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elopez7228 · 4 years ago

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Scenic Route 22/47

Read on AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/18268208/chapters/43229774

Start over : https://elopez7228.tumblr.com/post/620919089893933056/scenic-route-0147

***

"What does that give us?" Leia asked, looking over Rose's shoulder as she typed.

They were working in what could only be called a basement. Daylight crept through a dusty air vent, struggling to illuminate the room. Inside sat several tables, all of which were covered with some combination of food containers, dossiers, loose leaf papers and computer equipment.

A third member, a thirty-something blonde woman named Kaydel Connix, was perched on the used antique sofa on the opposite side of the room. Every now and then she took a sip from a can of Dr. Pepper.

“Not bad,” Rose replied. “Our videos generated some buzz online but the articles weren’t too widely shared. Ecology did a blog post on the First Order’s building projects which was picked up by WWF and Greenpeace. It was shared on Twitter a couple thousand times including by a few celebrities. But that’s not enough. The donation petition circling among university faculty will only give us ten or twenty thousand dollars at most. It’ll barely be enough to cover litigation costs if the plan falls through.”

“We will win,” Leia assured her, placing a firm hand on her shoulder. “And when we do, the damages that FORCE will be responsible for will easily cost millions, believe me.”

Rose turned to face her aging mentor. “Leia, what if we don’t make it this time?”

Leia resisted the urge to answer indirectly, preferably with a metaphor. She could tell that Rose needed something more, a moment of honesty from the heart. She closed her eyes briefly, centering herself.

“Then we start over, we seek allies elsewhere. We are the spark of hope, that will light the fire, that will burn the First Order down.”

Rose nodded, pursing her lips. The stakes were high. All their forces had been on the ground for months, setting the stage for the ultimate blow that would take this multinational corporation down. They were everywhere: reaching out to PR personnel, leading demonstrations in the streets, blasting their message on social media, speaking to local officials, and even doing international relations. Their entire strategy rested on the element of surprise and the high volume of media attention that the results of the trial would achieve. If the chain of events faltered even slightly, FORCE would have an unequivocal victory.

But as the big day approached, their little band of rebels looked ever weaker.

Their secret informant and metaphorical coal mine canary, Galen Erso, risked his livelihood every day. His true identity was only known by the Skywalkers and their lawyer, Amilyn. He was at the mercy of Hux and Phasma. They ran a tight ship; Lord knew what means they had to control every aspect of operations within the First Order. They could have already decided to monitor his every move for suspicious activity.

The Earth Soldiers legal team, led by Amilyn, also consisted of Larma D’Acy and Gial Ackbar, who along with their assistants and paralegals formed a team of twenty four. In addition, a small army of volunteers around the United States formed the basis of their campaign. It was absolutely imperative that all eyes were on the California Supreme Court in San Francisco as the verdict came out. Leia and Rose were the primary mouthpieces in the media, appearing publicly to attract large crowds.

The final piece of their plan relied on the incriminating contents of a micro-SD chip that would once and for all obliterate the credibility of the First Order. It was currently in the hands of an English tourist, who had just finished taking a proper bath and playing fetch with a small orange dog.

“What about the documents?” Rose sighed in frustration. “Are you sure this girl is going to deliver them in one piece, on time? What if she misplaces them or something?”

“We’re definitely taking a risk here. But she doesn’t seem to have any ulterior motives. All she wants to do is to get from point A to point B. The rest is up to her, and honestly her lack of itinerary is perfect for avoiding traps.”

“But..what if Kylo and his cult are on to her? That haven’t returned to the headquarters in a while, have they?”

“They’re always on the field, just out of sight. They can interrogate her all they want, it’s perfectly safe. She knows absolutely nothing.”

“Safe, even for her?”

Leia’s face fell for a moment. She had picked this girl out herself. A troubled young woman who had trusted her easily, who had jumped so readily at the task. But she had been surrounded by Kylo’s team for days now, which was worrisome indeed.

Kylo had a reputation for being cold and shrewd—he could very well decide to end this little game of hide-and-seek by robbing the girl blind and leaving her on the side of the highway—or worse yet, in a ditch. Even if he didn’t realize what she happened to be carrying, he could easily ensure that none of it arrived in one piece.

Rose (ever the realist) wondered why he hadn’t done so already.

Deep inside, Leia felt a gnawing pant of guilt: she had thrown this innocent girl to the wolves. Whatever happened, it was her responsibility now. But whether out of naïveté or foolhardiness, she chose to ignore the direst possibilities.

She carried on as though both the girl and the micro-SD were going to arrive unscathed—she had no room for error.

Rose held no such convictions, and it occurred to the young woman that Leia, mother of the infamous Kylo Ren, could never truly imagine the horrors that her own son was capable of. Did she still think of him as the awkward child that she often sang to sleep? How long could she keep living in denial? Kylo worked for FORCE, for Snoke and Hux. He had chosen his side. He had turned his back on the shining enterprise built by his ancestors in favor of fame and fortune, accusing his mother of being a miserly harpie.

Ironically, Rose was sure that Armitage Hux or Syed Ren would agree with her assessment: the compassion, nay, the complacency, Kylo had shown when it came to Rey was beyond comprehension.

Did they suspect she was an Earth Soldiers operative? It would be easy enough to get her alone and talking. Perhaps they would even resort to more aggressive tactics if necessary.

What if they saw her as no more than a diversion? They could make sure she had a healthy fear of their field agents, catch-and-release style.

If the evidence was anything to go by, Rose suspected that the great Kylo Ren was in love. And he was capable of anything.

Hux remained silent as Syed went over the details of her proposal over the phone. He certainly had a card to play now—but which one?

He had known Ben Solo since university, almost back before he rejected his name in favor of Kylo Ren. But their relationship had always been volatile.

Armitage, despite being the son of a reputable military officer, had been forced to juggle multiple jobs to pay for a potion of his studies. It was humiliating, but his father was convinced that it was necessary to “build character”. His assigned roommate was a large, melancholic oaf, the preppy sort with a family inheritance and whatnot. An inheritance which was promptly spent by the boy’s parents on charity and frivolous ideas of changing the world.

Kylo lost his father—a subject he rarely discussed—and was raised in part by his uncle as well as his own mother, who served in the military. An outsider for the most part, he got in to Harvard thanks to the goodwill (or rather the strong will) of the new head of the Skywalker family enterprise. His mother’s last name, synonymous with his grandfather’s legacy, opened many doors for him.

Personally, Armitage had always wondered what debt Snoke was keen on repaying the Skywalker family by graciously taking their problem child under his wing.

The difference between the two classmates was clear from the start. Ben Solo hated his family’s lack of interest in his life, all while still profiting off of the success of the glorious Skywalker enterprise to pay for his studies. Meanwhile, Hux worked in various service jobs, cleaning floors, stocking shelves, and working behind restaurant counters to pay for food, rent, and various educational expenses.

They walked the line between friendship and enmity. Some days they were drinking buddies, other times they competed for the attention of girls, or for academic recognition among their peers and professors. No doubt they compared test scores.

Harvard diploma in hand, Hux was ecstatic to start working as a financial manager for the First Order. Snoke, at the very least, recognized his competence and his intrinsic value. But Ben Solo—now insisting on the title Kylo Ren like the capricious bastard he was—was almost immediately promoted to Director of Operations. A highly prestigious post that not only put him outside of Hux’s chain of command, and gave him nearly absolute freedom on the field.

Once more, Kylo Ren’s accursed heritage guaranteed him a better place, one that Hux deserved but could never hope to achieve despite his hard work.

Presently, FORCE hoped to generate massive revenue from a mine in the northern regions of Hoopa Valley. On paper, they would be mining for iron ore buried deep underground while producing thousands of jobs in the region. Behind the scenes it was all Hux’s team: they kept the corruption under wraps, signed deals with local providers, and privately represented FORCE in every dealing. But of course it was always Kylo Fucking Ren who appeared publicly before the cameras, with his wind-swept hair and cool-guy demeanor.

Once again, it was Hux who had to face criticism and take the insurmountable legal risks when the matter was dragged into court, all while Ren continued to receive honors and congratulations.

But Snoke wouldn’t remain president forever. He was old and ailing, his liver jaundiced and his lungs weak from pulmonary disease. Following his termination, and the success of this mine, Hux’s achievements would eclipse the old brute, not to mention that of the prodigal son, Ben Solo-Skywalker, whose heritage would be annihilated.

Ben was a go-getter, as passionate as he was brutal. He detested strategy and calculation, preferring to jump directly into the fray. It would be easy to clip his wings when Hux assumed total control.

In fact, Hux now had the perfect justification. Kylo had committed a grave error in his most recent bout of passion: he was enamored with this nomadic girl, and according to Syed Ren, he would do anything for her.

He would lose everything.

“Syed, are you still there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you for the intel. The photos were a particularly nice touch. I never doubted your loyalty, or your competence.”

Syed waited silently for Hux to gather his thoughts.

“Kylo Ren’s mission,” he continued, “is to determine Rey Jakku’s relationship with Earth Soldiers, and take action accordingly. Are you certain, after a mere seventy-two hours, that there is no connection?”

“Absolutely, sir. The girl is a diversion, driving the Millenium Falcon around to attract our attention while Skywalker’s team is plotting. We’re wasting time.”

“And did you inform Kylo Ren of your findings?”

“Yes. He chose not to take my advice.”

Hux closed his eyes, pausing. It was time to risk it all. While the loyalty of the Knights of Ren had proven unquestionable in the past, Syed Ren seemed to have a very exploitable weakness in the form of hate and jealousy.

“Who do you work for, Syed Ren?”

She hesitated, looking for a trap in his words. The answer seemed obvious but she struggled with it. “For Kylo Ren, sir.”

“Really, are you on his payroll, then?”

“Yeah...well—no! No, I work for FORCE. I work for you, sir.”

“Very well. Now I propose a new mission, one which will determine the very future of FORCE.”

“I don’t know if...”

“You don’t have to decide now. Just hear me out, and do what you like.”

“Okay. I’m...I’m listening.”

A few minutes later, Hux hung up. He ran a hand through his hair, his tell-tale sign of nervousness. If everything went to plan, if Syed Ren was as bitter and blinded by rage as he hoped, perhaps she would finally turn on her master and her precious acolyte friends. She would work for him—he had promised her money, a veritable fortune, but most of all, a chance to exact her revenge upon Kylo Ren. She would be able to smite him for rejecting her and turning her into an unwilling babysitter.

Her wrath would be glorious.

#reylo #fanfiction #Modern AU #Scenic Route

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sebthesnipe · 5 years ago

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The Dreamer by Whatwashernameagain an Analysis? Chapter 2! Part 3

All portions:

Chapter 1: Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4

Chapter 2: Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4

The Dreamer

@whatwashernameagain

As always, Spoilers under cut.

Also, I am currently sick so bear with me….

We left off with Logan’s first kill and the difference between The Utilitarianist’s vs. The Dreamer’s views. The thing is, The Dreamer isn’t his own hero, but rather the vision of a team with their own agenda. Still, Roman, despite the attempt to control him, has his own passions.

“Roman could barely be held back. The man who’d been killed, Richard Snyder, had owned the largest chemical production company in the world and had been blamed for the death of a large amount of people in Vietnam due to a herbicide that had leaked into the phreatic water. He’d also been a father of three girls and felt behind a grieving wife” (Whatwashernameagain).

This paragraph gives a bit of background into Logan’s first kill, the first indication that he is becoming too cold, too focused on his work that he is losing his humanity. Logan may not care for the individual as he works but taking a man’s life is something you don’t come back from. The fact that he has finally done so pushes him into an entirely new level of villainy. I think that Roman sees that. He may not know Logan on a personal level yet but as we learned in the first chapter Roman has a love and caring disposition for everyone whether it is the man responsible for countless deaths in Vietnam or a villain responsible for his death. He shows no remorse for Logan at this point but as a reader I think we realize that this is the first step Logan takes towards losing himself in his own darkness.

Eva goes on to talk about how he was upset about the deaths due to the chemical leak and how he grieved for them and their families. However, we also see his ignorant optimism that has become his trademark quite quickly.

“Accidents were a terrible thing and he was sure Mr. Snyder hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. People were good and cared about each other in his opinion. After the public blame the terrorist had put on his shoulders before – there was no other word for it – lynching the poor man, the media reacted to the crime in a manner that deeply shocked the sensitive young man. Instead of condemning the horrifying acts harshly, they discussed the accidents that had caused the unfortunate deaths in Vietnam and demanded consequences to avoid such accidents in the futures!” (Whatwashernameagain).

He convinces himself the Snyder never meant for any of the deaths to happen, which, for those of us who know how the real world works; we know that the more likely reality is that Snyder probably cut corners and didn’t care much that he ruined so many people’s lives and even paid to keep it quiet. Still, Roman states that he believed people were good and cared about each other at their core and maybe that is true for the individual; after all, that is how Roman sees people: individually. So… There is a lot I can say here… and when I say a lot, I mean a LOT. I will attempt to keep this section a bit brief, but I did want to touch on some philosophy and sociology here.

In 1995 a book by Howard Bloom called The Lucifer Principle was published (Bloom, Howard). For those of you who haven’t heard of it, it has nothing to do with religion. The Lucifer Principle poses the idea that good and evil, right and wrong, its all a construct of our need to fit everything into a box. Nature does not see things as good or evil. When a lion preys on a wounded animal it is just nature. When a hurricane levels a major city, we don’t view it as evil because it is apart of nature. When a lightening bolt causes a good portion of a forest to burn down it is nothing but a way to regrow. Yet, despite the fact that we are simply an over evolved species of animal, we hold ourselves to a higher standard. We view things as good or evil but there is no such thing in the natural world. (Keep in mind I am not stating an opinion, I am simple describing the principles of the book). The book explores that the social groups that we create as humans, not us as individuals, are more inclined to do things that we consider ‘evil’ when we have something to gain from it (Bloom, Howard). It argues that “evil is a by-product of nature’s strategies for creation and that it is woven into out most basic biological fabric” (Bloom, Howard). Violent competition is the center of the creation of the superorganism we consider society (Bloom, Howard). It is difficult to argue with this theory when you consider that we really only advance through war. The discovery of vitamin C, disease prevention, tourniquets, X-rays, blood transfusions, vaccines, lipoamides, penicillin, anaesthics, chemotherapy, antibotics, frozen blood products, antiseptics, Gatorade, the recognition of PTSD, discovery of cardia arrest, (weather) radar, walkie-talkies, night vision, duct tape, nuclear technology (including powerplants), Jet engines, digital photography, satellite navigation (GPS), sanitary napkins, Drones, microwaves, computes, superglue, jeeps, canned food, wristwatches, Epipens, the space program, ambulances and even the Internet and so much more have been the result of the wars we have waged throughout the centuries (Pocket-lint) (“Science Museum. Brought to Life: Exploring the History of Medicine”). There are very few things in this world that a social group (not an individual) has not built with greed in mind; whether it be wealth, land, or power, generally speaking there is usually an ulterior motive to man’s creativity. It is hard to argue that we do not strive on being inherently ‘evil’ when there is so much evidence against that.

