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c3929f9e58c0e8cdcd1f1dea565feb61
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/robynshulman/2017/07/10/10-different-ways-to-encourage-youth-entrepreneurship/
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10 Different Ways To Encourage Youth Entrepreneurship
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10 Different Ways To Encourage Youth Entrepreneurship
Shutterstock
In 2010, world-renowned education and innovation expert, Sir Ken Robinson released a short animated film, titled Changing Education Paradigms. In the video, Robinson argues that our current education system stifles and anesthetizes creativity while it lowers the capacity for divergent thinking.
Robinson states, “Divergent thinking is not the same thing as creative thinking, but that it is an essential capacity for creativity." He also refers to a paper clip study in the book Breakpoint and Beyond: Mastering the Future Today, by George Land and Beth Jarman. The paper clip study followed 1,500 kindergarten students through elementary, middle and high school.
As the students moved up through grade levels, the authors asked the question: “How many uses can you think of for a paper clip?” When the authors first proposed the question in kindergarten, 98% of students scored at genius level in divergent thinking. By the age of 10 years old, only 32% of the same group scored as high, and by age 15, only 10% remained at genius level.
Rather than developing the natural gifts of curiosity and high-level thinking, the traditional teaching model we still use today can stifle creativity, innovation, and divergent thinking.
Unfortunately, for most, our current school system does not align with 21st-century student needs, or the rapid changes we see on an economic, social, and global level.
Many parents are not aware of the misalignment between education and the unknown jobs of tomorrow. The common belief about securing a job right out of college no longer holds true. In fact, for many, college is simply not the right path. According to Student Loan Hero, Americans owe over $1.4 trillion in student loan debt, and the average Class of 2016 graduate has $37,172 in student loan debt. Although unemployment rates have dropped, many Millennials work in low-paying, entry-level positions far away from their field of undergraduate studies.
Given these statistics, it is critical for all adults to pave a better road for the next generation and to encourage entrepreneurship.
If you have a young child or work with children, here are ten things you can do now to introduce entrepreneurship skills early.
Encourage divergent thinking: Through informal discussions, ask open-ended questions, work on problem-solving, share ideas and build on learning experiences together. Teach children to question, research, and ask for further information. Ask them to take notice of things in their daily lives. For example, when they see a problem or feel frustrated about something, ask them how they would solve the issue, or make it better. Let your child guide, discover and make connections on their own. When the opportunity presents itself, practice divergent thinking at home.
Create a safe-space for ideas: Divergent thinking is most likely to thrive in a safe environment that welcomes all types of ideas, encourages risk-taking and allows for fast failure. Kids who feel safe are more likely to share ideas, step outside of their comfort zones, and take on more challenges. You can support divergent thinking, encourage individual expression and foster creativity by building a safe space for youth.
Challenge ideas: Encourage your children to ask why we do things in a certain way. Teach them to look at problems and find various solutions. When we make challenges, it forces us to begin thinking of alternatives.
Encourage leaders through ownership: Praise kids for unique ideas to solving problems, and for having the confidence to share their solutions. You can also refer to their ideas with unique names such as “Stacy’s Solution” or “Anthony’s Answers.”
Build an Idea Box: When I taught middle school, many parents asked me how to encourage innovation at home. In my classroom, I kept an empty box for students to drop idea notes. When they had an idea, figured out how to solve a problem, or noticed how to make an improvement, they wrote down their thoughts, and added them to the "Idea Box." At the end of the week, we went through these various ideas together.
You can create an “Idea Box” at home while including the entire family. Using this strategy can encourage everyone to share new possible ventures, foster communication skills, and build confidence in a group setting.
After you've gone through some viable ideas, encourage kids to take action.
Provide experiences: Take your kids to different places and let them explore. Pay attention to their natural curiosities and guide them toward those interests. As they grow, you can begin to see naturally born passions. Their creativity and innovation will come to the forefront when they participate in things they enjoy doing.
Let kids fail: Let your children fail and teach them how to learn from their mistakes. Show them how to get back up, self-reflect on what they learned, and move on. Failure teaches kids how to be resilient in any situation, and it is critical for building self-confidence and a healthy mindset.
Financial literacy: Schools do not teach financial literacy nearly as much as they should. Introduce money early on and give them goals and responsibilities for managing their finances. Show them the importance of saving and investing. Open a savings or checking account with them. If possible, give them an incentive to save money by offering a matching contribution.
Model positive relationships: Entrepreneurs understand the importance of pursuing and building meaningful relationships. People like to work with and purchase goods from those they find likeable. Talk with your kids about their friendships, and focus on the importance of compassion, giving back and listening.
Communicate: Many nights, my daughter and I chat about my work day and her school day. Through these casual conversations, she understands the power she has to go after her dreams while understanding reality at the same time. Make communication a priority as well as a safe place to talk about ideas, answer questions, and be a sounding board. Communication is key to divergent thinking, creativity, and successful entrepreneurship, and the model must start at home.
By cultivating continuous improvement in these areas, we can give children the confidence to move outside their comfort zones, provide mental tools for growth, encourage creativity and support future entrepreneurs.
Although some schools are embracing this new way of thinking, many are still far behind in the industrial age of teaching and learning. Don’t depend on a school to bring these critical skills and successful life strategies to the forefront.
Always keep the paper clip in mind. Encourage your kids to see their paper clips in many different ways throughout their school years. You may find your child is a natural born entrepreneur.
If you are interested in divergent thinking, education, creativity, and entrepreneurship, you will find tremendous value in the video below presented by RSA Animate and Sir Ken Robinson.
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4e073a74a8812aab7304be6d1f1513b8
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/robynshulman/2019/12/19/should-you-get-an-mba-if-youre-an-aspiring-entrepreneur/
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Should You Get An MBA If You’re An Aspiring Entrepreneur?
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Should You Get An MBA If You’re An Aspiring Entrepreneur?
Open for business? Getty
If you’re thinking about building your own company, some people say you should have an MBA, while others think it is not necessary. Many aspiring entrepreneurs believe that a unique idea alone can help them create a highly successful business, while others feel they need to attend business school to build their dream business.
If this sounds like you, there are different schools of thought to take into account when it comes to the value of pursuing an MBA today or not.
On one hand, there are undeniable benefits that can come along with attending business school if you're an entrepreneur. But on the other, today's connected world can provide various alternatives when you're building a business.
In this article, let's dig a little deeper and assess the pros and cons of each choice.
Making decisions. Getty
First, here are some key points that can help you decide whether getting an MBA is right for you.
Build connections and meet talented people
One of the most valuable things about going to business school is not solely the degree you’ll receive, but you also get the chance to meet many new talented people. You can learn a significant amount of crucial information from your professors and fellow students—and these experiences can help you get ahead.
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Also, the process of getting an MBA is not solely about learning outcomes. For many entrepreneurs, it's also about making critical connections. Going to business school can provide you with your first significant networking opportunity. You may find that the relationships you build at school remain useful to you when you’re out in the real world launching your business.
Running a business isn't about theory
Running a business is not a task that you can describe as theoretical. There are things you need to know, and business theories that are helpful to understand.
However, this doesn't mean that getting an MBA will harm your chances of finding success in business either. You don't necessarily need to attend business school in order to get where you want to go.
All of the theories in the world can't ensure your business will be a success.
Founder and entrepreneur of The Better Leads Institute, Sid Clevinger, who holds an MBA, shared whether he believed his MBA has helped him run his business. He believes MBAs are too theoretical, and don't prepare founders for the unpredictable nature of starting a business.
"MBAs teach you how to run a business with no resistance and no setbacks. Getting an MBA is like using a learning template for business that doesn't exist in the real world. As an entrepreneur, my biggest wins were when I had a plan, and then got punched in the mouth and won, when I got blindsided or lied to, and I was still able to come out on top. My MBA did not prepare me for those moments—that's the difference I see in MBA holders and true entrepreneurs," said Clevinger.
Getting an MBA
Love Hudson, Co-Founder of Mar-Dat believes entrepreneurs should get an MBA.
Hudson stated, "Entrepreneurs should get MBAs because it can give them the foundation for understanding how business works. I completed my executive MBA from Georgia State, and my business partner completed his from Emory. We started this company together, with these different educational backgrounds, but with similar career trajectories. We have the same passion for helping companies maximize the value of their data. We both discovered this passion while getting our MBAs."
Grow personally and professionally
Another thing you shouldn't ignore about getting an MBA is that it can help you grow and discover new passions. The process of learning can be transformative for many people, and it can help you grow both personally and professionally.
Should you spend your money on school or building your business?
However, getting an MBA requires significant financial consideration. The average cost for an executive MBA today is roughly $60,000.
You shouldn’t avoid looking at this significant decision from a financial point of view too—especially when student debt and loans never go away.
Many people find that spending their money on growing a business and getting it off the ground is more important than going into debt.
Gain the benefits of betting an MBA through other resources
There are many ways you can get the benefits of an MBA without attending college today. You can learn from those around you, find a mentor, read and research, or take online classes as you begin to build your business.
The Internet is an incredible resource for learning. Some would argue that it's possible to learn just as much in your own time via reading and accessing resources online.
Today's entrepreneur has more options than ever before. If you're looking to achieve a successful career in business, starting with one MBA course can give you an idea if further education is the right path for you.
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2b558434a8985e0d1da2260372de31d5
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/robynshulman/2020/03/10/this-is-what-happens-when-we-close-doors-on-creativity-in-the-classroom/?sh=3ce1361f151e
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This Is What Happens When We Close Doors On Creativity In The Classroom
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This Is What Happens When We Close Doors On Creativity In The Classroom
When kids dance to their own tune they become creators—and even future entrepreneurs. Getty
Creativity has many definitions, and it can mean different things to everyone, depending upon one’s perspective. One definition of a creative is having the ability to turn new imaginative ideas into reality. When this natural love of curiosity doesn’t have a place to thrive, we all lose when it comes to potential talent and entrepreneurship.
According to Idea to Value, in 1968, George Land and Beth Jarman conducted a research study to test the creativity of 1,600 children over two decades. The purpose of the test was to see how people looked at a problem and to witness if they could come up with new, different, and innovative ideas.
At the beginning of the study, the students were between the ages of three through five years old, and they were enrolled in a Head Start program. Land tested the same children’s level of creativity at 10-years-old, and again at the age of 15.
What did the results say?
The proportion of people who scored at the genius level of creativity were the following:
Amongst 5-years-olds: 98% Amongst 10-year-olds: 30% Amongst 15-year-olds: 12%
The gave the same test to 280,000 adults at the average age of 31-years-old, and their creativity levels dropped down to 2%.
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Our Education System
Public school Getty
Most, if not all, of our public schools, still run on an industrial type of model, or like a factory—where youth are put into little boxes according to age and ability as if in an assembly line. When public school doesn't align with global changes, we aren’t setting our young people up for success today, nor in the future.
Little Room For Creativity
It is no surprise there is little room or time for creativity in the classroom. From standardized tests, meeting State standards, and learning from a curriculum that arrives in a one-size-fits-all box, we have already set the scene for less creativity. Before our kids walk into their first day of school, we have closed doors on passion, imagination, discovery, and problem-solving.
Notably, this is not the fault of educators.
The process of schooling continues to follow the framework of the historical education processes and procedures that were founded centuries ago.
Education History
In the 18th-century, Common schools emerged on the scene. At the time, Common schools provided education to students of all ages. Students came together and worked with one teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. During this era, education was not free for students. Parents had to pay for their child's tuition, provide housing for the child's teacher, or they had to barter in exchange for their child’s participation.
By 1900, 31 states required students who were between the ages of 8-14 to attend public school. By 1918, every state required students to complete elementary school.
In the late 18th-century, European models of education came to the surface. In the mid-19th century, North America adopted a similar type of factory-based education system. School began with top-down management, student outcomes designed to meet societal needs, age-based classrooms, liberal arts—and a significant focus on students producing results through memorization and testing.
Accountability Moves Forward
In 2001, the States moved toward new accountability laws, which included The No Child Left Behind Law. This law was quickly replaced by The Every Student Succeeds Act.
The Every Student Succeeds Act (or ESSA) of 2015 ended federal interference in State standards, and it also stopped the federal government from mandating States to adopt The Common Core State Standards.
ESSA restored the ability for each state to have more control over its academic standards. The law went into effect for the 2017-2018 school year, and funding was approved through the current 2020-2021 school year.
States are mostly responsible for choosing what academic standards to adopt or develop—as long as they align with college entrance requirements, and relevant State career and technical education standards.
ESSA Today
ESSA was supposed to bring about bold new thinking and significant innovation at the State level. According to EdWeek, when ESSA passed at the end of 2015, Senator Lamar Alexander, one of the bill's leading architects, predicted that it would unleash a "flood of innovation" in states and districts across the country.
However, it can be hard to measure creativity and innovation, and many people who work in the public education system today will tell you the same thing.
Too Much Busy Work
Quite often, life-changing ideas and success stories begin in someone's basement or garage.
When we let kids discover their internal paths of interest, use their imaginations, explore creativity, and stop all of the unnecessary rote memorization and standardized testing. In essence, we can set them up to thrive and change the world. We can see our students develop and grow in the moment, discover their talents, and watch them turn a small idea into something magical.
Missed Opportunities
I have seen the spark of creativity and passion in the eyes of young people come and go for years.
When young kids first come to school, everything is new and exciting. A world is waiting for them. They have an overwhelming need to explore life, have fun, and learn at the same time alongside their peers.
Passion at the beginning of a child's young years can quickly get squashed when we remove critical parts of the curriculum that lead to creativity. When a school is low on funds, most of the areas that encourage creative thinking are the first to go. These areas typically include electives, classes, or social periods such as gym, recess, art, free play, and music.
All of these daily activities play a critical piece in the healthy development of a child—and also keep the doors of imagination open. When creativity flows free, we give the gift of potential future entrepreneurship.
Creativity begins now. Getty
Are We Stifling Creativity?
When I taught 6th-grade, I gave my students free time at the end of the day to work on a project of their choice, but it had to be business-related. At the end of the year, they had to share their business journey—from becoming a start-up, facing challenges, wins, losses while sharing everything that goes along with building a company.
Each student had a position within their business, and they all understood their responsibilities.
I encouraged everyone who participated in this particular project to define their roles, build their business together, and respect each other's work.
One of my eager students was responsible for launching a small website for her new company. I spent a considerable amount of time with her going over the requirements for developing and launching a website.
She wrote, researched, designed, and came up with a beautiful plan to deliver a website. She ran up to my desk with every new sentence, and every new picture she found.
A few weeks into the project, she came to school in tears. She received a call from her co-worker (fellow student) and stated that someone else took over and created her website—someone older who was not participating in the project.
The person who created her website was a parent from her business group.
While I do believe there were no ill intentions, the excitement and passion she had drained out of her eyes. Her moment to create something she loved was gone.
We discussed the situation thoroughly, and she created her own new place in the company. She was quickly put back on the payroll.
Our Role As Parents And Teachers
As parents and teachers, it is our place to encourage creativity and teach our children to embrace it.
It is our job to lead and guide by example—letting our kids discover, embrace, and change the world around them.
It is not our job to take over or interrupt the natural process and love of learning. When we do this to children, it can inhibit the innate connections between kids, lead to a lack of trust, and, most of all—shuts creativity down.
When parents and teachers step in too much, we send a message stating, "You're not capable, let me do it."
As adults, we quickly forget the potential and remarkable miracles our children create. We cannot steal this opportunity away from them, as it leads not only to our children's loss but to our future losses as well.
The future of entrepreneurship depends on us. It is our job to guide students. It is not our place to interfere with natural talents, abilities, and creativity that leads to creative genius.
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fd0eb7f029608bd3d2b8f7871508174c
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/robynshulman/2020/05/14/kaplan-offers-boost-year-instead-of-gap-year-for-aspiring-college-students/
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Kaplan Offers Boost Year Instead Of Gap Year For Aspiring College Students
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Kaplan Offers Boost Year Instead Of Gap Year For Aspiring College Students
What to do when you're on your way to college this year? Getty
If you are or have a 2020 high school graduate at home, you may find yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to making any potential plans for the fall. With the pandemic still sweeping the nation, many students who were living on campus this year were quickly sent home to complete the school year remotely. This sudden change in education has left many parents and students wondering if they should consider sending their students away to college this fall or to keep them home. Between the high cost of university life, health-risks, and the chaos thrown upon us, many students are opting out of going away this fall.
A growing number of students who have returned home are already suing various institutions as the classroom experience has moved online. International students faced many problems getting home, and some were on their last dollar.
The pandemic has created chaos among every industry, but for college-age students, this new way of living is a shock to the system as they were about to embark on their young adult lives. In a time when teenagers are transitioning into adulthood, they need all of the emotional and psychological assistance they can get.
Most of the college-age generation was born during 9/11, and they are now walking into an unknown world as they become young adults.
Many people have called for a gap year filled with purpose. Although this is a great idea, we must ask, “What does purpose mean, and how can students find it?” It can be a challenge to discover purpose when education has not changed too much, and students have been taught to listen, earn strong grades, and get into a good college. The former college narrative needed a new story to tell for years, and maybe right now is the time. It can be a challenge for any teenager to find their purpose when education, for the most part, has been teacher-centered rather than student-centered.
How do you know your purpose when you haven’t been given the time to discover it?
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Upcoming College Students Need More Guidance Than Ever Before
Kaplan, one of the leading global educational services providers around the world has launched a program called ‘Boost Year’ for aspiring university students.
Boost year is an innovative online pre-college program created to improve and accelerate college and career readiness.
According to Andrew Temte, CEO of Kaplan Professional states, “Instead of students taking a year off by taking a gap year, they will be able to receive a boost in their education as it relates to the skills we will need in the future workforce.”
In the Boost experience, students will:
Discover personal strengths with 1:1 advising Learn about careers and interact with industry experts Explore and develop the work-ready skills demanded by employers Acquire experience by engaging in real-world, career-relevant, and experiential learning projects Become college-ready, and learn how to get the most out of their prospective college experience
Also, according to businesswire, “Boost will offer a focused and thoughtful approach for those who want to maximize their college and career trajectory, helping students make decisions on their next steps winith greater confidence, from picking a major to choosing what courses of study may be the right fit to being prepared for what to do upon graduation.”
How the Program Works
The program structure for Boost Fall is flexible. They plan to offer different ways to deliver instruction as well as personalized interaction. The program will provide live guidance online and on-demand sessions, create a customized study, and provide practice interviews with those who are already working in a student’s area of interest.
Students will be able to receive one-to-one mentoring with a Kaplan advisor who will be dedicated to mentor students on their education and career choices. They will also be part of a small cohort where they can network, and learn from their peers.
The 14-week Boost Fall online program goes from September—December 2020. The Boost Spring program will run from January—April 2021, and will help students apply what they’ve learned to real-world work experiences.
Curriculum Snapshot
Below is a highlight of each session, be sure to visit Kaplan’s Boost Page for more details.
Discover (Weeks 1-3): Students will discover their strengths and interests and learn how to map their careers. Explore (Weeks 4-12): Students will spend three weeks more going into each of their own chosen career pathways Plan (Weeks 13-14): Students will finalize a plan to chart their path forward from their college majors along with selections to target first jobs
Benefits For Students
According to their site, students will benefit from the Boost Program through the following means:
Make the gap year a life-changing experience Gain insights into how strengths and interests fit with majors and careers Understand and build core skills needed for the future Get the best return on college investment Acquire experience with actual work projects Gain college credits (optional)
Boost will also provide partnership options for universities that want to offer this program while deferring admission. Having this option can allow colleges to maintain relationships with cohorts while participating in portions of the program to stay connected with their students.
To learn more, please visit Boost, powered by Kaplan.
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c34376d84c04bd4cb5b12b55db351c51
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2016/06/14/whats-the-value-of-an-unwanted-nuclear-plant-seized-by-eminent-domain/
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What's The Value Of An Unwanted Nuclear Plant Seized By Eminent Domain?
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What's The Value Of An Unwanted Nuclear Plant Seized By Eminent Domain?
Last week, New York State Sen. Patty Ritchie (R-Heuvelton) proposed a bill (S08032) that would authorize and direct the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to acquire the James A. Fitzpatrick nuclear power plant either by a direct purchase or by using the power of eminent domain.
She described the bill as part of an effort to do everything in her power to keep the plant operating. Her "number one priority" is saving the 615 jobs associated with operating the plant; she noted that achieving her goal requires continued conversation, prompt decisions and effective actions.
It's possible that Sen. Richie or members of her staff have decided to follow a recommendation from the American Nuclear Society document titled Nuclear in the States Toolkit. Page 18 of that document describes how states might choose to justify and take advantage of their power to use eminent domain in order to retain the public good of an operable and licensed nuclear power plant.
If a private merchant nuclear generator plans to close, state governments should consider the public impacts of permitting them to shut down. In order to enable the continuing use of these plants, states have the power to acquire the plant either by purchase or by use of its condemnation/eminent domain power. Even reactors owned by merchant operators today were built with public funds or by regulated utilities authorized by public utility commissions to provide a needed public service. The public purpose existed when the plants were built and it exists today, so this would be a legitimate use of the state’s eminent domain power. In addition, inasmuch as merchant owners claim they are losing money on the plants, they should be willing to transfer all liabilities and assets, including the decommissioning fund and the right to DOE reimbursement for spent nuclear fuel management, to the state taking ownership.
The drafters of the ANS toolkit, however, are not the only people who have recognized that nuclear power plants can qualify as public goods eligible for eminent domain proceedings. In a June 5 commentary for Syracuse.com titled Don't give up fight for FitzPatrick nuclear plant John F. O'Mara, a former chairman of the New York Public Service Commission, offered similar advice.
He reminded readers that Fitzpatrick was initially built and operated by a state agency known as the Power Authority of the State of New York (PASNY). That agency eventually became the NYPA and was the entity that sold Fitzpatrick to Entergy as part of a package deal with Indian Point unit 3.
That 2000 deal, with a total sales price of $967 million, was an integral part of Entergy's move into the northeast merchant power plant market. Between 1999 and 2002, Entergy assembled a moderate sized fleet that included Indian Point 2 & 3, Fitzpatrick, Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee.
There have been other times when eminent domain has been introduced as a potential tactic for use by New York government agencies in order to gain control over the decision of whether or not to continue to operate nuclear power plants.
Way back in August 2002, the New York Times published an article titled Campaigning About A-Plants, But Without Actual Power in which Matt Wald described how gubernatorial candidates included their opposition to the continued operation of Indian Point as one of their campaign issues.
Wald questioned how the gubernatorial candidates could follow through on their promises since the state had no power to challenge the operation of a nuclear plant based on safety concerns. Several of the people he quoted in the article pointed out that the state might be able to use eminent domain to purchase the plant, even from a reluctant seller.
Once the state became the owner, it could choose to close the plant if it determined that was the right thing to do.
That option wasn't pursued in 2002. Among other issues, state officials were probably concerned about the selling price Entergy would demand. Energy market specialists at the time were saying that Entergy's newly assembled northeast merchant fleet was "highly profitable." Natural gas prices had already begun their steady increase from the lows of the 1990s and the future projections were for continuing increases.
When a state chooses to use eminent domain, it must pay just compensation for the acquired assets. Establishing a "just" price can be a tricky exercise, but it is higher and more favorable to the asset owner if there is a future expectation of increasing revenues.
A costly valuation shouldn't be an obstacle today. Since Entergy has made it known that it cannot operate the plant profitably and thus is planning to shut it down, the company must have determined that the future value of the plant is negligible or even negative.
There are other obstacles to consider. NYPA President and CEO Gil Quiniones reminded people on Twitter that the NYPA no longer has the "expertise in-house to own, operate and maintain nuclear plants."
@JesseJenkins @thompn4 @NYPAenergy Very unlikely. We no longer have the expertise in-house to own, operate and maintain nuclear plants. — Gil Quiniones (@GQenergy) June 6, 2016
If the state determines it should buy the plant, it has the option of hiring the expertise; there have been numerous examples of nuclear plants operated by an entity other than the plant owner. Exelon, which owns and operates the Nine-Mile Point nuclear plant that is virtually next door to Fitzpatrick, seems to be a logical candidate.
It has the expertise and an established business unit that operates other people's plants.
However, an Exelon spokesperson deflected questions about the possibility of Exelon operating Fitzpatrick for NYPA by stating that her company is focused on continued safe and reliable operation of its current plants along with efforts to help the state develop a Clean Energy Standard that can improve their chances of long term operations at a profit.
The sheets representing each calendar day keep getting torn off. January 2017 is approaching rapidly. Eminent domain might be a winning strategy for saving Fitzpatrick, its 7 terrawatt-hours of emission free electricity and its 600+ high paying jobs.
It's not something that happens quickly, especially when there are powerful interest groups that might prefer for Fitzpatrick's output to disappear from the grid. That would allow the electricity supply-demand balance to move closer to one that enables profitable -- or painful, depending on your perspective -- market prices.
