

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness

Your peers are not your enemies. As Jonathan Goodman once wrote about this business, “If you think you’re competing, you’ve already lost.”

In the big picture of modern life, we’re like the Spartans at Thermopylae, fighting for health and wellness against overwhelming odds. If we don’t stand together, we’ll surely fail on our own.

Don’t undercut your peers. Refuse to talk behind their backs. Actively seek out opportunities to learn and grow from your fellow trainers. And don’t be afraid to challenge someone when they violate this commandment.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s success

Success leaves clues, as the saying goes. But it also leaves something else: envy. It’s far too easy to become motivated by jealousy and greed instead of the desire to become the best version of yourself.

Don’t do things because you want people to see you and applaud you. Do them because everyone in your orbit—from clients to peers to followers on Instagram—needs someone to help them achieve their goals.

That’s how you build your reputation and legacy. You’ll be pleasantly surprised when you see how far it takes you.

    Want to Get Better at Your Fitness Career? Here’s Exactly How to Do It

The steps you followed to become a fitness pro will help you master the other skills you need to succeed, but most aspiring or current trainers are left to figure it out for themselves. You don’t need to go it alone. Instead, buy a copy of Ignite to get the insider knowledge that you need, and your clients deserve.

Now in V2.0, Ignite the Fire is the most positively reviewed book for trainers on Amazon, with an astounding 680-plus 5-star reviews. You’ll learn how to:

Find, market to, and sell your ideal client while seamlessly dealing with objections (pg 64)

Deal with the 10 most common difficult client types (pg 160)

Develop multiple income streams while maintaining your reputation (pg 202)

And more!

Get your paperback copy at theptdc.com/ignite or, if you prefer, get it on audible or Kindle on Amazon.

 The post The Ten Commandments of Personal Training appeared first on The PTDC.

The Ten Commandments of Personal Training published first on https://medium.com/@MyDietArea

[itesfashion]

How come Complete You will Apparent Powerful Verdict?

How come Complete You will Apparent Powerful Verdict?

Did you ever hear which family members gain knowledge of diversely? Well, it truly is true.

And although lots of people could possibly understand by perusing all the regarding the way to take something, a person master differently—you need true examples.

Just like a protester, political leader, as well as superhero, I am just right here to lead with example. We’ve put together a directory of article finish examples the fact that includes lots of tips as well as composition models to function as stepping-stone for your own personel writing.

Prior to I get within the article ending recommendations, to find out the reasons why coming up with an effective finish is indeed important. Any decision isn’t necessarily an important introduction to so what you’ve by now written.

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Today on to the wonderful stuff…

Investigative Composition Summary Recommendations

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The most self-evident methods of concern inside Being hungry Video games may well be Katniss and Peeta, however the smoothness whom personifies pity ideal has been Prim. All through the series, the woman compassion is noted once your lady may keep secrets and techniques with the girl mummy designed for Katniss, whenever your woman rehabs Gale following he becomes whipped, together with throughout earphones conduct yourself involved with her life like this lady pushes to save lots of small children on the Capitol. The lady actually activities Albert Schweitzer’s phrases, “Objective of person’s our life is to help serve, and even to indicate empathy along with the could to aid others.”

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The need for any risk factor for any Usa Municipal Conflict might be discussed, yet what on earth is inescapable fact is always there were various factors which usually brought this Southern region to help secede. Thralldom, says’rights, and also the selection of Abraham Lincoln subsequently with the presidency—though certainly no assert with the Southern region elected for the purpose of him—virtually all led for the war. Even when many experts have roughly 150 numerous years for the reason that Municipal Battle completed, examples of the other part in between North plus To the can still be witnessed in modern day America.

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Composition final thoughts can be simple once you know the actual framework. A great deal comes all the way down to 3 most important components: a good move as a result of earphones figure passage, a new summary of these thesis survey and principal specifics of this article, and also a closing document this gadgets everything up. Should pretty much all college students was confident this easy supplement, maybe essay creating could well be simplier and easier for the purpose of everyone.

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Subject matter #7: Just what are the reasons homelessness?

Moving by just a dispossessed people is actually normal, specifically in city settings. Homelessness is often caused by several components, which includes task decrease, deficit of family help support, plus the diminishing use of affordable housing. Although it is normally easy for a handful of for you to think homelessness is due to internal difficulties and / or total idleness, there are more elements towards consider. Only if the main style regarding drastically renowned can easily community initiate to think of a comprehensive solution.