Once again, I feel as if I need to reinforce a few things: 1. I am not speaking about individual people. I am talking about humanity as a whole. 2. This is not necessarily my belief. This is a concept written in a book that I have read and that has a very well researched scientific basis. So, before anyone drops a mean or horrid anon ask in my box (and proves my point) please try reading the book. You can learn a lot about the world and yourself as well. Now, back to the analysis:

I bring this up for a number of reasons. This argument reinforces Roman’s naivety. He sees humanity as inherently good (if there really is such thing as ‘good’ and ‘evil’); or rather he believes that ‘people’ are good which can both imply an individual person which is probably a correct statement, or ‘people’ as a whole which is perhaps leaning on the outside of ‘not good’ (We are killing our planet, endangering species, committing mass genocide, polluting outer space, and allowing people all around the world to starve, or ignore the fact that 40 years later we are still killing innocent people (including) children in Laos, Vietnam). It also brings into question The Utilitarianist, and the contrast between he and Roman once more. Logan sees the world in a similar light as The Lucifer Principle paints. In fact, I’d be surprised if Eva hadn’t read it. He is also one for intense scientific research which could lead him to the same conclusions as Bloom: That humanity is inherently what we consider ‘evil’ though evil itself is a construct we created and therefore he has no remorse for being labeled as such.

Am I getting too philosophical on you guys? Perhaps it would be best if I moved on….

“Of course, people needed to be protected, every life had value and had to be treasured, but to besmirch this victim’s life work, so soon after his execution – it left Roman angry and terrified for the state of the world he loved. He needed to stop this man, right now! He was strong enough to do it, why must they keep holding him back?” (Whatwashernameagain).

Once again, we see Roman’s compassion for every individual. We see him try and be understanding for those he disagrees with and for those he deems innocent. He is a man of honor after all and feels that the dead should be honored as well. It is almost as if he feels personally attacked, that Snyder’s name is being dragged through the mud after his death. Though it could be that Roman isn’t just thinking about the man, but his family as well; the shame they must feel as the media makes a mockery of their father, son, husband etc.

We also see a glimpse of his frustration at having to wait; of being forced to focus on glamour and speeches while others are moving in the shadows. He is getting his makeup done while Logan is murdering a man! In the next paragraph we see his frustration grow. He talks about his need to prevent such deeds and even pleads to be allowed to do something. But he is still bound by his need to win his father’s approval. He won’t go against him. He even attempts to justify it all but reminding himself that his team is “intelligent, professional experts hired specifically to make him the best possible hero he could be” (Whatwashernameagain). There is always a justification for those in denial… always a reason…

The next para is heartbreaking. We see him waking in pain after he has been cut open, we see him suffer from withdrawals after failed experimental drugs that corroded the lining of his throat and stomach… Pain that is probably unimaginable. Pain that he is probably enduring simply to be ‘useful’ to his father, to do good for the world… to gain the love he has always been denied and can not find it in him to give to himself. He will never be good enough, intelligent enough, useful enough for him to love himself… but maybe… just maybe he can be useful enough for someone to care for him…

Still, he states that none of the pain or experiments were quite as difficult as the waiting. C.S. Lewis said something once that comes to mind when I read about Roman’s mental struggle with waiting, compared to his physical anguish: “Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: It is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.” Some might argue that Roman’s heart isn’t broken… but perhaps they are mistaken. Here sits a man who has never truly known love and now he has a chance to obtain that which he has never known… He has a chance to gain the love of his father and of the world and yet he is being denied. He is being turned down the chance to gain what he has always wanted and with each passing day his heart cracks and the fissures only grow… Sure he hasn’t been turned down by an individual that he fell in love with… but there are other types of heart break. Such as the kind you feel when you see your lifelong goal, the one you have worked for forever, fought for, hurt for, dangled in front of you and you can’t reach out to grab it… at least… not yet.

When he does finally reach his goal, we are presented with the contrast of the Pre-Dreamer Roman and the Post-Dreamer Roman:

“Finally, after more than a year of changing and preparing him, of whittling away at the inadequate shell that had been Roman Prince, the odd, weak disappointment of a son, a new man was revealed to the world. A man who was confident, brave and kind. A man who spoke clearly and showed the frightened society the way to a better world. A hero” (Whatwashernameagain).

In the next para we see Roman’s naivety once more, along with the lies that his team is no doubt feeding him. He vies the military factor that has been selling weapons to dictators as ‘producing military equipment for the protection of their brave soldiers overseas’; no doubt another picture painted by his father which Roman is more than happy to lap up. The next paragraph however, says a lot about Logan.

“It had been the day the terrorist had stepped from the shadows into the light of the cameras to blame his victims in person before they met their end. He’d exposed their alleged crimes against the helpless, suppressed minorities the weapons were used against – lies and exaggerations as his team had assured the young hero – and had finally shown himself to the world. Part of him, at least. Like a true villain, his body had been clad in a skin tight, black suit and his face had been masked from the light of truth and justice. He’d named himself the Utilitarianist” (Whatwashernameagain).

This is Logan’s first personal appearance. A bold move for his career. This is significant for a number of reasons; firstly, it shows yet another step Logan has taken towards his downfall (at least in his humanity). Logan has already killed a man, and obviously plans to do so again, but now he appears in person, obviously confident enough that there would be no one to stop him. Perhaps the power is going to his head. Logan is human after all and that much power tends to corrupt, even when people mean well.

“Yet, at his greatest moment of triumph, a hero rose to meet him. Stepping from the ashes of the detonated building, the Dreamer emerged, leading out the disoriented victims of the Utilitarianist’s terrible plan. Showing his handsome, young face to the camera, unmasked and alight with his passion for the defense of all that was right, he’s faced the other head on and finally gave the just and good Americans a hero to believe in. The time of fear and helplessness was over. He had risen from the dust of his nemesis’ destructive acts to beat him” (Whatwashernameagain).

I will get to Roman’s flashy entrance in a moment. For now, we are still on the subject of Logan. You see, Logan has shown that he has begun to lose himself and his humanity in his work. If he is not careful he will become the very type of person he works so hard to wipe from the Earth. Luckily, someone has come to oppose him, to pull him back from the edge. I have mentioned that Roman is both Logan’s Hope and Humanity and that is true here as well. Roman appears just in time to save what little of Logan’s humanity is left. Perhaps he is a bigger hero than either of them realize.

As for his entrance, the contrast between the two is obvious once more. The over dramatized appearance is nothing if not expected from Roman but fact that him being unmasked is brought to the readers attention while Logan hides behind is own is an indication of not only the good vs. evil dynamic that has been apparent throughout the story but also of Roman’s cockiness.

A battle ensues. The Utilitarianist is far more difficult to defeat than Roman had accounted for and narrowly escapes. Roman is left felling defeated as he considers it a failure. I feel as if this is a fantastic symbolization of the fact that good and evil are a balance. The Utilitarianist which represents Roman’s concept of evil and The Dreamer, representing the concept of good were fairly evenly matched. One didn’t over power the other it was a fair balance.

We see his caring side once more as he mentions his disappointment and what the world deserves. Though we also see the socially imposed concept of ‘masculinity’. “A hero must never show his inner struggles” (Whatwashernameagian). Eva always has a way of bringing out subtle issue inadvertently that astounds me. Society engrains in most men that it is not alright to show your emotions, that they must be contained. I suppose that in special cases such as first responders this is accurate. If you asked an officer or a nurse, or a medic, how they do what they do most would explain something similar to a concept I call ‘a switch’. When faced with a situation in which an officer knows it is best not to react or feel they flip an imaginary switch. This switch controls their emotions. The catch is, that in order for this switch to work properly they need a constant supply of either work or adrenaline; basically, anything that does not allow you to analyze the situation you are in. It is one of the that many police academy’s have such extensive training/drills; that way, you react in the proper manner without thinking. But I will tell you something they don’t tell you… When the day is over, and hours have pasted since they finished washing the blood from their hands or shoes… When their driving home and its quiet… or when their changing into their pajamas… Everything that they saw… Every mistake they made… every life they couldn’t save… Its going to hit and when it does… it hits hard. The switch doesn’t work forever, you see… Its on a timer and when that timer goes off it determines who is strong enough to make it and who isn’t because no body is able to pick up the pieces for you.

Eva is talented enough to paint the subtle switch into her writing though, and I mean no offense in this, I do not expect her to know the severity of what the suppression can do someone… especially someone as kind hearted as Roman. I must applaud her for addressing it however, even if she doesn’t realize she is doing it.

Luckily, Roman’s efforts were rewarded. The mention of the newspaper’s tones changing, interviews being planned for him (though he was instructed on what to say, bringing attention once again to the fact that he his nothing but a puppet at this point). He painted the picture of himself that he was meant to, that he had always wanted to be. His dreams were finally coming true. There was one catch… The dreams he had achieved were based on lies.

“Despite his wish to brag with his father’s great plans and the selfless efforts the other CEOs, lobbyists and republicans had invested, they asked him to never mention the Conglomerate that had created him and steered his actions. The public needed a legend to put their faith in now, they said. Not a bunch of old men bumbling about. Though he felt selfish when he claimed to be acting by himself with nothing but the help of volunteering patriots, he trusted their knowledge more than his own. Though the Dreamer was a great hero, Roman would not forget that he was just a young man trying to be good enough for his father’s love he’d failed to deserve before” (Whatwashernameagain).

Roman isn’t allowed to mention his father, probably because if Roman is discovered for doing these things for his father’s benefit his father can pin it all on him. Yet, once again Roman’s naivety and self-worthlessness is used against him. JFC people! All this boy wants is his Father’s love!!!! That’s it!!! Just give it to him!! Christ!

Roman and Logan face off for the next few months; good and evil dueling to no avail. Though it does mention that Logan does the majority of his crimes over the internet where Roman’s ‘brute force’ doesn’t work; further painting the image of The Dreamer that Logan paints: A dim witted glamour seeking brute… At least the image he wants the world to believe he sees. Roman comments about Logan’s rude evasiveness when it comes to his demands which brings a little light-hearted humor back into the story. It is also quite amusing seeing Roman realize that Logan views him as ‘a fly buzzing about his head’ and being outraged by it.

********

I was really hoping I would get a lot more done on this one. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to break the Chapter 2 analysis into more than four parts… There is still hope I guess… Anyways, I’m afraid this is where I need to end this portion… I apologize if this was too dark for you. I am glad I got to end it on a light-hearted note and hope to see you in part 4 (hopefully the last part of Chapter 2 analysis)! Good Night!

Bloom, Howard K. The Lucifer Principle: a Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997.

Pocket-lint. “28 Ways Military Tech Changed Our Lives.” Pocket, 31 May 2019, https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/143526-how-military-tech-changed-our-lives.

“Science Museum. Brought to Life: Exploring the History of Medicine.” Medical Innovations and War, http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/themes/war/innovations.

Whatwashernameagain. “The Dreamer - Chapter 2.” Hello Guys Gals And Non Binary Friends, 8 Sept. 2019, https://whatwashernameagain.tumblr.com/post/189407228487/the-dreamer-chapter-2?is_related_post=1.

#the dreamer #villain!logan #hero!roman #sanders sides #logince #logan sanders #roman sanders #logan/roman #roman/logan #analysis #reaction #fanfiction #whatwashernameagain #sanderssides #sander sides #sandersides

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sandinz · 6 years ago

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It may seem to some readers we spend most of our time enjoying ourselves. Together, with family, and with friends.

True, life in the Teutenberg/Walsh boathold (no household here!) it’s vastly different to the majority of people in our peer group. However, we are NOT retired. Barry has another two and half years to go; Sandra just over eight.

We do not, and neither of us ever have, rely on any form of public funds (i.e. state benefits). We DO have a small savings buffer as we’ve both ‘worked’ in the usual way for over 35 years each in our chosen professions. We have our boat, NB Areandare.

Adapting as we go …

This year has seen a marked difference in our travelling and trading plans. One of the most important things we’ve learnt since our bold/brave/crazy/impetuous (take your pick depending on your perspective!) decision to sell bricks and mortar, move to England, buy a narrowboat and leave our ‘normal’ jobs of Professional Photographer (Barry) and Midwife/Educator/Quality Coordinator (Sandra), has been to regularly review what we’re doing to attempt to sustain our chosen lifestyle. Up until very recently of course, I’ve also been caring for my elderly parents as their health diminished.

What we’re very conscious of is not getting sucked back into the hamster treadmill – or feeling coerced by ‘the powers that be’ into ‘ticking their boxes’.

Admittedly there’s been a few times such as the two applications for Barry’s UK Spousal Sponsored Visa (with the third one looming), or recently opening an ‘Executors Bank Account’ with my sister, or hiring a car from Enterprise (they ask about occupation this year having never done previously!), where not being able to simply answer questions about home address and employment, as most people easily do, can feel rather frustrating.

But … overall we feel an incredible sense of freedom ‘doing it differently‘ and NOT waiting to live until it’s potentially too late. We’ve known far too many people who have left this mortal world much sooner than expected. We both believe strongly this life is it. No point gambling precariously that there’s something ‘better’ to come in our worldview. As I’ve alluded to previously though, this way of living is not for the fainthearted. It takes courage, perseverance, partnership, persistence and planning (just not long-term or it’s just too freaky!).

Calendar Club – a joint venture

For the past two years we’ve both worked at Calendar Club outlets. In 2016 we each worked for people we knew who were running stores. Last year we successfully ran our own shop in Lichfield at the Three Spires Centre. A full-on fourteen week commitment, with only two days during in total when we shut up shop. We even managed to stay open during the period of severe snowfall.

However, with both of us running the store we each had sufficient time off. We’d chosen Lichfield as there were good moorings nearby, with public transport routes to the city – and it’s near family and friends, as Sandra lived in Sutton Coldfield for many years. And from 1st November to 1st March, 48 hour moorings become 14 day ones. So we were able to move the required distances during the time we were ‘working’.

We’re very proud that this year, as we met the Key Performance Indicators set by Calendar Club, we’ve been invited to run the Lichfield store again. It’s a brilliant way to earn a good sum of money, on a commission basis (we’re ‘Self-Employed Operators’), in a set period of time. So it’s ideally suited to live-aboard boaters who’d prefer not to work in the usual way. There’s obviously many other people who live on land who run stores and mall outlets too.

This year Calendar Club have a number of vacancies needing to be filled from now till October. You can apply by going to this link and filling in the online form. Currently the areas where Calendar Club are seeking motivated and committed operators are:

Aldershot

Andover

Aylesbury

Bath

Bishops Stortford

Buxton

Chester

Dumfries

Durham

Elgin

Hastings

Hemel Hempstead

Hereford

Hull

Inverness

Kendal

Kirkcaldy

Maidenhead

Middlesbrough

Newmarket

Oxford

Reading

Runcorn

Southend

Stafford

St Albans

Swansea

Tamworth

Taunton

So get in quick if you’re interested!

There’s a number on the list with nearby waterways … Do contact us by email if you want to chat about our experiences.

The Home Brew Boat and Photography

Barry has focused mostly on on-line sales for The Home Brew Boat this year, doing very little towpath trading. We have three canal festivals booked in the Birmingham area in September. Most unlike the past four years.

He’s refining the products he sells, according to what he’s found popular. There may be more changes afoot in the near future, concentrating more along the distilling and spirits making line. That is more his area of expertise having been involved with ‘Still Spirits‘, the distilling supply company whom Barry dealt with in New Zealand, prior to moving to the UK. So … if you want to know about distilling, the legalities of it and ‘how to do it safely and successfully for personal consumption only’, give him a call or email via the contact us page.