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560279ad7bd94be3575b0f6aa1b95757
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2016/06/21/breaking-nrdc-announces-pge-has-agreed-to-kill-diablo-canyon/
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NRDC Announces PG&E Has Agreed To Kill Diablo Canyon
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NRDC Announces PG&E Has Agreed To Kill Diablo Canyon
Aerial view of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant which sits on the edge of the Pacific Ocean at... [+] Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California on March 17, 2011. (MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has just issued a press release stating that they have signed a deal with PG&E , IBEW local 1245, the Coalition of California Utility Employees, Friends of the Earth, Environment California, and the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility.
There is an implied quid pro quo. The groups will support PG&E's request for an extension from the California Lands Commission of its land use permit that allows access to ocean cooling water at the Commission's June 28 meeting. In return, PG&E will agree to withdraw its 20-year license extension application at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission . Instead, it will aim to retire the two-unit site when its current licenses expire in 2024 and 2025.
Gallery: World's Biggest 25 Oil & Gas Companies In 2016 26 images View gallery
The press release claims that the electricity produced by the plant will be replaced with a combination of wind, solar, and "energy efficiency."
“Energy efficiency and clean renewable energy from the wind and sun can replace aging nuclear plants -- and this proves it. The key is taking the time to plan. Nuclear power versus fossil fuels is a false choice based on yesterday's options,” said NRDC President Rhea Suh.
That's a deceptive fig leaf; it is physically impossible for wind, solar and energy efficiency to replace the steady production of a nuclear power plant. Producing the same total number of kilowatt-hours each year is not the same as producing the same kilowatt-hours on a minute by minute, hour by hour or day by day basis.
Electricity is a product that most efficiently produced at the instant that it is used. It is possible to store a small amount, but both the act of storing power and getting power out of its storage system result in a substantial, unrecoverable loss of energy. Round trip efficiency is often less than 50% and rarely better than 80%.
Even if enough wind, solar and energy efficiency projects are started and come on line in California before 2025 to produce an additional 17-18 billion kilowatt-hours per year over what is already in place and planned, any logical, disinterested observer should wonder why the huge sums and enormous physical effort that would be invested in those new projects will end up being devoted to treading water in terms of CO2 emissions.
If there is the potential to add that much capacity, why not use it to close dirtier facilities? As of 2014, 45% of California's electricity came from either burning natural gas in state or from importing coal fired electricity from out of state.
It's worth noting that as of 2014, all of the wind and solar infrastructure that has been erected in California since the 1970s managed to produce a total of 23 billion kilowatt-hours, which is only 30% more than what the single Diablo Canyon power plant produced during the same year.
Ralph Cavanagh, the Executive Director of the NRDC, attempted to explain why his organization preferred to replace the emission free output of Diablo Canyon over replacing the much dirtier forms of power generation.
“Giant baseload nuclear power plants like Diablo Canyon cannot easily be taken offline or ramped up and down as system needs change, which obstructs the integration of renewable resources with variable output into the electricity grid. This worsening problem is forcing the California grid operator to shut down low-cost renewable generation that could otherwise be used productively.”
Apparently, NRDC prefers to make room for unreliable power generators and to support the marketing efforts of companies that sell wind turbines and solar panels even in situations where they risk destabilizing the grid and forcing reliable generators into uneconomic and energy inefficient modes of operation.
The kinds of natural gas power plants that can rapidly ramp up and down are not the highly efficient natural gas plants that produce 40% of the CO2 produced by coal. They are inefficient, simple cycle plants that produce closer to 60% of the CO2 produced by a modern coal plant. Ramping them up and down is a bit like stop and start driving; it consumes more fuel per useful unit of power. It also increases wear and adds to maintenance costs.
I contacted Heather Matteson, one of the founders of Mothers For Nuclear, a group that has been furiously organizing people that recognize Diablo Canyon's value as a safe, well-run, emission-free power source that has many decades worth of useful life left in it. Here is her reaction to the announcement.
This is what we expected. We received a company wide announcement this morning that we won't relicense. The timing is strategic for them, which is also fine. This is a wake up call for the state. We will use it to drive home the seriousness of this issue for our energy future.
It's still early in the day in California. This will be an important topic of conversation as people wake up and recognize the potential impact of allowing a small group of interested parties implement an agreement with such widespread impacts on the rest of the residents of a large, heavily populated, and environmentally concerned state.
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980aa67dca8ff3a8668a6fc02d73a3bb
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2016/07/18/amory-lovins-invited-to-tell-navy-staff-about-electricity-and-oil-future/
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Amory Lovins Tells Navy Staff That Oil Is Obsolete
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Amory Lovins Tells Navy Staff That Oil Is Obsolete
Shutterstock
A former colleague from my days on the Navy headquarters staff -- an organization known to Navy insiders as OPNAV -- contacted me out of the blue. He had received an invitation from the Director of Navy Staff (DNS) with the subject line of "Inspiring American Lecture Series: Amory B. Lovins." He wondered if I was interested in attending.
He forwarded the email that DNS had sent out to encourage people to attend the Friday afternoon talk. That is a very tough time slot for any speaker to a DC-based audience. Despite our mutual knowledge that some extra salesmanship might be used to encourage busy staffers to attend the talk, the email describing the talk included a line that disturbed both of us.
Amory is widely considered a modern day Thomas Edison -- one of the most highly acclaimed inventors/high velocity learners of the 21st Century.
In the preface to the forwarded email, my colleague had included the following note:
The modern day Thomas Edison claim is B.S. Patents (US) T. Edison 1,093 A. Lovins 1
I accepted the invitation and attended the talk.
Aside: In case you are interested, you can read Amory Lovins patent here. I do not have enough space to provide links to Thomas Edison's patents. End Aside.
Background Story
Though it had been about a decade since we last served together, my former colleague remembered our numerous conversations about fuel and nuclear energy. We both had sea-going and budgetary experience with the key role that propulsion and electrical power plays in the Navy's ability to operate and carry out its historic missions of global presence, peacekeeping and -- when directed -- power projection.
During the time we served at OPNAV, the price of oil was a major concern to everyone on the staff. After having doubled in the five years before we met -- from $15/barrel in 1999 to more than $30/barrel in 2004 -- world oil prices continued their rapid rise and peaked at $147/barrel about the time that we were each assigned to new tasks.
He'd also heard my rant one morning after having attended an Amory Lovins talk at a series called "The Energy Conversation." Those talks were organized by people from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy for energy-interested individuals in the DC area. Audiences included staff officers, decision makers, private business and support contractors.
I'd challenged Mr. Lovins on several points, including his blanket assertion that there was no private capital interested in nuclear technology, that the only places where it worked was in centrally planned economies and his condescending lament that it was too bad so many bright people had wasted their time learning about a dead end technology.
Before the rant at work, I'd dashed off a piece for my Atomic Insights blog, which was then just a hobby.
At the time, Lovins was promoting the book he began in 2004 titled Winning the Oil Endgame.
Electricity And Oil Futures
One of my former bosses at OPNAV -- Vice Admiral Phillip Cullom -- was Amory Lovins's host and apparently the ghost writer for the invitation that the DNS sent out to the staff.
During his introduction, VADM Cullom described Mr. Lovins as one of the smartest people he had ever met. He also used the "modern-day Thomas Edison" description.
That laudatory introduction -- provided by an influential three-star admiral -- almost guaranteed that there would be few challenging questions for the speaker even though VADM Cullom completed his introduction by asking audience to ask challenging questions.
Since I've heard Mr. Lovins speak on several occasions, I was not surprised to hear him telling Navy staff members that modern society is heading rapidly in the direction of eliminating oil use through hyper-efficient and electrified automobiles, biofuel and hydrogen powered airplanes and a vastly expanded network of non-nuclear alternatives to fossil fuel.
He used the same lightweight composite "helmet" that rings like a bell when struck for a visual aid that he did during the 2006 talk in the Energy Conversations series.
He told the audience that we are moving from an age of carbon to an age of silicon, where both the conversion of electricity into light -- in the form of white LED lamps -- and the conversion of light into electricity via solar photovoltaic cells will make coal, oil, natural gas and uranium obsolete.
He spoke about Germany's successful efforts to increase the portion of its electricity supply produced by renewable sources like large wind turbines and roof-mounted solar collectors, complimented the fact that the German energy transition had contributed to large stock price declines for the electric utility companies and noted that much of the new energy infrastructure was owned by individuals and local community organizations instead of monopolistic corporations.
He did not mention the price of electricity for households in Germany, which is three times as high as it is in the United States.
He acknowledged that controlling the grid to ensure stable power wasn't as simple with so many "variable" generators is was when it depended more on large central station power plants. He said, however, that smart German engineers had "figured it out" and described, complete with arm motions, how they were able to keep the power flowing in the same way that an orchestra conductor keeps the music going even though not all instruments are playing at the same time.
His near conclusion, before the last apocryphal story, was poetic enough to quote directly.
The first industrial revolution was the Age of Carbon, building our prosperity, security and the world's mightiest industries out of coal and oil and gas. So now that obsolete age of carbon is giving way to the modern Age of Silicon. Silicon microchips, telecoms, software turn people from isolated to networked; systems from dumb to smart. Silicon power electronics make electricity interconvertible and precisely controllable replacing fiery molecules with obedient electrons. Silicon solar cells enable the ascent of energy from mining the fires of hell to harvesting the breath and radiance of heaven.
As he often does when giving an invited talk, Lovins overran his allotted hour, leaving VADM Cullom to tell the audience that there was time for just a couple of questions before his guest had to depart for his next engagement.
A front row attendee quickly raised his hand. He noted that he had been told during a previous assignment at the Armed Forces Staff College that the US would never be able to use renewable energy for more than 20% of its electricity supply but he wondered if Mr. Lovins could explain what's keeping the United States from being able follow the wonderful examples from the rest of the world.
Lovins said it was mostly inertia and misconceptions, including the notion that renewable growth needed a breakthrough in bulk storage. He dismissed the notion as a "common trope" repeated by people like "Bill Gates and several secretaries of energy." He also said that the coal industry is fighting state by state to block renewables. He said that the renewable industry is strong enough to fight back and that 68% of new capacity built last year was renewable.
Before the talk, I'd prepared a question that I hoped would stimulate some thought from both the audience and Mr. Lovins. It referenced Mr. Lovins early work as a photographer and environmental activist working to protect the area that is now the Snowdonia National Park in Wales from industrial development.
I asked Mr. Lovins how he felt about the Snowdonia National Park being surrounded by wind turbines. He said he did not know whether it would bother him or not and explained that the area was historically very depressed and the target of industrial development, mainly by the central government.
He mentioned that the project he had helped to defeat was a copper mine development proposed by Rio Tinto, the world's largest mining company. They disagreed about that development, but now, "They are now our favorite customer and we're their favorite consultant, leading the greening of the mining industry."
Lovins also explained his opinion of wind turbines. "In general, I don't have the same visceral reaction that some in England do to wind turbines because I think they're kind of nice kinetic sculptures. I'm aware that if instead we brought the same power from remote thermal plants we'd be facing a roughly similar argument about pylons from transmission lines. But there's no arguing about taste."
An energy specialist from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) then asked Lovins about small modular reactors (SMR) and whether or not they might offer a way to overcome his objections to nuclear energy.
He said he understood their use in carriers and submarines because of their overwhelming strategic needs, but that putting them on land has no business case. He then proceeded to "do the math" to claim that the early SMRs would face a factor of 12 handicap against the cost of the renewables that they would compete against. His logic was very difficult to follow, but he advised the audience to do a Google search for "Lovins nuclear distraction."
I remain unconvinced that wind and solar energy, even with a little help from biomass and geothermal energy can provide sufficient energy to power a prosperous society of 7 billion people. They do not offer a way to empower the currently powerless people that buy kerosene for their lamps and burn dung and twigs to cook their meager meals.
Those sources will never power ships or aircraft and they will not enable society to avoid the worst effects of adding 30 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year.
I hope that the small portion of the OPNAV staff who spent valuable Friday afternoon time listening to Lovins attempt to describe how we can "reinvent fire" will realize the unrealistic nature of his thoughts and prescriptions.
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1ee6edc92239b33a33803176caab144b
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2016/08/26/fukushima-time-bomb-or-training-device/
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Fukushima: Time Bomb Or Training Device?
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Fukushima: Time Bomb Or Training Device?
A protester holds a fan during an anti-nuclear demonstration rally in front of the Diet building in... [+] Tokyo on March 11, 2016. Hundreds of demonstratior staged the anti-nuclear rally on the fifth anniversary day of 2011 quake and tsunami disaster in northern Japan. TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/AFP/Getty Images
Al Jazeera is a media empire that is owned by the government of Qatar, one of the world's largest LNG exporters. It recently hired a journalist from Australia, another of the world's largest LNG exporters to produce a documentary about nuclear energy. The story focuses on the aftermath of the March 11, 2011 accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.
During the five years since the accident, Japan has been the world's largest and most lucrative market for LNG, which it has been burning to produce electricity instead of operating the 50 nuclear power plants that were not damaged by the accident. Recently, some of the companies that signed the long term LNG contracts that were offered in the wake of Japan's lengthy nuclear energy stand down have been trying to alter restrictions imposed by those contracts.
Unsurprisingly, the documentary tells its audience that fear is the right emotion to have about nuclear energy and that keeping reactors closed is a component of the proper response to the events that began happening more than five years ago.
This morning I received a personal notification from Al Jazerra's 101 East (@AJ101East) announcing that the documentary, titled Inside Fukushima's Time Bomb, had been released.
@atomicrod you might like our film on Fukushima's ongoing nuclear crisis. #Fukushima Thanks for sharing: https://t.co/911CmXD2kA — 101 East (@AJ101East) August 26, 2016
The documentary features narration by Mark Willacy, a journalist and writer who was the North Asia correspondent for the Australian Broadcast Network (ABC) for five years. He and his family experienced the effects of the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami; he witnessed much of the devastation and heartbreak first hand. Willacy compiled some of his experiences and interviews in an eBook titled Fukushima.
Here is a quote from the Amazon.com page where the Kindle version of Willacy's book can be purchased.
On 11 March 2011, Japan was rocked by the most violent earthquake in her history and one of the largest ever recorded. The quake itself was just the start of a chain of disastrous events, creating a massive tsunami that slammed the shores of north eastern Japan. Close to 20,000 people were killed or disappeared under waves that reached more than 40 metres high as they smashed their way several kilometres inland. Yet the greatest damage was caused when the tsunami surged over the seawall of Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power station, resulting in a multiple core meltdown that released vast quantities of radioactivity into the atmosphere and ocean. At one stage it even threatened the evacuation and irradiation of Tokyo itself, which would have spelt the end of Japan as we know it.
Ominous Words Contradicted By Chosen Images
That quote provides a clear hint of the human perspective through which the Al Jazeera-sponsored documentary is told. Though I'm not in favor of encouraging or spreading misinformation, this documentary is a valuable learning opportunity for people with a questioning attitude and critical thinking skills. It would be a good starting point for discussion in classes like Cornell University's "Nuclear Imagination: Technologies and Worlds (ANTH 1101) taught by Vincent Ialenti.
Despite the ominous tone and words from the narrator, the documentary includes abundant photographic evidence, with scenes from both the disastrous, deadly earthquake and tsunami and the aftermath of the misinformation-induced tragedy caused when people evacuated undamaged homes, communities, farms, schools and factories. The film makers use background footage that shows several people who are confidently living and working in areas that the government has declared to be "no go" zones. Even Willacy belies the fearful words he uses by wandering with one of the few residents on vacant streets in the "no go" zone without wearing any protective clothing.
The areas filmed show what happens to our built infrastructure when it is abandoned. People left their intact homes because people they should have been able to trust had told them -- repeatedly -- that there was an invisible boogeyman called "radiation" that would somehow cause more damage than the shaking ground and towering wave of salt water.
As shown in the documentary, because decision makers believe that the amount of radioactive material released from the damaged reactors is dangerous, Japan is engaged in a difficult, costly, lengthy and potentially hazardous clean up effort. Willacy interviews people who are working on what will be a career long, heroic effort to achieve the radiation dose standards that have been officially established.
Massive expenditures in time and money have been made in activities like scraping, bagging and stacking topsoil and building tank farms to store virtually pure water that has been treated to remove almost all radioactive isotopes.
Is The Effort Needed To Make No-Go Zones Habitable?
Though radiation and disaster recovery experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report suggesting that Japanese leaders have overreacted, the diplomatic words used were not aggressively chosen to convince the bosses that the high end of international radiation dose standards are safe enough.
Their aggressive efforts to overachieve and seek lower levels are wasted.
As an example of how diplomacy can obscure useful advice and prevent its implementation, the IAEA report effusively compliments Japan on the enormous effort it is undertaking. Only after the compliments did the team provide the following advice.
Japanese institutions are encouraged to increase efforts to communicate that in remediation situations, any level of individual radiation dose in the range of 1 to 20 mSv per year is acceptable and in line with the international standards and with the recommendations from the relevant international organisations, e.g. ICRP, IAEA, UNSCEAR and WHO.
Cost-conscious decision makers should read that carefully and understand that efforts to reduce annual radiation doses from 20 mSv down to 1 mSv are excessive. They provide no measurable health benefits.
(Note: There are credible radiation experts that believe that 20 mSv/year is excessively low. They don't even like to use Sieverts as units, preferring the roughly equivalent Gray as being more reliably measured. Some, like Dr. Jerry Cuttler and Dr. Wade Allison, assert it would be safe to allow levels approaching the .2 cGy/day standard that was accepted as the tolerance dose by the International Commission on Radiation Protection in 1934.)
The IAEA team also provided the kind of advice that should appeal to people who are patient and respectful of the way that nature handles challenges.
The Team notes that by taking into consideration the natural processes leading to reduced availability of radiocaesium to crops, there is potential to further optimize the application of remediation measures and still produce safe foods. This will have the added benefit of conserving the nutrients in the soil and reducing the amount of removed soil that needs to be disposed of.
For people who believe in efficient expenditure of human effort and money, "optimized" translates to "minimize." Of course, that kind of advice is not often welcomed by Type A people, people who are seeking to achieve political success, people who thrive when others fear radiation or people who are interested in obtaining lucrative clean-up contracts.
If credibly explained and implemented, the IAEA's advice could be used to justify decisions to avoid nearly all of the effort being invested outside the boundaries of the plant.
What About The Tank Farm?
One of the biggest challenges that Willacy notes inside the fence line is the vast and expanding quantity of lightly contaminated water that is being stored in a massive tank farm, even after it has been treated to remove all isotopes other than tritium. According to the US EPA, which has never been known for underestimating the hazards of radiation, "...tritium is one of the least dangerous radionuclides because it releases very weak radiation and leaves the body relatively quickly."
The best way to safely dispose of tritiated water is to release it into a much larger body of water. It will naturally dilute and become even weaker. It's even safer than safe if the diluting body of water is a massive body of salt water, like the Pacific Ocean. Luckily, it is only a few meters away from the Fukushima tank farm. After more than five years of struggling to keep up with the water issue Japan is finally beginning to realize that dilution is the solution to this particular form of "pollution."
Self-Protecting Politicians
Two of the star interview subjects in Willacy's documentary are Naoto Kan, the man who was serving as Japan's Prime Minister during the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, and Gregory Jaczko, the former Chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
It is worth reminding potential viewers of Willacy's work that both of those commenters have good reasons to continue misinforming the public. They both made significant errors during the event that dramatically increased the resulting human pain and suffering. Their mistakes did not expose people to harmful radiation because there never was any danger outside of the boundaries of the plant site. Instead their decisions and pronouncements stoked fear, elevated stress and caused economic hardship.
Naoto Kan was the elected leader with no nuclear or radiation training who refused permission for the plant staff to take action to reduce containment pressure and prevent permanent damage to the radiation barriers. Greg Jaczko was the supposedly credible and responsible messenger who transmitted the assessment that the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent fuel pool had been drained dry and was burning. Based on that incorrect information, he recommended evacuation for all Americans within 50 miles of the damaged reactors. The resulting confusion slowed the US Navy's ongoing earthquake and tsunami relief efforts and possibly led to additional casualties who could have been saved.
There was never a substantial risk of a fire. The used fuel in the pool was never uncovered. There was no indication that it was; there was no water level indication available due to inaccessibility and lack of electricity to power instruments. Jaczko assumed the worst without understanding the robust nature of spent fuel pool construction.
The actual conditions in Unit 4's spent fuel pool during the accident are documented on pages 73-76 of a document from the Nuclear Energy Agency titled Status Report on Spent Fuel Pools under Loss-of-Cooling and Loss-of-Coolant Accident Conditions.
People who carefully review evidence should question why intact structures and livable communities have been abandoned. They should ask why there has not been more attention paid to the fact that bagging vast quantities of lightly contaminated topsoil and building massive tank farms have consumed valuable resources. Those resources have been diverted from the necessary work of cleaning up debris and restoring structures damaged by the combined effects of a massive earthquake and intrusive tsunami that overflowed nearly all of the designed barriers that were supposed to keep people safe.
There are many useful lessons to be learned from Fukushima, but it is not a ticking time bomb. The worst risks have long ago passed and most of the additional costs and negative health effects are being imposed due to misinformation and misunderstanding.
Since nuclear reactor accidents have proven to be extremely rare events, it is important to take the time to study them carefully when they happen. As we continue to study, we should be implementing actions designed to help people respond more effectively the next time there is an accidental release of radiation.
As Marie Curie famously stated:
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
That is especially true when the people encouraging others to be afraid have enormous financial motives -- like maintaining a lucrative trade in replacement fuel -- for propagating their nuclear horror stories.
Correction: The 1934 tolerance dose rate has been corrected from .2 Gy to .2 cGy. 1 cGy = 1 Rad
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1442bb0f1f1e085aaad09d765515f5ed
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2016/11/30/russia-is-eager-to-add-south-africa-to-its-impressive-backlog-for-new-nuclear-plants/
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Russia Is Eager To Add South Africa To Its Impressive Backlog For New Nuclear Plants
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Russia Is Eager To Add South Africa To Its Impressive Backlog For New Nuclear Plants
Rosatom, the Russian state-owned conglomerate that is building nuclear power plants in Russia and around the world, has confirmed that it is closely monitoring the public discussion that is taking place in South Africa over the newly released integrated energy plan.
South Africa's draft energy plan isn't being presented to the public as a fait accompli. Instead, the draft provides information about several likely scenarios, all of which would include the 9.6 GWe of new nuclear plant capacity described in the 2010 version of the plan. There is some variation in the timing for the completion of the first new units depending on selected strategies for optimizing costs and balancing completion delays against the increased quantities of pollutants that would be emitted by delaying the introduction of new nuclear.
In the base case, the first new nuclear plant would be starting by 2026 with the first tranche of a continuing construction program being completed by the early to mid 2030s. In that base case, nuclear energy would provide 29.5 GWe by 2050. All of the capacity would have to come from plants that are not yet built. South Africa's only operating nuclear units were completed in the second half of the 1980s and are not expected to still be operating in 2050.
There is a scenario in the plan called a "nuclear relaxed" case that allows a delay in the currently proposed building plan based on the slower than expected growth in electricity demand. This case was considered available for study because, unlike the rest of the capacity additions identified in the 2010 plan, there are not yet any signed commitments to begin construction.
If this scenario becomes the selected plan, the delays will be limited. Even in the most pessimistic assumptions of demand growth, new nuclear will need to begin coming on line by 2030 instead of 2026 so that there is not a shortage of generation capability. The plan acknowledges that the delay doesn't provide much additional time, given the long lead times required to plan and construction nuclear power plants.
In the nuclear relaxed case, the plan acknowledges that certain climate and air pollution targets will be missed as a result of continuing to rely on dirtier power sources for a longer period of time.
The plan authors worked hard to provide the public with information about costs, employment, pollution, fossil fuel dependency, water usage and, crucially in a country with historical development inequalities, access to reliable electricity.
Russian Advantages
Russia already has a firm presence in South Africa's nuclear sector; Tenex, a subsidiary of Rosatom, has been supplying fuel to the Koeberg nuclear power plant for two decades.
Unlike most of the other nuclear plant vendors interested in being picked to supply South Africa all or part of its desired 9.6 GW (probably 6-9 units), Rosatom has a complete and running example of the design that it would be most likely to bid in any future tender in South Africa.
That reactor Novovoronezh 6 is a Generation III+ VVER 1200/392M with a nameplate capacity of 1114 MWe and a passive cooling capability. It was connected to the Russian power grid in August 2016.
Rosatom also has the advantage of a strong order book that includes 42 units so far. That order book makes for an attractive sales pitch from the company to participants in its supply chain. They can see numerous repeat purchases, making it worthwhile to make the investments in quality control, design engineering and material processing capabilities required to be an approved supplier.
