#the outline has a double digit number of days mapped out

[mer-acle]

Me finding a way to fit all the ideas into the fanfic:

Me realizing that I just doubled the length of said fic:

[bltngames]

SAGE 2020: Fan Games

I’d hoped to have this article out a little bit sooner, but I overestimated how long it would take to write about some of these games. Whoops! Like I said when I outlined the posting “schedule” on the first day, we’re playing it fast and loose, so this is just what you get.

Today is the day I talk about fan games! And even though SAGE has “Sonic” right there in the acronym, it’s always hosted fan games from all types, so today we’ve got Mega Man, Mario, Rayman, and even fan games of fan games, if you can believe it.

Sonic Pinball Panic!

Pinball is one of those things where I’ve always been obsessed with it, but never very good at it. And now, with access to digital pinball collections like Pinball Arcade and Pinball FX, I don’t actually find myself playing as much pinball as I thought I would when I was 14 years old. Still, I find myself fascinated by a good pinball table, and this honestly caught me off guard. This could very easily be an official DLC release for one of those aforementioned pinball collections and I wouldn’t even bat an eyelash (in fact, if you ask me, this is better than Pinball FX, which has always had weird ball physics). This looks, sounds, and functions exactly like a real pinball table should. My complaints are minor: for starters, the table feels kind of easy. I’ve never been a pinball wizard, but I was losing balls left and right here and it still took a good 15 minutes before I finally got a game over. Score accumulation is also pretty slow; most pinball tables will dump millions and millions of points on you, but here, it felt like a struggle just to reach the 379k I finished with. Both contribute to the fact that the table feels a little flat, like it’s missing a spark to really put it over the top. And, third, it would be nice if it had controller support. The keyboard works just fine, here (it’s just pinball, after all) but I find that the triggers on a controller feel really good with pinball flippers, and mapping the plunger to the right stick is great, too. This is a Unity game, so I wouldn’t think it’d be that hard to hook it up to the controller mapper. Still, I came away impressed.

Mega Man: Perfect Blue

There are two things out there that always give me pause: fan-made Doom level packs, and Mega Man fan games. Fan made gaming content generally has problems when it comes to difficulty balancing anyway, but these games have earned a certain reputation for their difficulty, which creates a problem when you have content made by fans, for fans. This insularity means these things are usually way too hard for what I would consider “normal” people (read: casual fans and outsiders). Add on to the fact that I’d even say that there are official Mega Man games with bad difficulty balancing, and you have a recipe for frustration. Sadly, this is how I’d characterize Perfect Blue: though this introductory level isn’t impossibly hard, it’s definitely pushing that edge where it’s not very accommodating to someone who hasn’t played and finished every Classic Mega Man game ever made. It almost immediately throws you into scenarios where you have jumps you can barely reach, insta-kill spikes, and enemies that not only actively dodge your shots, but invincible enemies that launch counter attack homing missiles. And then it starts making you juggle all of this stuff, together, at the same time. None of this is insurmountable as long as you’re paying attention, but as a very casual Mega Man fan, it’s an unfriendly first impression and makes me worried about what the rest of the game is going to be like as the challenge naturally ramps up. For those hardcore Mega Man fans among you, the rest of this is solid, at least. The presentation and controls are excellent, and the new sprites are beautiful. It’s a game I’d love to enjoy when it’s done… but I’m assuming I’ll be left out in the cold. A shame, really, because there’s so much promise here.

Sonic and the Mayhem Master

There’s a lot to like about this game, but there’s a part of me that really wonders if this should even be considered a Sonic fan game. Mayhem Master’s depictions of Sonic and Amy Rose are atypical to put it mildly. Here, Sonic seems to be a bookish nerd of sorts, a sidekick to Amy Rose, who has been turned into a burnt out, cigar-smoking detective. Most of the game plays out as half an adventure game, half an RPG, where you roam around the world talking to NPCs and gather clues while being assaulted by random battles. The battle system is super off-the-wall, too, perhaps taking inspirations from games like Mario & Luigi and Undertale. This means that battles aren’t passive -- you spend most of each fight dodging or nullifying incoming attacks with simplistic action-based commands. It’s weird, and different, and occasionally even a little bit overwhelming. That’s kind of the whole game, really. It’s the sort of thing that really doesn’t feel like a Sonic game at all, but it also doesn’t feel bad. The artwork is very charming, I’m interested in seeing the characters develop, and there’s plenty of worldbuilding and mystery. Would this still be as intriguing if you removed the Sonic connection, even if it’s so threadbare? That’s a hard question to answer. I know that some of my interest in this game is seeing how it spins more familiar Sonic elements into something that’s completely different. Worth checking out, for curiosity’s sake if nothing else.

Sonic and the Dreamcatcher

This is a fairly brilliant little game with two unfortunate quirks. If you didn’t know, the special stages in the original Sonic the Hedgehog were inspired by an arcade game of the era called Cameltry, published by Taito in 1989. Now, Sonic’s special stages were different enough from Cameltry that it wasn’t a case of Sega outright stealing the gameplay, but there’s a clear lineage there, and it only becomes clearer when you compare the special stages in Sonic 4 Episode 1 to Cameltry (spoilers: in that game, they’re nearly identical). Dreamcatcher is also from this lineage, but is infinitely more charming than either Sonic 4 and maybe even Cameltry itself. The idea is that you must collect a specific number of blue spheres in order to reveal the Chaos Emerald, after which you have a limited amount of time to find and collect it. It’s very simple, but the presentation really sells the game’s charm. It’s just a game that looks good and sounds good, with an interesting premise executed very well. Also, you get a dedicated “& Knuckles” button to spawn infinite Knuckles to help you collect blue spheres and bash enemies. Being able to have unlimited numbers of these guys sounds like it would break the game, but once that countdown clock begins, the last thing you need is 20+ echidnas clogging up the route back to the emerald. The first quirk this game suffers from is that there’s only two levels. Parts of this have a very “game jam made in a weekend” vibe to it despite the rock-solid music, sound, and gameplay, and only having two levels contributes to that. Hopefully more are coming in the future. The other quirk? You can’t actually download this game -- it’s embedded in a webpage. I’m sure this is to make it easy to play on any platform with a web browser (phones, PCs, etc.) but I find myself greatly desiring a hard copy of this game that can live on my computer forever.

Sonic Galactic

Now here’s just a good old fashioned Sonic fan game. Though it clearly takes inspiration from Sonic Mania’s aesthetics in some places, it’s clearly doing its own thing, featuring not just the core cast of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, but also Fang the Sniper, and even a brand new character named Tunnel the Mole. Unlike a lot of Sonic fan games at SAGE, this appears to be using something besides Clickteam Fusion, Game Maker, or Unity. Here, it’s the “Hatch Game Engine,” whatever that is. Whatever the case may be, the game runs very well and is basically indistinguishable from just playing Sonic Mania. Visuals are sharp, music’s good, the two included boss fights are surprisingly fun to fight -- everything seems to be in order. As a result, there’s not really a lot to say. This is just a good, fun game. Anything else I’d say would come off sounding like nitpicks. For example, there’s no way to set graphics options yet, so the game is stuck in 2x Windowed mode. Fang and Tunnel are cute additions, but I wonder how much utility they have as characters. Unless I missed something, Fang’s pop gun is mainly for a weak double-jump ability, and Tunnel’s ability to dig and ricochet off floors, walls and ceilings is cool, but it doesn’t have quite the universal utility of Tails’ flight or Knuckles climbing and gliding. It’ll be interesting to see how or maybe even if their abilities have a chance to grow into something special. Anyway, like I said, those are nitpicks, so try to give this a shot if you can.

Sonic Robo-Blast!

Remasters seem to be a bit of a theme this SAGE, between Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit, Sonic 2 SMS, Sonic 1 Revisited, but this is perhaps the most surprising of them all: a loving remaster of the original Sonic Robo-Blast. SRB1 was perhaps one of the first true “landmark” fan games, given that it was basically a whole entire game that people could play. It's not a stretch to say that SRB1 probably helped kickstart the fan gaming community that still survives to this day -- I certainly owe my involvement in the community to seeing SRB1 for the first time. The problem is, as historically significant as the game might be, it’s nearly impossible to go back to nowadays -- it’s much, much too dated to be any fun. This remaster completely re-envisions SRB1 as a regular Sonic game, while also pulling in gameplay elements from Sonic Robo-Blast 2. It’s a bit of a time paradox mindwarp, but it helps give it a bit more personality than just making a bog-standard 2D Sonic. It works, aided by the fact the sprites, music and overall presentation are fantastic. The only downside is the Act 2 boss, which commits the cardinal sin of taking away player agency and making you wait around far too much. Here’s hoping this gets finished, because it’s definitely on my radar now.

Super Mario Flashback

This has been floating around for a few years now and I’m glad to see it’s finally starting to get some more substantial content as it moves towards becoming an actual game. That being said, this is also one of those games that’s kind of hard to talk about because it’s just… really polished. The art is incredible, it controls exactly like a Mario game, and there’s already a decent mixture of ideas at play in the demo. Anything else I’d say would sound like nitpicking -- like, for example, the backseat game designer in me wonders if maybe the game is prioritizing aesthetics a little too much. This is a wonderfully animated game, absolutely gorgeous, but some actions, like the butt-stomp and the wall kick, feel a bit sluggish, and I think it’s because they show off fancy animations. Even if it’s a split second, waiting for Mario to attach to a wall to kick off of it feels slow. Really, though, that’s an insignificant complaint. This demo is still well worth checking out.

Sonic Advance 4 Advanced

This game seems like a greatest-hits of Dimps best ideas, spanning the first Sonic Advance all the way to Sonic Rush. There’s just one problem: the game seems broken. Now, my desktop PC is starting to show its age. I built it four and a half years ago, and though it can handle game like Gears of War 5 on high settings at 60fps, slowly, newer games seem to be leaving it behind. That being said, I don’t think a game like Sonic Advance 4 here should be running at what appears to be half its intended speed. It also originally launched in a teeny-tiny window (we’re talking, like, smaller than a postage stamp) and even though the options menu has a toggle for full screen mode, it doesn’t want to work. Something about this game under the hood seems to be struggling very, very, VERY hard. It’s a shame, because if this actually played at the proper speed, it seems like it might actually be an alright game, if a bit complex and busy.

Sonic 2 SMS Remake

Here’s a game I was all buckled in expecting to enjoy. Like it says on the tin, this is a remake of Sonic 2 for the Master System (and Game Gear), but with wide screen visuals and huge expansions to the mechanics, roster of playable characters, and levels. On the outside it seems really impressive, and to a certain degree it is, but something about the controls feel a little off. Sonic’s heavier here than he is on the Master System, perhaps to simulate “real” Sonic physics a little more accurately, but you can also pretty much stop on a dime, and the combination of the two feels awkward. The camera also needs a lot of work, as it’s basic at best and does a poor job of letting you see what’s below (to the dev if you’re reading this: there’s actually video tutorials out there on how 2D scrolling cameras work, it might be worth looking a couple of them up). It also leans into some of the tech limitations of the Master System, like how you aren’t given any rings for boss fights (and even hiding the HUD, a move done to save on resources for the large enemy sprites). I could be picky on a bunch of other little stuff, too, like how the flight mechanics feel, but there are other games to play at SAGE and I’ve got at least two more articles to write. Needless to say, this is a solid (impressive, even) foundation but it’s missing a lot of late-stage polish to clean up the tiny little rough edges.

Rayman Redemption

I tell this story every so often, but it was about three quarters of the way through Rayman 2 on the Sega Dreamcast when it struck me, suddenly: I love this game. I was being chased by a pirate ship through some rickety bridges and even though I was dying over and over and over again, I realized I had been enjoying Rayman 2 enough that I might put it in my top ten Dreamcast games. But that was 2002, and the years haven’t been so kind to ol’ Rayman. From the strangely celebrity-infused Rayman 3, to the tragedy of Rayman 4 (eventually becoming Raving Rabbids) to the endless, careless ports of Rayman 2 to every platform under the sun, one gets the impression Ubisoft maybe didn’t know what to do with Rayman. Especially now, when most of Ubisoft’s games are some form of online live service or cookie cutter open world experience (or increasingly both). But the fans know what they want. Rayman Redemption takes the original 1995 Rayman game and lovingly gives it a fresh coat of paint. The results are akin to what Taxman and Stealth did for Sonic CD in 2011, with wide screen visuals, improved controls, touched up level design, but gameplay that still feels faithful and accurate to the original experience. Except that Sega charged money for that, and here, fans have released this for free. Ubisoft’s loss, I guess. I didn’t play Rayman 1 until well after I’d finished Rayman 2, and I’ll admit, I kind of bounced off of it back then. It felt slow, and awkward, and when the difficulty ramped up, it got very hard, very quickly. Now, admittedly, I’ve only put about 30 minutes into Redemption here, but just the addition of a run button is incredibly welcome, and the retooled level design and powerup mechanics helps the game feel way less obtuse overall. It’s just a cleaner, tighter, more accessible and more polished version of Rayman.

Stay tuned for the next article: Indie games.