Matter #8: What’s the subject matter principal result in of climatic change?

Almost all research workers acknowledge that will wipeout of the earths is due to a swift increase involving techniques fumes as the Business Revolution. And some could possibly conisder that manufacturer farming tend to be the major trigger of around the world and other people will probably articulate it’s always contemporary society’s transportation techniques, the key purpose is clear: mankind.

Plot Dissertation Decision Illustrations

Content #9: Think about what exactly it would be live to be given to the pages of Romeo not to mention Juliet.

Really being launched in the pages of Romeo and also Juliet would are loaded with various customs shock. Gentlemen should be transporting swords and additionally fighting with each other 1 another in your street. Young girls could possibly be having a wedding from 13 many old. Previously had When i the information of an amount turned into within the star-crossed enthusiasts, Appraisal have got informed Romeo who Juliet’s death became a hoaxes not to mention to hang about until your wife woke up. This valuable, keep in mind, will make your take up extremely several, but yet We come to feel going without shoes was in fact the accountability soon after obtaining wasted and so enough time using the characters.

Question #10: A time machines has taken an individual back up in interact with your chosen article author (Edgar Allan Poe from this case). Develop that meeting.

Since Edgar along with That i were discussing the everyday styles in addition to dim imagery from an individual’s is effective, your server cut off us. Simply put i hit with regard to the wine carafe, added myself personally any cup, plus instructed in cases where he would just like some.

“Not any kudos,” he said, joking grimly. “All things considered, it usually is poisoned.”

Field #11: Say to around your proudest moment.

Standing just for your little sibling forced me to be find that the type so,who everyone loves with those after-school sitcoms. When i was able to experience the little one who was simply intimidation our small amount of friend without having to use provocations or maybe bricks-and-mortar force. Finally, telling each of the a great open dialogue helped bring them all finer, as well as while they may do not be close friends, not less than they could esteem every single other.

Subject matter #12: Look at opertation which usually made a person what you are today.

My mistreat did not and does not specify my family, but yet We wouldn’t be the identical specific obtained I just not even used it. This got a little while and then there were being difficulties, and yet I’m a much better, further loving human being due to their terrible activities in which happened. I’m hoping many others never have to examine a similar thing Used to do, but once they will, Lets hope they may learn from your case study and discover assistance they should be alter their own issue for any better.

(Learn on crafting narration essays.)

Gripping Composition Final result Ideas

Theme #13: Need to Hermione possess ended up with Harry rather than Ron on the Ravage Potter series?

Ravage may just be the chief temperament about the Harry Potter line as well as J.K. Rowling often have mentioned most recently which perhaps your lady thinks about Hermione not to mention Ravage needs to have ended up being together with each other, even so the individuals are much too similar. That they tend to be organic frontrunners, that will develop a whole lot of romantic relationship tension. Ron, even so, will be Style N in order to amount Hermione’s Model Your personality. Considering that Harry wound up with Ron’s babe, Ginny, the 3 principal roles are actually engaged to be married directly into a similar family. In which obviously will make family vacation get-togethers alot more entertaining.

Matter #14: Needs to advanced schooling coaching be zero cost?

“College student Fiscal loans Wall membrane St Sign” by Funding Zen, Flickr.com (CC BY 2.0)

The level of education loan arrears is an proof which anything is without a doubt mistaken when using the system. However schools will want a salary to survive, buying a school schooling really should also can be bought from not any guide cost you for the student. Free of cost educational background allows just for a lot more professional country as one, them would depart numerous learners with more a chance to do the job further on his or her research projects compared with his or her’s careers, and also it may well promote universities and colleges to obtain additional creative. In the event additional educational institutions accepted the Pay back Them In advance machine, any Usa Affirms may perhaps come to be the most intelligent cities while in the world.

Area #15: Exactly what is the central thing students ought to be understanding however , might not be?

There’s lots of places where people senior high school learning could quite possibly increase, but yet a very important is definitely financial planning. Even though some could possibly claim meant for more suitable diet regime or possibly physical fitness programs, which information is easily obtainable online and even in commercials—and may in fact be taught commencing during basic school. Tougher budgetary preparing curricula would most likely give higher schoolers tips on how to create consumer credit rating, tips on how to spare with regard to retirement living, and how to budget. All of these really are very important to lifetime in the real world although may be filled up with unclear jargoon in addition to selling schemes. By means of Americans getting additional than $11 trillion with big debts, you need to the younger iteration learn the simplest way not really that they are another statistic.