Last year Barry was invited to work with PayPal together with an international freight company and which uses a website plugin to expand the reach of his business. It means his wicked website is translated into the language of the country where it is viewed so is able to have products delivered across the globe. The customer pays the UK plus extra international postage when ordering. Barry organises the courier to the depot at Heathrow, and PayPal or their freight partner, do the rest. It’s been working very successfully so far.

He’s also increased the range of waterways related Greeting Cards to 47, with nine new ones in the last batch. Photography continues to be a passion – just in a very different way to his years in New Zealand.

The Worcester, Birmingham and Droitwich Canal Society have purchased some of his cards to sell at events they attend, and they say they’ve been one of their best-sellers! So … if there’s anyone else out there who would like to stock a selection of Barry’s cards, please do contact us.

He’s had photographs published recently in The Wall Street Journal and Waterways World, and we started a weekly Wednesday ‘Guess the location and waterway’ competition on his ‘Inspirational Images of the UK Inland Waterways’ Facebook page. The person to guess correctly wins their choice of Greeting Card from Barry’s range. Most week’s we’re a card down – occasionally we stump everyone! Click the link and ‘like’ the page, check it out on a Wednesday (the time we publish is variable) – and have a go yourself …

Reflections in Little Venice – published in The Wall Street Journal

A snow covered Areandare December 2017 Hopwas

Sandra’s becoming a Google Guru – at Ad-extra

Also this year, I (Sandra) applied, was interviewed, and successfully passed the required ‘Google Ads’ (formerly ‘Google AdWords’) exams, to gain a self-employed consultant contract with a fabulous UK-based company called ‘Ad-Extra‘. Over the past years I’ve blogged, set up and managed websites, and marketed our services through a variety of Social Media accounts, so this seemed like a natural progression.

One of the beauties of doing online work like this, is the flexibility of the ‘hours of work’ – which can be mostly adapted around our lifestyle. It’s early days yet, but after working with the owner Dom, and the select team, since March 2018, I can honestly say I’m looking forwarding to building up my contribution to helping people promote themselves to clients searching for local businesses.

For any canal-related businesses, appearing at the top of Google searches may be something that would increase your exposure and income. Sandra Willis from The Doggie Boat, also works for Ad-Extra. Click here and ‘meet the team‘!

Duck food and Canal Art

These have been very small additions, so far, to our ‘portfolio’ of income generating streams.

We’ve been travelling a lot, and entertaining visitors frequently, so weekends sitting on a busy towpath attempting to ply our wares just hasn’t really figured on our itinerary! However, they’re both ‘works in progress’, and projects we’ll consider building upon during the remainder of this summer, early autumn, and in 2019.

Letting go of Facepainting …

A few fantastic faces from Blisworth Canal Festival 2016

I loved being a facepainter since April 2014. It’s something I’d wanted to do for many years, and I believe (and was often told!) that I became rather good at it!

However …

I only ever got to facepaint OFF the boat. Which meant hauling heaps of equipment from the boat to a land-based stall and setting it up. Or hiring a car and travelling to events (that cut into the meagre profits!). And when people asked me if I did parties, generally I had to say yes and no, desperately wanting to say yes – but knowing it depended upon where we were expecting to be located at the time of the event. I’m convinced that if we’d been in one place, for a length of time, I could’ve built up the business successfully. As it is, with the lifestyle we’re currently living and loving, I felt it wasn’t moving forward. So I’ve made the sad decision to let it go – for now. Who knows, one day I may pick up my brushes, sponges, paints, glitter and gems again … Watching children’s (and young and more mature adults!) faces light up when they look in the mirror has been akin to waving a magic wand and sprinkling fairy dust on them. Absolutely priceless.

A kiwi summer

Our next kiwi guests arrive today, and are with us for three fabulous days. We’re currently moored adjacent to The Salt Barge, not far from Northwich. We’ve not stayed here previously, but will definitely do so again. A marvellous mooring and outstanding proper British pub.

On 25th July Barry’s older brother Ray arrives for three weeks. We recently heard his younger brother Peter has also chosen 2018 to pop in for a cuppa – or most likely something rather stronger! He’s literally popping in one day and out the next. But it’ll be amazing to see them both.

And yes, in between and during, we’ll both be fitting in ‘work’. Following that, September we have three festivals booked. October, it’ll be noses to the grindstone, and we’ll be focussing on making our Lichfield Calendar Club store as successful as possible.

We don’t always get the balance as evenly weighted to either side as we’d like, but mostly it suits us living as we are. For now …

Continuing to discover ways to sustain our flexible floating lifestyle It may seem to some readers we spend most of our time enjoying ourselves. Together, with family, and with friends.

#Ad-Extra #AdWords #Calendar Club Store Operators applications #Calendar Club UK #facepainting #Google Ads #Google AdWords #Inspirational Images of the UK Inland Waterways #Still Spirits #The Home Brew Boat #Three Spires Centre Lichfield #Waterways Related Greeting Cards

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engineerbabuinc · 5 years ago

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Remote Jobs for Web Developers to Work Remotely

Are you looking to hire dedicated web developers for remote jobs? Whoa! You are on the right page.

Ask any start-up or any new-gen- entrepreneur the toughest part of his job is “Hiring a right remote candidate”!

Though, any organization whether doing online or offline business hire a remote worker. It is a cultural shift and every business is embracing this change. According to a study, the US spends $80,000 USD and Australia spends $70,000 AUD, and still unable to find accurate people who can complete the work with quality and perfection.

Companies that are making remote workforce

A report by Gallup stated that employees in the USA who regularly work remotely increased from 39% to 43% of the workforce between 2012 and 2016. If we dive deep into the study, it claimed that in 2016, 57 percent of employees working in computer/information systems spent some of their time working remotely.

Many successful businesses including GitHub, Buffer, Zapier, etc are running by fully-remote teams that launch chart-topper products and services which are built-in and marketed from home offices, coffee shops and co-working spaces around the world.

In addition to this, a cyber-security company Crowdstrick which is also named as “great place to work” by Fortune, its 400 employees out of 800 work remotely. This a prime example of how modern age and well-established companies are welcoming the remote working practices.

How remote jobs are beneficial for employers?

Many (many) people seem to think that ‘working from home’ or the remote working amounts to flutter down on the sofa, watching television or playing video games all day, with maybe an hour or two of ‘work’ thrown in the mix. Good luck finding that gig (lol).

But the truth is that most remote workers tend to put in long and extended hours and take fewer breaks than conventional office employees. With zero commute and fewer distractions — which eventually lead to more focus and productivity, it’s easy to see why. Some of the key benefits of hiring developers for remote jobs are listed below:

Talent Pool: Hiring remotely always allows employers to choose ‘the best out of the best’. Some businesses or entrepreneurs are able to hire people from anywhere in the world, while others require someone to be in a particular location or time zone. Talent from a different location is always better than local staff. He/she will give new a twist to the workflow.

Cost-saving: A talented employee who works from home doesn’t require any office space, computing equipment, coffee, and covering of commute. This money can be utilized to boost up the salary which will obviously increase the productivity of every developer.

Innovative ideas: Remote developers have working experience with various companies around the planet and deal with multiple clients at any one time. This provides them with multitasking exposure, which gives a clear path to new and innovative ideas. Remote developers are more inspired, enthusiastic and motivated about their work and give more input as compared to in-office employees.

Higher retention: It has been observed that remote workers have a higher job satisfaction ratio and they enjoy a perfect social –work-life balance. They have lower down the stress levels and live a healthier lifestyle. This is the reason why work from home (WFM) employees takes leaves less often. It will be really surprising to see after hiring your first remote employee that working with such an employee is quite easy. Moreover, you will certainly feel a sense of efficiency and reliability while getting your work done.

Increased productivity: It actually sounds weird but yes remote workers are much more productive than in-house developers who regularly work at 9-5. After continuously observing these groups for a period of 9 months, a study generated the following statistics which were released by the researchers. - Remote employees worked for more days (less number of sick days and leaves) - 5% more calls completed by the remote workers - Fewer breaks during the whole work.

Time zone coverage: Having a developer who works in rotational hours or of different time zone can improve the development process and support team because of instant work.

Various ways where you can hire developers for remote jobs

To begin with, we should discuss a choice between freelance remote developers or a dedicated team of developers. This is a very complex question but it streamlines the process of hiring. Depending upon the size of the project, the budget and a certain skill set is decided. Let us dive deeper into that. A project can classify into two parameters:

Small

Medium / Large

A small sized project required limited freelancers (one or two) to accomplish a small project or a particular task, which also indulges a Project Manager who will look after the code quality, time and proper communication with the team. In the case with larger projects with a need for ongoing support engaging a dedicated remote team is the best solution. Those normally are managed by their own (Project Manager) PM team, so they share additional your time on management tasks and communication efforts. To get more clarification refer to this chart:

Freelance Developers:

Project Size - Small

Budget - Limited

Project Manager Availability - Yes

Skill Requirement - Short Term

Dedicated Team:

Project Size - Medium/Large

Budget - Modified

Project Manager Availability - No

Skill Requirement - Ongoing

Recommended Reading: How to Hire a Dedicated PHP Developer

Now I think you have decided which hiring model suits you well, so the next question arises where to find a developer for remote jobs? There is a huge list of sources where you can hire a developer or team to carry out your project.

1. Freelancing Platforms: The freelancing platforms provide a wide range of remote developers. Millions of businesses and job seekers registered themselves on various freelancing portals in order to undertake remote jobs.

Upwork: This is the well-known remote job offering platform. It provides job opportunities for both – an independent freelancer and small startups (Agencies). But it has its own pros and cons. Basically; Upwork works as a mediator between both parties and charges some money. Some of the clients experienced that chasing an independent freelancer is a challenging task. They usually go for an agency in order to check these hurdles.

Freelancer: Another very famous podium where a job seeker can bid on various projects posted by the job provider or “the client”. It is worth mentioning here though its database is low as compared to Upwork. But recent times its user suggested that it doesn’t provide quality of the job and secure payments.

People Per Hour: People Per Hour is another marketplace connecting businesses and freelancers. People Per Hour is a freelance job board where clients post work requirements and freelancers find the jobs. This only for the clients who are interested in hiring developers only on an hourly basis. It doesn’t allow the client to hire developers for remote jobs monthly, yearly or per task. These limitations of People Per Hour drive the client towards other options present in the market.

2. Industrial- specific Forums: In the fasten society and the era of information technology, the majority of the software development solution providers offer quite informative software development blogs either on their websites or on public resources like Medium, Hackernoon, etc. Additionally, you can search the best software service provider on industry define platforms which gives more information about the company and help you get in touch with it.

Clutch: Clutch.co is a B2B marketing platform empowering premier brands to identify, understand and motivate their customers. It gives unbiased reviews and ratings to the businesses. More than 7000 IT-field companies registered themselves. The benefit of Clutch is that it only index verified companies and publishes verified clients’ reviews and feedback which helps to make a proper decision.

GoodFirms: One more in the list of remote hiring platforms. It provides a direct communication of job seekers with thousands of expert professionals within the software development industry all over the world. GoodFirms, just as the name suggests itself, is a dedicated community and contains the list of well-performing IT companies as well as a software solutions provider in the world.

3. Direct Hiring: Direct hiring means a situation where a company that intends to hire a candidate offers them the job directly. The direct hiring process doesn’t require any third – party elevation. There are many promotional blogs available in the public domain which gives a simple idea about the benefit of remote hiring. Here are some sources which will help you to find out the best developers for remote jobs.

Social Media: A very popular and prominent source to find out the remote developers who can work from home or any co-office space. You can easily find them on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. You can visit their websites and can see their previous work experience and discuss them about the same.

LinkedIn: It is specially designed for corporate. This is a type of social media that promotes talent and company in a very easy and professional manner. The LinkedIn profile shows the employee’s authenticity and works history with the skill and work experience in relevant technology.

Some myths about hiring Developers for Remote Jobs

As remote working and hiring are becoming more and more popular it simultaneously gives birth to the misconception about remote jobs and their working style. Here are some very common myths we heard off:

They work 24/7: It is a very common myth that the remote worker is always on “ON MODE”. Employees like working remotely because it gives them the freedom and flexibility to make their own work schedule but it doesn’t mean that they are available 24/7 to give services and support.

Difficult to communicate: Well partially it is true! Because are not available for group meetings and discussion every time but connecting them via video conferencing might be a good option. This will also help both parties to build a virtual relation. Another concern is that they aren’t communicators. But the fact is English is a universal language. Every professional is trained in speaking, writing and understands it very well.

Less productive: This is a very common misconception that the remote developers are lazy and they do not put much effort into the job. But this is wrong. The remote employees make their own work schedule. A recent study finds that remote employees are much more productive than in-office employees because they use less time to commutate and take shorter breaks. The remaining time is saved for the additional work.

Besides all the challenges here for the company are developing a consistent hiring the framework to get the best talent across the world, regardless of location; working on fostering the right culture; making meetings better and focusing on accountability.

Recommended Reading: Best Way to Hire a Node JS Developer

There is not a single reason left for you to limit the talent pool to a particular area. There is a wide range of tools available that assist you in collaborating with your remote workers for better communication. You can take advantage of these kinds of technology and enjoy these advantages of hiring developers for remote jobs.

Why hire offshore developers only from India?

According to Wikipedia, India is the 2nd largest country to provide freelancers. Over15 million people work remotely in IT and programming. India is the biggest market for hiring a developer for remote jobs. The proven record of performing well in the IT industry, Indian companies also open the doors for the world to work with their developers. There is no doubt that Indian developers are highly skilled and par excellent communicators, but they are also available at reasonable rates as compared to others.

India is a land of diversity. Its culture changes from place to place so the workforce too. When it comes to comparison of two IT hubs in India (Bangalore and Indore) Indore seems very reliable. Like if we talk about the work- employee culture Bangloreian IT engineer’s tendency to switch the job in every 7 months (on average) but IT engineers from Indore stick to the company for long.

EngineerBabu, a 10 years old startup from Indore achieving new heights. All developers of EngineerBabu are pre-scanned and hand-picked. We believe that every company should get benefit from extending the product team remotely and we provide a great opportunity to try scaling remotely with our trial! Let’s discuss the remote hiring process now!

Visit our blog for more information and feel free to request a demonstration of our hiring process.

I am very open for any suggestion, questions or feedback write to [email protected]

Enjoyed the blog? Feel free to share it everywhere.

#remote jobs #remote workers #work from remote #work remotely

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laurelkrugerr · 4 years ago

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Bringing You The Best Of Smashing

About The Author

Juggling between three languages on a daily basis, Iris is known for her love of linguistics, arts, web design and typography, as well as her goldmine of … More about Iris …

What’s new at Smashing? When’s the next event? Did you miss out on anything? Don’t worry, you’ll find everything gathered here in one place so you don’t need to have a hundred tabs open. (Yes, it has been that busy!)

Well, I guess we can all agree that this year has been quite something. We’ve all been challenged in one way or the other, and the new normal is not quite the old normal. Still, the overriding emphasis remains on safety and everyone’s wellbeing, as well as the importance on sharing thoughts and feelings on creative wellness within the community.