Other Competitors
Rosatom will not be alone in trying to make committed nuclear plant deals with South Africa. Westinghouse and Areva NP have long had a presence in South Africa; the existing reactors at Koeberg were built by Framatome, one of Areva's ancestor companies. Both Westinghouse and Areva have several modern units under construction, but neither of them have completed any of their Generation III or Generation III+ reactors yet. There are still unknowns to be discovered.
South Korea's Kepco, which is currently building four of its APR-1400 reactors in the UAE should also be a strong contender. Like Rosatom, Kepco's modern export reactor design, the APR-1400, has a complete, running model to show to prospective customers. That unit, Shin Kori 3, was connected to the grid in January 2016, so it has nearly a years worth of operating experience to share.
All of the potential vendors must be paying close attention to the public discussion about the size and timing of what could be another large nuclear building program.
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f0b420c1611088c678bc08e7bdabd990
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2016/12/14/governor-perry-from-energy-state-to-department-of-energy/
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Special Interests Worried Rick Perry's DOE Might Focus On Creating Sustainable U.S. Energy Policy
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Special Interests Worried Rick Perry's DOE Might Focus On Creating Sustainable U.S. Energy Policy
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry leaves after a meeting with US President-elect Donald Trump at Trump... [+] Tower December 12, 2016 in New York. / AFP / KENA BETANCUR (Photo credit should read KENA BETANCUR/AFP/Getty Images)
President-Elect Trump's choice of Rick Perry to run the Department of Energy is probably good news for people who have always believed that the federal government's Department of Energy was formed at the end of the 1970s because voters were tired of our abject dependence on foreign oil and its associated entanglements.
Perry is the former three-term governor of Texas, which arguably has earned the title of "The Energy State." Texas has been a world-renowned energy powerhouse since the Spindletop gusher first came in on January 10, 1901. Not only has it been a major source of oil and gas for the past century, but it also has lignite deposits, a large and growing wind industry, and two major nuclear stations. It has been home to independents, wildcats, majors and minors. Its Barnett Shale formation is the place where George Mitchell nursed his vision of combining horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing to release vast quantities of oil and gas from "tight" rocks.
The dirty little secret known to many inside the energy industry and few outside of the industry is that less than 1/5th (18%) of the Department of Energy's nearly $30 billion/year budget is spent on programs in the "Energy" category. The other 4/5ths is spent on programs in the categories of Nuclear Security (43%), Science (18%), and Environmental Management (19%) plus a hodgepodge of "Other (2%)."
Department of Energy Major Budget Categories FY2016. Source US-DOE
However, as Texas Governor, Perry might have had the opportunity to learn something about other areas of DOE responsibility. Texas is the home of the Pantex Facility in Amarillo, an important part of the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons complex.
Perry's Support For Oil And Gas
It almost goes without saying that a three term Texas governor supports the hydrocarbon industry and believes that fossil fuels will continue to be important tools for modern society for the foreseeable future.
During his tenure as governor, Texas natural gas production increased by 50% while its oil production soared by 260%, returning to levels not seen since the 1970s. During Perry's last five years as governor, booming oil and gas exploration and extraction helped Texas to lead the nation in new job creation.
Other than the fact that Texas is where the gas is, it remains a popular place to poke holes partly due to a tax break that Perry signed into law in 2003. As a way to encourage frackers to invest in Texas drilling, the state created an exemption for "high cost" natural gas wells with a formula that can, in some cases, completely eliminate the 7.5% severance tax normally applied to Texas gas production.
Though the exemption is temporary and only lasts for the first 10 years of a well's life, hydraulically fracked wells typically produce 80-90% of their lifetime gas volume within the first few years after they are completed. According to a study conducted at the request of the state legislature, the "high cost" gas well exemption allowed producers to accumulate an additional $10.6 billion in net revenue during the period from 2006-2014. Stated another way, if the exemption had not been in place and the same production had occurred, the state would have collected an additional $10.6 billion in severance taxes.
With the exemption in place, state collection of gas severance tax revenues has varied widely from year to year with changes in market prices and production levels, but over the past two decades the trend has been generally positive with collections increasing from about $700 million to $1.9 billion. Libertarians could draw the conclusion that lower tax rates helped increase revenues, but it's also legitimate to wonder what could have been done with the extra billion or so each year that would have gone into the state Treasury if political leaders like Rick Perry had not decided to incentivize production that might have happened anyway.
Though many environmentalists have expressed concerns that Perry's selection provides more reasons to worry about a new boom in oil and gas drilling to the detriment of the environment, it is at least as plausible to believe that Perry learned that too much drilling inevitably leads to a bust when prices fall as supply exceeds demand. Though part of the Texas economic bloom during Perry's tenure came from innovations like fracking, a major portion was driven by globally high prices and the profit margins those prices allow.
Perry's Involvement With Nuclear Energy
When the energy industry was talking about a Nuclear Renaissance, Texas was home to at least four serious development projects - Comanche Peak Units 3 & 4, South Texas Project Units 3 & 4, Victoria County Station Units 1 & 2 and Amarillo Power Units 1 & 2, with a total of eight new reactors.
Governor Perry, whose terms ran from Dec 2000-Jan 2015, was in office during the beginning of the Nuclear Renaissance optimism, for the build up of development efforts, and during the eventual petering out of immediate interest in building new nuclear plants. He was in office when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff ruled - in both December 2011 and May 2013 - that the investment structure created for the South Texas Project prevented issuance of a Combined License (COL) because they believed that it was dominated by foreign investors.
That decision was controversial because the license applicant was Nuclear Innovation North America (NINA). NRG, a US entity, owned 90% of NINA, but Toshiba, a Japanese company and a 10% owner of the project, was providing the financing for the licensing stage of the project. The monetary flows would have changed considerably during an actual construction project, but the staff insisted that Toshiba was controlling the project since it was providing the money at the time.
Perry was still in office in April 2014 when the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board overruled the NRC staff's initial decision. Presumably, he had a opportunity to learn about the costs imposed by the NRC staff objections, the significant legal and financial efforts invested to placate the staff, the way that groups opposed to nuclear energy pushed their interpretation of the restrictions on foreign ownership, domination and control to stymie development and the discouraging effect that the delay had on investor interest.
Perry was also in office during the issuance and renewals for numerous licenses required to operate the Andrews, TX low level waste repository and proposed site for a consolidated used fuel storage facility. He was there when the facility began receiving planned shipments after decades of delay. He had the opportunity to appoint all of the members of the TLLRWDC, the oversight commission for the facility. All indications are that the facility continues to operate smoothly and cost effectively, indicating that the commission members are doing their jobs.
On his watch, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved a major expansion of the site's capacity and allowed it to expand its customer base from two states (Texas and Vermont) to 36 states plus the Department of Energy.
While some have pointed to Perry's selection as an indicator that the Trump Administration might attempt to reinvigorate the Yucca Mountain project, it seems more likely that Perry would favor a process that found hosts that are willing and eager to gain the benefits of solid, long-term infrastructure investments and job creation that come from agreeing to watch over well behaved and potentially valuable used fuel. Though there might be some who believe that Yucca would be the right way to go, the remaining $300 billion that would be required to build and operate the facility and infrastructure described in the current DOE license application should be a substantial deterrent.
Perry's Texas Has Benefitted From Federal Wind Tax Credits
During Governor Perry's tenure as governor, Texas's wind energy production soared from almost nothing when he entered office to more than 35 million MW-hrs in 2014, his last full year in office. If Texas was a country, its wind energy production would rank 5th in the world.
Perry also worked hard to make sure that the wind power generated in the vast, lightly populated but windy areas of West Texas, could make it to power-hungry cities by supporting a $7 billion transmission corridor project called the Competitive Renewable Energy Zone. The network of more than 3,600 miles of new wires has helped Texas nearly eliminate the periods when congestion and high winds drove electricity prices in some areas to well below zero.
The project has received accolades from the people that like the jobs and revenues that the federally subsidized wind industry brings to the state.
“When we look back on the investment in CREZ, it will be one of the most visionary investments the state has ever made.” Jeff Clark, executive director of the Austin-based Wind Coalition.
Perry's Support For Coal Includes Carbon Capture And Utilization
Governor Perry has been sharply criticized by many environmentalists for his support for new coal fired power plants during the early part of his tenure as governor, but that support was given during a period when natural gas prices were sharply rising, which was causing electricity prices in Texas to rise almost as fast. Perry has continued to support investments in developing the technology needed to economically capture CO2 from power plant smokestacks. He appears most interested in projects where the captured CO2 is used for such purposes as stimulating additional oil and gas production and is not just sequestered.
Conclusion: Perry Will Make Both Friends And Enemies As He Works To Develop Energy Strengths
Not surprisingly, there are detractors who mistakenly focus on a widely known, but unrepresentative televised episode when Governor Perry had a "senior moment." He was participating in a presidential debate in November 2011 and attempting to list the three agencies of the federal government that he thought could be eliminated based on his experiences with them as Governor. He couldn't recall that the Department of Energy was on his normal stump speech list.
The video clip of that embarrassing episode provides a better understanding of the episode than the snide summaries and references found elsewhere. Few people above the age of 40 have never had the experience of being in the middle of a talk or a conversation and drawing a complete blank on a word or phrase they know very well. They might have even temporarily blanked out on the name of good friends known for years. That behavior doesn't indicate that someone is dimwitted, or a dufus, or experiencing the early onset of Alzheimer's disease. It's not an uncommon occurrence among busy people of a certain age, especially if they are sleep-deprived, stressed, nervous or distracted.
Another canard that's being tossed around is that it isn't appropriate to choose a person who once advocated for elimination of the Department of Energy as its appointed leader. For close observers of the way that the agency has performed its supposed focus of improving America's energy supply, it's not such a bad choice. Maybe an experienced politician who clearly recognizes the importance and value of energy production more than the basic science of particle physics can energize the agency that is supposed to help empower the country.
As a supporter of nuclear energy, natural gas, wind and carbon capture and utilization, Perry might help reduce CO2 emissions more effectively than someone whose major qualification is that they have faith in the summary conclusions of 97% of a sample of peer reviewed papers on climate science. Just because someone asks questions about actions, extent, urgency and special interests does not mean they deny that human CO2 production is changing the Earth's climate in some way.
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9b293b05fc42a791e3a9c28becbfdca2
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodberger/2019/11/05/how-ai-is-impacting-school-energy-savings-and-sustainability-practices/
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How AI Is Impacting School Energy Savings And Sustainability Practices
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How AI Is Impacting School Energy Savings And Sustainability Practices
The subject of artificial intelligence (AI) in education often centers around edtech breakthroughs and the ongoing evolution of the learning spaces inside schools. But AI is also experiencing growth in other sectors that have a direct impact on schools, presenting more areas for the education community to study. Take, for instance, construction and green energy resources. As schools look to cut costs, they are also increasing the adoption of sustainability programs. New state-of-the-art energy efficiency technologies may offer cost savings while reducing a school’s carbon footprint.
The integration of sustainability programs is quickly becoming a fixture of the education experience as schools look to develop whole child learning environments. The creation of the U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools (ED-GRS) is an example of a government-supported effort to recognize schools that are embracing sustainable practices.
In addition to the Green Ribbon School effort, the Department of Education’s 2019 Green Strides Tour is rebuilding schools with sustainable infrastructures that cut costs while creating safer, healthier learning environments for students. For many districts, energy costs are second only to salaries and even exceed the money spent on textbooks. The Department of Energy reports that K-12 schools currently spend more than $6 billion a year on energy, but with the estimated potential to cut costs by 25% through smarter energy management.
According to the U.S. Department of Education Fiscal Year 2020 Budget Summary, school districts will be facing budgetary cuts of 10% with a nationwide impact of $7.1 billion. District leaders will be in search of ways to offset budgetary cuts and energy-efficient solutions represent an immediate option. It’s worth noting that savings exceeding the 10% budgetary makeup could potentially be used for improving teacher pay, upgrading facilities and funding programs that are presently underfunded or out of reach.
To learn more about companies providing energy solutions to the education market, I spoke with CEO Tillman Holloway and COO Barron Solomon of DI Pathways in Nashville. Holloway, Solomon and their team offer innovative, reliable, and sustainable energy-efficient products for all areas of building construction, including school facilities. DI Pathways’ approach is to use cutting edge technologies and products with the smallest footprint that can make the biggest difference in energy savings.
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Rod Berger: Please explain your approach and describe how your efforts are mitigating energy costs for schools.
Barron Solomon: It’s important to provide a way for schools to implement cutting edge, AI-driven energy efficiency programs with as little risk as possible. The technology we provide allows every school to take advantage of energy benefits. To many, it’s a matter of trying to justify the risk for new and innovative technologies when schools are faced with so many capital constraints even in providing their core educational responsibilities to students.
Most energy initiatives require long contracts or significant capital outlay. We recognized and tried to solve that challenge to avoid the lengthy approval processes and the risk that is presented when considering making significant changes with an eye toward environmental impact. Our efforts bring monthly savings and reduce the carbon footprint while creating a better educational environment. There are no upfront capital requirements and schools have a 30 day out in contracts.
We have focused heavily on measurement and verification to justify the continual spend and we’re held to that standard month after month. We are lined up with the interest of schools. We utilize AI and smart metering technology to show schools our economic impact and give them peace of mind that they are aligned with a partner who wants to produce for the long haul.
Berger: The creation of sustainable green schools is becoming a more common priority. How is your approach to energy efficiency helping schools become more sustainable?
Tillman Holloway: A focus on sustainability should not be limited to new builds and fresh spaces. Retrofitting older spaces to achieve modern sustainability should be a focus that we all support to pave the way for a better future. Our particular approach allows schools that have existing space, who want to create a more sustainable educational environment, the opportunity to implement their plans without taking on long term risk.
We also help schools focus on areas of sustainability that others often don’t think to tackle. Schools normally have a large amount of drop ceiling, which is not seen as an area to create sustainability. Our program and products allow us to focus on the envelope of the building. It enables schools to achieve long term sustainability by harnessing the natural temperature changes occurring above the drop to reduce overall electrical spend, take power off the grid and increase the life of existing HVAC units.
An AI-powered approach to overall building management and insight provides educators and building managers the opportunity to see areas of their building that could be improved or retrofitted to achieve greater sustainability throughout the building.
Berger: AI receives a lot of attention in the conversation about technologies advancing learning, but where do you see the added benefits of AI being used for school infrastructure purposes?
Solomon: We would like to see a greater focus from schools and facility managers on implementing AI-powered metering and facility management systems to help better understand where their opportunities for sustainability improvements and cost reduction could be.
We believe in it so much that we offer it as a natural part of our program and rely on it heavily for justification for doing business with DI Pathways. AI is a tool that should be utilized to have a better understanding of things that humans don’t have time to personally monitor 24/7. We understand that often, there is far too much going on inside of a school for facility managers and educators to focus their time on energy consumption. Why not implement a readily available tool that requires a minimal time commitment to help pave the path to a more sustainable future?
Berger: If you could forecast the future, where do you see energy-efficiency products moving toward and are there particular energy-related areas inside school construction that need to be better addressed?
Solomon: The envelope of a building is an area to create savings and take power off the grid that most people don’t address. Schools should implement LED lights, more efficient HVAC systems and solar panels. Still, we believe a bright spot for the future of energy efficiency is, above all, the drop ceilings that exist in schools.
We are focusing on a product called phase change material that works like ice, freezes and thaws at whatever temperature at which we choose to manufacture it. It has a BTU value, so it creates usable energy assisting HVAC equipment to cycle less, which results in lower energy bills.
Using phase change material as an innovative first step toward energy efficiency generates savings from energy bills. The savings produced can then go toward energy efficiency initiatives, more AI, or wherever a school sees most fit.
The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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81c9f6684d8de5f724ac26949cfbabe0
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/roddwagner/2015/05/11/the-end-of-employee-engagement/
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The End Of 'Employee Engagement?'
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The End Of 'Employee Engagement?'
The age of “employee engagement” may be nearing its end.
Five years from now, using the phrase might make one sound as out of touch as would touting “total quality management” today. TQM had some great concepts in the mid-1990s, but it was eventually superseded by Six Sigma and lean manufacturing, which will, in turn, be replaced by something better. “Employee engagement,” as we know it, is showing many of the signs of having run its course.
It was a good idea. Fifteen or 20 years ago, it brought renewed attention to the relationship between employee and employer. It sparked some intriguing research. Most important, it motivated some leaders and managers to take more seriously their stewardship over the people they direct.
But much of what goes by the name of engagement now is malpractice. At many firms, it’s become little more than a check-the-box exercise. The now ubiquitous annual surveys lack real confidentiality. Leaders and managers game the process to look good, to earn bonuses, or to avoid extra hassles from HR. Employees feel pressured to give inflated answers. Those who don’t rate their employers high enough are vilified.
“Dilbert” creator Scott Adams spotted the contradiction early.
“We need more of what the management experts call ‘employee engagement,’” the pointy-haired boss says in a late 2009 strip. “I don’t know the details, but it has something to do with you idiots working harder for the same pay.”
“Is anything different on your end?” asks Dilbert.
The boss replies, “I think I’m supposed to be happier.”
In the management lexicon, the term “engagement” dates to a 1990 study of camp counselors and architecture firm employees published in the Academy of Management Journal by Boston University professor William Kahn. “The terms developed here to describe these calibrations of self-in-role are personal engagement and personal disengagement,” he wrote (emphases are his). “They refer to the behaviors by which people bring in or leave out their personal selves during work role performances. I defined personal engagement as the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively and emotionally during role performances.”
Inscription in Grand Central Terminal, New York City, to the workers who built it. (Photo by Rodd... [+] Wagner)
Human nature, of course, had not changed. “Engagement” was simply a new word for an old phenomenon – that people work harder in jobs where they are best looked after and where their natural talents are best utilized. It used to be called “morale” or “job satisfaction” or “the psychological contract.” At the heart of all of these was (and is) one of the defining characteristics of human nature: reciprocity. People are more motivated and feel a greater sense of obligation when their leaders and managers look out for their success. On the flip side, people hate being taken advantage of and, to the degree they can get away with it, will decrease their work for the company accordingly.
“Employee engagement” as a management trend took off in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the publication of First, Break All the Rules and subsequent bestsellers. (Full disclosure: I was lead author of one of those follow-up books.)
Seeing the money to be made in the new hot concept, consultancies piled on. Each brought a new proprietary survey, a new model and new superlatives. Their studies buttressed with evidence the common sense that, yes, looking out for a firm’s employees is good for business. But in the cacophony of advisors, too many of whom played to predispositions of the C-suite, “engagement” became not an overriding philosophy or strategy for managing people, but a routine. “Engagement” – which technically exists for good or bad under Professor Kahn’s definition regardless of the firm’s cognizance of it – became HR shorthand for having a survey, some form of accountability, posters in the hallways and manuals for the managers. A common question between HR people from different firms became, “Do you guys do engagement?”
Over the years, it became more sloganeering than substance. “Team feedback and action-planning sessions” were convened, then the forms filed away, while the quality of day-to-day managing and leadership’s attention to what it was doing for the firm’s employees did not improve.
Even with decades of work, practitioners could not agree what “engagement” meant. “Some questions remain about how employee engagement differs from other well-researched and documented constructs such as job satisfaction, job involvement and job commitment,” wrote University of Louisville assistant professor Brad Shuck and three coauthors in a 2013 paper titled, aptly enough, “The Jingle Jangle of Employee Engagement.”
There are compelling case studies of companies that have prevailed with a comprehensive and authentic engagement strategy. The underlying human responses are, after all, quite powerful. There is little doubt, for example, that Best Buy remains a going concern and Circuit City is dead in part because of diametrically opposed people strategies in the years leading up to the recession by CEOs Brad Anderson and Phil Schoonover, respectively. An “engaged" employee is more likely to stay, to obsess over customer service, to innovate, to be vigilant against theft and accidents and to speak well of the firm.
But in the aggregate, measured employee engagement has not increased meaningfully despite the fact that the majority of large organizations “do engagement.” The biggest winners of the engagement trend are the engagement consultancies themselves, a whole mini-industry that appeared almost out of nowhere.
Employees themselves, meanwhile, have not adopted the engagement vernacular. A full quarter-century after Professor Kahn’s coining of the term, workers never talk about being “engaged” or their managers “engaging” them. That’s strictly HR-speak. Enthusiastic workers talk about jobs and managers in much the same terms they always have. “I have a wonderful boss.” “We have a great team.” “I work for a cool company.” “I’m really happy working there.” They say these things because they see real concern for their happiness, not because they participated in an off-the-shelf program.
Engagement is further endangered by the fact that the work world has changed far faster than approaches to engagement have evolved. The Great Recession taught more people what real job fear feels like. Money moved faster from one investment to another, with conditions that it be multiplied now, regardless of the long-term consequences. Many organizations ceased being loyal to their employees and then were shocked when the employees reciprocated with less loyalty. “Wellbeing” programs turned out to be an intrusive and ineffective attempt to ratchet down health care costs. Social media put companies’ reputations in the hands of their employees. Trust levels continued to decline. The unwritten contract between people and their employers was redrafted; engagement programs remained the same.
Of course, “engagement” may stay. It may be so inculcated into the business vocabulary that, like the euphemism “human resources,” it will be hard to extract from the weedy ground around it. At its center, in its origins and best interpretations, “engagement” was simply a synonym for something that will never go away – the power of reciprocity between workers and those representing the enterprise. If it’s to stay, it will need to be reinvigorated in light of the new conditions. All the accumulated nonsense will need to be pruned away so that a manager or leader can say with a straight face, “No games, no tricks. I want you to be happy here and to feel comfortable telling us if we’re not holding up our end of the bargain.”
But at this stage, engagement may be too wrapped in the thorns. With increasing numbers of employees skeptical that anything meaningful will come of the hackneyed exercise, the misinterpretations of data and the politics, the term may just be too tainted. If so, to preserve what was right about the trend turned fad, “employee engagement” will have to go.
And perhaps before long, the question between HR people will be, “Do you guys do happiness?”
Also on Forbes:
Gallery: The Top 10 Cities For Employee Engagement 10 images View gallery
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c3d92cf46abab198b20affcf39a7a212
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/roddwagner/2016/11/17/would-you-have-socks-with-your-company/
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Would You Wear Socks Branded With Your Company Logo?
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Would You Wear Socks Branded With Your Company Logo?
(Photo by Rodd Wagner)
Forget the election. Forget the debates about pantsuits versus ill-fitting suits, overly long ties, and farmer caps. The American people face an issue closer to the ground.
Should an employee wear the bright, colorful socks that now command large displays in most clothing stores?
The Wall Street Journal says no.
Watch On Forbes:
“The party down there is showing signs of winding down,” it asserted. “The funk has sunk, and after years of being a way for men to show they were in step with fashion, crazy socks are passé – relying on them as your trademark has become a cliché.”
Just as emphatically, Vogue says yes.
“Colorful and cheekily emblazoned socks may have once seemed solely the terrain of science teachers and grown-up preps seeking to add a dash of quirk underneath their pressed trousers and polished monk straps courtesy of an outré stripe or funky stitch, but now it’s anybody’s game,” the magazine asserted. “So get with the program and let loose below the ankle – let that freak flag fly.”
The trend has enough traction, particularly among younger people, that even employers are commissioning logo socks. This raises a more intriguing question: If given a pair of socks with the company’s logo, would the average American worker wear them? When would employees, so to speak, have socks with their company?
The question of whether and why employees would wear “branded merchandise” – polo shirt, cap, jacket, or (increasingly) socks – with their employers’ logos goes to the heart of the relationship between people and the companies where they work. It’s tough to have a strong “employer brand,” as it’s now called, if the employees themselves don’t want to wear it.
People are selective and protective about the messages they put on their bodies. In one of the more famous social experiments, Cornell psychology undergraduates made to wear Barry Manilow T-shirts into a meeting overestimated how many people noticed (called the “Spotlight Effect” in behavioral economics), but also confirmed there was psychological suffering in wearing the uncool shirts. “We predicted that people would be so consumed with their own knowledge of the shirt and the embarrassment it engendered that they would be unable to accurately assess how noticeable it was to others,” wrote the researchers. They were right.
It’s also no secret that people will pay a premium, sometimes a substantial one, to wear brands that reinforce their self-images and that they believe reflect well on them, whether it’s with a Nike running shirt or a Harley-Davidson jacket. But what if the brand is one’s employer?
In interviews I conduct with employees, it’s not unusual for the topic of company gear to come up unprovoked, happy employees gladly wearing corporate stuff and unhappy ones saying they would be ashamed to wear the company logo outside of work. The most demoralized will confess to peeling off uniforms and switching clothes in the office bathroom at the end of their shifts. Before a massive turnaround at one call center, an employee told me, “I would never wear a shirt with the company logo during my time off. I didn’t want anyone to know I worked here.” After the turnaround, he proudly wore the shirt around town.