 Niche #16: Ought to children get involvement trophies?

Many Babe Boomers assume that participation trophies function as a sign involving millennials’knowledge with entitlement. The simple truth is, these participation trophy isn’t going to trim sense at all about rivalry or even drive intended for improvement. As soon as there can be performance-based cash incentives together with contribution funds, this magnifying wall mount mirror any real-world whereby average-performing staff nevertheless get payed together with well-performing customers find add-ons, grows, plus promotions.

Argumentative Seek Summary Types

Issue #17: Should atomic weapons wind up being forbidden to all nations?

A result of political trepidation relating to unique nations, it’s not possibly which a worldwide forbidding upon atomic guns might be pursued by almost every earth leader. It is recommended who other nations be prepared to guard theirselves from future disorders together with similarly tough weapons. Even so, even more limitations in tests as well as unveil authorizations ought to be enforced to assure hot-headed frontrunners avoid or perhaps expose most of these unsafe pistols just being indicate with force.

Issue #18: Will be pre-employment medication tests a particular breach for privacy?

However agencies need to have to rent capable, trustworthy sales staff, they must be unable to necessitate everything that their sales staff neutralize comfortableness of their own homes. You can find good ways with determining even if anyone suits a job, such as educational background, earlier business, individual in addition to high quality references, as well as trial run periods.

Issue #19: Will need to criminals need the to suffrage?

Although most people concern the fact that according criminals the right to vote may lead to more enjoyable regulations around specified violations, prisoners are generally a section of the Usa population. A very popular activity may include every one’s sounds, possibly even individuals who have generated mistakes.

Niche #20: Should certainly father and mother end up permitted to spank their kids?

Spanking is actually a particular older in addition to laid back strategy for sticking it to children. Them shows these individuals that may assembly other people’s damaging actions by using wildness can be acceptable. In the event that kids are tall enough to help you realize why they will think you are spanked, these are who are old enough to consider their own harmful behaviour pragmatically plus discover why that it was wrong.

(Learn more details on penning argumentative essays.)

The Previous Concept in Remaining Paragraphs

Since most likely recognized assigned all the different try conclusion recommendations previously, there are a number of the way to absolve a great essay. Often, you’ll encounter any bottom line, nonetheless narrative documents may perhaps take a great exception.

A lot of these works permit you to be a little more extremely creative with the conclusion. You have to nonetheless be sure to terminate these dissertation using feeling of shutdown despite the fact that, since in the example of Area #8, this simply means arriving on your relatively forbidding note.

No matter how you actually understand, it is actually fairly practical to receive effective examples. And then now you undertake, you can find that will completing your essay.

interview essay conclusion examples

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[mega-onlinemarketing-world-blog]

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[Sam Bray] Translating Genesis: Concluding thoughts on legal interpretation and biblical translation

This is the seventh and final post in a series on “Genesis 1–11: A New Old Translation for Readers, Scholars, and Translators.” My coauthor for this project is the excellent Hebrew scholar John Hobbins. In recent posts I’ve considered several topics — double translation, physicality (here and here), repetition and figures of speech. What I want to do in this post is to reflect on similarities and dissimilarities between legal interpretation and biblical translation.

Two initial caveats. First, there is already a literature on the analogy between the Constitution and the Bible, with both being foundational texts that control a community’s subsequent practice and require interpretation (e.g., works by Jaroslav Pelikan — a church historian who first became interested in the question through his Yale University colleague Alexander Bickel — Samuel J. Levine, Gregory Kalscheur and Sandy Levinson). There is also a literature that conceptualizes the task of interpretation through the metaphor of translation (e.g., works by my colleague Máximo Langer and by Larry Lessig, as well as my own paper on translation and equity). I won’t review those literatures in this post.

Second, there are different schools of thought about legal interpretation (e.g., textualism vs. purposivism), just as there are different schools of thought about translation. In this post I’ll be pretty ecumenical about legal interpretation, while for biblical translation I will describe, but not defend, the particular approach embodied in our translation of Genesis 1–11. (If you want a defense, see the “To the Reader” and “To the Persistent Reader” essays in our volume.)