Unfortunately, the effects of COVID-19 are still so wide-reaching throughout the world, so that the Smashing team has had to make big changes to our plans this year. As Rachel Andrew, editor-of-chief of Smashing Magazine, nicely puts it:

“The pandemic has made life unpredictable and scary for many people. At Smashing, we’ve had to very quickly figure out new ways of delivering great content — in a way that supports the business but also our speakers and workshop leaders. We have been encouraged by the enthusiasm from the community, the messages of support, and the willingness to try these new formats.”

On that note, we have decided to take all 2020 dates online. We hope to see you there!

We’re able to do these all these wonderful things because of your support, and we truly and sincerely appreciate it.

Interactive Workshops To Help You Boost Your Skills

With online workshops, we aim to give you the same experience and access to experts as in an in-person workshop, without needing to leave your desk. So you can learn at your own pace, in your own time, and follow interactive exercises along the way.

We’ve done our best to provide you with a mix of both design- and frontend-related workshops:

Attending a Smashing online event means that you’ll be taking part in live sessions, Q&As, discussion zones, challenges, and so much more! See all schedules and events →

Sit Back, Relax, And Tune In!

The Smashing Podcast is the perfect way to take a little bit of Smashing along with you on your morning commute, when working out at the gym, or just washing the dishes. Every two weeks, Drew McLellan talks to design and development experts about their work on the web. You can subscribe in your favorite app to get new episodes as soon as they’re ready.

Is there a topic that you’d love to hear and learn more about? Or perhaps you or someone you know would like to talk about a web- and design-related topic that is dear to your hearts? We’d love to hear from you! Feel free to reach out to us on Twitter and we’ll do our best to get back to you as soon as possible.

Catching up with what’s new in the web industry doesn’t mean you have to be tied up to a chair and desk! Do as Topple the Cat does it: grab your headphones and stretch those legs! You can subscribe and tune in anytime with any of your favorite apps.

Our Most Recent Addition To The Smashing Bookshelf

We shipped the first copies of Click! How to Encourage Clicks Without Shady Tricks a few weeks ago, and if you pre-ordered a copy of the book, you must have received a personal note from the author himself, Paul Boag. It was fun to follow the reactions pop up on social media — Ari Stiles shared some tweets in her recent post.

Click! comes along at a time when many of us need a creative “nudge.” The book inspires us to think differently about our routines for building online sites and services—what works, and what doesn’t. You can jump to the table of contents, or if you’d like to take a peek first, you can download a free PDF excerpt right away (17.3 MB). Happy reading!

Print + eBook

$ 39.00 Get Print + eBook

Quality hardcover. Free worldwide shipping. 100 days money-back-guarantee.

eBook

$ 19.00

Free! Get the eBook

DRM-free, of course. ePUB, Kindle, PDF. Included with Smashing Membership.

Trending Topics On Smashing Magazine

Best Picks From Our Newsletter

Interested in sponsoring? Feel free to check out our partnership options and get in touch with the team anytime — they’ll be sure to get back to you right away.

P.S. A huge thank you to Cosima Mielke for writing and preparing these posts!

Free Fonts With Personality

The Making Of A Typeface

Dealing With Browser Font Rendering Inconsistencies

Continuous Performance Measurements Made Easy

The Anatomy Of A Push Notification

Editing Keyframe Animations Live

Determining The Best Build Tool For Your Project

Turning A Flat Image Into A Folded Poster

Striking A Balance Between Native And Custom Select Elements

Hybrid Positioning With CSS Variables And max()

Stories From The Dark Side Of The Web

(cm, vf, ra)

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/bringing-you-the-best-of-smashing/

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maritzaerwin · 4 years ago

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13 Tips for Guaranteed Success At Remote Work

Remote working is a form that many prefer over going to the office dressed up all nice on a daily basis. It provides convenience and practicality in many ways it can become impractical if not performed properly.

Given the current ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, remote working has become mandatory rather than being optional for many employees out there.

If you are new to the remote work experience, you might want to take into consideration these 13 tips and tricks that we have here for you today.

1. Go For the Right Tools

First and foremost, you need the right equipment in your arsenal for performing remote work duties. Your work will only become frustrating and time-consuming rather than being productive if you ignore their importance.

For instance, a good internet connection can really go a long way as a reliable high-speed internet is definitely the first thing you need at your disposal. Getting access to unlimited internet at home and outside is not a big issue these days. Further important tools you may need include a durable headset, a comfortable chair, a proper work desk, and a few snacks to help you get by during your workday.

You may think that you can get by without the availability of these tools but you wouldn’t be more wrong. A proper headset is important to keep all the distraction away from you while work, while the chair and desk are critical to work effectively as performing your work while lying in bed with your laptop is not that as you might think and finally snacking helps you keep refreshed while you are busy with your workload.

2. Always Stay Connected

To feel the true essence of a proper work environment you must always stay connected to your colleagues via the internet. By doing this, you are avoiding the uncomfortable feeling of isolation. You will be constantly reminded that you are not the only one stuck at home with work, your peers are doing the same things as well.

We suggest resorting to tools such as Zoom, Skype, Basecamp and many others to help you stay connected with your peers. Apart from providing great ease in communicating work-related information, it is also a great way to digitally socialize with your peers.

Being stuck at home does not mean you cannot socialize with your peers anymore. Indulging in the occasional gossip with your office friends over a cup of coffee is still something you can do with the help of these tools.

3. Do Not Underestimate the Power of Communication

This is something that is probably affected the most while you work from home. But it cannot be emphasized enough that you must communicate with your peers as much as you possibly can. Think of it like actually walking over to your colleague’s desk and communicating with them like you would in the office.

Employers and senior personnel must always take it upon themselves to keep the juniors motivated and informed of all the regular updates. Things like doing the occasional check-up call, or sending out an infographic to help deal better with the situation, or information regarding the current project you may be working on is something that must be communicated more than often.

4. Go For a Change of Scenery

It is very important that you get up from your place of work at home and experience a change of scenery. Sitting in front of the screen all day long at the same spot can really start to get frustrating after a little while.

When you are on your break, do not stay in front of the screen streaming YouTube videos or scrolling through social media profiles. Instead, go for a walk in your garden or maybe cook up a quick snack. Anything that gets you up from that room and gets you to a different room for a significant amount of time will do the trick.

5. Organize Your Work and Home Duties

When you are working from home, it is very easy for the home duties and work duties to overlap. You might be busy in a conference call with your peers when the dryer may notify you of the clothes being done.

You have to come up with a schedule that separates your work and home duties from each other. If you do not do so, you will end up compromising on both. So, it is better to do them at separate time slots guaranteeing efficiency in both of them.

6. A Dedicated Work Spot Is a Must

You may be thinking that when you are working from home you will be able to work while you are still in your bed in your pajamas. This habit can cause you to lose serious productivity while you work.

It does not matter whether you are temporarily working from home or that is what you do permanently, having a separate work spot in your home is something you simply cannot ignore. The purpose of doing this is to keep all the distracting things away from you while you work. It does not necessarily have to be a separate room in your home, a proper work desk setup in the corner of your room would suffice.

7. Breaks are Important

Some people try to go with the strategy that they can get all the work done in one go and get off early from their duties. While doing so, they ignore the necessary breaks they need to take while they are working.

No matter what type of work you are doing, taking a break in the middle of it is very important. If you are constantly working without taking a break, a point will come when you will start to compromise on quality in the need for getting it done quickly.

On the other hand, if you utilize a proper break schedule, your work quality will not suffer and you will be less tired and irritated when you are finally free from your work. Even talking half an hour of a break to watch your favorite sitcom would be enough to get you charged back up before you get back to your work.

8. Stretch Your Muscles

Physical fitness is as important as your mental fitness while you work from home. While taking short breaks from work helps you recharge mentally, a small workout or yoga session will help you loosen up the sore muscles you may be getting from sitting in the same posture all day long.

Try to make time for a workout in your schedule on a daily basis. It does not have to be a hardcore workout that gets you reaching for the water bottle near you. A simple yoga session will also be able to relax your body after a tiring day. After all, you wouldn’t want to suffer that irritating backache after sitting in the chair for hours on end.

9. Prioritize Video over Voice

Team calls or an important part of your daily routine when you are working from home. There are numerous things that are needed to be communicated with other team members throughout the day.

It is important that instead of just holding a voice call with them, you go for the option of a video call with your team members. Doing so will better help to create a professional environment. Also, some things rely on facial expressions and hand gestures to help effectively communicate your message, which would only be achieved by a video call.

10. Do Not Overdo Your Breaks

While some may ignore the breaks completely, others do the complete opposite by taking unfair advantage of their breaks. Now that you are in your homes while you work, check and balance form your superiors are significantly reduced.

It is your duty now to not overdo your break times. You may be thinking that you will just check your social media for a minute but before you know it, it will have been over an hour and you will be watching videos of dogs playing tennis on the internet.

You must overcome all your basic desires like the urge to take a nap, play your favorite video game, or chat with your friends for hours, and concentrate on your office duties before the day ends. Once your duties are over, you can spend all the time in these activities you want to.

11. Stay off Social Media during Work

We all know how addicting social media platforms can be. Whether you are at home doing nothing or sitting in a board room in a meeting, you cannot resist to pick up your phones and catch up on the daily gossip on social media.

According to Inc.com, social media is the biggest productivity killer in any work environment. You may not be being monitored while you are in your home, but the amount of work that will pile up while you are scrolling away is only going to stab you in the back when the time comes.

12. Your Apparel Makes a Difference

Many of you may be thinking that now that you do not have to go to the office in the morning every day, you can fire up your laptop and start doing your work in the pajamas you were wearing last night.

An important of doing remote work is also dressing up for the part. Try to get out of the comfy clothes you have been wearing all night and get into something a little tidier that gives you the sense of actually working at home.

According to experts, there is a psychological impact of your dress on your work even when you are working from home. They can even guide you on what to wear and what not to wear while you take on your work duties from your homes.

13. Some Tools That You Might Find Useful

Now that we have let you in on the tricks that you need to use to perform efficient remote work, it is about time that we tell you about some of the tools that will only compliment the way you work remotely.

i) ProofHub

ProofHub is an online project management platform that you can use to accumulate all your work-related tasks under one roof. Whether you want to assign a certain duty to your employees on the task at hand or wish to convey a simple reminder to them, this is the perfect place for you to do that.

ii) Zoom

For the task of holding conference calls and team meetings, there is no better place to do so than on Zoom. It is the best platform that you can utilize to help the communication process go smoothly. Built with cross-platform compatibility, this is useful in almost every work environment imaginable.

iii) Google Calendar

Managing your time during remote work is harder than you can imagine. If you do not follow a proper schedule, you are likely to fall back on your work or ignore it completely altogether. Google Calendar is the perfect tool to help you manage your time during remote work. Whether you want to set up a reminder of an upcoming meeting or do not want to forget about getting the groceries, Google Calendar is more than sufficient.

iv) TeamViewer

There may be times when you might need assistance from your IT guy while you are working. Explaining the problem you may be having can get quite difficult at times. In times like this, TeamViewer comes in really handy. It grants virtual control of your desktop to a permitted second party who, then, can perform the task you may be having trouble explaining to them.

A Few Final Words

Remote work or not, abiding by these simple tips and tricks can really help you be successful in all forms of work. But given the current situation when remote work is not an option but a necessity, it makes these tips all the more useful for you.

You will realize the difference in your work yourself once you start to make the changes that are advised. Until such a time when it becomes optional again, Happy Remote Working!

The post 13 Tips for Guaranteed Success At Remote Work appeared first on CareerMetis.com.

13 Tips for Guaranteed Success At Remote Work published first on https://skillsireweb.tumblr.com/

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footballghana · 5 years ago

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FC Nordsjaelland: The Danish club doing it differently with 'youngest team in Europe'

Danish club FC Nordsjaelland are a club proud to do it differently. Before football's lockdown, Sky Sports' Johnny Phillips went to find out how their academy-led approach is paying dividends on and off the pitch.

Twenty years ago, at a disused football stadium in the town of Dawu, in Ghana's Eastern Region, the Right to Dream football academy was founded.

It was the idea of Tom Vernon, an English football coach and Manchester United scout working in the country, who believed that through sport and education children from extreme poverty could have the opportunity to build a better life for themselves.

"At first it was just money from my coaching salary and a few people helping out, but over 20 years we've managed to build Right to Dream into the most respected academy in Ghana," says Vernon, who now has a purpose-built facility housing 90 boys and girls on a residential basis.

It has been an incredible success story. Seven of the players who came through the system have been capped by Ghana.

"We have over 50 graduates who are professional footballers playing around the world, over 70 kids at universities in America, and it is the only girls' academy on the African continent. It's something that a lot of academies in Africa are looking to replicate."

[caption id="attachment_752548" align="alignnone" width="300"] The Right to Dream academy in Ghana[/caption]

Vernon is speaking from his office overlooking the stadium pitch at FC Nordsjaelland, the Danish Superliga club based in the small town of Farum, just 15 miles north of Copenhagen. Right to Dream bought the club four years ago, with Vernon becoming chairman and overseeing a partnership between the academy in Ghana and FC Nordsjaelland's own youth system.

'We believe in doing it differently'

The results have been eye-catching. FC Nordsjaelland now boasts the youngest team across all of Europe's top divisions, with an average age in league games of 22 years and six months. Sixty per cent of the first team squad is made up of graduates from both academies.

"We are the youngest team in Europe, but we don't want to be the youngest team and be relegated," Vernon explains.

"We have made the Europa League qualifiers in the four years we have been here and we are looking to build on that. The way we have developed players at Right to Dream we think is a globally relevant model. In many ways we think the European academy system has lost its moral compass, the way kids are picked very young and kicked out after a couple of years. Are we really investing in their education?

[caption id="attachment_752551" align="alignnone" width="300"] FC Nordsjaelland thank their away visiting supporters after a UEFA Europa League second qualifying round match against AIK in August 2018[/caption]

"We believe in doing it differently. We don't deselect players and we invest heavily in their education and their character development to create people who are fit to go out into the world, whether that's in our first team or not. None of our Ghanaian players come to Europe before our Danish players visit Africa. So all our Under 14s Danish players go to Ghana and spend some time living in the academy like the Right to Dream boys do. There's a lot of knowledge and learning that goes on both ways."

"We are not just focused on winning games in the Superliga, and those results making the day good or bad," says Under 19s coach Kasper Kurland.

"It is a project that goes beyond playing games. The more the players are engaged outside the pitch then the better players they will become. If it is only football each day then we are missing something."

"I'm interested in art, so I don't really spend all my time on football," says Ghanaian midfielder Abu Francis.

[caption id="attachment_752552" align="alignnone" width="300"] Abu Francis is congratulated by his FC Nordsjaelland team-mates. Pic: boesenfoto.dk[/caption]

"After games, I will go to my room and work on my drawings, which inspires me a lot. If football doesn't go to plan for me, then I know I have other skills that I can use to help myself progress in life."

Players are encouraged to take ownership of their personal development. Creating free-thinking footballers on the pitch is at the heart of the club's DNA.

"Two years ago we were third in the Danish Superliga, and we want to compete in Europe every year and long-term we want to win the Superliga," says head coach Flemming Pedersen.

"Our style of play is an analysis of the modern game at the top level. It is a complex style of play where the players must get used to making fast decisions. They are motivated to get out of their comfort zone. We have a vision where we want a self-organised team: not just 11 players on the pitch but 11 coaches."