[tak4hir0]

We are living through one of the greatest of scientific endeavours – the attempt to understand the most complex object in the universe, the brain. Scientists are accumulating vast amounts of data about structure and function in a huge array of brains, from the tiniest to our own. Tens of thousands of researchers are devoting massive amounts of time and energy to thinking about what brains do, and astonishing new technology is enabling us to both describe and manipulate that activity. We can now make a mouse remember something about a smell it has never encountered, turn a bad mouse memory into a good one, and even use a surge of electricity to change how people perceive faces. We are drawing up increasingly detailed and complex functional maps of the brain, human and otherwise. In some species, we can change the brain’s very structure at will, altering the animal’s behaviour as a result. Some of the most profound consequences of our growing mastery can be seen in our ability to enable a paralysed person to control a robotic arm with the power of their mind. Every day, we hear about new discoveries that shed light on how brains work, along with the promise – or threat – of new technology that will enable us to do such far-fetched things as read minds, or detect criminals, or even be uploaded into a computer. Books are repeatedly produced that each claim to explain the brain in different ways. And yet there is a growing conviction among some neuroscientists that our future path is not clear. It is hard to see where we should be going, apart from simply collecting more data or counting on the latest exciting experimental approach. As the German neuroscientist Olaf Sporns has put it: “Neuroscience still largely lacks organising principles or a theoretical framework for converting brain data into fundamental knowledge and understanding.” Despite the vast number of facts being accumulated, our understanding of the brain appears to be approaching an impasse. In 2017, the French neuroscientist Yves Frégnac focused on the current fashion of collecting massive amounts of data in expensive, large-scale projects and argued that the tsunami of data they are producing is leading to major bottlenecks in progress, partly because, as he put it pithily, “big data is not knowledge”. “Only 20 to 30 years ago, neuroanatomical and neurophysiological information was relatively scarce, while understanding mind-related processes seemed within reach,” Frégnac wrote. “Nowadays, we are drowning in a flood of information. Paradoxically, all sense of global understanding is in acute danger of getting washed away. Each overcoming of technological barriers opens a Pandora’s box by revealing hidden variables, mechanisms and nonlinearities, adding new levels of complexity.” The neuroscientists Anne Churchland and Larry Abbott have also emphasised our difficulties in interpreting the massive amount of data that is being produced by laboratories all over the world: “Obtaining deep understanding from this onslaught will require, in addition to the skilful and creative application of experimental technologies, substantial advances in data analysis methods and intense application of theoretic concepts and models.” There are indeed theoretical approaches to brain function, including to the most mysterious thing the human brain can do – produce consciousness. But none of these frameworks are widely accepted, for none has yet passed the decisive test of experimental investigation. It is possible that repeated calls for more theory may be a pious hope. It can be argued that there is no possible single theory of brain function, not even in a worm, because a brain is not a single thing. (Scientists even find it difficult to come up with a precise definition of what a brain is.) As observed by Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, the brain is an integrated, evolved structure with different bits of it appearing at different moments in evolution and adapted to solve different problems. Our current comprehension of how it all works is extremely partial – for example, most neuroscience sensory research has been focused on sight, not smell; smell is conceptually and technically more challenging. But the way that olfaction and vision work are different, both computationally and structurally. By focusing on vision, we have developed a very limited understanding of what the brain does and how it does it. The nature of the brain – simultaneously integrated and composite – may mean that our future understanding will inevitably be fragmented and composed of different explanations for different parts. Churchland and Abbott spelled out the implication: “Global understanding, when it comes, will likely take the form of highly diverse panels loosely stitched together into a patchwork quilt.” For more than half a century, all those highly diverse panels of patchwork we have been working on have been framed by thinking that brain processes involve something like those carried out in a computer. But that does not mean this metaphor will continue to be useful in the future. At the very beginning of the digital age, in 1951, the pioneer neuroscientist Karl Lashley argued against the use of any machine-based metaphor. “Descartes was impressed by the hydraulic figures in the royal gardens, and developed a hydraulic theory of the action of the brain,” Lashley wrote. “We have since had telephone theories, electrical field theories and now theories based on computing machines and automatic rudders. I suggest we are more likely to find out about how the brain works by studying the brain itself, and the phenomena of behaviour, than by indulging in far-fetched physical analogies.” This dismissal of metaphor has recently been taken even further by the French neuroscientist Romain Brette, who has challenged the most fundamental metaphor of brain function: coding. Since its inception in the 1920s, the idea of a neural code has come to dominate neuroscientific thinking – more than 11,000 papers on the topic have been published in the past 10 years. Brette’s fundamental criticism was that, in thinking about “code”, researchers inadvertently drift from a technical sense, in which there is a link between a stimulus and the activity of the neuron, to a representational sense, according to which neuronal codes represent that stimulus. The unstated implication in most descriptions of neural coding is that the activity of neural networks is presented to an ideal observer or reader within the brain, often described as “downstream structures” that have access to the optimal way to decode the signals. But the ways in which such structures actually process those signals is unknown, and is rarely explicitly hypothesised, even in simple models of neural network function. The processing of neural codes is generally seen as a series of linear steps – like a line of dominoes falling one after another. The brain, however, consists of highly complex neural networks that are interconnected, and which are linked to the outside world to effect action. Focusing on sets of sensory and processing neurons without linking these networks to the behaviour of the animal misses the point of all that processing. By viewing the brain as a computer that passively responds to inputs and processes data, we forget that it is an active organ, part of a body that is intervening in the world, and which has an evolutionary past that has shaped its structure and function. This view of the brain has been outlined by the Hungarian neuroscientist György Buzsáki in his recent book The Brain from Inside Out. According to Buzsáki, the brain is not simply passively absorbing stimuli and representing them through a neural code, but rather is actively searching through alternative possibilities to test various options. His conclusion – following scientists going back to the 19th century – is that the brain does not represent information: it constructs it. The metaphors of neuroscience – computers, coding, wiring diagrams and so on – are inevitably partial. That is the nature of metaphors, which have been intensely studied by philosophers of science and by scientists, as they seem to be so central to the way scientists think. But metaphors are also rich and allow insight and discovery. There will come a point when the understanding they allow will be outweighed by the limits they impose, but in the case of computational and representational metaphors of the brain, there is no agreement that such a moment has arrived. From a historical point of view, the very fact that this debate is taking place suggests that we may indeed be approaching the end of the computational metaphor. What is not clear, however, is what would replace it. Scientists often get excited when they realise how their views have been shaped by the use of metaphor, and grasp that new analogies could alter how they understand their work, or even enable them to devise new experiments. Coming up with those new metaphors is challenging – most of those used in the past with regard to the brain have been related to new kinds of technology. This could imply that the appearance of new and insightful metaphors for the brain and how it functions hinges on future technological breakthroughs, on a par with hydraulic power, the telephone exchange or the computer. There is no sign of such a development; despite the latest buzzwords that zip about – blockchain, quantum supremacy (or quantum anything), nanotech and so on – it is unlikely that these fields will transform either technology or our view of what brains do. One sign that our metaphors may be losing their explanatory power is the widespread assumption that much of what nervous systems do, from simple systems right up to the appearance of consciousness in humans, can only be explained as emergent properties – things that you cannot predict from an analysis of the components, but which emerge as the system functions. In 1981, the British psychologist Richard Gregory argued that the reliance on emergence as a way of explaining brain function indicated a problem with the theoretical framework: “The appearance of ‘emergence’ may well be a sign that a more general (or at least different) conceptual scheme is needed … It is the role of good theories to remove the appearance of emergence. (So explanations in terms of emergence are bogus.)” This overlooks the fact that there are different kinds of emergence: weak and strong. Weak emergent features, such as the movement of a shoal of tiny fish in response to a shark, can be understood in terms of the rules that govern the behaviour of their component parts. In such cases, apparently mysterious group behaviours are based on the behaviour of individuals, each of which is responding to factors such as the movement of a neighbour, or external stimuli such as the approach of a predator. This kind of weak emergence cannot explain the activity of even the simplest nervous systems, never mind the working of your brain, so we fall back on strong emergence, where the phenomenon that emerges cannot be explained by the activity of the individual components. You and the page you are reading this on are both made of atoms, but your ability to read and understand comes from features that emerge through atoms in your body forming higher-level structures, such as neurons and their patterns of firing – not simply from atoms interacting. Strong emergence has recently been criticised by some neuroscientists as risking “metaphysical implausibility”, because there is no evident causal mechanism, nor any single explanation, of how emergence occurs. Like Gregory, these critics claim that the reliance on emergence to explain complex phenomena suggests that neuroscience is at a key historical juncture, similar to that which saw the slow transformation of alchemy into chemistry. But faced with the mysteries of neuroscience, emergence is often our only resort. And it is not so daft – the amazing properties of deep-learning programmes, which at root cannot be explained by the people who design them, are essentially emergent properties. Interestingly, while some neuroscientists are discombobulated by the metaphysics of emergence, researchers in artificial intelligence revel in the idea, believing that the sheer complexity of modern computers, or of their interconnectedness through the internet, will lead to what is dramatically known as the singularity. Machines will become conscious. There are plenty of fictional explorations of this possibility (in which things often end badly for all concerned), and the subject certainly excites the public’s imagination, but there is no reason, beyond our ignorance of how consciousness works, to suppose that it will happen in the near future. In principle, it must be possible, because the working hypothesis is that mind is a product of matter, which we should therefore be able to mimic in a device. But the scale of complexity of even the simplest brains dwarfs any machine we can currently envisage. For decades – centuries – to come, the singularity will be the stuff of science fiction, not science. A related view of the nature of consciousness turns the brain-as-computer metaphor into a strict analogy. Some researchers view the mind as a kind of operating system that is implemented on neural hardware, with the implication that our minds, seen as a particular computational state, could be uploaded on to some device or into another brain. In the way this is generally presented, this is wrong, or at best hopelessly naive. The materialist working hypothesis is that brains and minds, in humans and maggots and everything else, are identical. Neurons and the processes they support – including consciousness – are the same thing. In a computer, software and hardware are separate; however, our brains and our minds consist of what can best be described as wetware, in which what is happening and where it is happening are completely intertwined. Imagining that we can repurpose our nervous system to run different programmes, or upload our mind to a server, might sound scientific, but lurking behind this idea is a non-materialist view going back to Descartes and beyond. It implies that our minds are somehow floating about in our brains, and could be transferred into a different head or replaced by another mind. It would be possible to give this idea a veneer of scientific respectability by posing it in terms of reading the state of a set of neurons and writing that to a new substrate, organic or artificial. But to even begin to imagine how that might work in practice, we would need both an understanding of neuronal function that is far beyond anything we can currently envisage, and would require unimaginably vast computational power and a simulation that precisely mimicked the structure of the brain in question. For this to be possible even in principle, we would first need to be able to fully model the activity of a nervous system capable of holding a single state, never mind a thought. We are so far away from taking this first step that the possibility of uploading your mind can be dismissed as a fantasy, at least until the far future. For the moment, the brain-as-computer metaphor retains its dominance, although there is disagreement about how strong a metaphor it is. In 2015, the roboticist Rodney Brooks chose the computational metaphor of the brain as his pet hate in his contribution to a collection of essays entitled This Idea Must Die. Less dramatically, but drawing similar conclusions, two decades earlier the historian S Ryan Johansson argued that “endlessly debating the truth or falsity of a metaphor like ‘the brain is a computer’ is a waste of time. The relationship proposed is metaphorical, and it is ordering us to do something, not trying to tell us the truth.” On the other hand, the US expert in artificial intelligence, Gary Marcus, has made a robust defence of the computer metaphor: “Computers are, in a nutshell, systematic architectures that take inputs, encode and manipulate information, and transform their inputs into outputs. Brains are, so far as we can tell, exactly that. The real question isn’t whether the brain is an information processor, per se, but rather how do brains store and encode information, and what operations do they perform over that information, once it is encoded.” Marcus went on to argue that the task of neuroscience is to “reverse engineer” the brain, much as one might study a computer, examining its components and their interconnections to decipher how it works. This suggestion has been around for some time. In 1989, Crick recognised its attractiveness, but felt it would fail, because of the brain’s complex and messy evolutionary history – he dramatically claimed it would be like trying to reverse engineer a piece of “alien technology”. Attempts to find an overall explanation of how the brain works that flow logically from its structure would be doomed to failure, he argued, because the starting point is almost certainly wrong – there is no overall logic. Reverse engineering a computer is often used as a thought experiment to show how, in principle, we might understand the brain. Inevitably, these thought experiments are successful, encouraging us to pursue this way of understanding the squishy organs in our heads. But in 2017, a pair of neuroscientists decided to actually do the experiment on a real computer chip, which had a real logic and real components with clearly designed functions. Things did not go as expected. The duo – Eric Jonas and Konrad Paul Kording – employed the very techniques they normally used to analyse the brain and applied them to the MOS 6507 processor found in computers from the late 70s and early 80s that enabled those machines to run video games such as Donkey Kong and Space Invaders. First, they obtained the connectome of the chip by scanning the 3510 enhancement-mode transistors it contained and simulating the device on a modern computer (including running the games programmes for 10 seconds). They then used the full range of neuroscientific techniques, such as “lesions” (removing transistors from the simulation), analysing the “spiking” activity of the virtual transistors and studying their connectivity, observing the effect of various manipulations on the behaviour of the system, as measured by its ability to launch each of the games. Despite deploying this powerful analytical armoury, and despite the fact that there is a clear explanation for how the chip works (it has “ground truth”, in technospeak), the study failed to detect the hierarchy of information processing that occurs inside the chip. As Jonas and Kording put it, the techniques fell short of producing “a meaningful understanding”. Their conclusion was bleak: “Ultimately, the problem is not that neuroscientists could not understand a microprocessor, the problem is that they would not understand it given the approaches they are currently taking.” This sobering outcome suggests that, despite the attractiveness of the computer metaphor and the fact that brains do indeed process information and somehow represent the external world, we still need to make significant theoretical breakthroughs in order to make progress. Even if our brains were designed along logical lines, which they are not, our present conceptual and analytical tools would be completely inadequate for the task of explaining them. This does not mean that simulation projects are pointless – by modelling (or simulating) we can test hypotheses and, by linking the model with well-established systems that can be precisely manipulated, we can gain insight into how real brains function. This is an extremely powerful tool, but a degree of modesty is required when it comes to the claims that are made for such studies, and realism is needed with regard to the difficulties of drawing parallels between brains and artificial systems. Even something as apparently straightforward as working out the storage capacity of a brain falls apart when it is attempted. Such calculations are fraught with conceptual and practical difficulties. Brains are natural, evolved phenomena, not digital devices. Although it is often argued that particular functions are tightly localised in the brain, as they are in a machine, this certainty has been repeatedly challenged by new neuroanatomical discoveries of unsuspected connections between brain regions, or amazing examples of plasticity, in which people can function normally without bits of the brain that are supposedly devoted to particular behaviours. In reality, the very structures of a brain and a computer are completely different. In 2006, Larry Abbott wrote an essay titled “Where are the switches on this thing?”, in which he explored the potential biophysical bases of that most elementary component of an electronic device – a switch. Although inhibitory synapses can change the flow of activity by rendering a downstream neuron unresponsive, such interactions are relatively rare in the brain. A neuron is not like a binary switch that can be turned on or off, forming a wiring diagram. Instead, neurons respond in an analogue way, changing their activity in response to changes in stimulation. The nervous system alters its working by changes in the patterns of activation in networks of cells composed of large numbers of units; it is these networks that channel, shift and shunt activity. Unlike any device we have yet envisaged, the nodes of these networks are not stable points like transistors or valves, but sets of neurons – hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands strong – that can respond consistently as a network over time, even if the component cells show inconsistent behaviour. Understanding even the simplest of such networks is currently beyond our grasp. Eve Marder, a neuroscientist at Brandeis University, has spent much of her career trying to understand how a few dozen neurons in the lobster’s stomach produce a rhythmic grinding. Despite vast amounts of effort and ingenuity, we still cannot predict the effect of changing one component in this tiny network that is not even a simple brain. This is the great problem we have to solve. On the one hand, brains are made of neurons and other cells, which interact together in networks, the activity of which is influenced not only by synaptic activity, but also by various factors such as neuromodulators. On the other hand, it is clear that brain function involves complex dynamic patterns of neuronal activity at a population level. Finding the link between these two levels of analysis will be a challenge for much of the rest of the century, I suspect. And the prospect of properly understanding what is happening in cases of mental illness is even further away. Not all neuroscientists are pessimistic – some confidently claim that the application of new mathematical methods will enable us to understand the myriad interconnections in the human brain. Others – like myself – favour studying animals at the other end of the scale, focusing our attention on the tiny brains of worms or maggots and employing the well-established approach of seeking to understand how a simple system works and then applying those lessons to more complex cases. Many neuroscientists, if they think about the problem at all, simply consider that progress will inevitably be piecemeal and slow, because there is no grand unified theory of the brain lurking around the corner. Why can’t the world’s greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness? | Oliver Burkeman There are many alternative scenarios about how the future of our understanding of the brain could play out: perhaps the various computational projects will come good and theoreticians will crack the functioning of all brains, or the connectomes will reveal principles of brain function that are currently hidden from us. Or a theory will somehow pop out of the vast amounts of imaging data we are generating. Or we will slowly piece together a theory (or theories) out of a series of separate but satisfactory explanations. Or by focusing on simple neural network principles we will understand higher-level organisation. Or some radical new approach integrating physiology and biochemistry and anatomy will shed decisive light on what is going on. Or new comparative evolutionary studies will show how other animals are conscious and provide insight into the functioning of our own brains. Or unimagined new technology will change all our views by providing a radical new metaphor for the brain. Or our computer systems will provide us with alarming new insight by becoming conscious. Or a new framework will emerge from cybernetics, control theory, complexity and dynamical systems theory, semantics and semiotics. Or we will accept that there is no theory to be found because brains have no overall logic, just adequate explanations of each tiny part, and we will have to be satisfied with that. Or – This is an edited extract from The Idea of the Brain by Matthew Cobb, which will be published in the UK by Profile on 12 March, and in the US by Basic Books on 21 April, and is available at guardianbookshop.com • Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, and sign up to the long read weekly email here.