Let’s begin with a similarity.

Our translation emphasizes inner-textual interpretation, i.e., usage and repetitions in Genesis 1–11 and throughout the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. There’s also inter-textual interpretation, that is, reading the text in light of connections with non-biblical texts (e.g., other ancient Near Eastern creation stories, mentioned in our note on Genesis 1:1, as well as the history of subsequent interpretation, both Jewish and Christian). But inner-textual interpretation is more decisive.

Something similar happens in legal interpretation. Interpreters pay some attention to how words are used in other sources. But they give central importance to how words are used in the same source (“inner-textual interpretation”). A famous example is Chief Justice John Marshall’s interpretation of “necessary” in McCulloch, reading the word in the necessary and proper clause in light of its usage elsewhere in the Constitution.

(Note that terminology varies: where biblical scholars use “inner-textual,” legal scholars tend to use “inter-textual”; where biblical scholars use “inter-textual,” legal scholars tend to have other terms such as “legislative history.”)

And another similarity:

Form is central to both. I accept as a deep insight the New Critics’s attack on the “heresy of paraphrase.” As for the biblical text, the brilliant scholar David Daube once gave a lecture about Jewish law that he titled: “The Form is the Message.” And so, too, for U.S. law. Codifying common law decisions works a transformation. A Restatement cannot ever really be a restatement; it must inevitably be a different statement, because of its different form, even if the very same words were to be used. (The invocation of Pierre Menard is obligatory.)

And now add a stark difference.

Our translation attends, of course imperfectly, to wordplay, register, physicality. These aspects of language are of almost zero importance in legal texts. That is a contingent fact — one could imagine a legal system in which laws were written in verse, and skillful scanning was a duty of the interpreter, but that system is not ours. For our statute-writers, prose is hard enough.

And now, perhaps most interesting, consider three phenomena that are common to both but for radically different reasons, or which have radically different functions.

First, repetitions matter a lot in legal interpretation and in our translation of Genesis 1–11. But for different reasons. Our translation has the premise that repetition is a way meaning is constructed in biblical stories. That premise has been articulated by others, and I won’t stop to defend it here. But the point is that in the book of Genesis, there is a pervasive use of keywords and other forms of verbal and syntactic repetition. Through these repetitions, themes get developed, elaborated and reversed. But when legal interpreters look for repetition, they often assume a constant or static meaning for a term throughout a particular legal text. By contrast, in Genesis 1–11 what matters most is often the variation in the repetition, or the change in the context, or the reversal of a term’s significance. (Examples are discussed in the notes for our translation.)

Second, our translation’s attention to the construction of meaning through repetitions, echoes and distant inversions is grounded on the idea that we can read not only for the intention of the author and the intention of the reader but also for the intention of the work. This idea can be found in sources as disparate as Umberto Eco and Meister Eckhart. Legal interpreters also read, wittingly or unwittingly, for the intention of the work (some methodologies emphasize this more than others). But there are different groundings for the appeal to the intention of the work — an all-knowing divine author for scripture, vs. multi-member legislative bodies that struggle to express a single intention.

Third, legal texts, such as Genesis 1-11, use figurative language, including figures of speech that are common to many genres of human communication. For law these include hendiadys and synecdoche. But the justifications (positive or normative) for figurative language are very different in the two kinds of texts. Legal interpreters should be on the lookout for figurative language because texts are short (especially constitutions, as noted by Marshall), because a lawmaker has limited knowledge and imagination (as noted by Aristotle), and because language is incapable of exact precision. Biblical translators should also look for figurative language, because it is pervasive in biblical texts, and serves many purposes. It is how we say the unsayable. It is how an author instructs by delighting. It can be a means of opening for some and obscuring for others (as noted by Jesus in his explanation for why he taught in parables in Matthew 13).

So law is like translation, a lot like it on the surface. But deeper down the contrasts are stark. Those very contrasts can help us think more carefully and better about law and about translation, without conflating them. With W.H. Auden, we can say that law is like this and like that. Yet perhaps Auden should have ended his poem “Law, Like Love” with “thinking it absurd / To identify Law with some other word.”

(Page references: Aims of our translation are discussed in “To the Reader,” pp. 3–13, and “To the Persistent Reader,” pp. 41–64. In the Index of Subjects, the entries for “diction” and “puns” and “repetition” will guide you to relevant notes for those topics. The intention of the work, intentio operis, is discussed on p. 8, footnote 5. Another Auden poem, “Friday’s Child,” is quoted at p. 90, footnote 143.)