The employees most strongly attached to their jobs will sometimes even ask to have the company logo plastered on themselves. “To echo another reviewer, company polo shirts would be a great way to help us stand out!” wrote one credit union employee who rated his job five stars on Glassdoor.
Half of the employees working for large organizations in the United States say they would be proud to wear company gear outside of work, according to a new study by BI Worldwide. Roughly one in three employees are neutral on the question. And the remaining 17% either disagree or strongly disagree they would be proud to wear corporate gear. The third group probably includes the employee of sock-maker Swiftwick, who wrote on Glassdoor, “The socks are made in the U.S.; the employees are treated like they're in China.”
An employee’s desire to wear the company brand is directly related to how well he or she is being cared for on the job. Nearly three out of four employees who believe that their employer is “trying to make me happy at work” also say they “would be proud to wear clothing with my employer’s logo outside of work.” Every one of the 12 elements of employee happiness identified in previous waves of BIW’s research shows a statistically significant, positive relationship with outward pride in the company.
An employee who worked at two national firms based in Minneapolis found she had completely different opinions about their branded apparel. At the first company, "I was proud to wear company-branded clothing," she said. "I was proud because at that time they believed in and engaged employees. They were in the people business. I lived and breathed their values, which also meant flaunting the logo on your clothing." But at the second company, she said, "I have no desire to wear the logo. It's a respected company and the people are nice. But they are not invested in the people, only the business. They are not in the people business."
Four of the 12 elements of employee happiness were particularly strong predictors of someone wanting to be, in the current parlance of HR, a “brand ambassador.” Seeing a promising future with the company makes a person want to gear up, as does taking a sense of meaning from one’s job. “I loved having apparel with our firm name on it,” said one former Texas paralegal. “I had shirts, tote bags, hats and a briefcase. I liked showing others that I was good enough to be a member of one of the best law firms and I had pride in what great work we all did.”
Believing the company is transparent with its employees is also a strong motivator. Or perhaps (it’s difficult to tease these things out statistically) believing the company hides a lot from employees makes people shun the shirt.
The most powerful driver of putting on company gear is perceiving that the company is cool. More than seven out of 10 employees who see their organization as a cool place to work want to advertise their affiliation. Much like the Cornell students who got to wear Bob Marley or Martin Luther King, Jr., shirts rather than those with Barry Manilow, being cool is a lot more comfortable.
Some years ago, Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal and Freakonomics coauthor Steven Dubner hypothesized about how to determine the morale of an organization, given that, as Dubner put it, “we lie on most surveys.” (Not everyone does, we’ve since determined, but roughly one-third of employees either avoid the surveys or do, in fact, lie on them.)
The author, tongue in check, suggested the Dilbert Index, the number of Dilbert comic strips pinned on cubicle walls being inversely proportional to the level of engagement. Or maybe job frustration could be gauged, he suggested, by the number of cars in the parking lot backed into their slots, ready for a quick escape at the end of the day.
The latest discoveries suggest it’s not that complicated. Happiness at work is something employees often wear on their sleeves. Or their feet.
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5947b6be9ef7118e574da932bb6fbff8
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/roddwagner/2018/07/26/robots-cant-make-us-safer-until-we-figure-out-the-division-of-labor/?utm_source=FBPAGE&utm_medium=social&utm_content=1692790849&utm_campaign=sprinklrForbesMainFB
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Robots Can't Make Us Safer Until We Figure Out The Division Of Labor
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Robots Can't Make Us Safer Until We Figure Out The Division Of Labor
An Uber "safety driver" takes journalists on a drive through the streets of downtown Pittsburgh in... [+] an automonous vehicle in September of 2016. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
If we don’t figure out how to better work with our robots, someone is going to get killed.
Someone already has been.
Her name was Elaine Herzberg. She was 49. Four months ago, she was struck and killed in Tempe, Arizona, by an Uber “self-driving” vehicle taking a second lap of a test route on regular streets. In that vehicle was a “safety driver” who was supposed to, but allegedly failed to, compensate for failings of the computer at the wheel.
The investigation into the pedestrian’s death is demonstrating once again that if the combination of artificial and human intelligence is going to make us safer, we’re going to have to better figure out the division of labor. The future of technology-enabled safety relies on better understanding how humans think, how computers compute, and how the two systems should be connected to avoid the kind of simultaneous failure that led to this first-of-its-kind fatality. In no endeavor is getting the synchronization right more important than on the roads, the place where the most lives and jobs - from long-haul truck to pizza delivery - are at risk.
Shortly before 10 p.m. on March 18, Herzberg decided to walk her bicycle across Mill Avenue in Tempe. She was well away from any crosswalk. She was wearing dark clothes. The bike had no side reflectors. She did not look to her right to see the oncoming car. She had methamphetamine and marijuana in her system, according to a preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The Uber vehicle, a Volvo XC90, was traveling 43.5 miles per hour in a 45 zone. Its computer - fed with information from 10 cameras, radar and LIDAR - “registered” Herzberg roughly six seconds before impact. But the computer didn’t know what to make of her. It first classified her as an unknown object, then as a vehicle, then as a bicycle. The computer’s system for predicting where an object is going had “varying expectations” of where Herzberg was headed.
One-point-three seconds before the collision, the Uber system “determined that an emergency braking maneuver was needed to mitigate a collision.” But to avoid “erratic vehicle behavior,” the self-driving system was not programmed to hit the brakes. The Volvo itself came equipped with a collision-avoidance system that would have braked, but that system was disabled to allow the Uber system to take precedence.
The fail-safe precaution was a person in the car - part driver, mostly passenger. The NTSB calls her an “operator.” Uber employee Rafaela Vasquez’s job was to monitor the autonomous vehicle and intervene if there was a problem. From the video of Vasquez, Tempe police determined she looked down more than 200 times during the drive, adding up to about a third of the drive. Vasquez maintains she was monitoring the self-driving system. Cellphone records show an episode of NBC’s “The Voice” was streaming on her phone before the crash, according to investigators.
“The vehicle operator is relied on to intervene and take action,” the NTSB reported. “The system is not designed to alert the operator.” Temple police say she was looking down 5.2 seconds of the last 5.7. The agency concluded Vasquez turned the steering wheel less than a second before impact and that she did not brake until after the car hit Herzberg. “This crash would not have occurred if Vasquez would have been monitoring the vehicle and the roadway conditions and was not distracted,” the Tempe Police Department determined.
The modified Volvo XC90 at the scene of the March 18 fatal accident. Tempe Police Department
In the wake of the accident, Uber parked its self-driving cars, and only put them back on the road this week in “manual” mode. They are currently in the hands of one human - a “mission specialist” - with another observing in the passenger seat, both having extra training in defensive driving and the dangers of distraction. The Volvo collision-avoidance system will be switched back on. For a while, at least, the computers will monitor the humans rather than vice versa.
Hopefully, enough will be learned from the Uber fatality that it will not be repeated. The risk of serious accidents will persist whenever people and machines share responsibility for safety. Because of the idiosyncrasies of each in a constantly evolving relationship, we have not yet cracked the code on collaboration between the ourselves and the robots.
While a great deal is yet to be discovered about how people and machines can combine to further reduce serious accidents, several crucial truths have already emerged.
Robots will eventually become the better drivers. People have a tendency to quit technology when it fails and forgive humans when they do. Yet machines - whether iPhones or autonomous driving systems - are exceptionally amenable to successive improvements. People cannot improve their cognitive capacities. Computer processing speeds can be upgraded. People cannot electronically choreograph their driving with dozens of vehicles miles ahead or add infrared sensors that would “see” a pedestrian in the dark. Robots can or eventually will. New York Times contributor Malia Wollan foresees a time when autonomous vehicles “are equipped with 360-degree-sensing technology that can see farther than the human eye and react more quickly,” saving not just human lives, but those of the animals that so frequently dash across roads. This difference portends a time in the future when computers are the superior drivers.
For now, an alert person is the superior driver. How could Herzberg have been seen, recognized as a pedestrian and saved in time? Tempe police carefully reconstructed the accident at its scene. They determined that if she had been looking at the road, “the driver in this case could have reacted and brought the vehicle to rest 42.61 feet prior to the pedestrian.” What flummoxed the Uber computer is a relatively simple puzzle for an experienced and alert driver. Our brains are exceptional at the type of pattern recognition engineers are attempting to encode into computers.
Human nature won’t change. Evolved as it did over hundreds of thousands of years, human nature is a stubborn thing, exacerbated by the fact that every year, we put a fresh supply of 16-year-old novices on the road. The aggregate failures of human drivers will remain consistent. Last year, 40,100 people died in the United States in non-robotic vehicle accidents. This year, next year and the year after that the number and the proportions of root causes won’t be much different.
We risk relying too much on technology. To what degree people become less vigilant when new safety technologies are introduced remains an open question. It’s called “risk compensation” - the propensity to take greater risks when safeguards are added, sometimes neutralizing the hoped-for effects of the technology. It’s clear that when robots help, some people are tempted to turn over too much responsibility to the machines, as apparently happened in Tempe. If the car is driving itself, does someone really need to monitor its driving? For now, the answer is yes. If the car has anti-lock brakes, do you still need to drive as if you don’t have them? Yes.
Screens kill. If we’ve learned anything from the advent of smartphones, it’s that we are deeply psychologically maladapted to driving with our devices within reach. We seem nearly powerless to resist looking at an alert, responding to a trivial test, or looking down at the screen when stopped at a red light, despite the dangers and the illegality. Faster than engineers can add new safety features to vehicles, drivers are getting worse, much of that degradation because of our electronics.
Humans have blind spots technology can fill. We like to think we perceive everything around us, but the research is clear that we miss important elements. The phenomenon is so common it has an established term in the research: “Looked but did not see.” In the United Kingdom, it has an acronym: SMIDSY (“Sorry, Mate, I didn’t see you”). Advances such as blind spot detection systems and rearview displays have the potential to save lives, so long as people don’t use them in lieu of traditional safe-driving habits.
With or without technology, anyone can cut his or her risk. The vast majority of roadway deaths are avoidable. The persistence of fatalities is rarely one of ability to avoid a crash, but of personal investments in doing so. While the aggregate patterns are unlikely to change anytime soon, any individual can substantially reduce his or her risk of dying on the road by getting enough sleep, turning off the phone, leaving early enough to avoid the urge to rush, slowing down a bit, and using technology as an augmentation to his or her vigilance rather than a substitute for it.
The fatality in Tempe will interrupt but not stop the trend toward greater automation on the highways. We will be increasingly sharing the roads with robots and driving with more assistance from them. As good as our skills are when we’re fully attentive, enough of us persist in bad driving habits that sooner than it would otherwise be, autonomous vehicles, without any human backup, will be the safer choice. In the meantime, the safest people will be those who have the advanced technology, but drive as though they do not have it.
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2d8a420f926e156e7cb91591350a64b6
|
https://www.forbes.com/sites/roddwagner/2019/12/19/unexpected-nature-of-workplace-fatalities-makes-vigilance-tougher/?sh=2e4162aa466a
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‘Unexpected’ Nature Of Workplace Fatalities Makes Vigilance Tougher
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‘Unexpected’ Nature Of Workplace Fatalities Makes Vigilance Tougher
Fatal on-the-job accidents were little changed in the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ... [+] report. Getty
One of the first people to die on the job in 2018 was a mechanic.
On the afternoon of New Year’s Day, he was checking the starter on a front-end loader in Cleveland, Tennessee. “He had lifted the cab partially and positioned himself so that he could check the starter of the truck when the cab came down on top of him” and he was crushed, said a subsequent OSHA report. He was 28.
On March 15, a landscape company employee was trimming king palm trees in a back yard in Camarillo, California. As he threw down a palm frond he had just cut, it came into contact with a high-voltage line and he was electrocuted. He was 29.
On the morning of September 15, a driver in North Platte, Nebraska, was filling his tanker truck with diesel fuel. “At some point, while the truck was filling with diesel, the truck was in drive and it overpowered the parking brake and started to roll forward,” OSHA later reported. “While trying to disconnect the (fuel) hose, he was run over by the rear tandem wheels of the truck.” He was 42.
His obituary said he “unexpectedly died in a work-related accident.”
Repeat such stories another 4,185 times and you could scratch the surface on the scale of loss in the fatal workplace accidents tallied by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The annual Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, released Tuesday, is both a morbid and complicated accounting, one distilled from “over 24,800 unique source documents,” according to the bureau.
There were 5,250 “fatal work injuries” in 2018, a 2% increase over 2017. (The total I cite above does not include the 757 homicides and suicides or the 305 unintentional overdoses, deaths equally tragic, but with substantially different characteristics and remedies than on-the-job accidents.)
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The fatality rate remained unchanged at 3.5 deaths per 100,000 workers. The rate varies dramatically between industries, with loggers, fishers, aircraft pilots, flight engineers and roofers, as usual, having fatality rates more than 10 times the average for all workers.
While there were a few notable changes within the categories compared with 2017 – 98 fewer fatal falls to a lower level, 24 more electrocutions, 63 more deaths from being struck by a something at the worksite – the overall patterns were remarkably similar to the previous report. Deaths from transportation incidents, the largest category by far, varied by just 3, increasing to 2,080 from 2,077. The observation I made last year holds: There is a disconcerting “Groundhog Day” quality to these reports, workers dying in numbers, proportions and circumstances much as they did the year before, and the year before that and the year before that.
So why do people keep dying “unexpectedly” in such expected patterns? Pore over the statistics long enough and several key insights emerge.
The systems work the vast majority of the time. Fatal accidents are, thankfully, rare anomalies. Almost always, some combination of people’s judgment and natural instincts, their training, their protective equipment, an automatic stop on the machinery or even a coworker yelling “Watch out!” is enough to avert tragedy.
The bureau’s ratios show how unusual fatal workplace accidents are. To make the numbers comparable in the mix of part-time, full-time, and overtime work, the bureau divides the number of deaths by a standardized “full-time equivalent” (FTE) of 2,000 hours worked during the year (40 hours per week for 50 weeks). While the ratio is expressed as deaths per 100,000 workers, it is, in fact, deaths per 200 million hours worked (100,000 workers times 2,000 hours each).
In logging, the most hazardous of industries, there were 56 fatalities against an estimated 115 million hours worked, resulting in a rate of 97.6 per 100,000 FTEs. While that’s a staggering 28 times the overall hazard, it’s still an exceptionally rare event. The average logger had a 99.9% chance of getting through the work year without getting killed on the job. And the odds improved from there in the other industries. The average carpenter had a 99.993% chance of getting through the work year alive.
Despite the fact that humans routinely command speeds, voltages and other forces greater than our bodies can withstand, we’ve gotten adept at not getting killed by them. Any discussion of work fatalities is incomplete without calling out the vastly larger but unknowable number of workers whose lives were saved by safeguards, warning lights, safety “stand downs” and hundreds of other improvements to hazardous worksites.
Harvard psychology professor Stephen Pinker wrote in the safety chapter of his latest book, Enlightenment Now, “Human ingenuity has been vanquishing the major hazards of life . . . and we are now living in the safest time in history.”
The routine of uneventful days makes workers complacent, which sometimes gets them killed. Because fatal workplace accidents are such rare events, it can be difficult to remain vigilant – to stay cognizant, for example, that 60 miles per hour is not a natural velocity for humans. People who work high above the ground get used to being on the roof or the scaffold. Electricians develop a motor memory not reflective of the danger of the currents inside the wires.
Workers disinclined toward taking precautions will sometimes say, “I’ve been doing it this way for 20 years and I’m still here.” It’s nothing more than a bromide based on the objectively low odds that something catastrophic will happen. But even the lowest risks, repeated often enough, create a cumulative probability that eventually something really bad will happen.
Transportation, falls and being struck by an object continue to be the greatest mortal risks to ... [+] employees. Rodd Wagner
This shows up in the latest report in two areas. Workers die in the largest numbers through exceptionally low-risk but ubiquitous activities, especially driving. And they die at the highest rates in slightly higher-risk but less common activities, such as flying small aircraft, being near a trailer loaded with loose material or working around compressed chemicals. In both situations, people make the understandable assumption that today’s work will be as normal as all the days that preceded it, an assumption that works out fine for long stretches of time – until it doesn’t.
One could argue the true risk to a worker is not the hazards surrounding him or her, but the highly variable human factors that could fail to contain those hazards.
Small things make a huge difference. Nearly every official report of a fatal workplace accident describes a situation that, in hindsight, could have been easily prevented. The difference between a fatality and nothing happening is often a matter of inches or a few seconds, a flipped switch, a turned valve or reaching a bit too far while on a ladder.
One electrician died in 2018 while installing new appliances in a home when someone failed to disconnect the circuits to the kitchen. A demolition company worker stood too close to a steel beam being lifted by an excavator when the beam rotated. A cement company employee simply slipped when leaning over a 15-foot bridge.
The importance of such minor mental mistakes, the kind everyone makes regularly away from hazards, is the reason why the smallest precautions – routine or even bothersome at the time – can ensure another uneventful day that ends with everyone going home in one piece. It’s the reason why leadership qualities, attentive managing, collaboration, work-life balance, situational awareness training, being open to employee ideas and obsessing over equipment have proven so important to attaining a strong safety record. It’s the reason why safety managers tend to be picky.
A report like that released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this week is inherently negative, even when it’s written to drive a positive result. It’s not humanly possible to assemble its opposite, a book of the tens of millions of times a leader, manager, coworker or employee puts a program in place, makes a suggestion or takes a small precaution that saves a life. It would be much happier reading, with charts and tables like those in the bureau’s release, but showing lives saved state-by-state, by gender, by age, by occupation.
The underlying facts for that report exist, of course, even if they are much harder to tack down than the details of a fatality. A “source document” gets added every time someone extrapolates ahead enough to see an accident that might happen and heads it off. These often minor assumptions of responsibility ensure nothing “unexpected” happens on the job.
And it’s in making that metaphysical book just a little longer that the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries might one day disappear.
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dd1f8aae53dfdab4aa992cf0fcce4a91
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/roddyclarke/2019/08/27/transparency-is-what-conscious-consumers-urgently-need-from-design-brands-today/
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Transparency Is What Conscious Consumers Urgently Need From Design Brands Today
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Transparency Is What Conscious Consumers Urgently Need From Design Brands Today
What does sustainability really mean? Isn't it just an overused term to gain commercial profits? How do we decipher which brands are truly sustainable? Being a conscious consumer in todays' interior and design world can be a daunting prospect.
Danish brand, Mater, bring an open narrative to their designs giving customers full transparency. ... [+] This is the Ocean range which is made using recycled ocean plastic. Mater Design
It's Game Over for Business As Usual
The above are just some of the questions which are often asked when the subject comes up in conversation. And, to be honest, I can understand why. Over the past few years, sustainability has become a buzz-word within the design community and many brands have jumped on the bandwagon to try and capitalise from, what they regard, as a fashionable trend. As much as these discussions have increased awareness, many consumers are now put off by the word itself or even the slightest hint of 'greenwashing'. With time running out to respond to the current environmental crisis, it's game over for business as usual and questions have to be asked in order to gain some clarity.
A lot of ambiguity comes from larger companies, so for consumers who are unsure as to the traceability of a design, opt for smaller brands and individual designers where the personal connection between maker and consumer is closer and easier to trace.
Brands Spearheading The Cause
The Everset is an online subscription service for rental furniture. Creating a circular economy, ... [+] when the furniture has reached its rental lifespan it is then donated to a Habitat for Humanity ReStore. The Everset
From a brands perspective, becoming 100% sustainable can appear to be an insurmountable challenge. However, any change, no matter how small, is a start as long as there is no ulterior motive or commercial gain which is underlying this action.
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"The best ways to gain consumers trust is by making sure your actions align with your message." says Gavin Steinberg, founder of The Everset, a furniture rental platform offering a circular solution for those with a transient lifestyle. He continues, "Consumers won’t fault you for not solving all of the worlds environmental and social issues, but you can lose them if you're not honest." The brand is also partnering with Habitat for Humanity (A non-profit housing organisation working to support the worlds poorest communities) to have a wider impact which aligns with their own values.
Danish designers, Mater, offer a wide range of pieces for the home with open insight into the design journey. Working with sustainable options such as recycled plastic and recycled aluminium, founder Henrik Marstrand has been at the forefront of material innovation for many years. His primary concern has always been to remain open as to his findings allowing his customers to understand and trust the company for their design investments.
The Ultrafabrics Clerkenwell Showroom Sikora Photography
Ultrafabrics, the high-performance fabric brand, are also on their journey to a more sustainable future. Leaders in the alternative leather industry, the brand will be launching a bio-based vegan leather reducing the chemicals used in current options. Director of Branding, Nicole Meier, is aware they are on a journey with further goals to reach. "I understand that as a brand we still have improvements to make, especially in working towards further bio-based options." she comments, "However, we do communicate this openly and understand by being transparent we can work closer together as an industry to achieve better results."
Stitched work with British mills offering full traceability for each fabric they produce. Stitched
Founder of the online fabric platform, Stitched, Elinor Pitt is also keen to encourage further openness when discussing sustainable design. Working with British mills, each fabric they offer can be traced back to its source and the company is constantly seeking to improve with the aim to help consumers choose a more conscious option for their home. UK-based furniture makers, Benchmark, have been promoting timeless and considered design for the last 35 years and today are offering complete transparency to their customers. Working with FSC timbers and natural oils, they are marking each item with DECLARE labels which itemises each material used and ensures the same levels are secured from any suppliers they use. This gives clients full confidence and clarity as to the origin of each piece produced.
Furniture from the new Sage Collection by Benchmark. Benchmark
The Way Forward
While I understand few brands claim to be 100% sustainable, there still seems to be vague communication coming from many companies. With the appreciation of how it takes time to implement certain measures, all that is required is clarity about the stage you are at and the journey you are on.
Being a mass-market high street brand doesn't make you suspect, but by claiming a level of 'sustainability' is definitely a misleading message which many consumers will follow and believe. The core concept of mass-production feeds the rise in over-consumption so maybe redefining current processes rather than creating a recycled or conscious range of items, on top of what is already produced, should be the priority. By simply adding to the level of production, albeit with more sustainable notions, is not enough. It is time to look at the systems, supply chains and processes already in place and understand that change has to happen.
Working together as an industry, with a true passion for a positive impact on our future in this time of need, we can remove all misunderstanding. And, through being more transparent, it will breed good behaviour challenging brands to make positive actions towards a sustainable future.
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1ed40f4986cee1f53862f9090695991d
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/roddyclarke/2019/11/22/uk-designer-launches-anti-black-friday-campaign-encouraging-customers-to-be-more-conscious/
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RÆBURN Launches Anti Black Friday Campaign Encouraging Customers To Be More Conscious
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RÆBURN Launches Anti Black Friday Campaign Encouraging Customers To Be More Conscious
The Black Friday campaign by RÆBURN. RÆBURN
With the rise in consumerism currently more apparent than ever, brands are beginning to question the philosophy around commercial marketing opportunities such as Black Friday. These events can often result in scenes which bring out the worst in society, with angry shoppers fighting over what they claim to be are the best bargains. This notion, of investing in something just because it may be a good deal, has not only led to a huge spike in sales but also a rise in unused and unwanted purchases. Aside from the uncomfortable experience of elbowing your way through vast throngs of shoppers and rails of discounted goods, often made specifically for the expected rush and frequently with the quality reflecting the discounted prices, it breeds an extortionate level of mass consumption.
Black Friday, occurring the day after Thanksgiving to mark the beginning of America’s Christmas shopping season, used to be a one-day event but now many companies now extend it over a longer period including other days such as Cyber Monday with some even beginning today, a week before the actual event! Whilst the tradition started in the US, it has now spread across the globe with many countries making the most of another marketing opportunity.
With 12 reported deaths and 117 injuries since 2006 in the US as a result of the shopping mayhem, it still isn't enough to put customers off from the anticipation of getting a ‘good deal’. Combined with this, the environmental consequences are just as alarming. Finder.com estimate in the UK alone £7 billion will be spent on Black Friday with 62% of adults contributing towards this. This leads to a huge spike in both delivery vehicles on the road, as well as waste levels from items which have been purchased for the price saving, and not for a lifetime investment. The carbon footprint caused by this increased production rises each year to cater for the hoards of bargain hunters waiting in expectation.
Christopher Raeburn is leading the way to a sustainable future for fashion. Heiko Prigge
UK fashion designer, Christopher Raeburn, is one of many seeking to encourage customers to not be fooled by the frenzy of Black Friday.
Based in East London, the RÆBURN Lab is home to a variety of sustainable fashion initiatives. After graduating from London’s Royal College of Art in 2006, Christopher Raeburn set up the fashion label in 2008. With a philosophy to fight against the rise of fast fashion, the use of surplus, waste and recycled materials is paramount to the designer. Alongside this, the brand seeks to reduce it’s carbon footprint whilst adopting green technologies and working in small batch production formats. Their statement collections not only draw attention to the urgent climate crisis we face today but offer customers a fashion-forward, design-led, sustainable alternative.