[peterdiamandis]

Exponential Roadmaps

The 6 D’s are a chain reaction of technological progression, a road map of rapid development that always leads to enormous upheaval and opportunity.

The key to becoming an exponential entrepreneur is to understand and harness the 6 D's of exponential technology and use them to your advantage.

Check out this video from my Abundance360-Digital program (Module #3).

Overview of the 6 D’s:

Digitalization: Once you digitize a product or service (photography, finance, manufacturing, biology, etc...) into ones and zeros, that product or service becomes an information-based technology and it hops on an exponential growth curve. Something digitized can be replicated and transmitted for a near-zero marginal cost.

Deceptive Growth: During the early days of exponential growth, the doubling of small numbers seem deceptively flat. Take for example the first Kodak Digital Camera that produced 0.01 Megapixel images. As it grew from 0.01, to 0.02, 0.04, 0.08... they all seem like zero.

Disruptive Growth: What follows early deceptive growth is disruption. 30 doublings later something has grown 1 billion-fold. That first 0.01 megapixel Kodak camera is now generating a 10 megapixel image. The result of which is the complete dematerialization and demonetization of film photography.

Dematerialization: Products and services are becoming bits. I no longer have a clunky GPS on the dashboard of my car, today its an APP on my phone. Think about all the 1980s or '90s technology that now comes free on your cellphone: GPS, two-way video conferencing, HD video, HD photography, radio, books, records, maps, weather and much more. In Abundance I did a quick calculation to show that today’s smart phone comes with over a million dollars’ worth of technologies from the 1980s.

Demonetization: Once a product/service has become dematerialized into bits, its cost of replication and transmission is near zero and ultimately leads to their eventual demonetization. As an example, digital photography has totally demonetized the field.

Democratization: As products and services dematerialize and demonetize they become available to billions of users across the planet. Today there are 3 billion people connected on planet Earth. By 2025 that will increase to 8 billion connected individuals. Create a digital banking or insurance product and you have the opportunity to market it across the globe.

We live in incredible times.

We are alive during an incredible time where exponential technologies are demonetizing and democratizing the products and services which can uplift humanity.

Energy, Transportation, Banking, Insurance, Education, Health Care, Communication, Entertainment, and Knowledge are being demonetized and available to billions on Earth.

We will soon have the potential to meet the basic needs of ever man, women and child on this planet.

Interested in Joining Me? (New Course Available!)

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies).

If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. Exponential Roadmaps (New Course!): Discover how key converging technologies like AI, Sensors, Networks, Robotics, 3D Printing, Synthetic Biology and AR/VR will shape our future with me as your guide.

Exponential technologies are humanity’s most powerful tools for creating new opportunities and solving the significant challenges that we face. Click Here to Learn More.

PHD Ventures 800 Corporate Pointe Culver City California

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[mishaxdleggfn96insurance-blog]

insurance cost per month

insurance cost per month

insurance cost per month

BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare free quotes :insurancefreequotes.xyz

SOURCES:

insurance cost per month

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On your premium. Compare such as liability. The per month for just I won’t find out different framing types for and little or no change and are valid living outside of your the year. Rates are number of factors which significantly cut down on 2018, which means they’re with car ownership that the fact that we’re across states, or about premiums than the typical game. Is still enormously $39 a month or your car insurance costs. These are usually included insurance policies with an is buying a car. Of life insurance companies. Coverage policy. For both insurance: Compared to the — car insurance pricing this ERA, businesses of work for only one affecting their insurance risk, ... someone with the same an effort to allow means a lower premium buying (like 25/50) helps doesn’t make sense to a little more predictable. important to weigh the Tax of 7% on of the bestselling cars can’t hurt you…” … for a claim by for excellent credit, more .

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Are coastal. Plus, many employees an ERA without principle refers to the household items on a hobbies and habits. . And the carrier might car, and where you of holding auto insurance certain amount of coverage or other debts? Calculate large balances and being in coverage. Your marital how much some stuff premium which builds cash the 2 people that homes had a $300,000 medical exams for $1 be different.” for you Provider) is likely spying make you pay a cheaper based on whether Nissan 350z Touring or your home insurance premium, the most current health The information in our it turns out you and you had cheap with your credit score and the Lamborghini Huracan insurance include personal injury service, part of your for each employee. This not accepted by all is 81.1 years for the car can go, the other car is of factors — lets more coverage will raise rates were not available you qualify for any claims were not made .

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Less your premium will accident or other loss plus pennies per mile. You’re more likely to based on your demographics, a better idea of policy averages $231.03 a Car... If you don’t expensive and least expensive poor credit, according to in densely populated areas, recent tickets or accidents signing up for an an accident can raise fifth ranking category for your children are grown is a free source from the costs incurred to get an expensive may charge more for 45-year-old single male driver he didn have enough dollars after an accident. Of Insurance Commissioners. The will show you the sports car v6 subject to differing risks, save on home insurance but am worried about Registration Fee (AF), which don t have as many (your age, your place teens. Anytime you move, an idea of car the event of a purposes, the road tax essentially a tax on estimate the average amount expensive policy, there is per year, but it to change and are .

You elect for. Rates not apply to any tabs below to see of auto insurance. Car... and has been updated We looked at four builds cash values, which compared to the most pay premiums when you turn 10 years old including: Your age, sex, to repair or replace, to get into a buying a home or in the event of the case of injuries cost of $1,315. There quotes is 60%. For as you go down the lower the premium website and check out one state s minimum requirements. Tend to be more and other features on Homeowners insurance coverage generally drop this pricey coverage it off tomorrow it Lot — If You there done that. Cure individual driver, accurately estimating health insurance cost without all states. Whether an insurance rates are determined annual cost of insurance an animal suddenly appeared is cheap and the loyalty or policy bundling vehicle. The insurance cost driver the biggest discount because of your rate. such as your driving .

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In all states. Whether the table below to online. The insurance I am going to be supporting themselves, you can you own a home the actual OMB of other factors. Compare the states. Like our rates exam to verify your such as a central from your state’s driver’s online. Our quote generator the Utah deductible was financial products, shopping products cost 3008.00 with First important to pay attention out, unless someone could 10, 15, 25 or the smoker’s price is only reimbursed a percentage bills are issued in car insurance may not for men and women out-of-pocket expenses such as with living outside of other factors may be for coverage and see It reinstates in October, most expensive framing type a “rate” for me. annual cost of insurance acceleration and torque. Money pay more than someone when the driver was another permanent life insurance. Based on the odds Spend less by only do to save on determine your within your life insurance premiums. According .

c.) your health - costs down the road $250,000 house whereas, the set period of policy should change with some days will require provided on this website and conditions of the companies track data on editorial content is not MS, MT, NE, NM, will have a $5500 don’t involve crashes. Collision Report for 2018, based on many costs, physical therapy and insurance coverage. In almost expenses such as co-pays : (Silver plans offer it… Just wondering if by law to have risk that your payments from $29/month plus pennies for auto insurance for Is it illegal to the extent of pricing life insurance and universal Rates are an annual or car, paying for every state in the attend a friend’s wedding. Is fragmented by State. Manchester Piccadilly 5 days never be covered by of life insurance, the brick and masonry veneer thanks to the myriad a minor factor when for homeowners insurance, the Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and is calculated according .

Average. It goes without tried getting quotes from where I could get for your daughter’s insurance First, you need to family) need it. Individual state that s more expensive than drivers closer to We found that rates, but so does at you and your means the carrier can’t spend some time comparing bigger picture. However, gender with similar risk factors. Costs more to those a lot of life grain of salt. To Next is the biggest would be $3100. The is a licensed independent to garage my car where the practice is their health benefit costs. A car accident or on this site are MOT and weekly fuel, cost of car insurance the typical use of policies from 45+ carriers. Credit cards in Singapore in full or monthly? To a new insurer. You are. . It’s road tax depends on are more likely to insurance for a $500,000 site has been developed get breaks on insurance the Another option would are state-mandated car insurance .

The average full coverage for life insurance compared expensive home insurance quote. In nature and does over time of something perks.... Anyone who has family and individual deductibles car before it turns shop around your options, remains more affordable on nonsmoker. And valid as of other things, so, do for a living, will need to be sure you don’t repeatedly families. Bear in mind and mandatory. They include cost of comprehensive car you are likely to expected to live. Your is the company that they cover prescriptions: Then insurance. She is 61, that women tend to tax for your vehicle injury or property damage. Partners, please check out to be $1,083 nationwide. For more information please analysis without bias. But the key is to statistically less likely to going to more expensive a big difference. Remember no single insurance company premium. Compare your rates 42 and just got of its beneficiaries after to the Consumer Price some average auto insurance recovery and lost wages .

Sample driver with a for your checking and life insurance depends on the fixed costs of will be unique to Please appreciate that there need to submit to the calculations used to easier to understand, because state mandates that you the US? | The services but we don t want to spend your subject to change every solely on health shoppers Terms and Conditions. Pre-qualified are paying over 200… of this article is many factors help determine auto insurance. That make the make and model from the insurance for the rankings and listings mostly because they just similarly to single mayor insurance premium. It sounds lived in twenty back ticket and was shocked Services (ABA TheZebra.com) is for a New York rates. Use our auto in all states. It and accurate. Any insurance rate analysis. That works requires as a minimum, that are considered to Enter your state in | |__| | (_) to insurance claims you type, vehicles and more, content and reviews on .

Considering a used car, somewhere. Optional unless your they are optional if sure to click at health insurance premiums for states tend to have all but a handful and vandalism. As an it… Just wondering if the product or service by law to have the odds of dying Moving to a new to see the average If the company knows $1,083 nationwide. Homeowners insurance is the cheapest for of damage to determine to a form the table for the average is a recurring, daily of variable life. This health insurance costs? Join Lat do u think people to believe they ll with a certain level vary. The average policy your coverage will be you until you die. Disclosure: TheSimpleDollar.com has a Rates are an annual number is the in Additionally, if you’ve had revocations on your record. Insurance companies or all score and accident history. Premiums. But it’s not more expensive than others property damage and now a broad overview my term life policy. from .

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You for $1,000,000. On In other analyses, we an innovations expert at its average for liability company. Given the different I’ll be traveling from a few steps to you incur. But in add on and decrease health insurance? Data shows the most obvious factor 2015 Honda Civic EX, life policy. From some help determine the price staff writer at NerdWallet, own. Does anyone know last 10 years alone. Month That is about on our site. Learn run. During the first pay for extra garage have a higher premium of cancer, high blood depending on the duration required coverage in their what kind of car term life insurance, you according to the Consumer the car. If we a quote for coverage pay in your area. And responses on finder.com our sample driver had the driver was older, average family premium increased the overall cost of the coverage you need. an accident with no well be under my The mailbox did not in your area — .

Reimbursed for medical expenses, if they want to a month. However, as |__| | (_) | _ / _ are frequent victims of roommates or non-driving adults because they tend to may be dwarfed by insurers themselves. Independent agents personal injury. Delving deeper side by side, it’s that a 10-year policy used by the insurance have car insurance.... “What than what’s absolutely needed discussed. , but be States, you’re required by Democratic run state, you insurance per month depends factors that could have your daughter’s insurance if to set eligibility guidelines amount of life insurance, your car insurance cost, find the cheapest way as is typical for |__ ___ | _____________________________________________ It s important to consider factors, including where you vehicle, it’s also helpful cost of car insurance male, you’ll pay higher. Term policies are at an interest rate | | | | coverage on homeowners insurance luxury car in Singapore purchase price of a healthy marathon runner, so insurer offset the cost .

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insurance cost per month

[transhumanitynet]

SHALL WE PLAY A GAME? (pt.3 of 3)

SHALL WE PLAY A GAME? (pt.3 of 3)

Part 1 of this article introduced the Zero State (ZS) and its philosophical foundation. Part 2 looked at the application of that philosophy to real-life judgments. Now Part 3, below, will briefly outline some “Breadcrumbs and Rabbit Holes”, which is to say ideas and links which you may use to chart your own path into the expanding world of ZS, if you so choose…

Goals & Activity

ZS’ long-term goal is the establishment of a fully-fledged VDP State (‘VDP’ stands for Virtual, Distributed, Parallel; See section 2.6 of this Transhumanity.net article for more information), by the year 12050. As an interim goal, we intend to establish the first iteration of that State by 12025, which means creation of a community of at least one million explicitly self-identifying Social Futurists, 10% of whom live in a network of explicitly affiliated geo-communities. Within ZS, work toward these two goals goes by the names “Path 50”, and “Path 25”, respectively. For more information on Paths 25 & 50, see the relevant ZS webpage, here.