"When you are academy-focused it sends a whole buzz through the club," Vernon adds.

"You've seen it at Chelsea this season with the players they have brought through, it means more. The youngsters come in every day knowing why they are here, they are not disillusioned. We also need to realise good transfer values for our players as that is part of our financing model. We've sold players really well every year."

The impact of the club's youth system is starting to create ripples across Europe, as the club provides a platform for its best players to move on and further their careers.

[caption id="attachment_752553" align="alignnone" width="300"] FC Nordsjaelland fans. Pic: boesenfoto.dk[/caption]

Brentford, fourth in the Championship, are one of those benefitting with two FC Nordsjaelland graduates currently in their first team - midfielders Emiliano Marcondes and Mathias Jensen.

"They made me a thinker," says Marcondes. "It's the structure and the culture in everything they do. They made it easy to adapt from going from a youth to senior team. The African players have done incredibly well, too. I still follow them now and like to go back home and see how the players from both academies are doing."

"I can't imagine a better club to develop you as a youth player," Jensen agrees. "They give the chance to you if you are performing, no matter how old you are. They develop the players in all the small details of their coaching. They are also focussed on the players as human beings, not just footballers. We had a lot of focus on character sessions, I had a great time there."

'Mata a role model for our players'

[caption id="attachment_752554" align="alignnone" width="300"] FC Nordsjaelland have joined Juan Mata's Common Goal project[/caption]

The emphasis on character development off the pitch is an integral part of the club's ethos. FC Nordsjaelland has become the first professional club in the world to join Juan Mata's Common Goal project.

"We donate one percent of our stadium turnover," explains chief executive Soren Kristensen. "We signed up on the pitch here with Kasper Schmeichel, who is one of their ambassadors. We also have over 50 players and staff who donate one percent of their salary."

"Mata is the footballer of the future, taking a stand for things, understanding that a 2020 sportsperson has to have a broader perspective," says Vernon. "When you meet Juan he is the kind of player you dream of producing in the academy system: a great player with a broader perspective of what he can give back to others. He engages with us here and we hold him up as a role model for our players.

"Goalkeeper Rúnar Alex Rúnarsson, who we sold to Dijon last year, said his motivation for playing has changed. Now he plays to motivate the kids in the projects he supports through Common Goal.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">🌍| FC Nordsjælland is joining Common Goal<br><br>It is with pride and honour, we can confirm, that FC Nordsjælland will be the first club in the world to join the global movement Common Goal.<br><br>Read the press announcement here 👇<a href="https://t.co/M1YHApro8R">https://t.co/M1YHApro8R</a><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/footballforgood?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#footballforgood</a> <a href="https://t.co/0Yc4lx2XXa">pic.twitter.com/0Yc4lx2XXa</a></p>— FC Nordsjælland 🐯 (@FCNordsjaelland) <a href="https://twitter.com/FCNordsjaelland/status/998593758206857222?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 21, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

"Hopefully we are leaving the era of the hyper-individualistic footballer. Many of the negative aspects of social media reinforce individualism but they can also be a platform for sharing your purpose. We have taken a stand on Black History Month, International Women's Day and Common Goal. It's about understanding that you can use these platforms not just to promote yourself. You can stand for something more."

FC Nordsjaelland women's team is another positive story and have enjoyed three successive promotions. They train on the same stadium pitch as their male counterparts.

"The club are trying to give us the same opportunities, we have the same training facilities and the same gym rooms," says midfielder Esther Ronn. "We have almost as many physios, so we feel that we are a valued part of the club."

The path being taken at FC Nordsjaelland is at odds with so much of the modern game in Western Europe. This club is showing it is possible to thrive by taking a different route. And there is a belief that through the promotion of youth and character development, they can make their mark in a distinct way.

At the time of the lockdown, the club stood in fifth place in the Danish Superliga, just two points off third.

"The first team is our oldest academy team," Vernon concludes. "It is younger than many of the Under 23 teams in England. For us, it's about producing people we can be proud of who have come through our system and bought into our philosophy."

Source//Skysports.com//Johnny Phillips

source: https://footballghana.com/

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topicprinter · 5 years ago

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Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Yaniv Masjedi (u/nextiva) of Nextiva, a brand that makes business communications tools.Some stats:Product: business communications tools.Revenue/mo: $10,000,000Started: May 2008Location: Scottsdale, AZFounders: 2Employees: 1000Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hi, Everyone! My name is Yaniv Masjedi and I’m the CMO of Nextiva, a leading business communications company based in Scottsdale, Arizona. I’ve been with the company since the very beginning (spring 2008) when we signed our first customer.Our co-founder and CEO, Tomas Gorny, came up with the idea for Nextiva after experiencing a ton of inefficiencies in the business phone service and business communication market. He wanted to solve for those and create a company that was focused on continually innovating and delivering the best customer experience the industry had ever seen.imageIt’s been a really fun ride. We’ve actually evolved within the last year from a business providing primarily business phone services to one that solves all communication challenges for companies. Now we combine CRM tools, team collaboration tools and business communication tools all on one platform called NextOS.We’ve also grown exponentially since those early days in 2008. While we started with a few people in a windowless conference room, we now have more than 1,000 team members spread out across offices across the world.What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?The idea for Nextiva came from Tomas. He is an amazing entrepreneur, and after founding several phenomenal companies over the years, in 2008, he decided to take a crack at reforming the inefficient and antiquated business communications industry. He and I had worked together previously; I actually started in sales roles at another one of his companies. When he told me of his idea for Nextiva, I jumped at the opportunity to join him and the team.The team was so small at the time -just a few of us- and there was a need for marketing right away. Even though I’d never worked in the business communication industry, I dove right in. Now, more than a decade later, I’ve loved what I do every day. Marketing is such a dynamic field; it’s been fun to come up with ideas to help Nextiva grow and work with some of the brightest minds in the business.Nextiva itself launched as basically the tiniest player in the VoIP industry. We were surrounded by giants, and those giants were highly skeptical of our ability to stand on our own and compete with them. We welcomed this challenge and decided to do things differently. We never accepted outside funding; Nextiva is entirely self-funded. We focused on listening to our customers, developing solutions customized to their needs and moving forward. We developed authentic relationships with customers and designed a customer experience model we were so excited about that we even trademarked the term Amazing Service.It was a confluence of all of those things that have helped us grow as fast as we have. Amazing Service has been the backbone of everything we’ve done -every product decision, every interaction, even how we treat one another on the Nextiva team. Instead of only focusing on delivering excellent service externally, we’ve made it our mission to also deliver service internally by treating our team members as well as possible. This has helped us earn many awards for company culture, and keep our retention rates high. Some of Nextiva’s early employees are still with us today.imageBeyond our Amazing Service and the delivery of great business VoIP products, as time went on we started to notice our customers struggle with their business communications as a whole, beyond phone service. Customers were sharing stories of struggle around customer relationship management, of not being able to afford the same tools available to massive corporations, of missed opportunities in team collaboration, of their inability to track various forms of communication, and their constant struggle to keep up with dozens of communication applications that would monitor everything from phone to email to text to social media to chat.Tomas saw this as an opportunity to deliver better service than ever, and over the course of several years, our engineering team worked to create a never-before-seen software tool that would be both affordable and take away the need for so much communication confusion. We named that tool NextOS and launched it in spring 2018, right around our 10th anniversary in business.imageThe announcement has changed the game for Nextiva. With it, we’ve transformed from a business offering VoIP services to a business communications company that, while still offering VoIP, is now helping businesses more holistically. The reception from the industry has been overwhelmingly positive, and it has changed our company in profound ways.I think Tomas speaks to this transformation best, saying, “VoIP is to Nextiva as books are to Amazon.” That quote captures it all. It also illustrates that even 11 years in, we are still just getting started.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.Our process of design to prototype to market was pretty simple. We knew of many VoIP services out there and knew the types of phones required to deliver that kind of service. The founding team, as part of other companies, had been VoIP customers previously, so we were aware of what worked and what desperately needed to be improved. This helped a lot when designing our first product.Really early, we partnered with a company that made technology for cloud phone systems. Our engineers worked closely with them to create the design we had in mind, and then we were off to market.Describe the process of launching the business.Launching Nextiva was incredibly exciting, especially since our small team knew what kind of potential the idea had and how much the market needed what we would offer.The issue, though, was that no one knew we existed.I remember our team-building nextiva.com (we did it by ourselves) and then brainstorming as to how to get the word out to potential customers. Facebook was tiny back then; digital advertising had hardly taken off in 2008. But Google was big, so we created a few ads on Google.What’s amazing is that the first day we posted an ad to Google was the same day we signed our first customer. That fast of response was an early sign of things to come; that the market needed what we were providing and that customers were ready to jump ship from some of our larger competitors and take a chance on us.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?There are so many factors that have gone into us attracting and retaining customers. First and foremost it has been our commitment to listening to our clients and responding to their needs; to really caring about their challenges. Our innovative products and Amazing Service promise had also gone hand-in-hand with this.I believe that happy team members attract happy customers. Our commitment to serving our team members and making Nextiva a really fun, inclusive, supportive and positive place to work has also been integral to retaining customers. This also goes back to hiring. We are very strategic when it comes to bringing on new team members to make sure they are both cultural fit in our offices and have the drive to move Nextiva forward. This has been a huge focus for us, and it has paid off.On the marketing side, we’ve done some fun things to bring in new customers, too. I remember a few years back when we were invited to exhibit at a major industry conference. All of our biggest competitors were there, and tons of potential customers were going to be walking the expo hall. To stand out, we hired former basketball star Dennis Rodman to shoot hoops for a few hours in front of our booth. It was a spectacle (check out the video here). I mean, he’s a character as it is, which added a ton of flair to the experience, but people also love him and wanted pics and selfies with him. It was a huge hit; I don’t think the other booths got a single visitor for the time he was there.imageA few years into our business, we wanted to thank our customers personally for their business, so we created short (5-10 second) videos and posted them to social media (here’s a fun clip from 2018). A team member would call out a customer by name in the video. Customers ended up sharing these videos widely with their networks, thereby spreading goodwill about Nextiva and attracting even more great customers.Speaking of goodwill, I think our customers also appreciate that Nextiva is civically minded. We have an entire philanthropic arm to our company called Nextiva Cares. This arm is dedicated to empowering our team members to volunteer at non-profits that serve our communities. We also give money to worthy causes on a regular basis. During our yearly NextCon conference (this year scheduled for Nov. 3-5, 2019 in Scottsdale), we’ve initiated hashtag/social media challenges in exchange for donations to amazing charities. During our NextCon conferences alone, we’ve donated more than $50,000.imageHow are you doing today and what does the future look like?Things are going great right now. We’ve grown so much since our early days and have a ton of growing still to do. We started with just a few people in a small room and today we have more than 1,000 team members across the world (most of them based in our Scottsdale office).I think we’ve built an amazing foundation, and we have an incredible group of people on board with us. We also have a ton of opportunities to expand and really change the world of business communications. It’s an exciting time.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?We’ve learned so many things! I’ll focus on some internal topics, here, though. We’ve learned a lot as it relates to company culture. Starting out, we did like many tech companies do and provided free snacks and a game room in the office. Our team members loved these perks, but as we grew we realized that company culture isn’t built on snacks (I wrote about this learning for Entrepreneur a few years back).While people appreciated the free food, what they really wanted was a career path and a listening ear from their supervisors. People wanted to have the freedom to give the company feedback, talk about their motivations for coming to work and develop authentic relationships with their colleagues.We took this to heart and have shifted our culture accordingly. Now, team members will regularly meet on-on-one with managers to discuss their career trajectories, how things are going for them and provide ideas and honest feedback. It’s been a profound shift that our team members have appreciated.Hiring has also been a big learning. I’ll say that from day one we knew we wanted to mindfully build our team, but like many other companies in high-growth mode, we of course made some missteps along the way. We’ve learned from them, and now hire people who are doers, who have amazing attitudes and who are fun to be around. Our hiring process is very in-depth, and we’ve found that that increased attention has resulted in tons of fabulous new team members on board.What platform/tools do you use for your business?It might be a plug, but it’s true: internally we use NextOS on a daily basis. Just like our customers, we’ve found it to dramatically help our team track, manage, collaborate and analyze all communications. It’s significantly helped our internal processes become more streamlined, and has helped in our customer relationship management.imageWe also use Asana and Jira to help with project management.What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?I’m a fan of the Marketing School with Neil Patel & Eric Siu podcast. I’ve actually become friends with those guys; I’m continually amazed at their depth of knowledge in the marketing field. The episodes are great and super informative.Two books I’m loving right now are The Power of Noticing: What The Best Leaders See, by Max Bazerman; and Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed and How We Can Stick To The Plan, by Francesca Gino. Both authors are professors at Harvard Business School. I’ve found the takeaways in each book so powerful that I come back to them over and over.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?Nextiva has been experiencing double and triple-digit growth over the past several years, and with that growth has come tons of open positions.We are always looking for great people to join our team. The best places to find open positions are on our careers page and on our listings on LinkedIn.Where can we go to learn more?WebsiteFacebookTwitterInstagramLinkedInLinkedIn for YanivTwitter for YanivEmailIf you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.For more interviews, check out r/starter_story - I post new stories there daily.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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ssdpuhouston · 5 years ago