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His brand, RÆBURN, is running an initiative which hopes to instil an opposing mindset to that of Black Friday; one of restoration and repair. Launching a campaign titled, ‘BUY NOTHING, RÆPAIR SOMETHING’ they continue to be strong advocates of a slow-fashion movement. The campaign is part of their wider initiative: ‘RÆMADE, RÆDUCED, RÆCYCLED’, driving against overconsumption and encouraging the use of recycled materials with a restorative outlook to fashion.
RÆBURN's collections are a constant reminder of the damaging environmental impact fast fashion has. RÆBURN
“It’s our observation that Black Friday can lead to a sales culture which is getting more competitive, aggressive and wasteful by the year.” states Raeburn, “This leads to an enormous pressure on prices and production, as well as growing consumer expectation of more for less. There’s an unacceptable volume of overproduction and overconsumption, and we need to be radical in addressing this.” Next Friday, all RÆBURN stores will be closed to customers. Alternatively, they will be opening the doors to the RÆBURN Lab where visitors can bring garments, from any brand, to be altered or repaired giving them a regenerated lifespan. Seamstresses will be on hand, free of charge, to help and assist in the conservation of clothing to drive against the replacement of these items.
Whilst he is optimistic that this is a positive step, Raeburn says more brands need to join the momentum. “What we are encouraging with our ‘Buy Nothing, Repair Something’ campaign this year, is that one of the most positive things we can do is keep our clothing in use for as long as possible.” he continues, “It’s promising to see so many standing for this together, but we do need more brands joining this stance in order to drive change.”
The brand also hosts a number of community-focused events including Off-Cut Animal Workshops where they teach people how to sew, and participants make their own mascots using off-cuts from the studio with all proceeds from the event going to the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF).
RÆBURN work on a number of initiatives including the Animal Workshops where participants learn how ... [+] to sew using offcuts from production and all proceeds going to the WWF. Ben Broomfield
The bid for a sustainable industry lies with both consumers and brands simultaneously. While brands have the huge responsibility of resolving this problem, it’s also up to the customers to keep asking the right questions and being increasingly curious. “I think the responsibility lies with both designers and consumers.” Raeburn agrees. “For the consumer, it’s about making considered choices and buying less but better. Alongside this, designers ultimately need to provide a desirable, sustainable product at a competitive price. And this is the challenge that many designers face.”
RÆBURN continue to positively disrupt the industry with their fashion-forward, conscious statement ... [+] designs. RÆBURN
Looking forward to the future, Raeburn feels optimistic about changing the fashion industry. “We’re in a brilliant time for the industry as change is truly starting to take place, and the innovation that is happening around responsible design is ground-breaking.” He comments. “Remaining optimistic and driven by that momentum is key. To now be operating the business in the way we do at RÆBURN, where we are specifically trying to push innovation forward in a modern way, is really exciting. Our communications hopefully evidence this sentiment, and our community want to be part of that. Ultimately, it’s vital to work together as a whole on moving things forward.”
With this continual positive disruption of the industry, RÆBURN, alongside many others, are leading the way to a brighter future for fashion and, in making a strong stance against events like Black Friday, they echo the voices of a society who are becoming aware that this over-consumption has to stop in order for the planet to survive and hopefully, in the future, begin again to thrive.
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bc981c69b13883890e7ff7c1b66af504
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/roddyclarke/2019/12/20/is-2020-the-best-time-to-be-an-emerging-artist/?sh=2f5e96b06bb2
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Is 2020 The Best Time To Be An Emerging Artist?
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Is 2020 The Best Time To Be An Emerging Artist?
With the art world more accessible than ever before, thanks to a rise in online platforms, virtual galleries and sharing platforms, maybe it’s time to explore your inner Picasso or Koons? As a result of these exploratory channels and viable career paths evolving, up-and-coming artists are finding support from new avenues, encouraging them to take the leap of faith as individual creators.
Modern Art Hire are a London-based art rental platform offering a curated selection of work from ... [+] emerging and upcoming artists. Ben Anders
Much to the initial scepticism of traditionalists, digital developments have brought a new vibrancy to the art scene with emerging artists, who may have previously struggled to make a stamp on the industry, now complemented with these new support networks in place.
Partnership Editions, a UK-based curated art platform, set up by Georgia Spray in 2017, works with an array of international talent bringing them to a global audience. After six years of working within the art industry with Christies and various London galleries, Spray recognised an opportunity to connect would-be collectors with emerging artists. With most potential collectors deterred by the initial cost of works from well-known names, this prospect answered the question for many whilst bringing an exciting opportunity for emerging artists. Spray has built her community through the use of social media tools, degree shows and word-of-mouth and is continuing to add to her curated selection. The key to the platform’s success is the personal relationship she maintains with each artist, working hand in hand to ensure the collaboration is a win-win for both parties.
Georgia Spray, founder of Partnership Editions photographed in their recent pop-up at the newly ... [+] developed Islington Square in London. Georgia Rothman
This approach instils more confidence in younger talent, allowing them to explore their creativity further while Spray and her team look after the business side of sales and marketing for them.
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Speaking of her journey so far, Spray comments, “Initially there was a fair amount of resistance from the "Traditional Art World", but the art world has gone digital in so many more ways than just selling art online. Most galleries have a website, an Instagram presence, and many an e-commerce arm.” However, she thinks digital is more of an enhancement to the industry rather than a replacement of the physical experience. She continues, “The two should run alongside each other. At Partnership Editions, we run physical events and exhibitions alongside our online platform; it's a symbiotic relationship.”
Partnership Editions present a variety of works from international artists including these from ... [+] Jessica Yolanda Kaye and David Hardy. Georgia Rothman
Hoping to extend her presence into other countries as well as bringing more artists on board, Spray reiterates how online tools can have a huge impact on the decisions buyers make, as well as educating them further. “The user journey of buying an artwork online can allow you to see the artist creating the work, helping you to understand their process and allowing you time to read about the artist and the inspiration behind each piece.” She continues, “All of this can help inform the final purchase, especially for those who don't feel comfortable stepping foot inside a gallery.”
While Partnership Editions may still be in its youth, many established institutions are also taking notice of a change in consumers habits. The Royal Academy of Art, which has a long history of discovering some of the worlds great talent, is widening its outreach in working with emerging and upcoming artists, giving them exposure within the public spaces it has, and also by offering an online retail platform for customers to purchase directly from. “We are delighted to be showing artist Will Cruickshank in Gallery X this winter as part of our exploration of artist textiles.” says Alison Acampora, the Senior Lead for Art Sales & Artist Collaborations at the RA. “We have worked with a number of emerging artists responding to subjects which reflect the interests of the RA and this will continue to take place supporting our mission in the future.”
The Royal Academy of Arts offer an art retail platform with many pieces being displayed throughout ... [+] the gallery and public spaces themselves. Will Cruikshank
Harriet Mathias, founder of the newly launched platform Modern Muse, shares similar views on the use of digital tools to break down the traditional barriers which have created an oft ‘exclusive’ art scene. “Online platforms are making, and will continue to make, the art industry more fluid, open and thoughtful.” She says, “It’s giving them a louder voice and, as a result, offers a more honest representation of our changing and growing demographics.” Modern Muse, which was founded through Mathias’ personal experience of buying art online, again offers emerging artists the opportunity to reach a wider and growing audience at a quicker rate. Using her art background, and Creative Director Irene Bellucci’s editorial experience, Mathias’ aim is to create a space and destination where emerging artists can have an opportunity to be positioned at the forefront with a wealth of dynamic content to support their profile, giving them a voice to strengthen and nurture artist and buyer relationships.
Calliope by Frida Wannerberger, available through Modern Muse. Modern Muse
Alongside the developments of online retail, the rise of art rentals has also been facilitated with new rental platforms launching over the last few years. London-based M.A.H. (Modern Art Hire), founded by interior stylist and creative director, Laura Fulmine, offers the chance to exclusively rent a selection of licensed artworks and sculptural designs. Perfect for temporary spaces, events, and photography shoots, this offering brings a new versatility to the industry, increasing the outreach for individual talent. Whilst running a series of exhibitions at their East London gallery, Fulmine uses her distinct design aesthetic to curate a beautiful selection of pieces for her rental portfolio. It brings a different type of accessibility to artwork and, for short-term lets, it allows tenants to engage with pieces where the investment of purchase is deemed unnecessary.
Laura Fulmine, founder of art rental platform M.A.H.(Modern Art Hire). Ben Anders
While this allows us easier routes to bringing art into our homes, there are more public galleries, pop ups and exhibitions than ever before. We can now immerse ourselves in art freely with a lot of galleries charging no or minimal entrance fees. Thanks to charities like the Art Fund, the accessibility of exhibitions is expanding. The National Art Pass, launched by the Art Fund, is an annual membership which allows free entry into over 200 museums and galleries as well as discounted tickets into a variety of other exhibitions at iconic locations such as the Tate galleries and the V&A. With all profits going back into the UK’s museums and galleries themselves, the Art Fund continues to offer vital support in keeping these institutions running, raising £34 million in the past 5 years alone.
The National Art Pass annual membership offers free access into over 200 museums and galleries as ... [+] well as discounts on tickets for many other exhibitions. Art Fund
Spray continues to point out the importance of this shift and urges everyone to gain confidence in their own judgements. “Art should be something for everyone to appreciate and too few realise that it's also something that they can own and collect.” She continues, “Having worked in the art world for 5 years prior to starting Partnership Editions, it was clear how many people felt totally alienated by art and would be too intimidated to step into an auction house or gallery. Accessibility in the art world is not just about price - it's about breaking down these barriers in all senses and opening up the conversation. No one needs to be an expert - they just need to trust their instincts.”
With these examples offering just a snapshot of the movement towards a more open and accessible industry, the benefits are plain to see. There is a wider variety of available works, the route to a global audience is simpler for emerging talent and art now spans a range of costs, making it more affordable for young collectors to invest. What we also see is a broader subject range being addressed and, in a world where we face colossal environmental and social issues, these crucial discussions need to be continued.
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b9a468adecb27b82c436d92ddee1c405
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/roddyclarke/2020/03/31/5-isolation-must-reads-to-help-focus-on-a-positive-future/
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5 Isolation Must-Reads To Help Focus On A Positive Future
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5 Isolation Must-Reads To Help Focus On A Positive Future
With many of us in lockdown, we suddenly find we have a little extra time on our hands. Some may have turned to DIY, binged scores of Netflix series or found themselves in many endless social media chasms. However, this period of downtime can also be used to reflect, build and prepare for the future. While it may seem unclear exactly what lies ahead, we can invest time now in opening our minds to exploring new ways of thinking, and taking a different approach on our participation within a global society.
Currently, there are many visionaries bringing a fresh perspective to every industry and, in a time where community is more critical than ever, we must look to each other for support, comfort and, most of all, motivation to keep going in these challenging times ahead.
Reading is a constructive way to expand your mindset and, in remaining open to new ideas and viewpoints, it helps to become adaptable, especially in a world where situations change daily.
My 5 top reads to focus on, while going through this period, are outlined below:
Generation Share: The Change-Makers building the Sharing Economy by Benita Matofska and Sophie Sheinwald
In a time where new schemes are emerging each day, the development of the sharing economy is currently prolific. In this 2019 publication, speaker and industry expert Benita Matofska and award-winning visual storyteller, Sophie Sheinwald, examine the positive results which come from a world of distribution and contribution.
Generation Share opens our eyes to the benefits of a sharing economy through the stories of 200 case ... [+] studies from around the world. Benita Matofska/Sophie Sheinwald
Generation Share brings 200 untold stories to a wider audience, all of which are saving and transforming lives across the world. Each case study demonstrates the social, economic and environmental values of sharing, proving that its more than just a far-flung idea or short-lived phenomenon. As the stories entail, food sharing could end world hunger, while, at the same time, eliminating the vast levels of provisions we throw away each year. Alongside car sharing to reduce pollution, and the use of vacant homes for the homeless, each idea expands ones’ comprehension of the possibilities available, in a world where surplus becomes supply.
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Purchase Generation Share here.
Modern Life from Wilder Land by Sebastian and Brogan Cox
Furniture designer and environmentalist, Sebastian Cox, is bringing a revived outlook to the design world, not only with his creations, but with a renewed take on what a resourceful future could propose. This manifesto, which looks at nature-first land and resource use, is key to redefining the future of agriculture and farming. Based on the UK as a study case, Cox examines the factors which have depleted resources over recent years and how ‘re-wilding’ can increase biodiversity and boost ecological systems to provide for a growing population.
Modern Life from Wilder Land reveals a fresh perspective on a conscious environmental future for the ... [+] UK. Sebastian Cox
Encouraging us to become comfortable with a ‘wilder’ aesthetic, the research focuses on our use of materials, energy, carbon and food, with proposals to rethink each sector in the striving for a sustainable environmental future. An imperative read, Cox’s approach is not only instructive but a view which could transform ecosystems, economies and lives simultaneously throughout the coming years.
Purchase Modern Life from Wilder Land here.
The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac (Manilla Press)
Both Figueres and Rivett-Carnac were instrumental in leading negotiations for the historic Paris Agreement of 2015, and, as is seen in this publication, their vision and insight is eye-opening and informative. Starkly laying out the possibilities of two very different futures, one which fails to meet the current climate targets in place and the other which puts forward a regenerative approach, it argues the need for urgent acknowledgement in confronting the environmental crisis we all face.
The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis is an urgent call-to-action, informed by the ... [+] passion which both authors used to lead decisions in the Paris Agreement of Climate Change in 2015. Bonnier Books
Climate change is becoming more apparent each day and, as a society, we must educate ourselves in order to adapt and reduce our impact on this planet we are privileged to inhabit. And, while the book is an immersive and arresting call-to-action, its optimism is reassuring, outlining the possibility of shifting the direction of humanity as we know it.
Purchase The Future We Choose here.
Biophilia: You+Nature+Home by Sally Coulthard
Connecting with nature is an outlet many are currently realising the positive outcomes of. As best-selling author and designer, Sally Coulthard, reveals in this guide, creating a ‘biophilic home’ can have a huge impact on your wellbeing; improving your mood and encouraging healthier sleep patterns.
Sally Coulthard's latest release encourages us to strengthen our relationship with the natural world ... [+] to build respect for it and improve our own wellbeing. Sally Coulthard
Drawing on environmental research and neuroscience, the beautifully illustrated guide investigates the relationship between ourselves and nature. Offering tips, advice and suggestions on how to implement positive changes within the home, the book will help to create a haven which allows you to thrive at your best. Be it plants, materials, colour or light, it’s enlightening to see how small changes can make a big difference, while deepening your respect and correlation to the natural world.
Purchase Biophilia: You+Nature+Home here.
Mess Magazine: Sustainable X Conscious
If you don't have the headspace or focus to begin another book currently, look to the many periodicals which can be lighter to read, but also just as thought-provoking. Mess magazine’s latest issue (available digitally and in print), titled ‘Sustainable X Conscious’, explores a new wave of fashion designers looking to positively refresh the industry. Founded by Domi Perek, the magazine continues to highlight emerging talent and the bold ideas being worked on in an industry under the environmental and ethical spotlight.
The dynamic perspective of Domi Perek is encapsulated in this latest edition, highlighting emerging ... [+] change-makers and visionaries who are redefining the future of fashion. (Laura Noltemeyer wearing Yuna Miray) Lisa Lankes for Mess Magazine
Pre-order Mess Magazine here.
And so, in times of unchartered territory, why not explore new visions, mindsets and creative outlets to broaden your attitude to new ways of living?
Keep focusing on the future while looking out for those currently in need, offering support to the many, who in this global crisis, may remain neglected, forgotten or disadvantaged because of circumstance. As global citizens, through educating ourselves with the words of such visionaries, we can own our responsibility, shrinking the disparity within society and carving a path towards a more ethical and environmentally harmonious future for all.
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c16968c4e12d336848caeb7cba59bd6d
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/roddyclarke/2020/06/26/note-design-studio-launches-new-direct-sales-platform/
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Note Design Studio Launches New Direct Sales Platform
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Note Design Studio Launches New Direct Sales Platform
The Mallow Lounge Chair, by Note Design Studio for Labofa - available via Note Editions. Note Design Studio
Swedish creatives, Note Design Studio, have become renowned for their bold approach to projects and, in a time where digital platforms are changing the industry landscape, the company has placed its attention on adaptation and innovation. With trade fairs being cancelled and the design calendar disrupted, many brands are rethinking their business approach and looking at news ways of connecting with consumers. The digital sphere not only provides sustainable alternatives to physical events, it also brings a new sense of engagement from the upcoming generation of creative thinkers.
At Note, this need for change has been on their mind. With the award-winning studio designing a variety of products for installations and projects, seen in hotels and public spaces across the globe, the items have previously only been accessible for B2B markets with manufacturers focusing on contract orders rather than individual sales. However, today marks the launch of Note Editions: a direct sales platform allowing customers to easily access the studio’s latest designs. This bold change for the company will be a welcome surprise for many of its followers and may even encourage similar outfits to follow suit. Could this be the new future in reducing the need for conventional trade fairs and giving consumers increased accessibility?
Available through Note Editions for Labofa, the Mallow Lounge Chair is upholstered using fabric from ... [+] the Kvadrat Moss collection. Note Design Studio
The Stockholm-based studio, founded in 2008 by Johannes Carlström and Cristiano Pigazzini, is launching its first listed design: The Mallow Lounge Chair, designed for Danish brand Labofa. Upholstered in a Kvadrat fabric, the chair is exclusive t0 the platform with variations of the design, alongside the Mallow Sofa and Club Chair, becoming available later via Labofa directly. The chair has a refined yet playful aesthetic, coupled with a luxurious comfort, and details such as a swivel base bring unique characteristics to the piece.
Alongside the digital platform, Note will also be opening a physical showroom later this year in central Stockholm. Allowing visitors the opportunity to engage with its pieces directly, it gives Note the versatility to host its own events encouraging further interaction with its community. Having autonomy over events is an appealing prospect for brands, rather than fitting into a wider schedule, and this move could indicate a shift towards a revival of smaller individual events for local audiences across the sector. While this won’t necessarily negate the need for global design events, it could help the industry shift to a calendar with fewer, and more focused, dynamic and purposeful occasions.
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Note Design Studio have designed installations for physical events such as the Natural Bond ... [+] exhibition at Stockholm Furniture and Light Fair for Tarkett but are now also exploring the possibilities of the digital sphere. Jonas Lindström
The launch of Note Editions heralds a new future for the studio and a bold step towards a more conscious and direct design approach. Digital platforms act as a ‘virtual’ stand as seen at design fairs, with the added flexibility to host all year round, and the chance to potentially reach a wider audience. “Is this the right move? Who knows?” states Cristiano Pigazzini, co-founder of the studio, “It's something very different for us and that sense of risk and discovery is important in everything we do. After the strangeness of the pandemic, we felt the need to move, rethink, and explore new possibilities.”
Cristiano Pigazzini, Design Manager and Founder of NOTE Design Studio. Note Design Studio
Now is the time for brands to make bold decisions as we transition into a post-pandemic future, with the purpose behind design needing to be challenged in every way. The call to create an industry which represents its community, and one which operates with circularity and sustainability at its core, is key. “Everything started with a question of how other approaches might be necessary.” continues Pigazzini, “We had long wanted our new collaborations to be more readily available. By launching Note Editions, we can now speak to everyone at the same time.” While the digital developments we are seeing in the design industry were inevitable, the speed in which they have been adopted has increased through the lockdown period.
The Vestre stand design by Note Design Studio, during Stockholm Design Week 2020. NICOLAS TOURRENC
Not only bringing a new dynamic to the industry, the digital sphere raises vital questions around the logistics and impact of physical events and also questions the pressure of creating new collections just to show at such occasions. Stepping away from what’s become tradition into a new normal could be the refresh the design sector needs. And, with a ready-made consumer audience (150,000 Instagram followers and an international fanbase), Note Editions provides the perfect collaboration opportunity for many brands seeking to connect with new markets in what may, at this time, feel unfamiliar territory for them.
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bc8ef332dbb5e71c24135880d39dffe8
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/roddyclarke/2020/06/30/first-ever-virtual-reality-summit-to-take-place-during-paris-fashion-week-in-october-2020/?fbclid=IwAR2APcbbGstnpWD1t3UdVMBW4Uz-OyBKZJe_vfCYWZkumlUdXgY6oPREX3c
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First Ever Virtual Reality Summit To Take Place During Paris Fashion Week In October 2020
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First Ever Virtual Reality Summit To Take Place During Paris Fashion Week In October 2020
The Circular Fashion Summit 2020 will be hosted using VR technology in a specifically designed ... [+] location with 3D Art Direction by Ivano Salonia. lablaco
With the transition to a digital design world accelerating through the onset of lockdown, many creative industries are now operating with an entirely new dynamic. Physical events and trade exhibitions are being replaced with virtual alternatives and many organisations are seeing the benefits of this adaptation becoming a permanent fixture. Not only do these occasions reduce the impact of hosting a location-based showcase, they also offer designers the chance to interact with a wider global audience across a flexible schedule, whilst questioning the need for traditional concepts such as seasonality and ‘catwalk collections’.
The first ever Virtual Reality fashion event, The Circular Fashion Summit by lablaco, will be held during Paris Fashion Week. Following its first edition in September 2019, held in Station F in Paris and attended by companies such as Hermes, Chanel and Balenciaga, this year’s Summit is joining forces with AltSpace VR from Microsoft and Oculus to pioneer the redesign of events for the fashion industry. Tickets include the purchase of an Oculus VR headset and, with dates scheduled for the 3rd and 4th of October 2020 (somewhere in virtual reality!), it signals a new era for events of this capacity to be facilitated in this way.
A panel from the Circular Fashion Summit 2019 including Impact Designer Sami Miro, former ... [+] Editor-in-Chief of Condé Nast China, Shaway Yeh and Patrick Duffy, founder of the Global Fashion Exchange. Raffaele Alicino
The event will gather change-makers and leaders from across the industry, featuring three panels to address topics around circularity within the fashion world. In an immersive digital space, viewers will have the chance to interact with industry figures, as well as discovering emerging designers who will be exhibiting within a virtual exhibition hall. Assembling together a global array of talent into one digital event will provide a space for visitors to interact with each other in real-time, offering networking opportunities without the need to travel.
Lorenzo Albrighi & Shih Yun Kuo, co-founders of the circular fashion platform, lablaco. Szilveszter Makó
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This virtual edition of the Circular Fashion Summit will also discuss the progress in reaching the goals laid out at the 2019 edition. Pledging to recirculate 100,000 items by 2021, saving an estimated 2000 tonnes of CO2, and 3 million litres of water from landfill, the team have been working hard in ensuring this target is reached. Thanks to partnerships with organisations including The Lane Crawford Joyce Group, The British Fashion Council and Global Fashion Exchange, its network is expanding with a drive to present a new, and positive, future for fashion.
The event presents the opportunity to network with industry leaders and change-makers within the ... [+] fashion world, without the need to physically travel. Raffaele Alicino
In adopting digital formats, the lablaco duo feel it may even enhance the possibility of reaching these crucial targets. “Now, more than ever, have we felt the readiness of the market in accelerating the digitisation and transition of the fashion industry towards a global circular economy powered by collective action and technology.” states Kuo Shih Yun and Lorenzo Albrighi, co-founders of lablaco. Alongside the summit, the lablaco team are working on different initiatives to encourage further transparency within the supply chain and disrupt the industry towards positive change. Partners of The Swapchain, a new digital fashion swapping platform, they are providing technology solutions, including tools for authenticity and traceability on blockchain, to help consumers easily transition to a circular mindset.
The Circular Fashion Summit is pushing boundaries in the digital fashion arena and October's edition ... [+] is set to present a new era for industry events. lablaco
While for many the digital arena may seem daunting, especially when working in design where tangibility and an end product have always been a focus, events such as this are pioneering the future of how a circular industry could exist. The need to shift our attention to design as a process, rather than an end result, is key in closing the loop on production cycles within fashion and other manufacturing streams. Moving away from linear business models, with the implementation of technology, will give us an increased chance of meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals laid out in 2015. And, in breaking down boundaries and conservative mindsets, the industry can unite regularly, to strengthen the global creative community, simultaneously negating the need for travel and therefore reducing the pressure placed upon the natural environment we inhabit.
Register interest in the event here to apply for tickets and join the Circular Fashion Summit 2020 in Virtual Reality.
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009af62078f8ce739c577b3aa92eefcb
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/roddyclarke/2020/09/20/food-sharing-app-olio-launches-new-craft-initiative/?sh=751b115342fe
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Food Sharing App Olio Launches New Craft Initiative
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Food Sharing App Olio Launches New Craft Initiative
The new MADE section for food sharing app OLIO will allow users to buy crafts and homemade goods ... [+] from local makers and neighbours. OLIO
With the sharing economy gaining traction over the last few years, following in the wake of the booming rental market, apps such as OLIO are playing a vital role in its success. And, with waste levels still at extortionate levels, the facilitation of these lifestyle shifts is becoming imperative in the creation of a circular economy.