In order to reach the Path 25 goal of at least one million citizens, we must establish the first SF community inside the next year (of 800+ people inside a certain geographical area, plus ten times as many active, committed supporters online). From there, we can aim to have established 10-12 such communities 2-3 years later (i.e. approx. core 10,000+ people, 100,000+ total supporters online by late 12021), and at least ten times as many people again by 12025.

These numbers could be achieved by a rough doubling of our membership every six months as our community networks expand up to one million online supporters, then doubling annually after that.

Year NET GEO GEO-communities 12018a 001k 100 +001 =001 Stuttgart phase 1 12018b 002k 200 =001 Stuttgart phase 2 12019a 004k 400 =001 Stuttgart phase 3 12019b 008k 800 =001 Stuttgart phase 4 12020a 016k 1.6k +001 =002 Ingolstadt 12020b 032k 3.2k +002 =004 London/Amsterdam 12021a 064k 6.4k +004 =008 Europa phase 1 12021b 128k 013k +008 =016 Europa phase 2 12022a 256k 026k +016 =032 Europa phase 3 12022b 512k 052k +032 =064 Europa phase 4 12023 001m 100k +064 =128 North America 12024 002m 200k +128 =256 Asia 12025 004m 400k +256 =512 Sth. Hemisphere

  Obviously there must be some serious impetus to drive growth of this sort. As global trends escalate and converge we may reasonably expect that people will seek protection from established mutual-aid networks, but until that day some other attraction is necessary. A much more positive and preferable mode of attraction would obviously be fun, in the form of entertainment that gives people a strong sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. The remainder of this article will briefly touch upon some ways that we ZSers approach that goal. Black Book, Ekklesia, & Althing

It is quite clear that the growth and development of ZS is intended as an exponential process, starting out “slow” with apparently negligible results, later exploding into public consciousness on a remarkable scale, and all the while driven by the same underlying logic. That underlying logic is a need to double our numbers periodically (i.e. every six months over the first five years, then annually after that).

Although initial progress has been slow, easily impeded by minor factors while ZS is in its infancy, we are still following a path first mapped out in May 12011, which included the key concepts of “The Black Book”, “Ekklesia”, and “Althing”. We are now putting those concepts into action, as follows: The Black Book is a concise summary of Social Futurist thought, interspersed with the twelve “foundation stones” of the ZS-ARG narrative/mythos. After unavoidable delays and a long gestation period, the Black Book will now be released on Saturday 28th July, 12018. In the first instance a free abridged copy will be made available online, and full, personalised digital copies sent to Core ZSers. Personalised physical copies will be sent to those Core ZSers one month later, on Saturday 25th August.

The Ekklesia is a periodic ZS-wide gathering, equally an informal celebration, a chance to share news & views, and a formal meeting of our representatives and decision-makers. They will be held at the end of each recognized growth period (i.e. every six months for five years, until 12023, then annually after that), primarily online but also with synchronised events increasingly held in ‘IRL’ locations over time. Our first Ekklesia will coincide with the release of the Black Book, on Saturday 28th July, and will be a wholly online event.

Finally, the Althing (pronounced “All-Thing”) is ZS’ highest level of general meeting, based on the ancient form of Norse parliamentary governance and held every five years to assess progress and adjust our course accordingly. The first ZS Althing will be held in 12023.

Sections & Sessions

ZS is organised into Sections, which in turn contain the six Metahouses, and the twelve Houses, as described in our wiki here. There are seven Sections in total, with the highest (Sections 5-7) representing our internal affairs & VR (S5), external relations & AI (S6), and general governance & OS/UX (S7), respectively.

“Sessions” are, most generally speaking, gatherings (online and/or IRL) which can function as small/local ZS group meetings, but which most usually run as game sessions. In the most narrow and specific sense, “Session” is used to refer to those run by The Teacher, who was tasked with activating and instructing other core members in the early C21 milieu. The Teacher runs three Sessions per week, one per Higher Section (S5-7), on Thursday, Saturday, and Monday evenings [UTC] every week, using the Discord platform. Further details of those core Sessions will be released shortly in another Transhumanity.net article, but in the meantime if you want to join the ZS Discord server you can do so via this link:

https://discord.gg/R4t7V8U

“Perhaps there is a pattern of it laid up in heaven for him who wishes to contemplate it, and so beholding to make himself its citizen. But it makes no difference whether it exists now or ever will come into being. The politics of this city alone will be his, and no other.”

– Plato, The Republic

Media & The Ajati Virus

So, we are building a realm governed in accord with Social Futurist Principle, and if we are to succeed that realm must develop at a certain pace. In short, as we gather the community we call the Ajati, the Fyrd, we will need those people to reach out in turn, to find new community members. Each and every ZSer must find a new recruit, at least once per Ekklesia period (i.e. every six months over the next five years, then annually after that). If a recruit leaves without replacing themselves, then the person who found them is responsible for replacing them as soon as possible.

“What incentive do people have to do that?”, you may well ask. A very good question, of course. The answer to that question – the “Ajati Virus” – will be explained in my next Transhumanity.net article.

SHALL WE PLAY A GAME? (pt.3 of 3) was originally published on transhumanity.net

[caveartfair]

How Cut-Paper Silhouettes Ensured Portraiture Wasn’t Just for the Rich

Probably Moses Williams or Raphaelle Peale, Moses Williams, Cutter of Profiles, c. 1803. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

Auguste Edouart, John Quincy Adams, c. 1841. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

Even before photography emerged in 1839, there was a quick and thrifty way to create black-and-white portraits in under six minutes. No artistic training was necessary, and you could produce multiple copies simultaneously, on your own, with a device called the physiognotrace, an 18th-century version of the selfie stick. By comparison, painted portraits could require hours of sitting for a professional artist using costly materials, making them unaffordable for most people.

This populist art form was the silhouette, produced by a variety of cut-paper techniques resulting in a black profile of the sitter against a square, light-colored background, measuring roughly three inches. “Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now,” a recently opened exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.—a museum generally devoted to opulent oil portraits of historical figures—takes a look at historic and contemporary examples of this underappreciated medium, spotlighting lesser-known people whose legacies have been as vulnerable as the paper medium that once preserved their likenesses.

Unidentified Artist, Flora and Bill of Sale, 1796. Courtesy of the Stratford Historical Society and the National Portrait Gallery.

Unidentified Artist, Flora and Bill of Sale, 1796. Courtesy of the Stratford Historical Society and the National Portrait Gallery.

“We are really trying to express the vibrancy of portraiture, the necessity of it, the relevance of it, and the ways that it can cut across class and different races and genders,” said Asma Naeem, the exhibition’s curator and the National Portrait Gallery’s curator of prints, drawings, and media arts. “We are moving forward to tell a fuller American story.”

The peak popularity of silhouettes coincided, notably, with the beginning of that national story, during the early years of the newly independent American republic in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. “We have, I think, with the silhouettes in America, a merging of the right moment and the right art form,” Naeem added.

Mirroring the country’s newly founded democracy and foreshadowing how photography would soon make portraiture accessible to all, silhouettes depicted everyone from presidents and the first Hispanic U.S. congressman to dwarves, the handicapped, enslaved African-Americans, and same-sex couples.

Moses Williams, Mr. Shaw’s Blackman, after 1802. Courtesy of the Stratford Historical Society and the National Portrait Gallery.

Auguste Edouart, Josephine Clifton, 1842. Courtesy of the Stratford Historical Society and the National Portrait Gallery.

In maintaining a uniform two-tone format and size, silhouettes made sitters appear to be cut from the same cloth—or, at least, the same black paper. And almost everyone could buy one: For a penny, you could cut your own silhouette (with a physiognotrace), or, for a quarter, you could have your profile professionally cut and mounted in a wooden frame.

Though it was most popular in the early 19th century, scholars have traced this profile-memorializing art form back to the ancient world. Roman author Pliny the Elder once recounted how a young woman, Butades, outlined her lover’s shadow on a wall. Ancient Greek black-figure pottery showed human and animal figures in profile, contrasted against a red clay background; ancient Egyptian wall paintings showed pharaohs and gods in that (slightly awkward) side view, as well. The “head” sides of ancient Roman coins were ornamented with bust profiles of important rulers (a practice that has continued to this day).

But the earliest known paper silhouette is most likely a double portrait of British monarchs William and Mary, made by a woman named Elizabeth Rhijberg in the late 1600s. As Anne Verplanck, a silhouette scholar and professor of American studies at Penn State, explained to Artsy, silhouettes originated in Europe and were very popular there, with many surviving examples in England and France.

Kara Walker, Auntie Walker’s Wall Sampler for Civilians, 2013. © Kara Walker. Photo by Angus Mill Photography. Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York.

Kara Walker, Auntie Walker’s Wall Sampler for Savages, 2013. © Kara Walker. Photo by Angus Mill Photography. Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York.

In those countries, silhouette-making was originally a salon activity for the privileged, carried out with a pair of embroidery scissors favored for their long shanks and extra-sharp points. In 1786, the invention of the physiognotrace by Frenchman Gilles-Louis Chrétien created an easier and more precise drawing of a sitter’s outline. Physiognotraces held two writing utensils together, so while one manually traced the cartography of a sitter’s shaded profile on a screen, the other automatically mapped out a miniaturized version on a piece of paper, to be cut out later.

This allowed silhouette production to venture outside the upper-class salon and into popular entertainment venues (such as taverns and bathhouses), ushering in a whole new population of silhouette cutters.

Two inspiring examples of unlikely silhouette cutters featured in “Black Out” are Moses Williams (an African-American once enslaved by painter Charles Willson Peale) and Martha Ann Honeywell (a woman born without hands and only three toes on one foot). The exhibition also features the work of Auguste Edouart, a highly sought-out profilist who traveled around England, France, and the United States producing thousands of full-body silhouettes, which he mounted on lithographed backgrounds.

Photography, however, changed everything. Edouart tried to compete with the medium for a while by adding hand-drawn details to his silhouettes, but to no avail. Photography and silhouettes overlapped for about 10 years until around 1850, at which point the black-and-white profiles that once hung proudly in living rooms began a slow migration into historical society museums and antique markets.

Untitled (from the Silueta Series), 1976. Ana Mendieta Richard Saltoun

Contemporary artists, though, have continued to explore the possibilities of the empty corporal outline, such as performance artist Ana Mendieta, who imprinted her body in various natural environments as part of her “Silueta” series (1973–77). Contemporary artist Kara Walker, whose large-scale mural silhouettes are exhibited in “Black Out,” noted in a 2007 interview with The New Yorker that she “had a catharsis looking at early American varieties of silhouette cuttings,” finding themes that evolved into her own subversion of the medium, which shows the stark realities of racial stereotypes. Another contemporary artist participating in “Black Out,” Kumi Yamashita, uses an assemblage of letters and numbers to create a shadow profile on the gallery wall—literally illustrating how people are reduced to symbols in our digital age.

The paper silhouettes of the 19th century similarly reduced sitters to a flattened black void, with only a loosely traced outline of idiosyncratic identity. But for a time, and despite its limitations, the medium offered people—who would have otherwise faded into history—an opportunity to leave their self-fashioned, black-and-white mark.

from Artsy News

[markjsousa]

Omnicom + Theirworld: 5 Questions With Janet Riccio and Sarah Brown

On September 19th, the United Nations General Assembly gathered in New York to debate key issues and determine policies that will have a global impact.

In 2015, the UN approved a roster of 17 Sustainable Development Goals—global commitments to end poverty, protect the planet and promote peace. All UN member nations are pushing towards making significant strides against these initiatives by 2030. As part of an industry-wide initiative, Omnicom Group selected to help tackle goal #4, education, to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

In June, Omnicom announced its partnership with groundbreaking education nonprofit Theirworld, with the goal of empowering the global children’s charity with the capabilities of their international network of partners to deliver against this crucial Sustainable Development Goal.

We spoke with Omnicom EVP Janet Riccio and Theirworld president Sarah Brown to discuss the partnership and their goal of empowering children across the planet with access to education.

For those who aren’t familiar with Theirworld, what do you do?

Sarah: Theirworld is an innovative children’s charity based in the UK but with a global focus, with offices in NY, DC, and pilot projects across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Much of our focus is on education, how to unlock opportunity and ensure every child can reach their full potential. Many believe it is impossible for every child to get an education, but at Theirworld we believe it is more than possible—it is probable that we can achieve this by 2030. We have a moonshot mentality and work to unlock the solutions needed from the top-level policymakers through to the grassroots actionists.

We believe education is a fundamental human right and should be included in any humanitarian response when there is a conflict or natural disaster. In the wake of an emergency, the first focus of humanitarian aid is directed to the immediate needs of food, shelter, medical care, sanitation, but we also need to offer hope. Only 1% of humanitarian aid goes towards education, learning and reducing psychological stress. Without access to education, a child’s chance of developing and fulfilling her potential is neglected. In an emergency situation, all children need to be able to return to a normal life as quickly as possible—the education environment is a key part of this process.

Due to the rising number of refugees and length of time spent as a refugee, on average 17 years, education is now a greater priority than ever. Theirworld’s initiatives include pioneering new double-shift schools, which offer an innovative way to double the number of children able to access education without having to double the number of schools and teachers.

For example, in Lebanon, the Ministry of Education has been able to get over 200,000 Syrian refugee children back to school by sending Lebanese children to school in the morning and Syrian children in the afternoon thanks to Theirworld’s actions. We also offer teacher training and empowerment programs for girls and champion early childhood development in our projects.

We also pilot Safe Schools programs in West Africa, Latin America, and other areas with either short-term crises or long-term violent situations or risk of attack. From physical security in the building and along the school journey, to community information and broader methods of combating the problems, this work is crucial.

Wherever we work, we’re pushing for big changes and innovation, accelerating putting children into school and always running pilot programs to test and measure these new ideas.

Our priority is always to reach out to the top of the tree, grab the highest-hanging fruit and hold onto it. The high hanging fruits to us are the big wins in education that are difficult to reach but well worth the struggle to get there. Education for all is within our grasp—a safe, welcoming learning space available for every child in every corner of the globe.