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It’s official -- yesterday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an official impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump. Below, we’ll give you a rundown on what the next steps are, but first we want to take a moment to recap what led up to this point. (Feel free to skip this first section if you’ve been checking Twitter as obsessively as we have!) How We Got Here It’s been all over the news: A whistleblower complaint alleges that Trump asked Ukrainian leaders to interfere in our elections and provide intelligence on his political opponents. Trump himself -- along with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani -- admitted it. On camera. So that brazenly illegal act was what led to additional Democrats coming out in support of impeachment and Pelosi finally backing the effort, right? Well, sort of, but it wasn’t entirely as fast and easy as the headlines make it sound. This happened because members of Congress -- mostly members of color -- came out early for impeachment and never gave in to whether the winds of public opinion had swayed Pelosi. People like Maxine Waters, Al Green, Pramila Jayapal, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ayanna Pressley (and so many others) who have been outspoken about Congress needing to have the moral clarity to do what's right and take one small step to protect our damned democracy. It happened because of our partner organizations, Indivisible groups and so many individuals who made calls, sent emails, held meetings, and visited district offices for TWO YEARS, demanding to be heard and for their members to do the right thing. In short: thousands of people have been greasing the wheels on impeachment for months. And that’s created a steady buildup of pressure on members of Congress to back the process. The Mueller report, the events and rallies during Impeachment August, the town hall questions and social media posts, the Letters to the Editor -- all these things were kindling just waiting for a spark. And then there were the calls. Yesterday, when it became clear that Speaker Pelosi and other Democratic leadership were planning to meet about impeachment in the wake of revelations about Trump’s call with Ukraine, Indivisibles did what we do best: we sprung into action. Together, in just 4 hours, we generated more than 11,000 phone calls into congressional offices pressuring Members to support impeachment in advance of the House Democratic Caucus meeting. That’s the kind of effort that makes a difference. It’s the kind of effort that brings Nancy Pelosi onto national television to say, “No one is above the law.” And it’s the kind of effort we’re going to need to replicate to keep this inquiry moving forward. What’s Next Now that the official inquiry has been announced, you may be wondering what the next steps are. In simple terms -- we need to keep up the pressure. Yesterday we had three simple asks, but we already won one (yay!) so now it’s two: Keep the investigation in the Judiciary Committee, which has the authority and is already moving forward. ← Big win! At 5 pm yesterday, Speaker Pelosi announced she will not be establishing a special select committee on impeachment. Instead, the existing committees will continue their ongoing investigations in service of a formal impeachment inquiry. That’s what we wanted! Cancel next week’s recess. Rather than going home and letting the news cycle move on without any action (we’ve seen that before), Congress should cancel their scheduled recess, stay in Washington, and do their jobs to hold Trump accountable. Hold a vote on impeachment as soon as possible. Every day Trump sits in office without any consequences for his behavior is a threat to the country and our most fundamental principles. The time to act is now. We’ve gotten some questions about that last ask, so we want to give our two cents. Trump's actions are not just corrupt -- they are a matter of national security, election security, and the integrity of our democracy. And several committees have been investigating Trump’s conduct for months. That means that a lot of the up-front work that would form the basis of articles of impeachment has already been conducted by committees in the House and is ready to be forwarded to Judiciary. We’re not at all saying we shouldn’t have any more hearings, but there’s no reason this process should take months to move forward -- as long as Democratic leadership treats it with the urgency it requires. Here is a call script for you to call your members of Congress. And if you’d like to take it a step further, after you make your calls, click here to write a letter to the editor supporting impeachment. What if they stay on recess? We know very well that asking Congress to give back their vacation time to go back to still-hot-and-muggy DC could be a losing battle. So if they don’t do the right thing, we’re ready to get loud. Yesterday afternoon, we worked with some of our sister organizations to form IMPEACH-NOW, a coalition of progressive organizations dedicated to pressuring members of Congress to Impeach Trump. We’ve launched a shared website, impeachnow.org. Until Speaker Pelosi does the right thing and brings Congress back from recess, use the resources there to find town halls and organize office visits while your member of Congress is home. Truthfully, even though we put a lot of work into it today, we hope that impeachnow.org won’t be live very long -- because if it’s not, that means we’ve succeeded! What else can I do? The amount of movement we’ve seen on impeachment just in the last week is evidence that chance really does favor the prepared -- Indivisibles helped create an environment that’s ripe for action, and you were ready to take up the call when opportunity struck. But even when you’re prepared, it takes an unbelievable amount of work to pull off something like what we did yesterday, and the tools we use to make it happen aren’t cheap. Over 30 Indivisible staff members spent the majority of yesterday developing and promoting rapid response resources. Here’s a look at what that took: We built a brand-new call in page, and we wrote, developed, and recorded a phone dial-in so you could text IMPEACH to 97779 and get a recording of messages. Our policy experts researched and wrote new content to match the fast-changing news -- and then worked with our video team to script and film a video explaining what was happening. We sent an email to nearly a million Indivisibles, and a text message to over 150,000 more, outlining the state of play and asking you to take action. We coordinated with partner organizations and progressive members of Congress to ensure our asks were aligned across the movement and that we weren’t duplicating each other’s work, but amplifying instead. We answered dozens of emails offering support to Indivisibles who were having trouble contacting their members of Congress. (Yes, we do read replies to these messages!) The fact is that marshalling those resources of both tools and time costs money. And while we will never, ever, EVER ask you to prioritize donating over giving time (if you haven’t done the ask above, stop reading and go do it!), we do truly count on Indivisibles’ financial support to keep all of this work moving forward. So please: Chip in even just $10 today to support Indivisible Project and help us respond with all our might in big moments like this.

http://www.indivisiblehouston.org/

#indivisible #houston #activism #impeachment #impeach

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dorothydelgadillo · 6 years ago

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How to Make Your Organization Attractive to Job Candidates in a Competitive Job Market

Hiring today is difficult.

There are so many great companies interviewing marketers and fighting for the same job candidates -- especially the most qualified ones, which also tend to be the ones that you want to work for your company. This competition has led to a situation in which many companies will do whatever it takes to reel in the right people and bring them on board.

“The shortage of skilled talent continues to grow. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in May 2018 there were more job openings than unemployed people—the first time that has ever happened. That statistic is one of the clearest signs yet of the growing gap between the needs of employers and the pool of available talent.” (Source)

So how does a company stand out with so much competition? There are a few things we’ve found to work for us that help to grab the attention of job seekers.

Show off your Benefits

Before accepting a job at IMPACT, the most common question we get from applicants is, “Can we review your company benefits?”.

For companies that want to stay competitive and attract top candidates, it’s becoming more and more important to have the kinds of benefits and perks that employees are looking for in today’s market.

At IMPACT, we make sure that our benefits are clearly outlined on our website, job postings, and in our public profiles.

In our experience, some of the more popular benefits/perks that job-seekers are looking for include:

Paid Maternity/Paternity Leave

Unlimited Vacation

Medical Benefits

401k with an employer match

Profit Sharing

Gym Memberships

No matter what your company offers, make sure your job applicants can clearly find information about it when applying.

Maintain an Active Social Presence

It’s no secret that just about everyone today is on social media, including your target applicants.

“79% of job seekers use social media during their job search, and most of the active and passive candidates are on social media on a daily basis.” (source)

This means that if your company isn’t active on social media, you’re missing out on countless opportunities to catch the eyes of job applicants.

Post Regularly

It’s important to understand which social platform your candidates are on, and then make sure your company has an active presence there as well.

Are they on Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? One quick way to find this out is to ask your top employees which platforms they use regularly. Chances are, other people like them are on those platforms as well.

At IMPACT we make sure our Instagram is always up to date with our latest adventures.

Even if you aren’t always posting about job openings, just keeping your company top of mind is important when trying to reach both active and passive job seekers.

You never know if your post might catch them at the right time.

Create Communities

If you want to take your social media game to the next level, build a community that attracts the types of people you want in your company circle.

At IMPACT, we have a group on Facebook called “IMPACT Elite” where we’ve built a community of people interested in inbound marketing and growing their businesses.

It’s a great place to find and reach potential job seekers since we already know they know IMPACT and they’re interested in the marketing industry.

We even ask on our job applications if people are members of IMPACT Elite so we have some extra insight as to whether or not they’re involved in our community (it's also a great indicator of whether the candidate has done their homework on us).

Showcase Employee Reviews

The best way for potential employees to be sold on your employee experience is to hear it from the employees themselves!

There are a few places you can showcase and solicit employee reviews:

1. Glassdoor

A few years ago, we realized how important it was to have positive employee feedback on sites such as Glassdoor, and did a full push to bring our rating up by simply asking employees to write reviews.

We even worked it into our employee check-ins to ask them to write a review after being at the company for more than 6 months so we constantly have more feedback on the site.

Try doing a push with your team by asking them to leave a review. Even a brief one can help your ratings on sites such as Glassdoor.

2. Your Careers Page

If your company has won any culture-based or employee-based awards, make sure to show them off on your careers page. Because most of those awards are given based on answers that employees who currently work at your company provide in response to third party surveys, they’re a great way to show how your team really feel about working at your company.

If you don’t have any awards to show on your careers page, that’s okay. Ask your teammates if they’ll write up a one to two sentence testimonial about why they like working at your company and post those on your careers page instead.

You can even include a way for applicants to reach out to those team members with additional questions so it puts a “real person” behind the quote.

Host Events

Events are a great way to expand brand awareness, connect with potential applicants, and show your passion for the field.

Candidates want to join teams that are staying on top of their industry, and hosting events is a great way to show off your expertise and bring people with similar interests together.

These don’t necessarily have to be large, in-person events. They can also be online, or even smaller, informal gatherings.

At IMPACT, we host one large annual event called IMPACT Live which attracts over 1,000 marketing professionals, and then smaller, more frequent events called Hubspot User Groups (or HUGs for short) attended by 25+ people interested in growing their careers or businesses.

While IMPACT Live takes place in Hartford, CT (close to our headquarters in New Haven), the HUGs are scattered across regional locations throughout the country. This exposes us to candidates in all different areas, which is ideal since we are interested in both growing our local team and increasing our remote workforce.

Both types of events work toward building our larger community of people in the industry.

Marcus Sheridan kicking off IMPACT Live ‘18

Once a candidate has gone to your event, they’ll have met members of your team in person, will know a lot more about your company, and will have experienced first-hand what you’re all about.

Now, when they’re looking for a job, you might just be top of mind.

Join us at IMPACT Live ‘19 for an unforgettable experience!

Create a Careers Page That Stands Out

“Candidates don’t apply immediately after hearing about a job. Instead, 59% look up the company’s website. Sixty-six percent want to know about your company’s culture and values, 54% about perks and benefits, and 50% about mission and vision.” (Source)

A little while back I wrote an article about creating a great careers page. In it, I listed some of the main points below. While you can skim these, I encourage you to read the full article to get more in-depth information.

Speak to Them Like They’re Already a Part of the Team: Watch how you word things. It makes a difference when the candidate is reading your page.

Give Them Something to Be Passionate About: Make sure they understand your company’s mission and purpose.

Tell Them What Your Team Values: Dive into your core values and what they're all about.

Explain the Whole Package: Benefits! Benefits! Benefits! You’ll want these to be very clear to the candidates.

Be Real: Show off real photos and videos of your team.

No matter where you’re starting with your careers page, a few quick tweaks can make it even stronger and more appealing to candidates.

You’ve Got This

Don’t wait around and let your competitors take all the great talent! Start making small changes today for big results down the line.

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/how-to-attract-job-candidates

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cryptswahili · 6 years ago

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Key Takeaways from Blockchain Connect Conference: Academic 2019

What did the blockchain experts like Vitalik Buterin and David Chaum say at the event?

The third Blockchain Connect Conference was held on January 11 in San Francisco.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, “the father of online anonymity” David Chaum, “the godmother of Internet security” Dawn Song, and many other top academics, as well as executives from Intel, Oracle, VMware, Tencent, and Deloitte, Ant Financial, and financial industry executives, investors, and more than a thousand participants, witnessed this Academic feast.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin

SV Insight co-founder Qin Bei talked about the development of SV Insight during his opening remarks. He shared about the 3 major business modules of the company: SV Insight Media, SV Insight Research, and Blockchain Connect Conference.

(SV Insight COO Peter Qin)

Nicole Ni, Director of SV Insight Research, released the latest results of the SV Insight Research, the 2018 Global Blockchain Academic Research And Trends Report (hereinafter referred to as the “Report”). The report was jointly released SV Insight Research, Ontology, U Network, and Chongdong Community. It covers analysis of the underlying technology of the blockchain and the combination of academic and industry. In 2018, the three key keywords of the underlying technology of the blockchain are Scalability, Storage, and Privacy & Security. These three topics have received much attention from the speeches of the guests.

(SV Insight Research director Nicole Ni)

In 2019, how will the academic community work improve the development of the entire blockchain technology? How will the industry embrace the blockchain? We will reveal the details here.

Blockchain will protect your privacy and trust

“2019 will be a year about privacy”, said UC Berkeley CS Professor Dawn Song. Privacy is a hot topic not only for the general public but also in the blockchain space. Another hot topic is Scalability, however, scalability does not only mean higher TPS to support the transaction process but also means supporting more complex smart contract operations.

As the founder of Oasis Labs, Professor Dawn Song mentioned that Oasis Labs hopes to build a privacy-based cloud computing platform on blockchain. The platform has now allowed some smart contracts to run in isolated hardware called “secure enclave” that protects both privacy and large-scale computing. The smart contract will also train the machine learning model with the collected data.

(Professor Dawn Song)

“There is no unified trust in life. Ten thousands of small trusts are connected to build trust in society, and blockchain is the best connector.” Ontology founder and CEO Jun Li introduced the latest achievements of Ontology: Sharding. According to him, the ontology sharding design has been released, it supports network, transaction and state sharding, which will effectively solve one of the biggest challenges in the development of blockchain — scalability.

In the future, Ontology hopes to build a distributed trust collaboration platform, which provides complete development tools, and build a DApp active ecosystem, so as to continuously inject trust elements into the application scenarios of people, finances, things, and events, and achieve efficient and stable trust and cooperation.

(Ontology founder & CEO Jun Li)

CertiK co-founder Daryl Hok starts with trust in our lives and talks about the trust of blockchain smart contracts. How can smart contracts be fully trusted? — — Through Math. Mathematics is a form of verification that is readable, transparent, sustainable and recognized throughout the world.

Today, Certik uses formal verification, a mathematical approach, to verify if vulnerabilities or errors exist. In addition to the blockchain domain, formal verification has long been used in other scenarios, such as NASA and defense.

Safe encryption, how is it done in academic world and in the industry?

Traditional Internet encryption is done through the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. Is it effective in a decentralized environment?

Nucypher co-founder and CTO Micheal Egorov revealed in his speech “decentralized Internet and the need to go beyond public key encryption” that NuCypher uses proxy re-encryption (PRE) technology to ensure that developers can store, share and manage private data on public blockchains, in order to create a distributed encryption system platform.

Professor Berk Sunar from Worcester Polytechnic Institute discussed the combination of homomorphic encryption and blockchain. In his view, using homomorphic encryption technology, smart contracts can process ciphertext without knowing the real data, greatly improving privacy security. At present, large companies such as IBM, Microsoft, and Intel have made great efforts in the fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). Of course, Professor Sunar also pointed out the challenges that still exist in performance, bootstrap, and other aspects when using FHE.

Based on SV Insight Research’s Report, the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) is one of the most important technologies for privacy and security, and it relies heavily on hardware vendors. Intel Lab’s chief engineer Mic Bowman’s speech further demonstrates this. In his view, TEE is tightly integrated with hardware, and blockchain technology can benefit to some extent, with substantial improvements in terms of confidentiality, efficiency, performance, and scalability.

Break “the impossible triangle”

One of the popular sayings in blockchain world is that there is an “impossible triangle”, that one cannot achieve Scalability, Decentralization, and Security at the same time. However, based on the proposals put forward by the participating scholars, and existing blockchain technology solutions in the industry, the “impossible triangle” has become increasingly “possible” than “impossible”.

In the introduction by Jing Chen, associate professor at Stony Brook University and Algorand’s chief scientist, Algorand uses Super-Fast Byzantine Agreement. Such a consensus protocol to verify blocks every few steps, resulting in very low latency. At the same time, multiple considerations such as decentralization, scalability, and security are achieved through designs such as encryption lottery mechanisms, rotating committees, and Pure ProSec (Pure PoS) protocols.

Professor Jing Chen said that for many current public chain projects, every aspect of the “impossible triangle” needs to be taken into account, but for some specific application scenarios, an angle will be chosen for optimization. Algorand also held its first offline meetup in San Francisco during the conference, and many developers discussed public chain and other related topics.

(Algorand Chief Scientist Jing Chen)

Another well-known academic, Elaine Shi, co-founder of Thunder Token and Cornell University professor, talked about the mathematical basis of the consensus mechanism in her speech and discussed the ideal agreement for large-scale consensus mechanism.

(Cornell University Professor Elaine Shi)

Another technology for scalability is off-chain scalability based on Layer 2. Texa Network co-founder TF Guo explained how Texa Network transforms the execution of smart contract from on-chain to off-chain and introduces trusted computing technology through Layer 2’s off-chain solution, to achieve smart contracts with high performance and better privacy.