According to a 2020 report by WRAP, while we have reduced our food waste by 7% per person in the last three years, UK households still waste 4.5 million tonnes of food that could have been eaten, amounting to a value of £14 billion every year (£700 for an average family with children). These statistics show the extortionate levels at which the western world continues to consume, emphasising the need to urgently change our lifestyles if we want any chance of hitting the Sustainable Development Goals laid out in 2015. As we emerge into a post-pandemic world, the need for change has never been more pressing. Our consumer-led society, as depicted in BBC’s recent programme with David Attenborough, Extinction; The Facts, is destroying biodiversity levels, making us more susceptible to pandemics such as COVID-19.
Tessa Cook, Co-Founder of food sharing app OLIO. Annabel Staff
While this may seem an unsurmountable crisis, which as individual’s we simply cannot solve on our own, there is an increasing awareness of these issues and more action beginning to take place. OLIO, a food-sharing digital platform, has noticed a significant shift and a surge in its users, with listings growing by as much in the last five months as they had in the first five years of business. The app, which was founded in 2015 by Tessa Clarke and Saasha Celestial-One, was set up after a personal experience Clarke had when moving back to the UK from Switzerland. On the day of moving she realised she had food left in the fridge which the removal team asked her to get rid of. Not wanting to throw away perfectly good food, she set about trying to find someone to give it to in her local area. Finding it awkward to knock on doors of people she didn’t know, a lightbulb moment occurred sparking the idea to create a food-sharing facility which would revolutionise neighbourhoods across the globe.
Now, with over 2.3millions users, the app has gone from strength to strength, encouraging households to become more resourceful and breeding the mindsets of buying less and buying local. Since its launch, the app has facilitated the sharing of over 6.5 million food portions, saving an estimated 19.3 million car miles and over one billion litres of water normally used in food production. The impact already is phenomenal, with plans in place to expand it further than the current 54 countries within which it has been used.
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A hanging copper plant holder by Emma Alexander is an example of the type of handmade products the ... [+] new MADE section will be featuring. Emma Alexander
This free community-based app relies on local neighbourhoods to work together. By uploading an image of the food, alongside a basic description, location and desired collection time, it can then be collected ready to be distributed to the desired recipient. The team also works with volunteers and ‘Food Waste Heroes’ who help to share the benefits of OLIO within local communities, whilst enlisting local businesses to capture and collect any unsold or surplus food from supermarkets, restaurants and local cafes. The ripple effect the app has had is changing not only the economy, but also the provision of valuable support for those in urgent need of food and supplies. And, while it started as an app to share only food, users can now also share unwanted gifts, clothing, toys and books as part of the service.
This is just the beginning for OLIO. Over the last few weeks they have announced a new initiative, MADE, a new marketplace facility for handmade items and crafts. Set to officially launch in October, MADE will allow locals to sell handcrafted designs to their neighbouring community, not only bringing local regions together but providing another means for homeowners to become more sustainable. The commission-free business model also means independent makers and artisans can offer their products at affordable and comparable prices whilst helping to support their own needs in this challenging and difficult time. While most online marketplaces encourage the selling of goods to a global audience, OLIO has specifically created this new offering to generate more transactions between neighbours, in a bid to reduce the need for international logistics and to encourage more cohesive, and connected, local societies.
A handmade decorative wreath by Bohemian Blooms which will be available as part of OLIO's new MADE ... [+] section launching in October. bohemianblooms.uk
In a recent survey of 11,000 OLIO users, 64% stated they would definitely buy homemade products from people within a square mile of their home. This confirmed that the desire was there, encouraging the team to implement the project in an uncertain time for many industries. “The COVID-19 pandemic confirmed for us the need to launch the MADE section on the platform,” says Clarke as she discusses her vision for the new project and her confidence that it will be popular amongst the current users of the app. “Britain is a nation of makers, and we really saw that during lockdown, where our Instagram streams were jam-packed with images of sourdough loaves, crochet koalas and cross-stitched cards.” Users will be free to create any products they choose for their communities, with the team expecting to see edibles such as jams, chutneys and cakes being popular choices alongside handcrafted items such as soaps, candles, art and jewellery.
With OLIO expanding its reach rapidly throughout 2020, the brand’s growth is a microcosm of a trend that has been developing over the past few years. Championing community over the individual, local and independents over corporations and chains, this shift is set to continue with more consumers becoming increasingly aware of their own personal impact. Lockdown has forced us to embrace a more local life while also opening our minds to the fulfilment and joy we can find as part of a closer, and more integrated, community. “The growth we’ve seen at OLIO this year is reflective of several trends that have been developing including a desire to belong to our local community, to shop local and to live in a more planet-friendly way,” continues Clarke. “OLIO’s MADE section makes being able to buy, or gift, from our neighbours the next lovely step to supporting both our communities and the planet.”
Handmade natural beeswax candles by Emma Alexander will be available on the new MADE platform. Emma Alexander
2020 has also hastened our transition into the digital age and OLIO is the perfect example of how technology can help change our lifestyle habits for good. Creating a sustainable future relies on applications such as this, opening our eyes to the joy of connecting with others while filling our homes with stories and items we have a personal attachment to. And, while helping to build the circular frameworks we need in becoming a less wasteful and more resourceful society, OLIO also puts a spotlight back onto individual crafts and makers, connecting the industry with a wide and far-reaching audience.
For latest news on the launch of MADE, stay up to date here.
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15d2026a12bbe4a8053e70af68c46637
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodebrahimi/2013/02/06/3-silicon-valley-trends-that-will-reshape-financial-services/
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3 Silicon Valley Trends That Will Reshape the Financial Services Industry
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3 Silicon Valley Trends That Will Reshape the Financial Services Industry
Silicon Valley (Photo credit: Revolweb)
Thousands of miles away from Wall Street, some David-sized companies in Silicon Valley are cultivating new trends that will change people’s relationship with money.
Many areas of today’s financial services are ripe for significant change: too many financial companies are slow and disconnected from their customers despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the financial services industry is without question among the most lucrative in the world.
The top 6 U.S. banks cumulatively brought in over $60 billion in profits in the 2011-12 fiscal year and their global growth potential is almost limitless. Although Silicon Valley is not the financial center of the world (as much as I sometimes wish it were), innovations that begin here always seem to infiltrate the wider world eventually (just look at the Facebook Like and Twitter Share icons next to this article for evidence of that).
And these emerging trends will be no different - they will have a broad impact on the financial services industry at large. For the moment, these trends represent competitive advantages that allow smaller, entrepreneurial financial technology companies to succeed alongside financial services giants. They are:
1. Increased Transparency
Upstart financial technology companies in Silicon Valley are making a commitment to transparency as they attempt to build long-lasting relationships with customers. Such companies are improving how they communicate with customers and clients across the board; the key is in the way they describe their services and prices. Tricky financial products with confusing pricing options lead to short-term gains for companies, but such gains are not sustainable in a competitive environment where everyone is offering similar products and customer loyalty makes the difference.
People have come to expect clear language when it comes to pricing, terms, and support. Clarity and simplicity can be a key differentiator when it comes to financial services products. For example, in my capacity as CEO of ReadyForZero, I still regularly call our customers directly to ask if they see any ways for us to improve or if they have any specific questions about our products or services.
When I reach one of our customers on the phone, I’m invariably met with what can best be described as “delight and surprise.” That’s in no small part due to the fact that financial services companies rarely interact in a direct and proactive manner with customers. In addition to traditional channels, we also have daily conversations with users on Twitter, on Facebook, and on our blog. The feedback we’ve received during these conversations has led us to take different directions or refine our focus on more than one occasion, and that has paved the way for our newest customers to have a smoother experience using our product.
Of course, this is easier for smaller organizations to do well and can be difficult to scale (this isn't always the case, legendary CEO A.G. Lafley was able to successfully apply this type of thinking in a real way at Procter & Gamble). But this ethos of transparency will have wide-ranging effects for the better within the financial services industry specifically. The key is that direct dialogue translates into clearer marketing and better products because it makes everyone in the company accountable to the end user.
Because transparency is so important to customer loyalty, the new breed of financial services companies are discussing the “what” and “why” of their fees more transparently than ever before. Soon, the expectation for this kind of respect and forthrightness with regard to pricing will make it difficult for any major company to retain confusing and/or opaque pricing structures riddled with fine print.
Mobile payment processing company Square is a great example of how transparent pricing can be used to build trust and delight customers at the same time. Processing transactions is complex and expensive but that complexity doesn’t have to make its way all the way to your customers.
2. More Automation
Financial services companies are finally applying technology in order to automate personal finance. For a majority of people, financial decisions are intimidating and human instinct often works against “doing the right thing.” Our brains are wired to see short-term gains (a nice restaurant meal) more favorably than long-term gains (a robust retirement or investment account). Fortunately, technology can help automate common financial goals like investing or paying off debt to overcome the short-term bias we all face.
Investing is a perfect example of how automation can be applied to simplify a complex, intimidating financial goal. For most people under 40, saving and investing is important for building wealth but many don’t know where to start.
Silicon Valley companies like WealthFront and FutureAdvisor are helping people save for the future and invest wisely - automatically. Set it, track it and, most importantly, forget it. This is "automated personal financial management". We will see more of this kind of applied automation to other areas of financial services as well. At ReadyForZero, we’ve applied it to managing and reducing personal debt.
3. Improved Access to Capital
Today, accessing credit is a challenge for both individuals and businesses. Traditional ways of borrowing money are expensive for both lenders and borrowers. For large lenders, regulations are challenging and servicing the unique needs of different types of borrowers is difficult. This is causing interest rates to increase and creating unnecessary hurdles for borrowers. This is particularly true for small businesses that have unique needs that traditional banks don’t understand (like inventory or irregular receivables).
For individual borrowers, the Silicon Valley companies Lending Club and Prosper have created a compelling alternative to traditional banks. By removing the unnecessary overhead of running a retail bank and tapping new sources of capital, namely non-traditional investors, these new peer-to-peer marketplaces can offer better discounted interest rates and a consumer-friendly, self-service approach. Making borrowing more efficient is a huge opportunity.
These three trends will make for big changes in the coming years and decades - and the good news is that consumers will benefit as financial services companies embrace greater transparency and revise their products to better meet the needs of customers. So many financial technology companies in and outside of Silicon Valley are pushing the financial services industry forward; together, we are changing the way traditional financial services are delivered. It’s an exciting time.
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2e942793d206b792ce78957ef1a0daee
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2014/03/27/how-challenge-and-adversity-can-actually-help-your-career/
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How Challenge and Adversity Can Actually Help Your Career
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How Challenge and Adversity Can Actually Help Your Career
My grandfather, whose formal schooling never exceeded the third grade, was one of the wisest men I ever knew. Laboring from dark to dark on a Missouri farm as a boy and enduring the Great Depression as a young husband and father, he certainly had his share of hardship. But he knew how to keep tough times in perspective. He once told me “You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.”
That sage advice can apply to anyone in any station in life. And it certainly applies to people in leadership positions.
Leadership, whether on the local school board or as head of a giant corporation, frequently has bumps and potholes in the road. Yet most of the “leadership literature” seems to glide past the hardship. And many leaders seem to prefer focusing on the triumphs, as though honest discussion of mistakes and misfortune would somehow make them look weak or lacking in confidence.
Steven Snyder, whose own experience ranges from working with Bill Gates in the early years at Microsoft to serving as CEO of a publicly held company, is not at all shy about discussing how leadership’s downsides can contribution to the upsides. He’s author of Leadership and the Art of Struggle: How Great Leaders Grow Through Challenge and Adversity. The book is based on real-life stories drawn from extensive research into more than 150 diverse episodes of leadership struggle. The insights are relevant to any leader who’s determined to make lemonade out of a lemon.
Rodger Dean Duncan: In Leadership and the Art of Struggle, you write that challenge and adversity provide the crucible for greatness. Give us a couple of quick examples.
Steven Snyder: The true test of leadership is when things get really tough. Old strategies don’t work anymore, and you need to invent new ways to cope with the emerging realities. We can only imagine what it must have been like to be Abraham Lincoln—the nation coming apart, brothers fighting brothers. In the business world, the story of Anne Mulcahy stands out, when she took over leadership of XEROX as the company teetered on bankruptcy.
As I interviewed top leaders in my research, I asked them to tell me about the times when they faced their most intense challenge. They told me of the harrowing moments when they weren’t sure how things would turn out. One example is Kathee Tesija, who took over as chief merchant of Target in 2008, just as the nation entered the worst financial crisis in decades. Customer buying patterns changed abruptly and every merchandising decision had to be re-evaluated in real time. Like Lincoln and Mulcahy, Tesija rose to the occasion. Showing remarkable courage, all of these leaders navigated through their ordeals, their achievements eclipsing what would have been possible during “ordinary times.”
Duncan: Transforming pitfalls into possibilities is obviously more than just positive thinking. What’s the key?
Steven Snyder
Snyder: Psychologists have discovered that a very simple “bit flip” in your brain can make all the difference. They call this the “growth mindset.” People who transform their problems into learning opportunities perform better because they are constantly looking for ways to improve their capabilities, throwing out old dysfunctional patterns and replacing them with habits more adaptive and aligned with current circumstances.
Duncan: What are the first couple of things a leader should do when confronted by a major problem or disappointment?
Snyder: Disappointments often throw leaders off-balance, filling them with rage or depression, disrupting physical well-being, and potentially undermining the very relationships that are so critical to success. It’s essential to recognize that you are off-balance and take proactive and intentional steps to get back into flow, that state of optimal human performance. Pause. Slow down. Breathe. Consciously enter a “growth mindset.” Meditate or get some exercise. Seek support from others. Strive to untangle the chaotic swirl going on around you. All of these actions will help you gain a fresh perspective, leading you to new discoveries and alternatives that were previously hidden or obscure.
Duncan: How can a leader learn to recognize and overcome counterproductive responses to adversity?
Snyder: It’s so easy to let ourselves remain on autopilot, and not notice what’s really going on. That’s why it’s essential to establish a discipline of centering practices such as meditation, exercise, and social support. Once these habits are ingrained into your daily and weekly routine, they become easier to tap when things go south. For example, if you have a good social support system, like a regular True North Group, your fellow group members will be able to give you honest feedback, perhaps giving you insight into how your behaviors may contribute to the problem. Once you turn off autopilot and listen carefully and attentively to feedback, you can begin to take conscious actions leading to change.
Duncan: How can the skills and behaviors you’ve described become part of an organization’s culture?
Snyder: Recently I attended a lecture by the Dalai Lama. He was asked the following question—“The problems of the world are so intractable, how can just one person make a difference?” In his reply, he reminded us that change starts with a single act by a single individual. For example, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white person, she became a catalyst for societal change that literally transformed racial attitudes in American society. It’s easy to sit back and let things continue the way they are. It takes courage and discipline to effect change, especially if you aren’t the one in charge. But when you do, people will notice, and your actions will have a cascading effect.
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c81058d8a0fb5f39f9fe10caafddf496
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2015/04/09/stand-up-it-improves-your-health-mood-energy-and-productivity/
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Stand Up! It Improves Your Health, Mood, Energy, And Productivity
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Stand Up! It Improves Your Health, Mood, Energy, And Productivity
My friend Steve and I have been seeing too much of each other. He’s a very nice guy, I always enjoy our conversation, and he helps me in ways that nobody else can. But I’d still like to see less of him.
Steve is my chiropractor.
I’ve been seeing Steve for help with an old back injury. I also do stretches and basic exercises. I walk 10,000 to 15,000 steps every day, at least half at aerobic speed.
But I’ve learned that one of the smartest things I can do is simply stand up.
Like many people, I spend a lot of time in various meetings and in front of a computer screen. All of it in a sitting position. Bad idea. So two years ago I had a cabinet maker build me a custom stand-up desk. It’s the most useful piece of “equipment” I’ve ever owned. When I use it regularly I notice a definite improvement in everything from back comfort to general vitality. Stand-up desks seem to be all the craze. But I wondered: is this just a passing fad, or is the movement backed up (no pun intended) by solid science? So I interviewed Jon Paulsen. He’s a mechanical engineer and a certified professional ergonomist. That’s the science of work and people’s relationship to it. Based in Austin, Texas, he’s founder and president of the Human Solution, a company focused on design and products that improve work performance.
Win At Work: An eBook From Forbes Land a great job, handle your boss and get ahead today.
Rodger Dean Duncan: You’re obviously a proponent of sit-stand office arrangements because you created the UPLIFT Desk. What are the research findings on the benefits of this kind of furniture?
Jon Paulsen: When it comes to the benefits of using a sit-stand desk, the science is in. Dozens of peer-reviewed studies demonstrate the significant health benefits of changing positions, and the positive effect that movement (blood flow, etc.) has on our overall physical comfort and health. For example, a 2011 study by the Centers for Disease Control noted a 54 percent decrease in musculoskeletal pain among workers who alternated from sitting to standing throughout the day. Similarly, a 2014 study by the University of Cincinnati reported significant decreases in shoulder and back pain when participants varied their postures. Even more important, periodic standing reduces the risk of a host of problems including obesity, heart disease, diabetes, metabolic disorder, and even some cancers. When we sit too long, everything in our bodies slows down. It’s harder to clear fats from blood, to process insulin, to keep muscles active and spines flexible, leading to soreness and possible organ damage. Even our mental functions slow because we’re not moving enough to pump much blood to the brain.
Duncan: So simply standing up is a helpful form of exercise?
Paulsen: Absolutely. Periodic standing allows for movement that alleviates all these problems and helps prevent the diseases associated with them. In fact, according to a 2013 study by the University of Leicester, reducing overall sedentary time is more important than incorporating vigorous exercise in preventing diabetes. This finding was repeated in a 2007 University of Missouri study, which also included obesity, metabolic syndrome, and heart disease among the diseases that can be improved and prevented with regular, small movement throughout the day. You are better off moving throughout the day than you are going to the gym for one big workout.
Duncan: It seems like common sense to change position occasionally and move around. What’s the benefit of that related to vigor, fatigue, tension and related things associated with productivity?
Paulsen: You’re right, a lot of this does seem like common sense, and most people’s daily work routines probably already bear this out. When your back is sore, you move to a new position. When you’re tired, you get up and walk around the office. When you’re stiff from sitting, you stand up and stretch. When you’re trying to come up with an idea or solve a problem, you move around. A sit-stand desk just makes it easier, faster, and more convenient. It also increases your productivity because you’re still at your desk as you move up and down. There’s research to back this up as well. A Washington University study shows that standing while working improves collaboration and encourages creativity. And a 2004 Cornell study reported that 82 percent of participants indicated a preference for height-adjustable desks over fixed work surfaces, finding that they decreased pain and increased productivity. It may seem counterintuitive, but standing while you work and incorporating subtle movement increases your energy, since it improves blood flow and brain activity. Top companies like Google, Facebook, and Exxon give standing desks to their employees, not just because they’re concerned about their workers’ health, but because they also know they foster improved performance.
Duncan: People have had backaches and other ailments since the beginning of time. Why is the focus on ergonomics such a relatively recent phenomenon?
Paulsen: Employees used to be treated as somewhat disposable if they were injured. There was little regard for safety, much less ergonomics. Thankfully, we’ve come a long way since that time. We also understand now that ergonomics is a true science. In a sedentary office environment, constant computer, tablet and phone use is dangerous to health. Our bodies are just not built to endure these postures and this lack of movement for hours on end. Now that we better understand the science behind how our bodies work, we’ve been able to come up with practical and easy ways to stay healthy and prevent disease, like simply alternating standing and sitting at work throughout the day. And the technology has advanced far enough that we can build standing desks that are reliable, easy to use, and affordable.
Rodger Dean Duncan is the bestselling author of CHANGE-friendly LEADERSHIP: How to Transform Good Intentions into Great Performance. Follow him on Twitter @DoctorDuncan
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153c10c99b03c861a1565ef7728ce509
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2015/06/22/unintended-consequences-minimizing-the-oops-factor-in-decision-making/
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Unintended Consequences: Minimizing The 'Oops Factor' In Decision Making
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Unintended Consequences: Minimizing The 'Oops Factor' In Decision Making
In politics and business, “unintended consequences” is the handy term for outcomes that are not the ones foreseen by a purposeful act.
When Nancy Pelosi famously said of ObamaCare “We have to pass this bill so you can find out what’s in it,” she likely did not foresee the coming firestorm of vitriol and litigation.
When a manager consistently gives tough assignments to a worker who’s proven himself to be reliable, the go-to employee may begin to feel “penalized” by the additional load while the less reliable workers get a free ride. What was intended as a compliment and vote of confidence turns out to be an unwelcome burden.
In medicine, unintended consequences are called “side effects.” Have you listened carefully to television commercials for drugs? The list of side effects is often longer than the narrative promoting the medicine. Why would we be warned that a product purported to relieve a simple ailment may also produce paralysis, high blood pressure, thinning hair, skin rash, weight gain, blurred vision or even thoughts of suicide? Because the lawyers said so.
The old caution of “don’t operate heavy equipment while taking this medicine” seems to have morphed into “this pill will help your headache, but it also might kill you.” Caveat emptor indeed.
In fact, one drug hyped on TV actually lists “death” as one of its possible risks. Then a sincere voiceover intones: “If any of these side effects occur, consult your doctor or pharmacist.”
The fine print on an over-the-counter pain remedy I bought said it caused “irritability” in one in 10,000 users. It turns out that the first day I took one of those pills I was “irritable.” (I’m relying here on the assessment of an independent observer: my wife.) Irritable or not, I felt special. At that ratio there are fewer than 32,000 of us in the entire United States. We could rent Madison Square Garden and throw a party. The capacity of Madison Square Garden is only 18,200. But I’m confident a lot of us (at least those still taking the pain remedy) would be too grouchy to attend anyway.
I should be embarrassed to admit it, but sometimes I don’t bother reading the list of possible side effects. This behavior is risky, much the same as failing to read the terms and conditions on a contract before checking the box claiming to have read the terms and conditions. (This might be called the Pelosi Syndrome.)
As Isaac Newton observed, “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” In business, as in the rest of life, most every action we take has the potential for consequences we didn’t anticipate. Some of those consequences may be serendipitous, like the “accidental” invention of the Post-It® Note by the guy at 3M Company who brewed up a batch of sticky-but-not-too-sticky adhesive. And some consequences are unpleasant, like a profit-based bonus system that inadvertently motivates people to trim spending on maintenance and safety issues.
Is there an absolutely foolproof way to make decisions? No. But there are some common sense guidelines that can help:
Decide what to decide. Many decisions can and should be delegated to others. Not only does that give them the practice, but it enables you to focus on those decisions that legitimately require your laser focus. Be collaboratively independent. Confer with subject-matter experts, but avoid getting mired in decision-by-committee. Solicit the views of credible sources, but be prepared to own your own decision. Avoid information bloat. Tom Hanks’ character in “You’ve Got Mail” said it well: “The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc.” Information overload can lead to analysis paralysis, which can lead to fuzzy thinking, which can lead to faulty decisions. Keep it simple. Define your desired outcome. As we learned in Alice in Wonderland, “if you don’t know where you’re going, any road’ll get you there.” To the extent possible, clarify what your desired result would “look like.” Establish a handful of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound). Beware getting stuck in the thick of thin things. Most of the hundreds of decisions and choices we make each day are relatively inconsequential—which dental floss to buy, or which salad dressing to order. Save your decision-making energy for the issues that really matter. Don’t expect perfection. Gather the best information available. Weigh the pros and cons of your options. Then decide. You’re unlikely to have all the answers, or even all the questions. And you can’t anticipate every possible consequence. Just be ready to build your wings on the way down.
Again, most decisions come with no guarantees. But remember this uncomfortable reality: failing to make a decision is, in itself, a decision. With consequences.
Rodger Dean Duncan is the bestselling author of CHANGE-friendly LEADERSHIP: How to Transform Good Intentions into Great Performance. Follow him on Twitter @DoctorDuncan
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b09362b6f60d70fc42b5d715ce772f2f
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2016/07/20/melania-trump-and-the-age-of-borrowed-language/
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Melania Trump And The Age Of Borrowed Language
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Melania Trump And The Age Of Borrowed Language
Melania Trump delivers a speech on the first day of the Republican National Conventiom. (Photo by... [+] Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The Melania Trump plagiarism fiasco provides raw meat for pundits of nearly every political persuasion.
There’s no doubt that several dozen words in Mrs. Trump’s GOP Convention speech were lifted verbatim from a 2008 address by Michelle Obama. No serious commentator can blame Mrs. Trump personally for this embarrassing episode. The speech she read from the teleprompter was prepared by people who should know better.