[nancyedimick]

Translating Genesis: Concluding thoughts on legal interpretation and biblical translation

This is the seventh and final post in a series on “Genesis 1–11: A New Old Translation for Readers, Scholars, and Translators.” My coauthor for this project is the excellent Hebrew scholar John Hobbins. In recent posts I’ve considered several topics — double translation, physicality (here and here), repetition and figures of speech. What I want to do in this post is to reflect on similarities and dissimilarities between legal interpretation and biblical translation.

Two initial caveats. First, there is already a literature on the analogy between the Constitution and the Bible, with both being foundational texts that control a community’s subsequent practice and require interpretation (e.g., works by Jaroslav Pelikan — a church historian who first became interested in the question through his Yale University colleague Alexander Bickel — Samuel J. Levine, Gregory Kalscheur and Sandy Levinson). There is also a literature that conceptualizes the task of interpretation through the metaphor of translation (e.g., works by my colleague Máximo Langer and by Larry Lessig, as well as my own paper on translation and equity). I won’t review those literatures in this post.

Second, there are different schools of thought about legal interpretation (e.g., textualism vs. purposivism), just as there are different schools of thought about translation. In this post I’ll be pretty ecumenical about legal interpretation, while for biblical translation I will describe, but not defend, the particular approach embodied in our translation of Genesis 1–11. (If you want a defense, see the “To the Reader” and “To the Persistent Reader” essays in our volume.)

Let’s begin with a similarity.

Our translation emphasizes inner-textual interpretation, i.e., usage and repetitions in Genesis 1–11 and throughout the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. There’s also inter-textual interpretation, that is, reading the text in light of connections with non-biblical texts (e.g., other ancient Near Eastern creation stories, mentioned in our note on Genesis 1:1, as well as the history of subsequent interpretation, both Jewish and Christian). But inner-textual interpretation is more decisive.

Something similar happens in legal interpretation. Interpreters pay some attention to how words are used in other sources. But they give central importance to how words are used in the same source (“inner-textual interpretation”). A famous example is Chief Justice John Marshall’s interpretation of “necessary” in McCulloch, reading the word in the necessary and proper clause in light of its usage elsewhere in the Constitution.

(Note that terminology varies: where biblical scholars use “inner-textual,” legal scholars tend to use “inter-textual”; where biblical scholars use “inter-textual,” legal scholars tend to have other terms such as “legislative history.”)

And another similarity:

Form is central to both. I accept as a deep insight the New Critics’s attack on the “heresy of paraphrase.” As for the biblical text, the brilliant scholar David Daube once gave a lecture about Jewish law that he titled: “The Form is the Message.” And so, too, for U.S. law. Codifying common law decisions works a transformation. A Restatement cannot ever really be a restatement; it must inevitably be a different statement, because of its different form, even if the very same words were to be used. (The invocation of Pierre Menard is obligatory.)

And now add a stark difference.

Our translation attends, of course imperfectly, to wordplay, register, physicality. These aspects of language are of almost zero importance in legal texts. That is a contingent fact — one could imagine a legal system in which laws were written in verse, and skillful scanning was a duty of the interpreter, but that system is not ours. For our statute-writers, prose is hard enough.

And now, perhaps most interesting, consider three phenomena that are common to both but for radically different reasons, or which have radically different functions.

First, repetitions matter a lot in legal interpretation and in our translation of Genesis 1–11. But for different reasons. Our translation has the premise that repetition is a way meaning is constructed in biblical stories. That premise has been articulated by others, and I won’t stop to defend it here. But the point is that in the book of Genesis, there is a pervasive use of keywords and other forms of verbal and syntactic repetition. Through these repetitions, themes get developed, elaborated and reversed. But when legal interpreters look for repetition, they often assume a constant or static meaning for a term throughout a particular legal text. By contrast, in Genesis 1–11 what matters most is often the variation in the repetition, or the change in the context, or the reversal of a term’s significance. (Examples are discussed in the notes for our translation.)