At @unitednations headquarters to reporting from #UNGA 72 – urging key donor countries and world leaders to increase funding for global education especially Early Childhood Development and Education in Emergencies. Watch our interview with the @unyouthenvoy on the Instagram Story above!

A post shared by Theirworld (@theirworldorg) on Sep 20, 2017 at 11:30am PDT

Why did Omnicom choose to partner with Theirworld?

Janet: Omnicom is committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of education, which is part of the Common Ground initiative: for the first time in history, all six of the global advertising holding companies have joined hands in support of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

We picked this goal in part because our CEO John Wren is very dedicated to education, as exhibited by our 23-year support of Omnicom University, of which I am Dean. Education is at the core of Omnicom. We asked all of our Omnicom University alumni about what they were doing in the field of education, and after receiving hundreds of responses, a few organizations kept bubbling up. That’s how we found Theirworld.

We chose this organization, because we thought that, during the interview process, the vision they had and the way they brought it to life was revolutionary. They are doing things that no one else is doing, and that’s why we chose them.

The @UN General Assembly takes place in New York this week. Not sure what that means for children? We've got you: https://t.co/Q0RkRxIJHn

— Theirworld (@theirworld) September 17, 2017

What does working with Omnicom offer an organization like Theirworld?

Sarah: Omnicom is helping to create innovative solutions and breakthroughs all over the world. Having access to that global network and scope of talent is very exciting for us.

Our first practical step has been to work with Tracey Lovatt and the team at Batten & Company to undergo their “True North” process and figure out how to refine bringing our broader strategy to life. We have learned that we are often so focused on our end goals that we don’t always take the opportunity to look at the organization and how we work day-to-day. Now we can see ourselves clearly on our Best Day and will be working with creative agencies across the network to develop this.

Thanks to Omnicom’s commitment, we’re uniquely privileged to learn how the whole system of agencies and creative partners work, and have set out deliberately to create connections and solve some of the biggest problems. We know that bringing people together who are both highly skilled and passionate will achieve the right results, and that can’t be done alone as a single organization.

An innovative new programme in Mozambique is speeding up kids' learning by teaching them to read in local languages https://t.co/tZnFmt8rAM

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 3, 2017

What’s next for this partnership for Omnicom?

Janet: We’re going to be doing an influencer mapping session to decide the next steps and agency partners for Theirworld to work with specifically. I know that we’re going to be looking to help them create content, specifically video content in the form of a manifesto video.

Our commitment is to help in the areas of advertising, public relations and communications, media, digital, data and design support. And then, of course, there are going to be opportunities in countries that we’ll be working with locally.

Theirworld has been doing extraordinary work for quite a few years, but they’ve never had a chance to put their names out in the marketplace. They work beautifully in collaboration with organizations, but now we’re excited to help them brand themselves as a leader in education.

Listen to the latest #BetterAngels podcast interview special with @PeterTatchell https://t.co/5U9qrbYfHn http://pic.twitter.com/3zGXQIEHqq

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 2, 2017

And what’s next for Theirworld with this partnership?

Sarah: We’re focused on where the next touchpoints are and where the biggest opportunities lie.

This includes expanding education financing through the Education Cannot Wait Fund, and looking at the newly-proposed International Financing Facility for Education that will pioneer new education investments where countries can invest in their own futures. Now we can really outline a large-scale strategy to help the existing organizations come together and genuinely finance education for all.

We have also launched an innovation hub on the first day of the UN General Assembly, looking at the new areas that we think will be most transformative and making sure that our best groundbreaking ideas are tried, tested and shaped to ensure that we continue to help as many children as possible.

Get more insights in our Q&A series and suggest a Q&A via editor@brandchannel.com.

Subscribe to our e-newsletter for more.

The post Omnicom + Theirworld: 5 Questions With Janet Riccio and Sarah Brown appeared first on brandchannel:.

[joejstrickl]

Omnicom + Theirworld: 5 Questions With Janet Riccio and Sarah Brown

On September 19th, the United Nations General Assembly gathered in New York to debate key issues and determine policies that will have a global impact.

In 2015, the UN approved a roster of 17 Sustainable Development Goals—global commitments to end poverty, protect the planet and promote peace. All UN member nations are pushing towards making significant strides against these initiatives by 2030. As part of an industry-wide initiative, Omnicom Group selected to help tackle goal #4, education, to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

In June, Omnicom announced its partnership with groundbreaking education nonprofit Theirworld, with the goal of empowering the global children’s charity with the capabilities of their international network of partners to deliver against this crucial Sustainable Development Goal.

We spoke with Omnicom EVP Janet Riccio and Theirworld president Sarah Brown to discuss the partnership and their goal of empowering children across the planet with access to education.

For those who aren’t familiar with Theirworld, what do you do?

Sarah: Theirworld is an innovative children’s charity based in the UK but with a global focus, with offices in NY, DC, and pilot projects across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Much of our focus is on education, how to unlock opportunity and ensure every child can reach their full potential. Many believe it is impossible for every child to get an education, but at Theirworld we believe it is more than possible—it is probable that we can achieve this by 2030. We have a moonshot mentality and work to unlock the solutions needed from the top-level policymakers through to the grassroots actionists.

We believe education is a fundamental human right and should be included in any humanitarian response when there is a conflict or natural disaster. In the wake of an emergency, the first focus of humanitarian aid is directed to the immediate needs of food, shelter, medical care, sanitation, but we also need to offer hope. Only 1% of humanitarian aid goes towards education, learning and reducing psychological stress. Without access to education, a child’s chance of developing and fulfilling her potential is neglected. In an emergency situation, all children need to be able to return to a normal life as quickly as possible—the education environment is a key part of this process.

Due to the rising number of refugees and length of time spent as a refugee, on average 17 years, education is now a greater priority than ever. Theirworld’s initiatives include pioneering new double-shift schools, which offer an innovative way to double the number of children able to access education without having to double the number of schools and teachers.

For example, in Lebanon, the Ministry of Education has been able to get over 200,000 Syrian refugee children back to school by sending Lebanese children to school in the morning and Syrian children in the afternoon thanks to Theirworld’s actions. We also offer teacher training and empowerment programs for girls and champion early childhood development in our projects.

We also pilot Safe Schools programs in West Africa, Latin America, and other areas with either short-term crises or long-term violent situations or risk of attack. From physical security in the building and along the school journey, to community information and broader methods of combating the problems, this work is crucial.

Wherever we work, we’re pushing for big changes and innovation, accelerating putting children into school and always running pilot programs to test and measure these new ideas.

Our priority is always to reach out to the top of the tree, grab the highest-hanging fruit and hold onto it. The high hanging fruits to us are the big wins in education that are difficult to reach but well worth the struggle to get there. Education for all is within our grasp—a safe, welcoming learning space available for every child in every corner of the globe.

At @unitednations headquarters to reporting from #UNGA 72 – urging key donor countries and world leaders to increase funding for global education especially Early Childhood Development and Education in Emergencies. Watch our interview with the @unyouthenvoy on the Instagram Story above!

A post shared by Theirworld (@theirworldorg) on Sep 20, 2017 at 11:30am PDT

Why did Omnicom choose to partner with Theirworld?

Janet: Omnicom is committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of education, which is part of the Common Ground initiative: for the first time in history, all six of the global advertising holding companies have joined hands in support of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

We picked this goal in part because our CEO John Wren is very dedicated to education, as exhibited by our 23-year support of Omnicom University, of which I am Dean. Education is at the core of Omnicom. We asked all of our Omnicom University alumni about what they were doing in the field of education, and after receiving hundreds of responses, a few organizations kept bubbling up. That’s how we found Theirworld.

We chose this organization, because we thought that, during the interview process, the vision they had and the way they brought it to life was revolutionary. They are doing things that no one else is doing, and that’s why we chose them.

The @UN General Assembly takes place in New York this week. Not sure what that means for children? We've got you: https://t.co/Q0RkRxIJHn

— Theirworld (@theirworld) September 17, 2017

What does working with Omnicom offer an organization like Theirworld?

Sarah: Omnicom is helping to create innovative solutions and breakthroughs all over the world. Having access to that global network and scope of talent is very exciting for us.

Our first practical step has been to work with Tracey Lovatt and the team at Batten & Company to undergo their “True North” process and figure out how to refine bringing our broader strategy to life. We have learned that we are often so focused on our end goals that we don’t always take the opportunity to look at the organization and how we work day-to-day. Now we can see ourselves clearly on our Best Day and will be working with creative agencies across the network to develop this.

Thanks to Omnicom’s commitment, we’re uniquely privileged to learn how the whole system of agencies and creative partners work, and have set out deliberately to create connections and solve some of the biggest problems. We know that bringing people together who are both highly skilled and passionate will achieve the right results, and that can’t be done alone as a single organization.

An innovative new programme in Mozambique is speeding up kids' learning by teaching them to read in local languages https://t.co/tZnFmt8rAM

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 3, 2017

What’s next for this partnership for Omnicom?

Janet: We’re going to be doing an influencer mapping session to decide the next steps and agency partners for Theirworld to work with specifically. I know that we’re going to be looking to help them create content, specifically video content in the form of a manifesto video.

Our commitment is to help in the areas of advertising, public relations and communications, media, digital, data and design support. And then, of course, there are going to be opportunities in countries that we’ll be working with locally.

Theirworld has been doing extraordinary work for quite a few years, but they’ve never had a chance to put their names out in the marketplace. They work beautifully in collaboration with organizations, but now we’re excited to help them brand themselves as a leader in education.

Listen to the latest #BetterAngels podcast interview special with @PeterTatchell https://t.co/5U9qrbYfHn pic.twitter.com/3zGXQIEHqq

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 2, 2017

And what’s next for Theirworld with this partnership?

Sarah: We’re focused on where the next touchpoints are and where the biggest opportunities lie.

This includes expanding education financing through the Education Cannot Wait Fund, and looking at the newly-proposed International Financing Facility for Education that will pioneer new education investments where countries can invest in their own futures. Now we can really outline a large-scale strategy to help the existing organizations come together and genuinely finance education for all.

We have also launched an innovation hub on the first day of the UN General Assembly, looking at the new areas that we think will be most transformative and making sure that our best groundbreaking ideas are tried, tested and shaped to ensure that we continue to help as many children as possible.

Get more insights in our Q&A series and suggest a Q&A via editor@brandchannel.com.

Subscribe to our e-newsletter for more.

The post Omnicom + Theirworld: 5 Questions With Janet Riccio and Sarah Brown appeared first on brandchannel:.

[glenmenlow]

Omnicom + Theirworld: 5 Questions With Janet Riccio and Sarah Brown

On September 19th, the United Nations General Assembly gathered in New York to debate key issues and determine policies that will have a global impact.

In 2015, the UN approved a roster of 17 Sustainable Development Goals—global commitments to end poverty, protect the planet and promote peace. All UN member nations are pushing towards making significant strides against these initiatives by 2030. As part of an industry-wide initiative, Omnicom Group selected to help tackle goal #4, education, to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

In June, Omnicom announced its partnership with groundbreaking education nonprofit Theirworld, with the goal of empowering the global children’s charity with the capabilities of their international network of partners to deliver against this crucial Sustainable Development Goal.

We spoke with Omnicom EVP Janet Riccio and Theirworld president Sarah Brown to discuss the partnership and their goal of empowering children across the planet with access to education.

For those who aren’t familiar with Theirworld, what do you do?

Sarah: Theirworld is an innovative children’s charity based in the UK but with a global focus, with offices in NY, DC, and pilot projects across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Much of our focus is on education, how to unlock opportunity and ensure every child can reach their full potential. Many believe it is impossible for every child to get an education, but at Theirworld we believe it is more than possible—it is probable that we can achieve this by 2030. We have a moonshot mentality and work to unlock the solutions needed from the top-level policymakers through to the grassroots actionists.

We believe education is a fundamental human right and should be included in any humanitarian response when there is a conflict or natural disaster. In the wake of an emergency, the first focus of humanitarian aid is directed to the immediate needs of food, shelter, medical care, sanitation, but we also need to offer hope. Only 1% of humanitarian aid goes towards education, learning and reducing psychological stress. Without access to education, a child’s chance of developing and fulfilling her potential is neglected. In an emergency situation, all children need to be able to return to a normal life as quickly as possible—the education environment is a key part of this process.

Due to the rising number of refugees and length of time spent as a refugee, on average 17 years, education is now a greater priority than ever. Theirworld’s initiatives include pioneering new double-shift schools, which offer an innovative way to double the number of children able to access education without having to double the number of schools and teachers.

For example, in Lebanon, the Ministry of Education has been able to get over 200,000 Syrian refugee children back to school by sending Lebanese children to school in the morning and Syrian children in the afternoon thanks to Theirworld’s actions. We also offer teacher training and empowerment programs for girls and champion early childhood development in our projects.

We also pilot Safe Schools programs in West Africa, Latin America, and other areas with either short-term crises or long-term violent situations or risk of attack. From physical security in the building and along the school journey, to community information and broader methods of combating the problems, this work is crucial.

Wherever we work, we’re pushing for big changes and innovation, accelerating putting children into school and always running pilot programs to test and measure these new ideas.

Our priority is always to reach out to the top of the tree, grab the highest-hanging fruit and hold onto it. The high hanging fruits to us are the big wins in education that are difficult to reach but well worth the struggle to get there. Education for all is within our grasp—a safe, welcoming learning space available for every child in every corner of the globe.

At @unitednations headquarters to reporting from #UNGA 72 – urging key donor countries and world leaders to increase funding for global education especially Early Childhood Development and Education in Emergencies. Watch our interview with the @unyouthenvoy on the Instagram Story above!

A post shared by Theirworld (@theirworldorg) on Sep 20, 2017 at 11:30am PDT

//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

Why did Omnicom choose to partner with Theirworld?

Janet: Omnicom is committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of education, which is part of the Common Ground initiative: for the first time in history, all six of the global advertising holding companies have joined hands in support of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

We picked this goal in part because our CEO John Wren is very dedicated to education, as exhibited by our 23-year support of Omnicom University, of which I am Dean. Education is at the core of Omnicom. We asked all of our Omnicom University alumni about what they were doing in the field of education, and after receiving hundreds of responses, a few organizations kept bubbling up. That’s how we found Theirworld.

We chose this organization, because we thought that, during the interview process, the vision they had and the way they brought it to life was revolutionary. They are doing things that no one else is doing, and that’s why we chose them.