As a former speechwriter in two White House administrations, I know how easy it is to allow the creative to merge with the memory. Most professional speechwriters are exceptionally well read. Words are their livelihood, and they devour them voraciously. They’re always on the look-out for a compelling story, a punchy metaphor, a catchy turn of phrase. But the really good ones are judicious about giving credit where credit is due.
Gallery: Donald Trump's Road To The GOP Nomination 22 images View gallery
Melania Trump is a neophyte who read a speech, written by other people, in a language not her native tongue in front of an audience estimated at 34 million. We can give her some slack. But there are other more seasoned people (Barack Obama and Joe Biden, for example) who have given speeches that were clearly cribbed from someone else’s oratory.
All this makes for interesting social media battles. But there’s a broader issue that deserves attention: What is today’s generation learning about language and independent thinking?
My son-in-law Luke teaches at a major university, one that takes trust and honor very seriously. But even in this principle-centered environment, some students cheat. As a professor, Luke believes his role is to teach the whole person, not just course content. He’s not interested in playing ethics cop. He simply wants to teach his students to engage in trustworthy behavior because it’s the right thing to do.
At the beginning of each semester, Luke rolls out the curriculum for the entire term. This includes assigning term papers on a wide range of topics. These are not the typical “research” papers. These personal essays are intended to help develop the students’ analytical skills—in short, teach them how to think for themselves.
Because many students are relatively untutored in such skills, there’s a temptation to “borrow” someone else’s thinking. In this Internet age, some ethics deficient websites actually sell and resell term papers to students who are either too timid or too lazy to do their own thinking. It’s easier than ever to take short cuts. But most students who “take short cuts” don’t actually buy someone else’s work. They “borrow” someone else’s work, sometimes in small, addictive doses. A question, of course, is where’s the line between inadvertent plagiarism and deliberate thievery?
Luke uses a high-tech tool called Turnitin that quickly identifies plagiarism. This compares student work against three massive, continuously updated databases of content: billions of web pages, plus more than 80,000 major newspapers, periodicals, journals, and books, plus more than 100 million student papers from around the world.
Luke’s students submit their papers electronically. Then, before he even reads them, the papers are instantly analyzed for—shall we say—attribution problems. On Luke’s computer screen appears an “originality report” that highlights matches and shows sources side-by-side. He may see, for example, that a paragraph from a student paper is a 53% match with a Wikipedia article, or a 47% match with an obscure journal, or a 64% match with a paper submitted by another student three years earlier at another university across the country.
Again, Luke is a professor of the fine arts, not a plagiarism cop playing a game of “Gotcha!” In his professor role he can expound with world-class authority on a wide range of subjects.
And, yes, he wants to teach his students about proper source citation in their term papers.
But he believes, and I agree, that his most important job is to mentor his students in the fine art of trust.
He does it by showing them that relying on their own thinking is not only honest, but their own thinking is often better that someone else’s anyway.
He teaches them that “trust” is more than just a word in the school’s honor code.
He teaches them that trust is one of the most important lessons they can ever learn, and the most valuable attribute they can ever cultivate.
He does it by appealing to their heads and hearts and hopes.
Then his young charges come to realize that with confidence comes competence, and then competence begets more confidence.
Yes, trust can be taught.
Rodger Dean Duncan is the author of CHANGE-friendly LEADERSHIP: How to Transform Good Intentions into Great Performance.
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ea3902a80a0c8104c087d9a336ea3899
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2017/08/03/transform-your-mindset-transform-your-results/
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Transform Your Mindset, Transform Your Results
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Transform Your Mindset, Transform Your Results
Shutterstock
A balancing act faced by many leaders involves transactional and transformational leadership. It’s a balancing act worthy of effort.
Watch on Forbes:
Many leaders have an abundance of good transactional skills. What they often need is more transformational skills — the ability to create a psychological case for action as well as a technical and business case for action.
So what’s the difference?
A transactional leader focuses on routine and regimented activities. He invests most of his energy in making sure meetings run on time, that administrative details are properly handled, and that completed tasks are noted on checklists. A transformational leader focuses primarily on initiating and “managing” change. He influences people to improve, to stretch, and to redefine what’s possible.
Transactional things involve making sure the train runs on time. Transformational things involve ensuring that the train is on the right track, that it’s headed in the right direction, and that everyone who wants to make the trip has a ticket.
All that may sound like academic gobbledygook. But in the real world of real work, it matters.
Hugh Blane has a new book that lends helpful perspective to the topic. It’s entitled 7 Principles of Transformational Leadership: Create a Mindset of Passion, Innovation, and Growth.
Rodger Dean Duncan: You write about a mindset you call JDTM — Just Doing the Minimum. What contributes to that perspective among individual workers and in a workplace culture?
Hugh Blane: The number one contributor is lack of purpose. For employees or leaders to engage in doing their very best work they must have fallen in love with a hope, dream or aspiration that, when done well, creates value for customers. When they do, they are more enthusiastic, exert more energy, and are vastly more persistent in overcoming obstacles and breaking down barriers to underperformance. These are the employees who are running to work in the morning because of the contribution they want to make.
There are also employees who are running from work at the end of the day. They run from work because they are not passionate about their work, so the demands of their job become a burden. These employees don’t have a purpose that’s compelling so they do only enough work to keep their jobs and not get fired. But, there is no fire in the belly and they are simply going through the motions of work.
Duncan: What are a leader’s most productive tools in combating a JDTM mindset?
Leaders must have a leadership purpose that is noble, uplifting and that enables employee flourishing. This eradicates the JDTM mindset and converts an employee’s mindset away from accepting the minimum to encouraging the maximum.
Duncan: Many people simply feel overwhelmed in the workplace. What contributes to that and what can leaders do to help relieve the pressure without compromising productivity?
Blane: There are three contributors to feeling overwhelmed. A negative mindset, an indifferent heartset and a poor skillset. A negative mindset says “this isn’t fair,” an indifferent heartset says “I’m really not committed to my company and my work,” and a poor skillset says “I don’t know how to do this.” When all three are present the likelihood of feeling overwhelmed is guaranteed.
Leaders can relieve these feelings as well as improve productivity by clearly communicating their leadership purpose and enabling employees to find theirs. When employees have a clear purpose, they’re no longer concerned about fairness, they’re concerned with doing their best work. Their mindset then shifts to the belief that work has the potential to make the lives of other employees or customers easier or better. When employees experience such a mindset shift, they embrace continual learning and growth. This leads to both a reduced sense of being overwhelmed as well as increased skillset and productivity.
Duncan: In many work environments, everything is a priority so nothing is truly a priority. How can leaders identify and focus on the two or three priorities that provide the greatest leverage to sustainable success?
Blane: The number one priority of most leaders is accomplishing their to-do list. For many they have become “a human doing” as opposed to a “human being.” The good news about priority-setting is that increased effort isn’t the answer. The answer is a ruthless determination to take one action every day that is aligned with their purpose and their promises.
How does a leader do this? One simple exercise is to create a to-be list. This is a list of the top three to five traits, attributes or values that are non-negotiable. This list helps prioritize the type of day a leader wants and directs their energies beyond their ever-expanding list of priorities on their to-do list. Every leader has a finite amount of time and resources. It’s only by crafting the type of day a leader wants to create that they can prioritize their day and take action to create it.
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Duncan: What role does praising play in effective leadership, and what are the key ingredients?
Blane: Praising is rooted in one essential leadership imperative. Praising builds the confidence employees have in themselves as well as in you as a leader worthy of being followed. Praising also encourages experimentation, risk-taking, and learning while also infusing hope and optimism into the workplace.
Praising becomes invaluable when it comes to enabling employees to flourish.
The three ingredients of effective praising are: be sincere, be timely, be specific.
Praise must be sincere. Praise that is mechanical, obligatory, and/or delivered in a rote manner is seen as artificial and contrived, and fosters a relationship gap that undermines giving full effort to performance.
Praise must be timely. The most potent form of praise is the type that’s delivered in real time. Catching employees doing something noteworthy and commenting on it immediately raises the well-being not only of the person receiving the praise, but creates a culture in which appreciation and continued growth become strategic assets.
Praise must also be specific. Generalized praise such as, “Good job!” pales in comparison to specific praise such as, “Your project management work on the Carson project was incredibly helpful. You lived out our strategic goal of improving our customer experience and let the client feel confident and at ease with your performance. They said they loved working with us. That was really good work.”
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96295690bbaa07fc399bdcc4039df209
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2018/02/19/9-mistakes-commonly-made-but-rarely-addressed/
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9 Mistakes Commonly Made But Rarely Addressed
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9 Mistakes Commonly Made But Rarely Addressed
Shutterstock
Oops!
Everyone makes mistakes. Most of them are relatively harmless. But some of them can scuttle a project. Or ding your reputation. Or even derail your career.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Smart people learn from their mistakes. The really sharp ones learn from the mistakes of others.
That’s the lesson from Skip Prichard’s insightful new book called (are you ready for it?) The Book of Mistakes: 9 Secrets to Creating a Successful Future.
I interviewed Prichard to get a flavor for what he’s learned from his research into the lives of CEOs, sports legends, and other imperfect people.
Rodger Dean Duncan: You identify nine mistakes people make at work. On what basis (gut feel, observation, research) did you compile this list?
Skip Prichard: The nine mistakes were derived from my own experiences as a CEO of global organizations, interviews with over 1,000 successful leaders, and decades of studying leadership. Each one of the mistakes has corresponding research associated with it. For instance, some of the initial research I tapped was on those nearing death and their regrets. At the top of the list is “I wish I had been truer to myself.” That research formed the initial framing of the first mistake.
Duncan: If a person has already made most (if not all) of the mistakes you identify, what steps do you recommend for getting on a productive track?
Prichard: Most of us will identify with the mistakes and will recognize that we have made all of them. The book is written in a way that allows you to see the characters learning from the mistakes and thus encouraging introspection. Self-leadership always precedes public leadership. Each mistake requires a different type of action plan depending on the circumstances. Most of what we need to do is already inside, but we need to recognize and stop ourselves. One of the things I say in the book is that “The most important microphone is the one in our mind.” We need to guard it like a precious asset, tuning in to the positive and tuning out the voices that discourage us. If there’s one thing that will help us get back on a productive track, this is where it starts.
Duncan: What advice do you offer someone who is relatively free of making the mistakes you write about but is surrounded by co-workers who make most of the mistakes?
Prichard: All of us make these mistakes from time to time. No one is immune. There is a companion e-book called The Leadership Guide to The Book of Mistakes that’s designed to help leaders work with their teams and with individuals or companies stuck in one of the mistakes. If someone is repeatedly making a mistake, I believe it’s a leader’s job to help that person recognize it and move through it in order to succeed. That usually starts with the leader’s transparency and admitting his or her own struggles with the mistake.
Duncan: In writing about Mistake #5—Stay in Your Comfort Zone—you say mediocrity is a result of too much comfort. What do you see as the keys to expanding one’s comfort zone?
Prichard: If you want to be average, do what’s easy. You think, “Hey, I’ve worked hard all day, I need to kick back and watch TV all night.” Before you know it, hours have passed, the day is gone, and another cycle begins. You won’t become your best self unless you try new things, set big goals, and pursue your passion.
To expand our comfort zone, it’s also important to start with our mindset. We need to develop the courage to tackle our goals. Often, something is holding us back, and it takes courage and grit to change. Acquiring or divesting a company, for instance, is difficult if we are happily safe in our comfort zone. We may have an internal voice saying, “Why take on the headache?” If we have developed a mindset of experimentation and growth, we are able to override the desire for comfort to achieve something bigger.
Duncan: You suggest that successful people have a sense of urgency. What does that urgency “look like” in terms of daily behaviors?
I recently talked with someone who thought she was working with a sense of urgency. When we spoke, I said that a sense of urgency is not a frenetic, harried, overly-stressed existence where you are careening from one thing to the next. She laughed when she realized that was her definition.
To me, having a healthy sense of urgency means you are focused on your goals and you are honestly assessing your progress toward them each day. You are making progress and achieving the milestones you need to in order to get where you want to go.
Duncan: Why did you choose to write your book as a business fable?
Prichard: My goal was to write an uplifting book that teaches lessons in an entertaining way. I wanted to encourage discussion and felt that a story would allow discussion on multiple levels. Research shows we remember stories more than facts and, therefore, the lessons stick with us. Richard Branson once said, “The art of storytelling can be used to drive change.” I’m hopeful that this little story can spark the internal change needed to improve your future.
9 Common Mistakes
Working on someone else’s dream Allowing someone else to define your value Accepting excuses Surrounding yourself with the wrong people Staying in your comfort zone Allowing temporary setbacks to become personal failures Blending in instead of standing out Thinking there is a fixed and limited amount of success available Believing you have all the time in the world
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051b274ba0a011e102244ad446b204f1
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2018/05/26/why-managing-up-is-a-skillset-you-need/?sh=3329332a37fd
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Why Managing Up Is A Skill Set You Need
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Why Managing Up Is A Skill Set You Need
With the right strategy, "managing up" is easier than you might imagine. Pexels
You’ve heard it said and you know it’s true: People don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses.
For many people, the primary ingredient in job satisfaction is not the quality of food in the lunchroom. It’s not the office layout or equipment. It’s not even the workload, salary, or benefits. It’s the relationship with the boss. In fact, one study showed that 65% of workers surveyed would choose a new boss over a pay raise.
Many organizations still promote people because of their technical success rather than for management skills. To compound the problem, many new managers receive little or no training before jumping into their new roles. This makes for unhappy campers in the workplace.
But as an alternative to the futile search for the perfect boss, you might consider working better with the boss you have.
That’s the premise of Mary Abbajay’s new book MANAGING UP: How to Move Up, Win at Work, and Succeed with Any Type of Boss.
A seasoned leadership development consultant, Abbajay offers tips on how to deal with some of the most perplexing challenges in the workplace.
Rodger Dean Duncan: There seem to be countless books, TED talks, workshops and YouTube videos on how to lead and manage downward. But your book provides one of the few treatments on how to manage upward. Why is there such an imbalance?
Mary Abbajay: The simple truth is that in America, nobody wants to think of himself as a "follower." We are obsessed with leadership. It's part of our cultural and sociological narrative and identity. We talk incessantly about leadership. We teach it, we preach it, we spend more than $14 billion a year on it. But we rarely spend much time discussing or validating the other (and equally important) side of the relationship: followership.
Many of us resist being a follower because we think being a follower is being a patsy. We confuse followership with powerlessness. We conflate it with passivity and submissiveness. We think followership robs us of agency. Nothing could be further from the truth. If we reframe followership from a power construct into a relational construct, we open up a wide world of choice and agency. In a relationship, everybody has agency. So, while we might dislike the idea of being a follower, the truth is that the majority of us spend more of our working time following than leading. Even a CEO must be a follower, too. Everybody has a boss.
Duncan: Most every leader was once a follower. What are the two or three key things a follower should learn (and practice) in preparation for being an effective leader?
Abbajay: Leadership in the 21st century is much more about influence than authority, so learning to appreciate and adapt to people with different perspectives, priorities, and personalities is a key skill to develop. Managing up allows you to practice navigating and influencing people who approach work differently than you. Learn how to look beyond your own needs and perspectives and consider the needs and perspectives of others. If nothing else, by managing up, you will learn what kind of manager you want to be and what kind of manager you don’t want to be.
Strategic managing up is not manipulation. It's a smart career move. Wiley
Duncan: For some people, the notion of “managing up” sounds like manipulation or becoming a sycophant. You use the term to mean taking charge of one’s workplace experience. When you teach people that this kind of empowerment is a choice, what kind of push-back do you receive?
Abbajay: People push back for myriad of reasons. Most of these reasons come down to three things: ego, fixed perspective, and resistance to change.
Ego shows when we get caught up in the need to be right—e.g. we say things like "my boss should...", "my boss needs to...", etc. Our ego prevents us from widening our perspective. We get trapped in our own view, needs, wants.
Our fixed perspective prevents us from considering alternative choices and we may find ourselves trapped in our own cloud of bitterness. While we actually may be totally right, the truth is that your boss isn't going to change. All we can do is change our reaction and our interaction.
Which brings us to the last reason, resistance to change. Managing up requires us to adapt and change our approach. It requires extra effort and moving out of our comfort zone. Change is hard. Most of us would prefer the other to change!
Duncan: When organizations promote people for technical skills instead of managerial skills, the unintended result can be a technical expert who’s a total bust as a manager. What are some proven strategies to “manage up” an incompetent?
Abbajay: Whether it's due to poor people skills, inexperience, or a lack of managerial aptitude, an incompetent manager doesn't have to derail your career. While specific strategies depend on the individual situation, consider the following approaches:
De-escalate your anger: Having an incompetent boss can be infuriating. But when we operate from a place of anger and resentment, our reptile brain takes over and clouds us from making smart and strategic choices. Let go of the anger and replace it with empathy, compassion, or even humor. Put yourself in your boss’s shoes. How would you feel if you were elevated into a position that you weren't qualified for? How would you want your team to treat you? This perspective will enable you to make strategic choices. Diagnose the incompetence: Try to figure out exactly how the incompetence shows up. Does she lack experience? Does he have poor emotional intelligence? Is her decision-making poor? Does he not hold people accountable? Is she really incompetent or does she just do things differently than you? If you can pinpoint and prioritize the problems, you and your team can create targeted strategies to address the deficiency. Compensate and cover: Once you’ve pinpointed the major deficiencies, make and enact strategies to compensate. Yes, this requires extra effort. No, this isn't fair. But letting an incompetent boss derail your career isn't fair either. Look for opportunities to shine by doing great work and becoming your boss's biggest asset. Find opportunities to compensate for your boss's weakness. Offer to cover for her when she is out. Proactively provide information that will help him. Offer to take on more responsibility and projects. Use your interactions to help teach them what they need to know. Take the long view: Try not to worry if your boss gets the credit for your successful projects. Success gets noticed, and in organizations that usually means the team and/or department gets noticed too. Make your boss and your team look good and you will look good as well. Plus, people aren't stupid—everyone probably already knows that you are the success engine behind your incompetent boss. Learn what you can: If your boss is technically competent, take the time to learn about her technical expertise. Use this opportunity to hone your technical skills.
Next:
How can you best deal with a micromanager? In this #MeToo era, what’s the best way for a woman to “manage up” a male boss?
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61bd2eb78ca16b45561ec7a3499db1e5
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2018/07/03/why-etiquette-is-more-than-saying-please/
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Why Etiquette Is More Than Saying Please
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Why Etiquette Is More Than Saying Please
Proper "etiquette" is often in the eye of the beholder. Pexels
It’s been said that the test of good manners is the ability to put up pleasantly with bad ones. But in a world where in-your-face behavior is sometimes mistaken as a strength, it’s often hard to understand the rules of etiquette.
Etiquette. It’s a fussy word that almost defies definition. I grew up at a time when I’d get extra homework if I dared say “Yeah” to a teacher rather than “Yes, sir.” Men stood when a lady entered the room. I never referred to my parents’ friends by their first names. I asked to be excused before leaving the dinner table.
Those “Leave It to Beaver” days seem very distant now. But I still want to behave in ways that show respect for others without coming across as an antique from another era.
I’m apparently not alone. And thanks to a fine book by “professional presence” consultant Rosanne Thomas, there’s guidance on everything from first impression management to social media savvy. The book is Excuse Me: The Survival Guide to Modern Business Etiquette.
I talked with Thomas to explore some of the more pressing “etiquette” concerns borne of blended generations, mixed cultures, omnipresent technology, and gender issues. Whether you’re a novice or an experienced professional, her advice is well worth considering.
Rodger Dean Duncan: Most people would agree that a respectful workplace is a more pleasant workplace. What are some of the measurable bottom-line advantages that accrue to organizations that insist on respect and civility?
Rosanne Thomas: Unreturned phone calls, condescending remarks, public reprimands, angry emails—just some of the countless ways in which incivility rears its head—come at an enormous cost to employers.
Unlike bullying, which is a coordinated, persistent effort to cause someone physical or emotional harm, incivility is often played down as relatively harmless. In fact, it’s estimated that workplace incivility costs companies an average of $14,000 in lost productivity per employee, per year. Organizations also face exposure to increased legal, medical, and hiring costs because of incivility.
And it’s contagious. Employees subjected to incivility often act in the same manner toward coworkers and customers, resulting in fractious relationships and increased customer service issues. Incivility also negatively affects co-workers who witness it, causing them stress and job insecurity. Conversely, organizations that insist on respect and civility see teamwork fostered, morale improved, problems solved, and productivity increased. Their reputations are burnished, enabling them to recruit the best and the brightest talent. An enhanced bottom-line is virtually inevitable, and happy shareholders are the ultimate result.
Duncan: You rightfully say the foundation of civility is respect, which is the outward expression of esteem or deference. Yet social media, political discourse, the diatribes on talk shows and virtually every other public example of human interaction is rife with disrespect and put downs. With that as a backdrop, what can an organization do to promote a culture of civility and respect?
Incivility as a model for life or work is unsustainable. AMA
Thomas: An organization can remember that incivility as a model for life or work is unsustainable. It threatens the well-being and existence of what we need most in order to survive: other people.
The abuse of power—incivility at its core—works only as long as individuals are captive audiences. Once choice is restored—where to work, what establishments to patronize, with whom to associate—incivility, along with the individuals and organizations that tolerate it, will be rejected. Savvy organizations know this. And they clearly communicate their Codes of Conduct. They invest in civility training to reinforce best behaviors. They hire for attitude over experience, recognizing it’s much easier to teach technical skills than it is to instill qualities of empathy and consideration. They provide safe channels for the reporting of disrespect, and when it’s reported they take swift and appropriate action.
Duncan: The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate. What can people do when the leader tolerates behavior that violates the organization’s professed standards?
Thomas: When a leader tolerates or engages in bad behavior, especially when it runs counter to the organization’s avowed standards, credibility is lost. A confused and demoralized staff is left wondering exactly what is expected of them. Is it really okay to cut others off in the middle of sentences, openly criticize their intelligence and abilities, and engage in baseless, reputation-ruining gossip?
Employees have choices to make. While adapting to one’s corporate culture is generally recommended, emulating a leader’s bad behavior is not. Instead, employees need to think about their own reputations and personal standards of conduct. They can become role models themselves by extending simple courtesies such as listening attentively and valuing others’ opinions. They can challenge and report disrespect when they experience it or witness it. They can and must take responsibility for their actions. And if the culture becomes just too toxic, they can leave and find a respectful work environment. They do exist.
Duncan: It’s widely agreed that people don’t leave jobs, they leave people. In light of this obvious truism, why do so many organizations tolerate disrespectful behaviors?
Thomas: Presumably recognizing the harsh prospective consequences, it’s difficult to imagine why an organization would tolerate disrespectful behavior. But some do. It might be because they are under pressure and feel there’s no time for niceties. It could be because they view politeness as a weakness and want to be seen as aggressive and strong. They could be testing employees to see how they respond to incivility and whether they brush it off, defend themselves, retaliate, complain, or sulk. They might be trying to evaluate an employee’s trustworthiness and loyalty or they could be encouraging rivalries. It could be a power play or they may just delight in disharmony. They might be unaware of the consequences of disrespect or they simply might not care.
Creating a safe, civil workplace takes deliberation and resolve on the part of management. Respect always starts at the top.
Duncan: What are some specific practices you’ve seen that encourage (and reward) respectful behavior in the workplace?
Rosanne Thomas Protocol Advisors
Thomas: It’s not dissatisfaction with money, benefits, or workloads that cause people to leave organizations. Lack of appreciation is the reason 79% of employees give for quitting their jobs. Given the high costs of turnover and its effect on productivity, why showing appreciation is not at the top of every boss’s list is inexplicable. Thanking someone in a company newsletter or at weekly or quarterly meeting costs nothing. Yet, it reaps exponential returns in terms of morale and good will.
Zappos, the online retailer, rewards good behavior with “Zollars” (Zappos dollars) and peer-to-peer “Wow” awards from coworkers. Anything from holding a door open, to smiling, offering help, volunteering, or tidying a common area might qualify someone for a $50 reward. Rewards are getting creative. Among the available options are professional development opportunities, charitable donations, travel subsidies, memberships, VIP parking, house-cleaning, meal deliveries, and the always popular time.
Simple is often better. A handwritten note of thanks from the company president is still the most sought-after and valued recognition of all.
Next: The role of etiquette in personal branding, how to handle behavior you consider disrespectful, and best practices with cell phones and social media.
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901661f164c15317f56d77a24b740421
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2018/10/03/how-to-optimize-reinvent-maximize-your-business/?sh=6ee68e6b143c
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How To Optimize, Reinvent, Maximize Your Business
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How To Optimize, Reinvent, Maximize Your Business
Who knows? Mathematics and algorithms could help your business grow. Pexels
Most business teams want to improve performance. More customers. High profits. Lower overhead. The metrics may vary, but improvement is always the goal.