Second, our translation’s attention to the construction of meaning through repetitions, echoes and distant inversions is grounded on the idea that we can read not only for the intention of the author and the intention of the reader but also for the intention of the work. This idea can be found in sources as disparate as Umberto Eco and Meister Eckhart. Legal interpreters also read, wittingly or unwittingly, for the intention of the work (some methodologies emphasize this more than others). But there are different groundings for the appeal to the intention of the work — an all-knowing divine author for scripture, vs. multi-member legislative bodies that struggle to express a single intention.

Third, legal texts, such as Genesis 1-11, use figurative language, including figures of speech that are common to many genres of human communication. For law these include hendiadys and synecdoche. But the justifications (positive or normative) for figurative language are very different in the two kinds of texts. Legal interpreters should be on the lookout for figurative language because texts are short (especially constitutions, as noted by Marshall), because a lawmaker has limited knowledge and imagination (as noted by Aristotle), and because language is incapable of exact precision. Biblical translators should also look for figurative language, because it is pervasive in biblical texts, and serves many purposes. It is how we say the unsayable. It is how an author instructs by delighting. It can be a means of opening for some and obscuring for others (as noted by Jesus in his explanation for why he taught in parables in Matthew 13).

So law is like translation, a lot like it on the surface. But deeper down the contrasts are stark. Those very contrasts can help us think more carefully and better about law and about translation, without conflating them. With W.H. Auden, we can say that law is like this and like that. Yet perhaps Auden should have ended his poem “Law, Like Love” with “thinking it absurd / To identify Law with some other word.”

(Page references: Aims of our translation are discussed in “To the Reader,” pp. 3–13, and “To the Persistent Reader,” pp. 41–64. In the Index of Subjects, the entries for “diction” and “puns” and “repetition” will guide you to relevant notes for those topics. The intention of the work, intentio operis, is discussed on p. 8, footnote 5. Another Auden poem, “Friday’s Child,” is quoted at p. 90, footnote 143.)

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/08/11/translating-genesis-concluding-thoughts-on-legal-interpretation-and-biblical-translation/

[wolfandpravato]

Translating Genesis: Concluding thoughts on legal interpretation and biblical translation

This is the seventh and final post in a series on “Genesis 1–11: A New Old Translation for Readers, Scholars, and Translators.” My coauthor for this project is the excellent Hebrew scholar John Hobbins. In recent posts I’ve considered several topics — double translation, physicality (here and here), repetition and figures of speech. What I want to do in this post is to reflect on similarities and dissimilarities between legal interpretation and biblical translation.

Two initial caveats. First, there is already a literature on the analogy between the Constitution and the Bible, with both being foundational texts that control a community’s subsequent practice and require interpretation (e.g., works by Jaroslav Pelikan — a church historian who first became interested in the question through his Yale University colleague Alexander Bickel — Samuel J. Levine, Gregory Kalscheur and Sandy Levinson). There is also a literature that conceptualizes the task of interpretation through the metaphor of translation (e.g., works by my colleague Máximo Langer and by Larry Lessig, as well as my own paper on translation and equity). I won’t review those literatures in this post.

Second, there are different schools of thought about legal interpretation (e.g., textualism vs. purposivism), just as there are different schools of thought about translation. In this post I’ll be pretty ecumenical about legal interpretation, while for biblical translation I will describe, but not defend, the particular approach embodied in our translation of Genesis 1–11. (If you want a defense, see the “To the Reader” and “To the Persistent Reader” essays in our volume.)

Let’s begin with a similarity.

Our translation emphasizes inner-textual interpretation, i.e., usage and repetitions in Genesis 1–11 and throughout the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. There’s also inter-textual interpretation, that is, reading the text in light of connections with non-biblical texts (e.g., other ancient Near Eastern creation stories, mentioned in our note on Genesis 1:1, as well as the history of subsequent interpretation, both Jewish and Christian). But inner-textual interpretation is more decisive.

Something similar happens in legal interpretation. Interpreters pay some attention to how words are used in other sources. But they give central importance to how words are used in the same source (“inner-textual interpretation”). A famous example is Chief Justice John Marshall’s interpretation of “necessary” in McCulloch, reading the word in the necessary and proper clause in light of its usage elsewhere in the Constitution.

(Note that terminology varies: where biblical scholars use “inner-textual,” legal scholars tend to use “inter-textual”; where biblical scholars use “inter-textual,” legal scholars tend to have other terms such as “legislative history.”)