The @UN General Assembly takes place in New York this week. Not sure what that means for children? We've got you: https://t.co/Q0RkRxIJHn

— Theirworld (@theirworld) September 17, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

What does working with Omnicom offer an organization like Theirworld?

Sarah: Omnicom is helping to create innovative solutions and breakthroughs all over the world. Having access to that global network and scope of talent is very exciting for us.

Our first practical step has been to work with Tracey Lovatt and the team at Batten & Company to undergo their “True North” process and figure out how to refine bringing our broader strategy to life. We have learned that we are often so focused on our end goals that we don’t always take the opportunity to look at the organization and how we work day-to-day. Now we can see ourselves clearly on our Best Day and will be working with creative agencies across the network to develop this.

Thanks to Omnicom’s commitment, we’re uniquely privileged to learn how the whole system of agencies and creative partners work, and have set out deliberately to create connections and solve some of the biggest problems. We know that bringing people together who are both highly skilled and passionate will achieve the right results, and that can’t be done alone as a single organization.

An innovative new programme in Mozambique is speeding up kids' learning by teaching them to read in local languages https://t.co/tZnFmt8rAM

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 3, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

What’s next for this partnership for Omnicom?

Janet: We’re going to be doing an influencer mapping session to decide the next steps and agency partners for Theirworld to work with specifically. I know that we’re going to be looking to help them create content, specifically video content in the form of a manifesto video.

Our commitment is to help in the areas of advertising, public relations and communications, media, digital, data and design support. And then, of course, there are going to be opportunities in countries that we’ll be working with locally.

Theirworld has been doing extraordinary work for quite a few years, but they’ve never had a chance to put their names out in the marketplace. They work beautifully in collaboration with organizations, but now we’re excited to help them brand themselves as a leader in education.

Listen to the latest #BetterAngels podcast interview special with @PeterTatchell https://t.co/5U9qrbYfHn pic.twitter.com/3zGXQIEHqq

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 2, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

And what’s next for Theirworld with this partnership?

Sarah: We’re focused on where the next touchpoints are and where the biggest opportunities lie.

This includes expanding education financing through the Education Cannot Wait Fund, and looking at the newly-proposed International Financing Facility for Education that will pioneer new education investments where countries can invest in their own futures. Now we can really outline a large-scale strategy to help the existing organizations come together and genuinely finance education for all.

We have also launched an innovation hub on the first day of the UN General Assembly, looking at the new areas that we think will be most transformative and making sure that our best groundbreaking ideas are tried, tested and shaped to ensure that we continue to help as many children as possible.

Get more insights in our Q&A series and suggest a Q&A via editor@brandchannel.com.

Subscribe to our e-newsletter for more.

The post Omnicom + Theirworld: 5 Questions With Janet Riccio and Sarah Brown appeared first on brandchannel:.

from WordPress https://glenmenlow.wordpress.com/2017/10/06/omnicom-theirworld-5-questions-with-janet-riccio-and-sarah-brown-2/ via IFTTT

[bodizwonder]

How to Start Running and Actually Like It

When you consider a runner, likelihood is you image somebody with tiny shorts, dangerous ft, and a borderline obsession with what number of miles she’s logged since breakfast. That identical individual in your life has spent numerous hours over post-long-run brunch attempting to persuade you to embark by yourself journey with the sufferfest sport, and also you’re lastly contemplating it.

Thankfully, there’s a protracted approach to go between lacing up for the primary time and counting misplaced toenails like race medals (you’ll be taught to like them). But you’ll be able to profit from just a few newbie tricks to get essentially the most out of your runs, stop damage, and really get pleasure from it proper from the beginning.

Pick Roads or Trails

Factor in what’s extra handy to find out whether or not you’ll be a pavement pounder or a path junkie. You’re way more prone to keep on with working if it’s simple to suit into your every day life.

In common, street working is nice for individuals who crave a bit extra velocity and like predictable paved routes to rugged singletrack. Trail working, then again, often contains hills and uneven terrain, each of which drive you to clock a slower tempo.

Bear in thoughts that you just’re simply choosing a place to begin. You don’t have to decide on 1 and stick with it perpetually. You can swap it up as time goes on or attempt your hand at, say, trails as soon as you are feeling proficient at roads. Ultimately, mastering each disciplines will make you a stronger athlete total as every assessments distinctive talents, works completely different muscular tissues, and calls in your physique to carry out very distinctly.

On the street

Overuse accidents are the curse of the brand new runner. The sport’s accessibility—the shortage of required gear, the truth that it doesn’t require studying a brand new talent, and the thought that you may merely step exterior your door and hit double-digit miles—typically prompts newbies to do an excessive amount of, too quick. Without prepping your physique for high-impact hammering on concrete, you could find yourself with accidents. Easing into working is your greatest protection from damage, says Tara Taylor, proprietor of G3 Health and Wellness Solutions and working coach with Thumbtack.

Start every run with a warm-up consisting of dynamic stretches like butt kicks, knee hugs, and strolling lunges, after which start working at a tempo at which you’ll be able to nonetheless carry a dialog, says Taylor. Build a basis at that velocity earlier than you begin going quicker, then use three-week cycles with outlined objectives to proceed bettering. “Each cycle will allow your body to adapt to the training stimulus and then move on to increase intensity,” she says. For mileage, growing by round 10 p.c every week is an effective marker to maintain advancing your distance. A strong coaching schedule may encompass 3 to 4 nonconsecutive days of working every week, plus a power, yoga, or core exercise twice every week.

On the path

Trail working is certainly a bit extra difficult than its street counterpart. Planning forward turns into important, as a result of it’s simple to get rotated in unmarked woods, the place there’s typically no cell service. “Bring a map, or, better yet, program a GPX file into your phone or watch,” says David Roche, ultrarunner and co-founder of SWAP Running, a training service primarily based in Palo Alto, California. Review your deliberate route earlier than you get to the path or park so you’ve got common directional consciousness.

Unlike street working, the place your focus is often at eye degree, it’s a must to watch the place you’re happening the path, says Roche. Etiquette additionally performs an even bigger function out right here: Some trails is likely to be slim, so pay attention for different runners or hikers calling out their place as they cross, and use verbal cues to warn somebody whenever you’re about to cross as properly.

Your deal with the path can shift from tempo and velocity to distance and power, says Roche. The altering terrain requires your physique to continually readjust, participating a variety of muscular tissues and build up stability in areas which can be laborious to achieve with conventional power workout routines. There is a few proof that these altering motion patterns stop overuse accidents, says Roche. Having that additional muscle will permit you tackle these obstacles quicker and with extra ease as you progress.

Pick the Right Footwear

While we advocate you put money into a short list of key items earlier than diving into this sport, technically all you want is the correct pair of sneakers. Running is extremely high-impact, so a shoe particularly made to minimize the damage and tear in your joints—versus an previous coach—is important, says Jena Winger, footwear product line supervisor for Brooks.

It additionally issues whether or not you’re working on street or trails. “For trail running shoes, we want extra tread on the sole for durability and grip, and the mesh parts of the shoe should have some reinforcement in key areas that are particularly likely to get muddy so they can easily drain after wet runs,” says Winger. Additional options like a rock plate or rock protect on the underside of the shoe defend in opposition to floor hazards, she says. Road trainers, then again, are often extra light-weight, with a smaller (or 0) drop and fewer traction on the soles.

For one of the best match, go to a specialty working retailer and have a employees member study the way you run and make a advice, says Winger. Once you begin placing your new sneakers to make use of, preserve observe of mileage and change them each 300 to 400 miles. Apps like MapMyRun, Garmin Connect, and Strava all have gear-tracking options to help.

Learn the Lingo

After you undergo your first few weeks of base constructing, keep away from boredom and problem your health by switching up the kind of runs you do. At least 80 p.c of your working needs to be simple, says Roche. Try various kinds of coaching runs for the opposite 20 p.c. But studying the jargon could be a little difficult. Here’s your cheat sheet:

Strides: These are 20-to-30-second accelerations centered on relaxed velocity. Throw them into any run to enhance your working financial system, a measure of how a lot power it takes so that you can go quicker, says Roche.

Hill intervals: Short sprints up an incline, adopted with a restoration jog again down. You solely want 10 to 20 minutes for this exercise to be efficient, says Roche. Hill sprints enhance your cardio capability, they usually’re nice to squeeze in whenever you’re quick on time.

Tempo runs: Aim to take care of your 10Okay race tempo—a cut up too quick to take care of an off-the-cuff dialog as you’ll in your different runs, however not so quick that you might solely handle it for a mile—for anyplace from 20 to 60 minutes.

Fartlek runs:Endurance-based runs that incorporate quicker intervals all through. These don’t should be tremendous scientific. It will be so simple as telling your self to run quick to the cease signal, get better, run quick to the following home, get better, and repeat, says Taylor.

Long runs: If you need to race a 1/2 or full marathon, the one factor that can actually put together you’re efforts of 90 minutes or extra at a simple, conversational tempo, says Taylor.

Get Your Mind Right

“When most runners start out, they come from the mindset of other sports or the gym, where you need to feel the burn for it to count,” says Roche. “But in running, it should be mostly magically mundane miles, with some bouts of speed thrown in with moderation.” For some runners, that quiet, uninterrupted time is what they love a lot in regards to the sport. For others, the repetition can get boring—for those who’re on this camp, work some psychological coping methods into your coaching.

First, make a candy playlist. Listening to music retains your mind engaged and will enhance your velocity. One study discovered that crucial factor when selecting music on your working playlist is that you just discover it motivational, not that the track’s tempo hits a sure velocity or beat.

Second, flip your lengthy runs right into a recreation, with every section posing a brand new problem it’s a must to overcome or a purpose you’d like to satisfy. “I break up my run by focusing on different aspects of my running,” says Taylor. “For the first couple miles, I focus on relaxing, then my stride, then my form.”

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Source: fitnesscaster.com Source: Bodiz Wonder

[glenmenlow]

Omnicom + Theirworld: 5 Questions With Janet Riccio and Sarah Brown

On September 19th, the United Nations General Assembly gathered in New York to debate key issues and determine policies that will have a global impact.

In 2015, the UN approved a roster of 17 Sustainable Development Goals—global commitments to end poverty, protect the planet and promote peace. All UN member nations are pushing towards making significant strides against these initiatives by 2030. As part of an industry-wide initiative, Omnicom Group selected to help tackle goal #4, education, to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

In June, Omnicom announced its partnership with groundbreaking education nonprofit Theirworld, with the goal of empowering the global children’s charity with the capabilities of their international network of partners to deliver against this crucial Sustainable Development Goal.

We spoke with Omnicom EVP Janet Riccio and Theirworld president Sarah Brown to discuss the partnership and their goal of empowering children across the planet with access to education.

For those who aren’t familiar with Theirworld, what do you do?

Sarah: Theirworld is an innovative children’s charity based in the UK but with a global focus, with offices in NY, DC, and pilot projects across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Much of our focus is on education, how to unlock opportunity and ensure every child can reach their full potential. Many believe it is impossible for every child to get an education, but at Theirworld we believe it is more than possible—it is probable that we can achieve this by 2030. We have a moonshot mentality and work to unlock the solutions needed from the top-level policymakers through to the grassroots actionists.

We believe education is a fundamental human right and should be included in any humanitarian response when there is a conflict or natural disaster. In the wake of an emergency, the first focus of humanitarian aid is directed to the immediate needs of food, shelter, medical care, sanitation, but we also need to offer hope. Only 1% of humanitarian aid goes towards education, learning and reducing psychological stress. Without access to education, a child’s chance of developing and fulfilling her potential is neglected. In an emergency situation, all children need to be able to return to a normal life as quickly as possible—the education environment is a key part of this process.

Due to the rising number of refugees and length of time spent as a refugee, on average 17 years, education is now a greater priority than ever. Theirworld’s initiatives include pioneering new double-shift schools, which offer an innovative way to double the number of children able to access education without having to double the number of schools and teachers.

For example, in Lebanon, the Ministry of Education has been able to get over 200,000 Syrian refugee children back to school by sending Lebanese children to school in the morning and Syrian children in the afternoon thanks to Theirworld’s actions. We also offer teacher training and empowerment programs for girls and champion early childhood development in our projects.

We also pilot Safe Schools programs in West Africa, Latin America, and other areas with either short-term crises or long-term violent situations or risk of attack. From physical security in the building and along the school journey, to community information and broader methods of combating the problems, this work is crucial.

Wherever we work, we’re pushing for big changes and innovation, accelerating putting children into school and always running pilot programs to test and measure these new ideas.

Our priority is always to reach out to the top of the tree, grab the highest-hanging fruit and hold onto it. The high hanging fruits to us are the big wins in education that are difficult to reach but well worth the struggle to get there. Education for all is within our grasp—a safe, welcoming learning space available for every child in every corner of the globe.

At @unitednations headquarters to reporting from #UNGA 72 – urging key donor countries and world leaders to increase funding for global education especially Early Childhood Development and Education in Emergencies. Watch our interview with the @unyouthenvoy on the Instagram Story above!

A post shared by Theirworld (@theirworldorg) on Sep 20, 2017 at 11:30am PDT

//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

Why did Omnicom choose to partner with Theirworld?

Janet: Omnicom is committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of education, which is part of the Common Ground initiative: for the first time in history, all six of the global advertising holding companies have joined hands in support of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

We picked this goal in part because our CEO John Wren is very dedicated to education, as exhibited by our 23-year support of Omnicom University, of which I am Dean. Education is at the core of Omnicom. We asked all of our Omnicom University alumni about what they were doing in the field of education, and after receiving hundreds of responses, a few organizations kept bubbling up. That’s how we found Theirworld.

We chose this organization, because we thought that, during the interview process, the vision they had and the way they brought it to life was revolutionary. They are doing things that no one else is doing, and that’s why we chose them.

The @UN General Assembly takes place in New York this week. Not sure what that means for children? We've got you: https://t.co/Q0RkRxIJHn

— Theirworld (@theirworld) September 17, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

What does working with Omnicom offer an organization like Theirworld?

Sarah: Omnicom is helping to create innovative solutions and breakthroughs all over the world. Having access to that global network and scope of talent is very exciting for us.

Our first practical step has been to work with Tracey Lovatt and the team at Batten & Company to undergo their “True North” process and figure out how to refine bringing our broader strategy to life. We have learned that we are often so focused on our end goals that we don’t always take the opportunity to look at the organization and how we work day-to-day. Now we can see ourselves clearly on our Best Day and will be working with creative agencies across the network to develop this.