Implementation of technology: Blockchain “WeChat payment”, invoice, social network…

As SV Insight Research Report analyzed, blockchain technology is most combined with the five industries of healthcare, energy, security, IoT, and finance. So what innovations do the technology giants have in the blockchain space?

“In China, a social app like WeChat has a built-in payment function which meets users’ expectations.” David Chaum, “the father of online anonymity”, mentioned WeChat’s payment + social function. However, do we need to build a social + transactions service platform on decentralized world? Of course yes, and that’s what Elixxir wants to build.

After Digicash, David Chaum launched another startup Elixxir. He admits that to achieve speed, privacy, scalability and security, Elixxir has 2 big innovations: first, in order to protect privacy, nodes in each block must work in teams; second, the public key of all transactions are pre-computed, and only the “hash function” is used in every real-time transaction. Today, Elixxir can transfer information in 3 seconds and complete transaction in 10 seconds. More than 100,000 transactions per second can be processed on a single chain. “When the technology matures, the highest transaction can reach a million per second.”

(Elixxir founder David Chaum)

Head of Tencent Blockchain Aaron Cai introduced the attempt from Tencent to apply blockchain in the invoice. In August 2018, Tencent launched its first “blockchain invoice”, so consumers can track the reimbursement status of invoices in real time. Blockchain also helps to improve the process and efficiency of traditional invoices, in order to ultimately achieve paperless management. In December last year, electronic invoices based on blockchain technology were combined with WeChat payment to make the operation more convenient.

“The next major application areas will be financial infrastructure, identity certification, and supply chain.” Accenture Global Blockchain Research Director Justin Herzig introduced Accenture’s research progress in distributed ledgers in a commercial session. In his view, the existing distributed ledger technology is ready for the next phase of the product.

Besides gaming and finance, what other areas can blockchain be applied to? World Economic Forum (WEF) project lead of blockchain Ashley Lannquist, Senior Director of Blockchain Project Management at Oracle Mark Rakhmilevich, and SCRY.info co-founder Rya Chang had an interesting conversation. For example, SCRY.info is creating a social application based on the blockchain, Scry City.

How to maximize the value of the token economy? Content prediction and publishing platform U Network CEO, SV Insight co-founder Yi Lu, NKN co-founder Yilun Zhang, and CanonChain co-founder Sichao Yang held a discussion. They believed that the community should increase the efficiency of cooperation and the profits of common values under the common goal. Each topic or goal has a corresponding token representing its value that is used to maximize the value of the information it contains.

Investment trends: 2019, the bear market will continue

“After 2018, the blockchain bear market will continue in 2019.”

In the afternoon panel discussion of “2019 blockchain investment trend”, LDV Partners partner, Carnegie Mellon University visiting professor Lake Dai, Unbank Venture founder Brett Noyes, representatives from Deloitte, Technology Investment at Ant Financial, and other organizations expressed their different views in the discussion.

Lake Dai said that when the downturn is at its lowest point, it would be the perfect time for investors to invest. Historically, the second year of the Internet bubble burst (2001), many Internet companies have either gone through the big waves, or learned from their predecessors, and they would do well in the future. At that time, the investors who made timely investments in these Internet companies received high returns later on.

Peter Taylor, Audit Senior Manager of Deloitte, revealed that in 2019, the US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) will strictly control ICO and other blockchain-related activities in an effort to protect investors’ interests.

So, should investors continue to invest in cryptocurrencies in 2019? The guests said that the investment depends on the investor’ own ability. If the ability allows, the investor will still invest in outstanding cryptocurrency projects.

(VC Panel: 2019 blockchain investment trends)

In the afternoon, the conference held award ceremony for outstanding papers. These papers were chosen by SV Insight Research from the world’s top journals and conferences (such as IEEE, ACM, Springer, etc.) as data sources, as well as papers submitted by academics, and then selected according to the journal’s influence factor ranking, number of paper citations and other indicators.

Professors and researchers from well-known universities such as the California Institute of Technology, University of Washington, St. Louis, and the University of North Carolina presented on their award-winning papers. These papers cover topics from the social network, the combination with industries such as the food safety industry, as well as technical aspects such as private security and smart contract applications.

In addition to the awards, roadshows and demonstrations were carried out at the conference by blockchain projects such as blockchain media Dbit, blockchain all-media platform promotion solution provider NOC Venture, etc.

Ethereum 2.0: Casper will launch its testnet this year

The most anticipated part of the conference is definitely the closing speech by the founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin. How will Ethereum continue to develop? Vitalik highlighted CBC Casper and Ethereum 2.0 at the conference.

(Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin)

Vitalik explained the basics of CBC Casper: CBC Casper (correct-by-construction Casper) is a new safe asynchronous Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus, mainly proposed by Ethereum team researcher Vlad Zamfir. Casper is a verification system. In order to join the system, the certifier needs to take a certain percentage of the Ethereum they have as a safety margin. If the verifier acts maliciously to reverse the block, then the evidence can be submitted to confiscate the verifier’s margin, making the cost of the crime very expensive.

(Vitalik Buterin)

Casper emphasizes finality. This means the canonical chain (that is, the chain that users should pay attention to) is no longer selected using the longest chain rule, but LMD GHOST (Latest Message Driven GHOST), which is modified based on the GHOST consensus algorithm.

Compared to the existing FFG version (Vitalik’s version of Casper), Vitalik admits that CBC Casper will be more elegant. It can be used for any POS, at the same time it will effectively improve scalability and be deployed faster in Ethereum.

In the Q&A session, when asked about the specific implementation plan of Casper, Vitalik officially revealed that if the development team works well, the testnet will be launched this year.

Around the development of Ethereum 2.0, Vitalik shared his vision. Vitalik believes that thanks to the Beacon Chain, Ethereum 2.0 will be able to manage the PoS Protocol (Casper) and achieve sharding functions.

Key Takeaways from Blockchain Connect Conference: Academic 2019 was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

[Telegram Channel | Original Article ]

#cryptocurrency

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myongfisher · 6 years ago

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99designs vs. fiverr: which is the best choice for graphic design?

Need a musician to write an advertising jingle? You can hire someone on fiverr. Don’t want to spend hours converting your PDFs to HTML? You can hire someone on fiverr. Want an expert to build you a castle in Minecraft? You can hire someone on fiverr. But if you need graphic design work done, you can hire someone from fiverr, but should you? Can fiverr compete with sites like 99designs that specialize exclusively in design? With 99designs vs fiverr, which is better for getting design work done?

It’s one thing to have a subpar Minecraft castle, but a subpar logo, product packaging or book cover design could hurt your business—or at least necessitate hiring a new designer. A lot of people don’t know whether to choose 99designs or fiverr, so I went through both sites and wrote this in-depth comparison to outline the advantages and disadvantages of each.

99design vs fiverr: At a glance —

In case you’re unfamiliar with either 99designs or fiverr, here’s a brief introduction of who they are and what they can do.

99designs

99designs logo

You may not find data entry specialists or business consultants here, but for graphic design work, 99designs is the go-to choice for hundreds of thousands of clients. They are a global creative platform that connects clients and designers and makes it easy for them to work together, with features that help find the perfect designer to match the client’s style and project criteria. On top of that, 99designs also offers “design contests” that allow clients to see dozens of personalized sample designs before choosing the one they like best.

99designs has paid out over $200 million to designers to date and boasts a community of designers 1.4 million strong. A large part of their business is working hands-on with their designers so clients can more easily—and more quickly—find what they’re looking for, including top-tier skill levels. However 99designs aims to price its services fairly, to attract the best designers in the field, leading some companies to seek cheaper alternatives like…

fiverr

fiverr logo

fiverr is a lot more broad. Like a social media site, their service is more about providing a user-generated platform for clients (“buyers”) to patronize one-off services (“gigs”) listed by freelancers (“sellers”). These gigs can include pretty much anything from lawn-mowing to pranking your friends; however, in recent years the emphasis has shifted to more professional services like digital marketing, content creation and graphic design.

Their business model relies on undercutting traditional industry costs by allowing freelancers to set their own price and cutting out “middle-man” services. Their epithetical name “fiverr” comes from the minimum and most common price of gigs, $5; however, this is most often only a “starting at” price, whereas the final totals are more commensurate with industry rates.

While the user-generated platform allows for cheaper rates, not to mention creative and customizable services, the biggest complaint for fiverr is that it’s unregulated, with documented examples of plagiarized work and even scamming. To be fair, these dishonest practices are far from the norm, but they occur often enough to earn fiverr hundreds of complaints at the Better Business Bureau.

99designs vs. fiverr: a quick comparison —

Everyone has different priorities when getting graphic design done. For some, quality is everything. For others, a seamless process is paramount. Here’s a quick take on what 99designs and fiverr offer. For more detailed information explaining all the options and why we made our choice, click or scroll down to keep reading.

99designs

fiverr

Our choice

Type of work

Graphic design (logo & identity, web & app design, packaging, business & advertising, book covers, illustrations, etc. See full list of categories.)

Just about anything you can imagine outsourcing (web/app development, graphic design, content writing, etc. See full list of categories.)

fiverr for choice, 99designs for design

Ways to get something designed

Contests (designers send you ideas for your unique project)

Find & hire a freelancer

Post a request and receive custom offers

Find & hire a freelancer

Advantage 99designs for contest option

Design tools & process

Great tools to make the design process easier

Handles NDAs & payments

Standard communication tools

Handles payments

99designs

Price

Flat rates for running contests

Negotiable rates with freelancers on a per-project basis. 99designs’ cut is 10%

Contest money back guarantee

Negotiable with freelancers. fiverr’s cut is 5% on purchases over $40.

Tie

Quality

Varies. Mid- and Top-Level designers are hand-selected by designer quality team.

Varies. Seller levels are based on ratings, earnings and past performance. Pro Sellers have been vetted by the fiverr team.

Slight advantage 99designs

Special product features

Great customer service & support manager for platinum contests

Private contests & white labeling

Payment protection plan

Money back guarantee on contests

Business tools (upgraded invoicing and payment options and VIP customer support)

99designs

Agency and pro options

Pro for agencies (assigned Success Manager helps you run projects and find talent, access to privacy and white labeling tools)

fiverr Pro Gigs are offered by freelancers that have gone through a vetting process by the fiver team

99designs

Pricing —

Along with the wide range of job categories, cheaper prices are one of the biggest advantages of fiverr. Prices vary wildly depending on the seller and project, but given the competitive market and the site’s emphasis on low cost, designers often list the lowest possible fees they’re comfortable with. Professional, top-level designers still charge their same high rates, but in general you can find design work for cheaper costs.

Gig listings for logo design on fiverr

Whenever browsing fiverr, it’s important to keep in mind that the “starting at” price is more-or-less just a sale gimmick. The listed price is a often for bare-bones services, with essentials tagged-on for additional costs. fiverr is rife with hidden fees, and if you’re not careful, you may end up missing out on something necessary like ownership of your copyright.

Most designers on fiverr offer a tiered package system, where the basic “starting at” price doesn’t include the most in-demand features like revisions or even setting a logo against a transparent background, all of which cost extra, sometimes hundreds of dollars more.

For example, look at this listing, which advertises a mascot logo design from a Top Rated Seller for a “starting at” price of only $25…

Once clicked, you see that for $25, you don’t get much—just a hand sketch. To get a fully designed digital logo, clients need to pay $110 or $150.

Still, despite the misleading sales tactics, $150 for a mascot logo design is very affordable, and a competitive price compared to other platforms like 99designs. These more affordable prices are what keeps fiverr in business. It’s worth mentioning though that, if you see a suspiciously low gig with seemingly no strings attached, you’re right to be suspicious. If someone is offering a full-treatment logo for $30, they’re cutting corners somewhere, perhaps even stealing designs. While this kind of unsustainably cheap pricing is exactly what attracts businesses to fiverr, the rule of thumb is, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

99designs takes a different strategy: they offer tiered contest packages, which cost more than your average fiverr job, but offer higher design quality and less risk for the client. While at fiverr all you have to go on is the seller’s level, 99designs vets designers, helps with any questions and mediates any problems during a project. With 99designs, you also receive a money-back guarantee, so if the design isn’t what you hoped for, nothing is lost.

99designs pricing for logo design contests

At 99designs you can hire a designer directly or commission a design contest (explained below), although both usually run into the hundreds. To put it in perspective, the minimum cost of a design contest for a logo is $299, but even the most basic package includes full ownership and a money-back guarantee, not to mention all digital files (which some fiverr designers charge extra for).

99designs’ top-tier package, Platinum, runs at $1,299, but you’ll notice this deals with Top Level designers only. Even on fiverr, top-level designers charge similar prices—or more, as you can see in the example below—so if you’re expecting fiverr to be a cheaper alternative for high-quality designs, you’ll be disappointed.

Design quality —

While you can find talented, awe-inspiring designers on 99designs or fiverr, there’s a few different factors worth mentioning. The first is volume, plain and simple.

fiverr has an estimated community of designers at around 7,000, whereas 99designs has 1.4 million registered designers, and counting. For a visual field like graphic design, artistic style is paramount, so more designers means more options for finding your intended style or meeting the criteria for your project. For example, if you have a project like 3D product prototyping, you’ll likely find more designers with experience in this at 99designs than at fiverr.

Another consideration is that 99designs specializes in design work exclusively, while fiverr caters to a wide array of business services (and plenty of non-business ones, too). That’s a distinction with plenty of ramifications.

To name one, fiverr’s interface is built around searching for freelancers of many different disciplines, whereas 99designs only accommodates designers. 99designs’ specialization allows it to build their search functions around design work only, accentuating design-specific search filters and using a results screen that prioritizes visuals instead of pricing or product descriptions.

Moreover, 99designs personally assesses each designer in their database based on design qualifications. This evaluation involves both the designers empirical skill in the graphic arts, as well as individual qualifications—if you’re looking for a designer who excels at designing wordpress websites, you can filter for that.

99designs designer bio for kosta-xd

This accuracy in categorization makes it much easier to pair clients with the right designer, especially compared to a site that has to factor in hundreds of other categories irrelevant to graphic design.

No matter where you go, 99designs or fiverr, you can still search for designers by skill. fiverr rank its designers by level, designated “Level 1 Seller” and “Level 2 Seller,” along with no designation at all. Their seller profile pages also list out CV-like bios, with data like education, certifications and proficiency skills like “Photoshop.”

fiverr seller bio for logoartist7

However, fiverr’s system is automatized and not hand-picked like 99designs. Additionally, there’s again the risk with fiverr that designers are lying about their portfolio, and with no quality checks as with 99designs, fiverr buyers search at their own risk.

But to bring it around again, fiverr has one advantage that 99designs lacks: they’re better for interdisciplinary projects. If a client has a specialized project that requires a freelancer skilled in multiple disciplines—say, a designer-videographer or a designer-writer—they could find one more readily by posting a custom request on fiverr. Remember that fiverr is the jack of all trades, while 99designs is the master of one: graphic design.

Ways to get design work done —

Again, there are plenty of differences in how to actually commission design work when comparing 99designs vs fiverr. Both sites have a couple options each, so I’ll go through each below.

fiverr:

1. Choose a pre-existing gig

fiverr’s interface was built to handle virtually any task or service, giving equal consideration to a gig about graphic design as, say, a gig for casting a magic spell on your crush. Since their shift to more business-oriented operations, sellers have adopted a kind of makeshift organization, where they post a gig about a general service, i.e., “I will design an infographic,” and then leave it to the buyer to fill in the details once they’re hired.