And another similarity:

Form is central to both. I accept as a deep insight the New Critics’s attack on the “heresy of paraphrase.” As for the biblical text, the brilliant scholar David Daube once gave a lecture about Jewish law that he titled: “The Form is the Message.” And so, too, for U.S. law. Codifying common law decisions works a transformation. A Restatement cannot ever really be a restatement; it must inevitably be a different statement, because of its different form, even if the very same words were to be used. (The invocation of Pierre Menard is obligatory.)

And now add a stark difference.

Our translation attends, of course imperfectly, to wordplay, register, physicality. These aspects of language are of almost zero importance in legal texts. That is a contingent fact — one could imagine a legal system in which laws were written in verse, and skillful scanning was a duty of the interpreter, but that system is not ours. For our statute-writers, prose is hard enough.

And now, perhaps most interesting, consider three phenomena that are common to both but for radically different reasons, or which have radically different functions.

First, repetitions matter a lot in legal interpretation and in our translation of Genesis 1–11. But for different reasons. Our translation has the premise that repetition is a way meaning is constructed in biblical stories. That premise has been articulated by others, and I won’t stop to defend it here. But the point is that in the book of Genesis, there is a pervasive use of keywords and other forms of verbal and syntactic repetition. Through these repetitions, themes get developed, elaborated and reversed. But when legal interpreters look for repetition, they often assume a constant or static meaning for a term throughout a particular legal text. By contrast, in Genesis 1–11 what matters most is often the variation in the repetition, or the change in the context, or the reversal of a term’s significance. (Examples are discussed in the notes for our translation.)

Second, our translation’s attention to the construction of meaning through repetitions, echoes and distant inversions is grounded on the idea that we can read not only for the intention of the author and the intention of the reader but also for the intention of the work. This idea can be found in sources as disparate as Umberto Eco and Meister Eckhart. Legal interpreters also read, wittingly or unwittingly, for the intention of the work (some methodologies emphasize this more than others). But there are different groundings for the appeal to the intention of the work — an all-knowing divine author for scripture, vs. multi-member legislative bodies that struggle to express a single intention.

Third, legal texts, such as Genesis 1-11, use figurative language, including figures of speech that are common to many genres of human communication. For law these include hendiadys and synecdoche. But the justifications (positive or normative) for figurative language are very different in the two kinds of texts. Legal interpreters should be on the lookout for figurative language because texts are short (especially constitutions, as noted by Marshall), because a lawmaker has limited knowledge and imagination (as noted by Aristotle), and because language is incapable of exact precision. Biblical translators should also look for figurative language, because it is pervasive in biblical texts, and serves many purposes. It is how we say the unsayable. It is how an author instructs by delighting. It can be a means of opening for some and obscuring for others (as noted by Jesus in his explanation for why he taught in parables in Matthew 13).

So law is like translation, a lot like it on the surface. But deeper down the contrasts are stark. Those very contrasts can help us think more carefully and better about law and about translation, without conflating them. With W.H. Auden, we can say that law is like this and like that. Yet perhaps Auden should have ended his poem “Law, Like Love” with “thinking it absurd / To identify Law with some other word.”

(Page references: Aims of our translation are discussed in “To the Reader,” pp. 3–13, and “To the Persistent Reader,” pp. 41–64. In the Index of Subjects, the entries for “diction” and “puns” and “repetition” will guide you to relevant notes for those topics. The intention of the work, intentio operis, is discussed on p. 8, footnote 5. Another Auden poem, “Friday’s Child,” is quoted at p. 90, footnote 143.)

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/08/11/translating-genesis-concluding-thoughts-on-legal-interpretation-and-biblical-translation/

[autopilotrecruiting]

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New Post has been published on http://leadershipmentoring4free.info/cold-calling-tips-the-secret-sales-formula-for-rapid-profits-2/

Cold Calling Tips - The Secret Sales Formula For Rapid Profits

S

Cold calling tips and sales techniques make most sales-people’s blood run cold with fear.

Most companies and biz owners would rather pretend cold calling doesn’t work than spend time calling freezing cold prospects.

Don’t let yourself (or your company) ignore these cold calling tips while your competitors are (greedily & secretly) using this strategy as a bottomless goldmine…

BEST PART: The tips in this article guarantee to make your cold calling so comfortable, your grand mother could do it (and do it like a star).

Cold Calling Tip 1 – Set Achievable Goals

I’m going to go ahead and deliver the harsh, honest truth: True, full-on sub-zero phone prospecting will always fail to sell anything directly.