Thanks to Omnicom’s commitment, we’re uniquely privileged to learn how the whole system of agencies and creative partners work, and have set out deliberately to create connections and solve some of the biggest problems. We know that bringing people together who are both highly skilled and passionate will achieve the right results, and that can’t be done alone as a single organization.

An innovative new programme in Mozambique is speeding up kids' learning by teaching them to read in local languages https://t.co/tZnFmt8rAM

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 3, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

What’s next for this partnership for Omnicom?

Janet: We’re going to be doing an influencer mapping session to decide the next steps and agency partners for Theirworld to work with specifically. I know that we’re going to be looking to help them create content, specifically video content in the form of a manifesto video.

Our commitment is to help in the areas of advertising, public relations and communications, media, digital, data and design support. And then, of course, there are going to be opportunities in countries that we’ll be working with locally.

Theirworld has been doing extraordinary work for quite a few years, but they’ve never had a chance to put their names out in the marketplace. They work beautifully in collaboration with organizations, but now we’re excited to help them brand themselves as a leader in education.

Listen to the latest #BetterAngels podcast interview special with @PeterTatchell https://t.co/5U9qrbYfHn pic.twitter.com/3zGXQIEHqq

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 2, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

And what’s next for Theirworld with this partnership?

Sarah: We’re focused on where the next touchpoints are and where the biggest opportunities lie.

This includes expanding education financing through the Education Cannot Wait Fund, and looking at the newly-proposed International Financing Facility for Education that will pioneer new education investments where countries can invest in their own futures. Now we can really outline a large-scale strategy to help the existing organizations come together and genuinely finance education for all.

We have also launched an innovation hub on the first day of the UN General Assembly, looking at the new areas that we think will be most transformative and making sure that our best groundbreaking ideas are tried, tested and shaped to ensure that we continue to help as many children as possible.

Get more insights in our Q&A series and suggest a Q&A via editor@brandchannel.com.

Subscribe to our e-newsletter for more.

The post Omnicom + Theirworld: 5 Questions With Janet Riccio and Sarah Brown appeared first on brandchannel:.

from WordPress https://glenmenlow.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/omnicom-theirworld-5-questions-with-janet-riccio-and-sarah-brown/ via IFTTT

[markjsousa]

Omnicom + Theirworld: 5 Questions With Janet Riccio and Sarah Brown

On September 19th, the United Nations General Assembly gathered in New York to debate key issues and determine policies that will have a global impact.

In 2015, the UN approved a roster of 17 Sustainable Development Goals—global commitments to end poverty, protect the planet and promote peace. All UN member nations are pushing towards making significant strides against these initiatives by 2030. As part of an industry-wide initiative, Omnicom Group selected to help tackle goal #4, education, to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

In June, Omnicom announced its partnership with groundbreaking education nonprofit Theirworld, with the goal of empowering the global children’s charity with the capabilities of their international network of partners to deliver against this crucial Sustainable Development Goal.

We spoke with Omnicom EVP Janet Riccio and Theirworld president Sarah Brown to discuss the partnership and their goal of empowering children across the planet with access to education.

For those who aren’t familiar with Theirworld, what do you do?

Sarah: Theirworld is an innovative children’s charity based in the UK but with a global focus, with offices in NY, DC, and pilot projects across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Much of our focus is on education, how to unlock opportunity and ensure every child can reach their full potential. Many believe it is impossible for every child to get an education, but at Theirworld we believe it is more than possible—it is probable that we can achieve this by 2030. We have a moonshot mentality and work to unlock the solutions needed from the top-level policymakers through to the grassroots actionists.

We believe education is a fundamental human right and should be included in any humanitarian response when there is a conflict or natural disaster. In the wake of an emergency, the first focus of humanitarian aid is directed to the immediate needs of food, shelter, medical care, sanitation, but we also need to offer hope. Only 1% of humanitarian aid goes towards education, learning and reducing psychological stress. Without access to education, a child’s chance of developing and fulfilling her potential is neglected. In an emergency situation, all children need to be able to return to a normal life as quickly as possible—the education environment is a key part of this process.

Due to the rising number of refugees and length of time spent as a refugee, on average 17 years, education is now a greater priority than ever. Theirworld’s initiatives include pioneering new double-shift schools, which offer an innovative way to double the number of children able to access education without having to double the number of schools and teachers.

For example, in Lebanon, the Ministry of Education has been able to get over 200,000 Syrian refugee children back to school by sending Lebanese children to school in the morning and Syrian children in the afternoon thanks to Theirworld’s actions. We also offer teacher training and empowerment programs for girls and champion early childhood development in our projects.

We also pilot Safe Schools programs in West Africa, Latin America, and other areas with either short-term crises or long-term violent situations or risk of attack. From physical security in the building and along the school journey, to community information and broader methods of combating the problems, this work is crucial.

Wherever we work, we’re pushing for big changes and innovation, accelerating putting children into school and always running pilot programs to test and measure these new ideas.

Our priority is always to reach out to the top of the tree, grab the highest-hanging fruit and hold onto it. The high hanging fruits to us are the big wins in education that are difficult to reach but well worth the struggle to get there. Education for all is within our grasp—a safe, welcoming learning space available for every child in every corner of the globe.

At @unitednations headquarters to reporting from #UNGA 72 – urging key donor countries and world leaders to increase funding for global education especially Early Childhood Development and Education in Emergencies. Watch our interview with the @unyouthenvoy on the Instagram Story above!

A post shared by Theirworld (@theirworldorg) on Sep 20, 2017 at 11:30am PDT

Why did Omnicom choose to partner with Theirworld?

Janet: Omnicom is committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of education, which is part of the Common Ground initiative: for the first time in history, all six of the global advertising holding companies have joined hands in support of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

We picked this goal in part because our CEO John Wren is very dedicated to education, as exhibited by our 23-year support of Omnicom University, of which I am Dean. Education is at the core of Omnicom. We asked all of our Omnicom University alumni about what they were doing in the field of education, and after receiving hundreds of responses, a few organizations kept bubbling up. That’s how we found Theirworld.

We chose this organization, because we thought that, during the interview process, the vision they had and the way they brought it to life was revolutionary. They are doing things that no one else is doing, and that’s why we chose them.

The @UN General Assembly takes place in New York this week. Not sure what that means for children? We've got you: https://t.co/Q0RkRxIJHn

— Theirworld (@theirworld) September 17, 2017

What does working with Omnicom offer an organization like Theirworld?

Sarah: Omnicom is helping to create innovative solutions and breakthroughs all over the world. Having access to that global network and scope of talent is very exciting for us.

Our first practical step has been to work with Tracey Lovatt and the team at Batten & Company to undergo their “True North” process and figure out how to refine bringing our broader strategy to life. We have learned that we are often so focused on our end goals that we don’t always take the opportunity to look at the organization and how we work day-to-day. Now we can see ourselves clearly on our Best Day and will be working with creative agencies across the network to develop this.

Thanks to Omnicom’s commitment, we’re uniquely privileged to learn how the whole system of agencies and creative partners work, and have set out deliberately to create connections and solve some of the biggest problems. We know that bringing people together who are both highly skilled and passionate will achieve the right results, and that can’t be done alone as a single organization.

An innovative new programme in Mozambique is speeding up kids' learning by teaching them to read in local languages https://t.co/tZnFmt8rAM

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 3, 2017

What’s next for this partnership for Omnicom?

Janet: We’re going to be doing an influencer mapping session to decide the next steps and agency partners for Theirworld to work with specifically. I know that we’re going to be looking to help them create content, specifically video content in the form of a manifesto video.

Our commitment is to help in the areas of advertising, public relations and communications, media, digital, data and design support. And then, of course, there are going to be opportunities in countries that we’ll be working with locally.

Theirworld has been doing extraordinary work for quite a few years, but they’ve never had a chance to put their names out in the marketplace. They work beautifully in collaboration with organizations, but now we’re excited to help them brand themselves as a leader in education.

Listen to the latest #BetterAngels podcast interview special with @PeterTatchell https://t.co/5U9qrbYfHn http://pic.twitter.com/3zGXQIEHqq

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 2, 2017

And what’s next for Theirworld with this partnership?

Sarah: We’re focused on where the next touchpoints are and where the biggest opportunities lie.

This includes expanding education financing through the Education Cannot Wait Fund, and looking at the newly-proposed International Financing Facility for Education that will pioneer new education investments where countries can invest in their own futures. Now we can really outline a large-scale strategy to help the existing organizations come together and genuinely finance education for all.

We have also launched an innovation hub on the first day of the UN General Assembly, looking at the new areas that we think will be most transformative and making sure that our best groundbreaking ideas are tried, tested and shaped to ensure that we continue to help as many children as possible.

Get more insights in our Q&A series and suggest a Q&A via editor@brandchannel.com.

Subscribe to our e-newsletter for more.

The post Omnicom + Theirworld: 5 Questions With Janet Riccio and Sarah Brown appeared first on brandchannel:.

[joejstrickl]

Omnicom + Theirworld: 5 Questions With Janet Riccio and Sarah Brown

On September 19th, the United Nations General Assembly gathered in New York to debate key issues and determine policies that will have a global impact.

In 2015, the UN approved a roster of 17 Sustainable Development Goals—global commitments to end poverty, protect the planet and promote peace. All UN member nations are pushing towards making significant strides against these initiatives by 2030. As part of an industry-wide initiative, Omnicom Group selected to help tackle goal #4, education, to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

In June, Omnicom announced its partnership with groundbreaking education nonprofit Theirworld, with the goal of empowering the global children’s charity with the capabilities of their international network of partners to deliver against this crucial Sustainable Development Goal.

We spoke with Omnicom EVP Janet Riccio and Theirworld president Sarah Brown to discuss the partnership and their goal of empowering children across the planet with access to education.

For those who aren’t familiar with Theirworld, what do you do?

Sarah: Theirworld is an innovative children’s charity based in the UK but with a global focus, with offices in NY, DC, and pilot projects across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Much of our focus is on education, how to unlock opportunity and ensure every child can reach their full potential. Many believe it is impossible for every child to get an education, but at Theirworld we believe it is more than possible—it is probable that we can achieve this by 2030. We have a moonshot mentality and work to unlock the solutions needed from the top-level policymakers through to the grassroots actionists.

We believe education is a fundamental human right and should be included in any humanitarian response when there is a conflict or natural disaster. In the wake of an emergency, the first focus of humanitarian aid is directed to the immediate needs of food, shelter, medical care, sanitation, but we also need to offer hope. Only 1% of humanitarian aid goes towards education, learning and reducing psychological stress. Without access to education, a child’s chance of developing and fulfilling her potential is neglected. In an emergency situation, all children need to be able to return to a normal life as quickly as possible—the education environment is a key part of this process.

Due to the rising number of refugees and length of time spent as a refugee, on average 17 years, education is now a greater priority than ever. Theirworld’s initiatives include pioneering new double-shift schools, which offer an innovative way to double the number of children able to access education without having to double the number of schools and teachers.

For example, in Lebanon, the Ministry of Education has been able to get over 200,000 Syrian refugee children back to school by sending Lebanese children to school in the morning and Syrian children in the afternoon thanks to Theirworld’s actions. We also offer teacher training and empowerment programs for girls and champion early childhood development in our projects.

We also pilot Safe Schools programs in West Africa, Latin America, and other areas with either short-term crises or long-term violent situations or risk of attack. From physical security in the building and along the school journey, to community information and broader methods of combating the problems, this work is crucial.

Wherever we work, we’re pushing for big changes and innovation, accelerating putting children into school and always running pilot programs to test and measure these new ideas.

Our priority is always to reach out to the top of the tree, grab the highest-hanging fruit and hold onto it. The high hanging fruits to us are the big wins in education that are difficult to reach but well worth the struggle to get there. Education for all is within our grasp—a safe, welcoming learning space available for every child in every corner of the globe.

At @unitednations headquarters to reporting from #UNGA 72 – urging key donor countries and world leaders to increase funding for global education especially Early Childhood Development and Education in Emergencies. Watch our interview with the @unyouthenvoy on the Instagram Story above!

A post shared by Theirworld (@theirworldorg) on Sep 20, 2017 at 11:30am PDT

Why did Omnicom choose to partner with Theirworld?

Janet: Omnicom is committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of education, which is part of the Common Ground initiative: for the first time in history, all six of the global advertising holding companies have joined hands in support of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

We picked this goal in part because our CEO John Wren is very dedicated to education, as exhibited by our 23-year support of Omnicom University, of which I am Dean. Education is at the core of Omnicom. We asked all of our Omnicom University alumni about what they were doing in the field of education, and after receiving hundreds of responses, a few organizations kept bubbling up. That’s how we found Theirworld.

We chose this organization, because we thought that, during the interview process, the vision they had and the way they brought it to life was revolutionary. They are doing things that no one else is doing, and that’s why we chose them.

The @UN General Assembly takes place in New York this week. Not sure what that means for children? We've got you: https://t.co/Q0RkRxIJHn

— Theirworld (@theirworld) September 17, 2017

What does working with Omnicom offer an organization like Theirworld?

Sarah: Omnicom is helping to create innovative solutions and breakthroughs all over the world. Having access to that global network and scope of talent is very exciting for us.

Our first practical step has been to work with Tracey Lovatt and the team at Batten & Company to undergo their “True North” process and figure out how to refine bringing our broader strategy to life. We have learned that we are often so focused on our end goals that we don’t always take the opportunity to look at the organization and how we work day-to-day. Now we can see ourselves clearly on our Best Day and will be working with creative agencies across the network to develop this.

Thanks to Omnicom’s commitment, we’re uniquely privileged to learn how the whole system of agencies and creative partners work, and have set out deliberately to create connections and solve some of the biggest problems. We know that bringing people together who are both highly skilled and passionate will achieve the right results, and that can’t be done alone as a single organization.

An innovative new programme in Mozambique is speeding up kids' learning by teaching them to read in local languages https://t.co/tZnFmt8rAM

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 3, 2017

What’s next for this partnership for Omnicom?

Janet: We’re going to be doing an influencer mapping session to decide the next steps and agency partners for Theirworld to work with specifically. I know that we’re going to be looking to help them create content, specifically video content in the form of a manifesto video.

Our commitment is to help in the areas of advertising, public relations and communications, media, digital, data and design support. And then, of course, there are going to be opportunities in countries that we’ll be working with locally.

Theirworld has been doing extraordinary work for quite a few years, but they’ve never had a chance to put their names out in the marketplace. They work beautifully in collaboration with organizations, but now we’re excited to help them brand themselves as a leader in education.