This system works well, thanks to fiverr’s efforts to break the site into umbrella categories. So, to find all the gigs about designing infographics, the buyer simply clicks the “graphic design” category and then the “infographic” subcategory.

fiverr search results for infographic design

This lists all the gigs pertaining to infographic design (or whatever subcategory you want). Although the gig titles vary, most sellers are offering the same or similar services, although at different prices with different features. Buyers can even further filter out results by price range, Seller Level, features or time frame.

fiverr’s logo design search aid

For popular categories like “logo design,” fiverr also offers some guidance in narrowing down the search results according to the buyer’s style. You can fill out a simple, optional questionnaire at the beginning to receive more personalized results.

2. Post a request

To post a custom request, you first must have to be a registered member of fiverr. After initiating the request from your account menu, you write out a description of what you’re looking for, along with the appropriate category. The request will be marked as “pending” until the fiverr staff can review it, but once it’s live, sellers can send you offers and bids until you choose the one you like best.

The problem with fiverr requests, though, is that you have no control over who patronizes your request. Which designers see it depends on when it’s posted, what category it’s posted in and how it’s worded, plus the most successful sellers probably don’t need to check custom requests because they already have enough incoming business.

99designs —

1. Work directly with a designer

In a much more straightforward approach than fiverr’s gig searches, 99designs allows you to pick and choose a designer directly and start working with them on your design project.

99designs Find a Designer search tool

You can find the right designer to fit your project using the optimized Find a Designer search tool. Because of how 99designs categorizes their designers, the search function can offer precise and specific filters. In addition to filtering for design type, language fluency and skill level like fiverr does, 99designs also allows users to search by industry experience (i.e. medical, legal, etc.) as well as customizable user tags (i.e., “retro,” “for children”).

On top of that, because 99designs’ results feature graphic designers only, the search results show multiple samples from the same designer without having to navigate to a new page. This gives you a better idea of the designer’s personal skill—and style—which helps when choosing whom to hire.

2. Commission a design contest

Choosing a design category in 99designs

The design contest is perhaps the most popular design-oriented feature 99designs offers that fiverr doesn’t. Design contests are crowdsourcing at its best, and fit the graphic design industry like a glove because, as a visual medium, you can’t be absolutely sure of something until you see it.

A branding assessment for a 99designs logo design contest

Design contests at 99designs work like this: First, you answer a series of questions to hone in on the kind of brand you are and the best style to match it. These questions are similar to fiverr’s questionnaire, although more thorough and investigative with optional sections on color usage and choosing from preexisting designs to gauge your preferences.

Next, you fill in a design briefing that explains your project, its business goals and what you want your design to look like.

99designs then shows your briefing—along with your answers from the initial questions—to their community of designers and interested designers submit original concepts based on your briefing.

You’re able to browse their submissions, comment and rate the designs and finally choose the finalists you like best.

99designs design briefing

Finally, there’s a final round of revisions where you can pick the winner. With the money-back guarantee, it’s the most surefire way in the design industry to know what you’re getting before you buy.

Higher priced packages give you extra benefits as well. If you’re willing to pay extra, you can expect to get more submissions, or have only high-level designers participate.

99designs vs fiverr: final verdict —

Looking at all the points we’ve discussed, here’s my final verdict: fiverr is great if you are looking for freelancers in different fields who can perform various tasks for you at a low price (such as build that amazing Minecraft castle). If what you want is high-quality graphic design, I’d recommend 99designs.

What it all comes down to is, how much are you willing to gamble? There’s a chance you could get the same quality of design at a cheaper cost on fiverr, but it’s only a chance. There’s also a chance you could receive a poor design and have to pay for a new one from a different designer. Even if you do choose a pro designer on fiverr, they’re going to charge you pro prices, so it negates fiverr’s biggest advantage.

If you’re willing to spend a bit more on good design, 99designs offers better quality designs more consistently. It’s not that fiverr has bad designers, it’s just that with 99designs, there’s a greater chance of finding the designer you want while at fiverr it’s more up to luck. On top of that, 99designs has more designers than the entire population of Dublin, so if you’re searching for a particular style, you’ll most likely find it there.

Want to give 99designs a try?

Work with our brilliant designer community to create your next design.

Let’s go

The post 99designs vs. fiverr: which is the best choice for graphic design? appeared first on 99designs.

99designs vs. fiverr: which is the best choice for graphic design? published first on https://www.lilpackaging.com/

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cryptobully-blog · 7 years ago

Text

How to Successfully Market an ICO in 2018

http://cryptobully.com/how-to-successfully-market-an-ico-in-2018/

How to Successfully Market an ICO in 2018

Author: On Yavin, Co-Founder & CMO at Cointelligence

In the first two months of 2018, there were nearly 50 ICOs (initial Coin Offerings) raising over $1.1 billion by the end of February. Compare that figure to the $5.6 billion raised via Initial Coin Offering in 2017 and you get a good picture of just how important and popular ICOs will be in 2018.

Last year saw a total of 902 Initial Coin Offering projects. From that amount, 142 ICOs failed before their offerings, whilst another 276 ICO projects failed even after raising their funds. Just under half of all the ICO’s in 2017 – 435 ICOs, or 48% – were regarded as a success. From the $5.6 billion raised, 25% of which was raised by just the ten largest ICOs.

Given this trend, and the fact that the Telegram ICO planned for later this year has already raised $850 million of its expected $2 billion, 2018 promises to be a bumper year for ICOs. However, with increased competition and a tightened regulatory environment; the line between success and failure of an ICO in 2018 will be even finer.

How your Initial Coin Offering is marketed will have a huge impact on its success. Get the ICO marketing strategy right, and your ICO will raise the necessary funds and be a success long after the initial offering. Get it wrong, and your ICO will be consigned to the dustbin of history. Therefore, so many ICOs are now wisely employing the use of ICO marketing firms, or an ICO marketing expert, to deliver an optimized and successful ICO marketing campaign. ICO marketing agencies are not cheap, but if you want your ICO to be success, you require a multi-faceted approach to marketing your ICO. The right agency will know how to optimize the many varied traditional and non-traditional marketing channels. Planning an ICO marketing strategy from Day One is essential and should include the following items:

The Website – Your ICO’s Shop Window

The website is the foundation of your Initial Coin Offering project. As with any structure, the foundation is the most important and you must ensure that you have something that is strong and lasting. Without a strong website, your Initial Coin Offering can crumble and collapse at any moment.

The website is likened to a shop window in which your Initial Coin Offering will be judged. First impressions are important and for most, your website will provide the first impression and the level of trust needed, for your ICO to be a success. Your website should:

Include a well-written white paper clearly conveying your ICO project’s message.

Be designed so it is easy to navigate with all the necessary information presented in a clear and concise manner.

Contain a short professionally-made explainer video.

Have accompanying graphics and creatives that are compliant, eye-catching, and encourage further interest.

Include a clear call-to-action (CTA) which attracts potential investors.

Contain a transparent lead capture. After all, the person who signs up for email updates today can turn into a potential investor tomorrow. Be SEO optimized.

Include an introduction to the team. The more transparent your project is via the website, the more trust can be built. Letting people get to know exactly who is behind the project builds that trust.

Feature a roadmap, vision and schedule of events

SEO Strategy for Long Term Success

For your Initial Coin Offering to be a success, you need an ICO marketing strategy that goes beyond the actual offering. A well-researched and intelligent SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy, both on-page and off-page, ensures your ICO has a strong, long-term source of organic and targeted traffic.

The SEO strategy should be an essential part any ICO marketing strategy, but is all too often overlooked or not given enough attention due to the immediacy of an ICO, limited resources, or just a poorly planned marketing strategy. An effective SEO strategy that encompasses both on-page and off-page SEO includes important aspects, such as branding and online reputation management (ORM), which combined with quality content generation and a smart approach to back-linking, will deliver results long beyond your launch. Remember, around 50% of all failed Initial Coin Offerings in 2017 failed after the offering. With a professional SEO strategy, you are not optimizing your ICO project’s long-term visibility, but also ringing alarms bells to potential investors who do not see a long-term strategy in place. This will likely convince them to simply will not invest, thus dooming your project to failure.

As more advertising restrictions on ICOs are put in place, the need for a well-thought out, professionally-enacted SEO strategy has never been more important. SEO can be attempted in-house, but with it being such a key part of an overall ICO marketing strategy, it is definitely one channel that should be left to the professionals. A good SEO strategy ensures cost-effective visibility and viability long beyond any initial offering.

PR and Outreach – Getting Your ICO Out There

Once the website is up and the SEO strategy is in place, it’s time to get your ICO and its message in front of the right people. A conventional but still very effective channel is through Press Releases and articles on popular media outlets.

First, you need a professionally written press release. These can be done in-house, but paying for the expertise and relationships that marketing agencies offer means you are optimizing a very effective ICO marketing channel. There are top-tier websites that publish press releases, but unless there is a relationship with the top-tier sites in place, it is more than likely that a premium amount will need to be paid to publish your press release. There are free sites and cheaper alternatives than top-tier, but the coverage and impact is far less.

Another great method of maximizing exposure and articulating your ICO message is through having your articles published in popular and relevant websites. Getting an informative, well-written article published on top-tier site can be free or paid. This is an excellent way of getting your ICO in the public domain and also for getting backlinks which boost your SEO strategy.

PR and Media outreach can be conducted on a DIY basis, but again, without the expertise and contacts a marketing agency offers, you will pay more than you should be paying and not optimizing a key ICO marketing channel essential to the success of your ICO

Coin Listings

An effective method of maximizing exposure is getting your ICO listed on crypto sites which specifically list upcoming ICOs. There are free sites, but as with most outreach campaigns, the top-tier sites charge a premium to list your ICO.

Getting your ICO listed is important and should form a part of your ICO marketing budget. There are ICO marketing firms that provide top-tier ICOs as part of an ICO marketing package, and ICO listings are an integral part of the outreach campaign that must not be ignored.

Email Marketing and ICOs

Email marketing should form a part of your overall ICO marketing strategy but should be carried out very carefully. Sending marketing emails to individuals without their consent can damage your reputation, incur financial penalties, and limit your future email capabilities.

Building your own email list takes time but in the long term there is no better interested and targeted audience. For most ICOs, this is not a practical or timely ICO marketing solution. Short cuts in email marketing may bring in results short-term, but in the long-term you are doing more harm than good.

An ICO marketing agency can provide their own ‘opted-in’ email lists. Additionally, despite bans in place with some email providers like MailChimp, there are other email service providers out there that make it is possible to perform some smaller scale email marketing by yourself.

Email marketing of your ICO is certainly harder in 2018 than in 2017, but it is an effective method if done professionally and avoiding the ‘spam’ route.

Social Media and Community Management

One ICO marketing channel that is growing in importance in 2018, is in the community and social media management. Exactly how your ICO is marketed in this channel can really make or break an ICO. The crypto communities are knowledgeable, powerful, and widespread. Fail to win over the crypto community and the chances of success diminish very rapidly. There should be an allocation of your ICO marketing team dedicated to this very important channel. It needs to be monitored and updated at all times and cannot be ignored or under-resourced. The most popular and powerful free channels that should be optimized are as follows:

Facebook: A popular method of advertising in 2017 which is no longer available in 2018. However, there are many popular pages and groups that discuss all things crypto. These should be tapped into. Facebook also offers an effective channel to build and your own community and keep them regularly updated.

Quora: Well-read threads, such as https://www.quora.com/topic/Initial-Coin-Offerings-ICO, can provide good, targeted exposure.

Specialized Forums: There’s a wealth of specialized forums and internet discussions that can optimize coverage. Specialised forums, such as https://bitcointalk.org/, gives you the ability to communicate your ICO to an interested and knowledgeable audience.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn has a number of groups that cover blockchain, ICO and cryptocurrencies. Groups such as https://www.linkedin.com/groups/6580131/profile, with tens of thousands of members, give you free and direct communication with your targeted audience.

Twitter: As with Facebook, Twitter banned ICO advertising this year. However, Twitter is a very popular medium within the crypto community. There are Twitter influencers that can be targeted who have hundreds of thousands of followers.

Telegram: Telegram is essentially regarded as the new kid on the block, as far as social media goes. However, Telegram’s importance and influence grows each day. The whole blockchain and crypto community took to Telegram from the very outset and it remains an increasingly important marketing channel offering a wide scale and interested audience.

Events – Old School Face-to-face Communication.

There are a growing number of global blockchain and cryptocurrency conferences and events that should be attended. There is no better method of marketing than communicating your ICO in person. The cost of attending or sponsoring conferences and events can be high, especially if there is travel involved. However, the ROI that these events offer cannot be ignored.

The founder(s) should attend as many of these events as physically and financially possible. Communicating your message in a face-to-face environment can be considered one of the most effective methods to build trust and actually close deals. Deals are signed at these conferences and events, and non-attendance means that your ICO is not given the best opportunity to succeed. By not getting yourself out there and in front of people, your ICO cannot succeed.

PPC – Harder in 2018, But Not Impossible

Following the ICO advertising bans on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, Google’s ban on PPC (pay-per-click) advertising will come into play in June 2018. PPC is still possible with a plethora of crypto sites, news sites, blogs, and networks offering banner advertising. However, the shrinking market combined with increased competition will make 2018 much more of a challenge for PPC advertising of ICOs than was seen in 2017. More creative, out-of-the-box thinking is needed. Additionally, more outlets need to be explored. It is precisely for this reason that PPC should be carried out through a marketing agency with specific knowledge and experience of the crypto world.

The Bounty and Reward Systems

Increasingly, ICO Bounty programs are playing a key role in successful ICO marketing strategies. Offering ‘bounties’, i.e. rewards and incentives, are an effective technique to get the interest of investors pre-ICO and to keep stakeholders interested and engaged post-ICO.

‘Airdropping’, or free tokens, are a great way to garner interest and investment. However, any airdropping should be handled very carefully. Offer too little or no rewards at all and you run the risk of truly optimizing your campaign potential. Give away too much will not only impact your ICO’s financial viability, but could scare away potential investors who will view your project as a scam.

Getting the ICO Marketing Strategy Right in 2018

There’s no doubt that marketing your ICO is comparatively more difficult than in 2017. Increased regulation, reduced marketing channels, and far greater competition make the task of successfully marketing your ICO much more difficult than last year. However, more companies are using ICOs instead of IPOs (Initial Public Offerings), and more money is being raised through ICOs.

To be a success, your ICO project must utilize the specific ICO marketing services offered by an experienced ICO marketing agency. Your product may well change over time, but the first impression your project conveys is a great deal harder to change. There are plenty of ICO marketing sites offering ICO marketing tools and ICO marketing tips, but ICO marketing guidance will only take you so far. If you want to ensure that your ICO is given the very best chance of success, you need the help of the professionals who can provide the ICO marketing solutions to give your ICO the attention it deserves and propel your project towards success.

Author: On Yavin, Co-Founder & CMO at Cointelligence, a platform for monitoring and analyzing real-time crypto-economy market data. On is a serial entrepreneur and an angel investor with over 20 years of experience in the tech industry. On is an expert in the field of online marketing, with deep hands-on experience and knowledge of SEO, PPC and ORM. On has a law degree (LLB) and is also a certified Advocate by the Israeli Bar Association.

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