Discovering this fact can be very disheartening for beginner sales people.

So many biz owners (and wannabe sales-folk) set unrealistic telesales goals – only to then give up (prematurely) when sales are not immediate.

Phoning total strangers and requesting they hand over their credit card details is going to win you no friends (plus, the consolation prize is verbal abuse).

The “phone and push for a sale” technique doesn’t work in many markets (I’d struggle to name more than two industries).

The ideal approach is, instead, to incorporate cold calling as the “touching base” which then brings new (warmer) prospects into the businesses sales cycle.

When you commit to an achieve goal for your calls, it becomes easy to be (and feel) like a success. This feeling of success itself, for you and/or your sales staff, is only going to breed more positivity and success.

Here is a few achieve, realistic and profitable cold calling targets:

GOAL: 100 “Customer Permissions” to send information (via snail or e-mail) with subsequent follow up “warm calls”

If your product is innovative and valuable, you can hit this powerful goal in under a week of just by getting on the phone daily from 8am to 12pm.

Try posting out something extraordinary and unusual (like a brochure in the shape of a giant tree – whatever) to ensure it gets opened. The recipient needs to notice it, so bizarre is good.

GOAL: 10 Sales appointments with qualified prospects

This works well in the Business-to-Business market and in industries like Financial Planning and Insurance, where setting for home appointments is the goal.

A cold calling expert can convert around ten percent of even freezing prospects. Newbies should expect around five percent.

Just a single, full day of calls will get you the 10 appointments. I know Insurance people who nail it in one Sunday afternoon.

Cold Calling is REALLY about getting “the opportunity” to pitch another day

The examples above show that intelligent cold calling is all about bagging an opportunity (and the permission) to contact the prospect and sell to them at a later date.

An important psychological phenomenon exists, which explains why this works so well…

The public are conditioned to be intuitively mistrusting of stranges – especially of anyone attempting to sell to them. Any attempt to accelerate the sales is going to go outside the comfort zone of your prospect. Expect increased resentment and objections.

By proving a couple of points of contact, your prospects will have time to warm to you, your product and the sales-pitch. Many effective cold-callers keep a lists of contact numbers from up to 12 months in the past. “Calling back” often results in even better conversions.

Cold Calling Tip 2 – You’ve got Three Seconds. No pressure though.

The critical part of cold calling (where 96% of the newbies go wrong) is the first three seconds after the prospect answers.

These three seconds represent the “window-of-opportunity” you’ve got to push your prospects “curiosity button”. If they aren’t interested after three seconds, they’re going to dismiss your offer and you. Instead of listening, be sure that they are grinding the mental gears by thinking up objections and excuses to get off the call.

How can you hit the Cold Call curiosity button in 3 seconds?

Be awesome – offer legitimately exceptional product/service:

Easier said than done, it really does help if your company is doing something so extraordinarily, unusually awesome that folks just can’t wait to hear more. This is (unfortunately) a long term goal for some.

Offer a super-quick and easy, no-commitment “next step”:

Usually, “getting permission” for the next step is the objective of the cold call. This could be as easy as asking for permission to keep talking, or even better, asking for permission to send a free sample.

Have your prospect feel special:

If your prospect gets the impression they’re the 200th cold call you’ve spoken to that day, they’re not going to enjoy the call.

In B2B cold-calling you can get turn on the curiosity by mentioning the industry competitors you’ve been “talking to”… and explaining why you thought your prospect would be interested in your pitch too.

Prepare a concise, articulate, scripted three second introduction: You’d think this one should be obvious, but so many companies and sales reps fail to realise the importance of a smooth introduction. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP.

A good three second intro that follows these basic principals would look like this:

“Hi ! I’m calling from XYZ Lawns & Gardens Inc. … We’re doing a unusual promotion in your street by expertly clipping people’s lawns. For free! If that sounds interesting, I just need to get your perfect time and date for your free mow.”

It may not be realistic to cut lawns for free but, regardless, can you see the value of putting these cold calling tips into action?

Cold calling is still, despite everything you’ve heard, the fastest sure-fire approach to building a profitable business… fast.

Best of all, it doesn’t have to be difficult. With the correct, intelligent approach you can rapidly turn huge numbers of strangers into satisfied customers – while you enjoy the freedom, wealth and happiness of a successful sales person and entrepreneur.

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