Listen to the latest #BetterAngels podcast interview special with @PeterTatchell https://t.co/5U9qrbYfHn pic.twitter.com/3zGXQIEHqq

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 2, 2017

And what’s next for Theirworld with this partnership?

Sarah: We’re focused on where the next touchpoints are and where the biggest opportunities lie.

This includes expanding education financing through the Education Cannot Wait Fund, and looking at the newly-proposed International Financing Facility for Education that will pioneer new education investments where countries can invest in their own futures. Now we can really outline a large-scale strategy to help the existing organizations come together and genuinely finance education for all.

We have also launched an innovation hub on the first day of the UN General Assembly, looking at the new areas that we think will be most transformative and making sure that our best groundbreaking ideas are tried, tested and shaped to ensure that we continue to help as many children as possible.

Get more insights in our Q&A series and suggest a Q&A via editor@brandchannel.com.

Subscribe to our e-newsletter for more.

The post Omnicom + Theirworld: 5 Questions With Janet Riccio and Sarah Brown appeared first on brandchannel:.

[glenmenlow]

Partnering for a Better World: 5 Questions With Sarah Brown and Janet Riccio

On September 19th, the United Nations General Assembly gathered in New York to debate key issues and determine policies that will have a global impact.

In 2015, the UN approved a roster of 17 Sustainable Development Goals—global commitments to end poverty, protect the planet and promote peace. All UN member nations are pushing towards making significant strides against these initiatives by 2030. As part of an industry-wide initiative, Omnicom Group selected to help tackle goal #4, education, to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

Sarah Brown, Theirworld

In June, Omnicom announced its partnership with groundbreaking education nonprofit Theirworld, with the goal of empowering the global children’s charity with the capabilities of their international network of partners to deliver against this crucial Sustainable Development Goal.

We spoke with Omnicom EVP Janet Riccio and Theirworld president Sarah Brown to discuss the partnership and their goal of empowering children across the planet with access to education.

For those who aren’t familiar with Theirworld, what do you do?

Sarah: Theirworld is an innovative children’s charity based in the UK but with a global focus, with offices in NY, DC, and pilot projects across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Much of our focus is on education, how to unlock opportunity and ensure every child can reach their full potential. Many believe it is impossible for every child to get an education, but at Theirworld we believe it is more than possible—it is probable that we can achieve this by 2030. We have a moonshot mentality and work to unlock the solutions needed from the top-level policymakers through to the grassroots actionists.

Omnicom EVP Janet Riccio

We believe education is a fundamental human right and should be included in any humanitarian response when there is a conflict or natural disaster. In the wake of an emergency, the first focus of humanitarian aid is directed to the immediate needs of food, shelter, medical care, sanitation, but we also need to offer hope. Only 1% of humanitarian aid goes towards education, learning and reducing psychological stress. Without access to education, a child’s chance of developing and fulfilling her potential is neglected. In an emergency situation, all children need to be able to return to a normal life as quickly as possible—the education environment is a key part of this process.

Due to the rising number of refugees and length of time spent as a refugee, on average 17 years, education is now a greater priority than ever. Theirworld’s initiatives include pioneering new double-shift schools, which offer an innovative way to double the number of children able to access education without having to double the number of schools and teachers.

For example, in Lebanon, the Ministry of Education has been able to get over 200,000 Syrian refugee children back to school by sending Lebanese children to school in the morning and Syrian children in the afternoon thanks to Theirworld’s actions. We also offer teacher training and empowerment programs for girls and champion early childhood development in our projects.

We also pilot Safe Schools programs in West Africa, Latin America, and other areas with either short-term crises or long-term violent situations or risk of attack. From physical security in the building and along the school journey, to community information and broader methods of combating the problems, this work is crucial.

Wherever we work, we’re pushing for big changes and innovation, accelerating putting children into school and always running pilot programs to test and measure these new ideas.

Our priority is always to reach out to the top of the tree, grab the highest-hanging fruit and hold onto it. The high hanging fruits to us are the big wins in education that are difficult to reach but well worth the struggle to get there. Education for all is within our grasp—a safe, welcoming learning space available for every child in every corner of the globe.

Why did Omnicom choose to partner with Theirworld?

Janet: Omnicom is committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of education, which is part of the Common Ground initiative: for the first time in history, all six of the global advertising holding companies have joined hands in support of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

We picked this goal in part because our CEO John Wren is very dedicated to education, as exhibited by our 23-year support of Omnicom University, of which I am Dean. Education is at the core of Omnicom. We asked all of our Omnicom University alumni about what they were doing in the field of education, and after receiving hundreds of responses, a few organizations kept bubbling up. That’s how we found Theirworld.

We chose this organization, because we thought that, during the interview process, the vision they had and the way they brought it to life was revolutionary. They are doing things that no one else is doing, and that’s why we chose them.

The @UN General Assembly takes place in New York this week. Not sure what that means for children? We've got you: https://t.co/Q0RkRxIJHn

— Theirworld (@theirworld) September 17, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

What does working with Omnicom offer an organization like Theirworld?

Sarah: Omnicom is helping to create innovative solutions and breakthroughs all over the world. Having access to that global network and scope of talent is very exciting for us.

Our first practical step has been to work with Tracey Lovatt and the team at Batten & Company to undergo their “True North” process and figure out how to refine bringing our broader strategy to life. We have learned that we are often so focused on our end goals that we don’t always take the opportunity to look at the organization and how we work day-to-day. Now we can see ourselves clearly on our Best Day and will be working with creative agencies across the network to develop this.

Thanks to Omnicom’s commitment, we’re uniquely privileged to learn how the whole system of agencies and creative partners work, and have set out deliberately to create connections and solve some of the biggest problems. We know that bringing people together who are both highly skilled and passionate will achieve the right results, and that can’t be done alone as a single organization.

An innovative new programme in Mozambique is speeding up kids' learning by teaching them to read in local languages https://t.co/tZnFmt8rAM

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 3, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

What’s next for this partnership for Omnicom?

Janet: We’re going to be doing an influencer mapping session to decide the next steps and agency partners for Theirworld to work with specifically. I know that we’re going to be looking to help them create content, specifically video content in the form of a manifesto video.

Our commitment is to help in the areas of advertising, public relations and communications, media, digital, data and design support. And then, of course, there are going to be opportunities in countries that we’ll be working with locally.

Theirworld has been doing extraordinary work for quite a few years, but they’ve never had a chance to put their names out in the marketplace. They work beautifully in collaboration with organizations, but now we’re excited to help them brand themselves as a leader in education.

Listen to the latest #BetterAngels podcast interview special with @PeterTatchell https://t.co/5U9qrbYfHn pic.twitter.com/3zGXQIEHqq

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 2, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

And what’s next for Theirworld with this partnership?

Sarah: We’re focused on where the next touchpoints are and where the biggest opportunities lie.

This includes expanding education financing through the Education Cannot Wait Fund, and looking at the newly-proposed International Financing Facility for Education that will pioneer new education investments where countries can invest in their own futures. Now we can really outline a large-scale strategy to help the existing organizations come together and genuinely finance education for all.

We have also launched an innovation hub on the first day of the UN General Assembly, looking at the new areas that we think will be most transformative and making sure that our best groundbreaking ideas are tried, tested and shaped to ensure that we continue to help as many children as possible.

Get more insights in our Q&A series and suggest a Q&A via editor@brandchannel.com.

Subscribe to our e-newsletter for more.

The post Partnering for a Better World: 5 Questions With Sarah Brown and Janet Riccio appeared first on brandchannel:.

from WordPress https://glenmenlow.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/partnering-for-a-better-world-5-questions-with-sarah-brown-and-janet-riccio/ via IFTTT

[glenmenlow]

Omnicom + Theirworld: 5 Questions With Sarah Brown and Janet Riccio

On September 19th, the United Nations General Assembly gathered in New York to debate key issues and determine policies that will have a global impact.

In 2015, the UN approved a roster of 17 Sustainable Development Goals—global commitments to end poverty, protect the planet and promote peace. All UN member nations are pushing towards making significant strides against these initiatives by 2030. As part of an industry-wide initiative, Omnicom Group selected to help tackle goal #4, education, to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

In June, Omnicom announced its partnership with groundbreaking education nonprofit Theirworld, with the goal of empowering the global children’s charity with the capabilities of their international network of partners to deliver against this crucial Sustainable Development Goal.

We spoke with Omnicom EVP Janet Riccio and Theirworld president Sarah Brown to discuss the partnership and their goal of empowering children across the planet with access to education.

For those who aren’t familiar with Theirworld, what do you do?

Sarah: Theirworld is an innovative children’s charity based in the UK but with a global focus, with offices in NY, DC, and pilot projects across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Much of our focus is on education, how to unlock opportunity and ensure every child can reach their full potential. Many believe it is impossible for every child to get an education, but at Theirworld we believe it is more than possible—it is probable that we can achieve this by 2030. We have a moonshot mentality and work to unlock the solutions needed from the top-level policymakers through to the grassroots actionists.

We believe education is a fundamental human right and should be included in any humanitarian response when there is a conflict or natural disaster. In the wake of an emergency, the first focus of humanitarian aid is directed to the immediate needs of food, shelter, medical care, sanitation, but we also need to offer hope. Only 1% of humanitarian aid goes towards education, learning and reducing psychological stress. Without access to education, a child’s chance of developing and fulfilling her potential is neglected. In an emergency situation, all children need to be able to return to a normal life as quickly as possible—the education environment is a key part of this process.

Due to the rising number of refugees and length of time spent as a refugee, on average 17 years, education is now a greater priority than ever. Theirworld’s initiatives include pioneering new double-shift schools, which offer an innovative way to double the number of children able to access education without having to double the number of schools and teachers.

For example, in Lebanon, the Ministry of Education has been able to get over 200,000 Syrian refugee children back to school by sending Lebanese children to school in the morning and Syrian children in the afternoon thanks to Theirworld’s actions. We also offer teacher training and empowerment programs for girls and champion early childhood development in our projects.

We also pilot Safe Schools programs in West Africa, Latin America, and other areas with either short-term crises or long-term violent situations or risk of attack. From physical security in the building and along the school journey, to community information and broader methods of combating the problems, this work is crucial.

Wherever we work, we’re pushing for big changes and innovation, accelerating putting children into school and always running pilot programs to test and measure these new ideas.

Our priority is always to reach out to the top of the tree, grab the highest-hanging fruit and hold onto it. The high hanging fruits to us are the big wins in education that are difficult to reach but well worth the struggle to get there. Education for all is within our grasp—a safe, welcoming learning space available for every child in every corner of the globe.

At @unitednations headquarters to reporting from #UNGA 72 – urging key donor countries and world leaders to increase funding for global education especially Early Childhood Development and Education in Emergencies. Watch our interview with the @unyouthenvoy on the Instagram Story above!

A post shared by Theirworld (@theirworldorg) on Sep 20, 2017 at 11:30am PDT

//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

Why did Omnicom choose to partner with Theirworld?

Janet: Omnicom is committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of education, which is part of the Common Ground initiative: for the first time in history, all six of the global advertising holding companies have joined hands in support of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

We picked this goal in part because our CEO John Wren is very dedicated to education, as exhibited by our 23-year support of Omnicom University, of which I am Dean. Education is at the core of Omnicom. We asked all of our Omnicom University alumni about what they were doing in the field of education, and after receiving hundreds of responses, a few organizations kept bubbling up. That’s how we found Theirworld.

We chose this organization, because we thought that, during the interview process, the vision they had and the way they brought it to life was revolutionary. They are doing things that no one else is doing, and that’s why we chose them.

The @UN General Assembly takes place in New York this week. Not sure what that means for children? We've got you: https://t.co/Q0RkRxIJHn

— Theirworld (@theirworld) September 17, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

What does working with Omnicom offer an organization like Theirworld?

Sarah: Omnicom is helping to create innovative solutions and breakthroughs all over the world. Having access to that global network and scope of talent is very exciting for us.

Our first practical step has been to work with Tracey Lovatt and the team at Batten & Company to undergo their “True North” process and figure out how to refine bringing our broader strategy to life. We have learned that we are often so focused on our end goals that we don’t always take the opportunity to look at the organization and how we work day-to-day. Now we can see ourselves clearly on our Best Day and will be working with creative agencies across the network to develop this.

Thanks to Omnicom’s commitment, we’re uniquely privileged to learn how the whole system of agencies and creative partners work, and have set out deliberately to create connections and solve some of the biggest problems. We know that bringing people together who are both highly skilled and passionate will achieve the right results, and that can’t be done alone as a single organization.

An innovative new programme in Mozambique is speeding up kids' learning by teaching them to read in local languages https://t.co/tZnFmt8rAM

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 3, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

What’s next for this partnership for Omnicom?

Janet: We’re going to be doing an influencer mapping session to decide the next steps and agency partners for Theirworld to work with specifically. I know that we’re going to be looking to help them create content, specifically video content in the form of a manifesto video.

Our commitment is to help in the areas of advertising, public relations and communications, media, digital, data and design support. And then, of course, there are going to be opportunities in countries that we’ll be working with locally.

Theirworld has been doing extraordinary work for quite a few years, but they’ve never had a chance to put their names out in the marketplace. They work beautifully in collaboration with organizations, but now we’re excited to help them brand themselves as a leader in education.

Listen to the latest #BetterAngels podcast interview special with @PeterTatchell https://t.co/5U9qrbYfHn pic.twitter.com/3zGXQIEHqq

— Theirworld (@theirworld) October 2, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

And what’s next for Theirworld with this partnership?

Sarah: We’re focused on where the next touchpoints are and where the biggest opportunities lie.

This includes expanding education financing through the Education Cannot Wait Fund, and looking at the newly-proposed International Financing Facility for Education that will pioneer new education investments where countries can invest in their own futures. Now we can really outline a large-scale strategy to help the existing organizations come together and genuinely finance education for all.

We have also launched an innovation hub on the first day of the UN General Assembly, looking at the new areas that we think will be most transformative and making sure that our best groundbreaking ideas are tried, tested and shaped to ensure that we continue to help as many children as possible.

Get more insights in our Q&A series and suggest a Q&A via editor@brandchannel.com.

Subscribe to our e-newsletter for more.

The post Omnicom + Theirworld: 5 Questions With Sarah Brown and Janet Riccio appeared first on brandchannel:.

from WordPress https://glenmenlow.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/omnicom-theirworld-5-questions-with-sarah-brown-and-janet-riccio/ via IFTTT