Someone said a dream is just a dream, while a goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline.
You might set your own deadline, but Steve Sashihara thinks he can help with the plan.
Sashihara is a business consultant and author who writes about optimization, business process improvement, and IT-driven innovation. He’s president and CEO of Princeton Consultants, an organization that blends IT and management practices for industry leaders as well as smaller, fast-growing ventures.
He’s author of The Optimization Edge: Reinventing Decision-Making to Maximize All Your Company’s Assets. His approach employs mathematics and algorithms packaged with specialized software to sort and organize data. This approach is said to provide management recommendations faster and better than humans can.
Rodger Dean Duncan: You write that cutting staff and services isn’t really the answer to maximizing assets. So why do so many companies take that approach?
Steve Sashihara: Reducing headcount, whether through removing unnecessary activities (“business process reengineering” and “lean”) or simply exporting the work (“outsourcing”), has been a primary play to cut costs in the corporate playbook.
However, in many organizations, this play has been run so many times that it’s essentially out of gas. Optimization is worth consideration as a new and effective approach to achieving significantly improved operating efficiencies.
In my book I document how optimization is the secret sauce behind many of today’s most vibrant companies, such as Google, Amazon, Walmart, UPS and McDonald’s. Their use of optimization, I argue, is at the heart of their rise to category-leading status.
Duncan: What are the most important principles to following when making decisions on the deployment of organizational assets?
Sashihara: The better your decisions are, the more value you will extract from your assets.
Optimization is the improvement in business decision-making by leveraging a special kind of software that gives you more of what you want to achieve. Using rules and criteria that you establish, the software tirelessly evaluates millions or billions of potential choices—and then makes explicit recommendations for action.
Optimization upgrades intuition-based operations into science-based operations, often with game-changing results. For example, one of the world’s largest printing companies found that using optimization improved utilization in its complex binding lines by an astounding 10%! In the transportation industry, which demands razor-thin margins, many companies have transformed themselves from unprofitable and shrinking to profitable and growing, simply by optimizing their fleet scheduling.
Duncan: In these challenging economic times, how are top performing managers squeezing every ounce of value from their companies?
Sashihara: The managerial stars of the coming decade will be the ones who can build organizations that are faster and smarter than their competitors.
Comic books may have us believe otherwise, but it’s hard to recruit superheroes that can see through obstacles with X-ray vision, fly around at ultra-high speeds, and miraculously outwit armies of villains. Fortunately, we have technology! With optimization, mere mortals can scan millions of bytes of data in an eye blink, wrestle with thousands of choices, and still be done in time for dinner with the family.
A small team at McDonald’s was able to fundamentally change how this storied company evaluated capital investments. Traditionally, these investments were deliberated using simple spreadsheet models that reacted to scenario suggestions made by the executives. The team created an optimizer that proactively recommended solutions. To do so, the optimization software evaluated trillions of possible portfolios, and then served up the hottest, best combinations. The result was a fundamental improvement in capital allocation at a massive scale.
Duncan: What are the best ways to break down the language barrier between an organization’s “numbers people” and the decision makers?
Sashihara: Optimization takes business problems and translates them into math problems for a high-speed computer to process and solve. However, the vast majority of business decision-makers are not computer adepts nor particularly comfortable with math. In the short term, companies should retain outside experts to help bridge the gap between “quants” and “non-quants” in order to apply the phenomenal power of these new technologies to the complex, detailed business problems that require deep subject matter expertise.
In the long term, organizations will need to recruit, train and reward professionals who can bring both sides of the brain into every business situation. Finding opportunities for optimization will be every manager’s job, not the exclusive turf of specialists and consulting firms.
Duncan: Many so-called strategic plans are little more than aspirational platitudes that gather dust. What advice do you offer for creating strategic plans that really contribute to performance improvement?
Sashihara: We helped a domestic agribusiness improve its harvesting through optimization. It was an exciting project that really helped get more productivity out of the fields. Before we got there, if you had asked most people at this company, they would have told you that they had already been using optimization for years because they had relied on computer models that created a comprehensive, detailed strategy for an entire season. On any given day, however, weather, labor or market conditions could change and invalidate the assumptions used to generate the plan. As a consequence, the company’s leaders went through the annual exercise of creating a detailed strategic plan with the best of intentions–and then had to end up ignoring it and run the business the best they could as conditions, literally “on the ground,” changed.
Strategic plans often feel so hollow because for many organizations winning is not about superior strategy, but about superior execution. Even with this knowledge, some strategic plans can still sound like “Let’s go out-execute the competition!” Would paratroopers want to hear such empty pep talk as they leap out of a plane behind enemy lines, or would they prefer a remarkably superior weapon? Optimization is the latter.
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278a4a7e1ab1d51b9a816fdb04332bdc
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2019/02/25/satisfaction-engagement-why-not-joy-at-work/
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Satisfaction? Engagement? Why Not Joy At Work?
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Satisfaction? Engagement? Why Not Joy At Work?
In spending most of our waking hours on the job, why shouldn't we expect to find joy in the... [+] workplace? Pexels
In my decades of consulting and coaching work, I’ve surveyed thousands of people and personally interviewed hundreds more.
Many of them, thankfully, derive satisfaction from their work. They’re grateful to have good jobs with good companies providing good products and services.
But “satisfaction” is down the scale from “engagement.” (See “Why ‘Employee Satisfaction’ Is the Wrong Metric”) And while both satisfaction and engagement are desirable, joy is an even higher standard for the way people can feel about their work.
Unfortunately, “satisfaction” is about as high on the scale as many people get.
I recall one man who summarized his job experience with this plaintive comment: “I’ve worked here for 28 years. Job’s okay. Benefits are okay. But it’s just a job. My pension vests in 24 months and I can’t wait to get out of here.”
Thirty years in a job with no joy!
Yes, joy.
Business guru Tom Peters has combined all the slides he’s used over the years into what he calls MOAP/the Mother of All Presentations. It ended up being 4,096 PowerPoint slides with more than 100,000 words of annotation.
Only one slide could be first. What was it? A quote from entrepreneur Richard Branson:
“Business has to give people enriching, rewarding lives, or it’s not worth doing."
That one quote captures the worldview of Richard Sheridan, author of Chief Joy Officer: How Great Leaders Elevate Human Energy and Eliminate Fear.
Sheridan is CEO and cofounder of Menlo Innovations, a Michigan-based software design company that’s arguably more famous for its culture than its products. It’s a culture that drives out fear and bureaucracy. A culture that brings out the best in its people. A culture that produces genuine joy in the workplace.
Busloads of people travel to Menlo each year to learn about the company’s culture. Instead of taking a tour, I reached out to Rich Sheridan.
Rodger Dean Duncan: For some people, the whole idea of creating “joy” in the workplace may seem touchy-feely, conjuring up images of employees locking arms and singing Kumbaya. How do you frame “joy” in the context of great leadership, great teamwork, and sustainably high performance?
Richard Sheridan: I will start by saying that joy and happiness are related but different. It would be very difficult to be happy all the time at work. (Increased workplace happiness is certainly a worthy pursuit). We do have a Tuesday-at-lunch music jam session for interested team members. We have yet to sing Kumbaya, but now that you mention it …
Joy, however, is a much deeper emotion derived from big accomplishments related to worthy external goals. In my first book, Joy, Inc., I liken joy to the feeling that a marathon runner gets when successfully completing a marathon, or what a parent feels when their daughter says “I do” to the man of her dreams. I’m certain all parents would agree that parenting is not always a happy time but there can still be joy.
Richard Sheridan Jeff Dougherty photo
Duncan: What’s the pay-off of a joyful workplace? How does it translate into results that most business people would appreciate?
Sheridan: Humans are naturally wired to work in community with one another on goals that are bigger than any one individual. When we accomplish these worthy goals, there is joy.
As your readers undertake their own journey to joy, I would encourage them to contemplate the answers to two purpose-related questions:
Whom do you serve? What would delight look like for them?
Duncan: So join with others in saying that providing service is a key to finding joy in work?
Sheridan: Yes! If we (as a team, a department, a company, an organization) can regularly delight those we serve, we will experience a joy that puts a spring in our step, a lift in our hearts, and a focus in our minds that will, in turn, produce better results, higher quality, more engagement, less turnover, better market reputation, and generally more satisfaction with our work. We will carry these feelings home with us, and we will end up being better spouses, better parents, and better neighbors with fewer health issues due to less unhealthy stress in our work lives. We may still be stressed at work, but it will be a healthier kind of stress because we can take pride in a hard day’s work.
I often ask this rhetorical question: What if we could flip numbers of the disengagement statistics to engagement? What more could you accomplish with the exact same expense structure and staff size when 70% of your employees are engaged at work? Joy is not a zero-sum game. At our company, we refer to this as the “business value of joy.”
Duncan: You say that effective leadership is patient, kind, does not envy, is not proud, does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, and does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. These characteristics sound scriptural. How do you persuade command-and-control skeptics that these behaviors bear good fruit?
Joy in the workplace need not be a pipe dream. It's possible with the right culture. Portfolio/Penguin
Sheridan: Hah! Well, I suppose it is scriptural as I have re-worded the 1st Corinthians verse on love to leadership!
Here’s the payoff for those who are command-and-control (which I used to be): In a command-and-control structure, your team cannot move faster than YOU, the boss. When you let go of those boss reins and treat your people as the above passage suggests, you, the leader, will work far less, accomplish far more, and enjoy your life beyond anything you thought possible.
The only way to scale command-and-control is by adding more high-priced commanders who need expensive titles, parking spots, and fancy closed-door offices. Scaling an influence-based leadership team means you need none of those things. Because true leaders can lead from anywhere. You will need fewer meetings and less productivity-choking decision points. Your organization will move from one that is always contemplating to one that takes action.
Duncan: Joy and optimism intersect. How can leaders balance them against the fear and chaos that may have characterized their previous business experience?
Sheridan: Fear is the mind killer, both for the leaders and the team members they lead. This is particularly true when we bosses try to motivate with what I call manufactured (or artificial) fear. There are real things we absolutely should be afraid of: running out of cash, a big security hack, walking out in the street without looking both ways and getting hit by a car. These are healthy fears. Paying attention to these fears keeps us alive.
Often, though, we see bosses who motivate with threats of job loss or by stifling a promotion or a bonus until they get what they want. The worst version of this has played out in organizations that traditionally cut the lowest 10% of a forced-rank staff each year. This artificial fear puts each team member in fight-or-flight mode all the time.
Intriguingly, this kind of fear-based organization often generates chaos because the only way things get done is to light a task on fire. The result is that every day we come to work expecting to fight fires from one end of the day to another, and the only way to get something of higher priority done is to light a bigger fire. After a while, there is no other priority-setting system other than pounding fists on tables, raising voices in meetings, or exercising power-based politics to win.
If we design our systems properly, including our human systems, and establish clear ways to prioritize work, we can achieve a much more rational approach, a more human and humane approach to getting the most important things done. In doing so, optimism begins to rise because we feel far more in control of our circumstances. This kind of optimism leads to joy.
Next: “Creating Joy In Your Workplace”
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5316bc03fdc499a357086d6cbea1f09c
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2019/06/11/lackluster-teamwork-tips-for-boosting-performance/
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Lackluster Teamwork? Tips For Boosting Performance
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Lackluster Teamwork? Tips For Boosting Performance
There's verifiable science behind what makes great teamwork. Unsplash
You’ve seen most of the teamwork clichés:
Together Everyone Achieves More Great things never come from comfort zones Teamwork makes the dream work Individually we're a drop, but together we’re an ocean
But of course posters on the employee cafeteria wall do not transform glib slogans into reality. Effective teamwork requires a deep understanding of human behaviors and a disciplined approach to execution.
Both of those ingredients are abundantly present in The Best Team Wins: The New Science of High Performance by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton.
Undergirded by 850,000 employee engagement surveys and volumes of other research, Gostick and Elton offer a clear roadmap to the kind of teamwork that most leaders only dream about.
Their previous books—The Carrot Principles and All In—were #1 New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. The Best Team Winshas earned the same accolades.
I visited with Adrian Gostick about teamwork issues that matter to leaders everywhere.
Rodger Dean Duncan: Your research shows that many of today’s younger employees—having grown up as recognition junkies—seem to be more strongly motivated by recognition for their good work than do workers from previous generations. How can leaders best accommodate Millennials’ desire for recognition without turning off older workers who are motivated by other things?
Adrian Gostick: True. What our new research shows—as we’ve done in-depth interviews with more than 25,000 Millennials—is that younger workers’ need for extrinsic recognition from their bosses is three times greater than for older workers.
However, we find that they aren’t looking for meaningless pats on the back. What they are looking for is reinforcement that their work matters and that it’s on track with the needs of the organization.
In other words, they’re looking for more feedback—of the positive and constructive types. The benefit of offering more and better recognition is a leader is providing more feedback to her people—younger or older—and few workers are going to be turned off by receiving more of that.
Duncan: What are the keys to effective recognition?
Adrian Gostick Simon & Schuster
Gostick: When it’s offered, smart recognition is tied to the organization or team’s core values, it’s given soon after the achievement, and it’s frequent in a team. Most importantly, the recognition is tied to what motivates a person.
Smart leaders use a knowledge of a worker’s individual motivators to tailor expressions of gratitude to each team member.
For instance, someone driven by concepts such as autonomy and excelling might feel best recognized when given a chance to work independently on an important project, while someone who is more motivated by concepts such as teamwork and friendship would likely feel more valued when thrown a party with work friends in celebration of a big win. It all depends on the individual.
Duncan: The philosopher Frederick Nietzsche famously said that, “He who has a why to live for can endure almost any how.” What are some good ways for a leader to help workers connect the dots between their work and their values?
Gostick: We’ve found believing in a noble cause rises all ships in the harbor. For instance, a strong whymakes older employees more willing to spend time mentoring younger team members and be more open to sharing with them.
For Millennials (whom we often call the Why Generation), clarity about the cause helps them believe that, even as entry level players, they are making a significant contribution to a mission that matters.
To connect the dots between work and values, we encourage leaders to get input on a purpose statement from their team members. In other words: Don’t do this alone. With that said, we do not recommend asking your team the question: “What’s our purpose?” Instead, make it more human by asking, “Why do we exist as a team?” or “What job do we do for customers?” or “What gets you excited to come here every day?”
Mastering the Five Disciplines of Team Leaders can put you on the path to teamwork success. Simon & Schuster
Duncan: In many organizations, the performance review is poorly regarded by givers are well as by receivers. Because good coaching is important to a person’s development, what approach do you recommend regarding the appraisal process?
Gostick: Instead of relying on the once- or twice-a-year formal review, many of the best leaders we’ve interviewed hold one-on-one performance review sessions every week or two with each member of their team—even though many of their people are remote and around the globe. “’What do you want to talk about?’ is a great first question.
Many prominent firms have decided to either substantially alter the annual performance review or to abandon the practice entirely—replacing it with other processes for evaluating and developing employees that are more timely, frequent, and in the control of the immediate supervisor. We call this the continuous review. The biggest reason for the change: In today’s fast-moving business environment, a yearly (or half-yearly, for that matter) appraisal is simply not responsive enough to address changes that teams are facing and help people respond.
People need much more regular feedback and guidance—especially younger workers who are unwilling to wait an entire year to learn about their strengths or needed-improvement areas.
Next: How To Turn Team Values Into Team Performance
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ea0e5f4404ae516e95297d39f5ab4b05
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2019/07/02/build-stronger-relationships-learn-to-disagree-better/
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Build Stronger Relationships: Learn To Disagree Better
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Build Stronger Relationships: Learn To Disagree Better
It would be a very boring world if everyone agreed on every issue. So disagreement is okay. We just... [+] need to disagree better. Pexels
Our current environment is sometimes touted as the age of tolerance. Consider how many company rosters now include positions like “VP of Diversity and Inclusion.”
But the reality signals something else.
Each Thanksgiving, the Internet is abuzz with advice on how to avoid letting dinner table discussions devolve into a Turkey Day brawl. Thousands (millions?) of people report abandoning social media because they can’t stomach the vitriol. Universities are “uninviting” speakers whose views might offend the fainthearted.
Our politics, which once had at least a modicum of respect and consensus, has become a ritualized cycle of outrage and denunciation. Running for office seems to more of a performance art than an exchange of ideas.
But there’s hope. Occasionally we can find a voice of reason
I found one such voice in Arthur C. Brooks. He gave a 12-minute graduation speech at Brigham Young University. It was the most articulate and reasonable plea I’ve heard for a return to comity in all our relationships.
Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt.
Brooks doesn’t suggest that people stop disagreeing with each other. He simply offers excellent advice on how to disagree better.
It’s advice that’s relevant at work, at home, and in the public square
Rodger Dean Duncan: Research shows that insults actually intensify people’s opposition to contrary viewpoints. So why are insults so common in our public discourse?
Arthur Brooks AEI
Arthur C. Brooks: It’s certainly strange to see something so obviously counterproductive play a leading role in American public life, but our habit of insulting others is driven by two fairly straightforward factors.
The first is that this kind of behavior is modeled by public figures in many different arenas, which together comprise what I refer to as the “outrage industrial complex.” People have a tendency to imitate the behaviors of their leaders, which we are doing in this case to clearly destructive ends.
Less frequently acknowledged is our own role in driving up demand for this kind of leadership. Acrimonious and pugilistic figures dominate the airwaves because we give them our time and attention—a genuinely bad habit we should break by putting the outrage industrial complex on mute.
Treat people decently, including those whose views you may abhor, and you might be amazed by what... [+] you can learn. You'll also expend your circle of friends. Broadside
Duncan: Why has our society become so incompetent at listening?
Brooks: We’re terrible at listening because of the culture of contempt that has developed in recent years. Rather than seeing our opponents as merely incorrect in their views (but perhaps worth trying to persuade), we now mostly view them as worthless, undeserving of any consideration.
With this kind of attitude, why would you listen to someone on the “other side?” And so the contempt we have for others has caused us to fall out of practice when it comes to listening.
Given the state of our culture, recovering an ability to listen will require that we reject the notion that our fellow citizens have no value as people, even if their ideas might merit scorn.
Duncan: You quote an old African proverb that says “When elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers.” How does the pandemic of contempt in political matters affect the workplace?
Brooks: When the loudest voices foment a culture of contempt, it bleeds into all areas of life. Because it’s now so common to hear that we are right while they are stupid and evil, it can feel as though even our places of work must be turned into battlegrounds. So rather than focus on building a good product or serving the customers in our communities, our professional interactions have become consumed by national politics.
But placing Washington at the center of everything leads to serious breakdowns in trust, cooperation, and creativity—a clear consequence of the broader culture of contempt.
Duncan: What can business leaders do to help their people deal productively with their disagreements?
Brooks: The first thing business leaders can do is promote disagreement!
In our culture today, we far too readily assume that conflict and disagreement are harmful for us, emotionally and even physically. They’re not, of course—a competition of ideas improves outcomes, builds resiliency, and sharpens our thinking. But disagreement must be facilitated in the right way, with a spirit of warm-heartedness and an eye toward mutually shared ends. Leaders should take it upon themselves to encourage this kind of disagreement.
Next: "Using Your Values As A Gift, Not As A Weapon."
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2019/08/30/want-to-fix-your-feedback-it-may-be-easier-than-you-think/
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Want To Fix Your Feedback? It May Be Easier Than You Think
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Want To Fix Your Feedback? It May Be Easier Than You Think
For some people, whether they're giving it or receiving it, 'feedback' is unpleasant and even scary.... [+] It doesn't have to be that way. In fact, mastering the art of effective feedback can dramatically boost your effectiveness. Unsplash
If you were to write the job description for “leader,” one of the bullet points would likely be something related to “engagement.” The leader’s responsibility is not to create followers. It’s to create more leaders. This cascading effect is what gets things done. It requires appealing to people’s heads, hearts, and hopes.
While it’s true that self-starting achievers typically don’t need a lot of strokes, giving too little feedback is a common trust buster.
I once heard a so-called leader say, “My people should just be grateful to have jobs. If they do something wrong, I’ll let ‘em know. Otherwise, they should just press on. There’s too much work to do to take time with a bunch of back-slapping.”
In that same conversation, this guy wondered aloud why his people didn’t seem very engaged in the work.
It’s been said that feedback is the breakfast of champions. Unfortunately, a lot of the feedback offered in the workplace is a meal worth missing.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re talking with Phil about his job performance and you deliver a speech that goes something like this: “Okay, Phil. As you know, we’re raising the bar around here. We need to get more out of you this coming year. It seems like you’re not really stretching, and you need to stretch. You’re definitely in the ‘Needs Improvement’ category, and we need you to step up to the ‘Meets Expectations’ slot. So get out there and show us what you can do.”
That little speech may sound like something from a Saturday Night Live skit, but it’s virtually verbatim from the kind of drivel that some people try to pass off as helpful feedback.
If you’re the Phil in that scenario, you’ll likely go home and tell your wife: “I don’t know what those people expect of me. I’m already working my tail off and all they tell me is that I need to ‘stretch.’ What’s that’s supposed to mean?”
Frustrating? Yes. Does feedback need to be an unpleasant, even harmful experience? Absolutely not.
Tamra Chandler offers some great tips on how to help people grow and develop through insightful observation and coaching. She’s author of Feedback: Why We Fear It, How to Fix It.
Tamra Chandler BK
Rodger Dean Duncan: What is it about “feedback” that seems to make many people break out in a cold sweat?
Tamra Chandler: Most of us have been conditioned—through bad experiences that start in our youth and continue throughout our lives—to expect feedback to hurt. This conditioning creates connections in our brains that trigger our “fight or flight” reactions when presented with feedback.
When we look closely at what really frightens us about feedback, it boils down to this: identity and connection. At the heart of our fear is our identity, and how that identity is shaped and reinforced by our connections to and affiliations with the rest of the world. Humans are social beings; we instinctively want to be included and valued. The need to stay connected with and accepted by our communities drives our actions without our intellectual complicity. In the end, this desire for belonging gets seriously in the way of giving and receiving feedback.
Duncan: When people are struggling with “ghosts of feedback past,” how can a leader help them shift to a more pro-feedback perspective?
Chandler: We need to wipe the slate clean and start anew. Our first step is to redefine feedback to support our true intent and desired outcomes. We propose this new definition—
Feedback (NOUN): Clear and specific information that’s sought or extended for the sole intention of helping individuals or groups improve, grow, or advance.
Pay particular attention to “with the sole intention of helping.” Too often in our interactions, the feedback we receive is simply not helpful. If it isn’t intended to help individuals or teams thrive and grow, then why offer it or seek it?
It’s equally important to tune into what’s not in our definition: feedback is not intended as evaluation, blame, or judgment. We see feedback as insight that helps us look forward, to a better version of ourselves, our organization, or our team. Raking our past performance over the coals and attaching an evaluative label to it will not create a better you, me, or us.
Duncan: Everyone seems to favor employee engagement. What role does feedback play in engagement?
Chandler: Feedback gets to the heart of two things employees need to thrive: vitality and learning.
At its simplest level, vitality comes from a strong sense that what we do makes a difference. Learning means we’re building our skills and capabilities while simultaneously boosting our confidence in our potential growth.
It’s not hard to understand the connection between vitality, learning and feedback. Significant drivers of vitality include relationships, connections, recognition and clarity—all outcomes of healthy, ongoing feedback conversations. Learning is the result of insights we gain that help us improve, expand and advance –outcomes of trusted and specific feedback relevant to our growth.
So, if you’re looking to drive stronger performance from—and better experiences for—your people, fuel their sense of vitality and learning through inspiring and insightful feedback.
Feedback problems? They are fixable. BK
Duncan: Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck has done years of research on mindset, which she describes as a self-perception of self-theory. How does mindset affect people’s resistance to—or effective use of—feedback?
Chandler: Mindset is a key factor in influencing our potential to grow and improve. Dweck coined the terms “fixed mindset” and “growth mindset.” People with a fixed mindset believe that their intelligence and talent are fixed, that talent alone creates success. People with a growth mindset believe their talents and abilities can develop with hard work—they believe growth and improvement can happen.
When managers and organizational cultures adopt a growth mindset, people are more willing to ask questions, venture ideas, embrace challenges and focus on progress over perfection. To use feedback effectively as a catalyst to change, shift, grow and improve, both extenders and receivers of feedback need to operate from a growth mindset.
Duncan: Every great feedback experience, you say, is anchored in fairness, focus, and frequency. Please elaborate.
Chandler: Fairness—For feedback to work, there must be trust, and trust is built through connections and experiences with others. If a relationship or exchange is tainted with a perceived lack of fairness, it breaks trust, and feedback won’t work. While most of us have the best intentions to be fair, our human bias can get in our way. To operate with fairness when receiving or extending feedback, we need to accept our own imperfections and recognize that our views are tainted by our experiences and assumptions.
We can do this by leaning heavily on what we’ve witnessed and noticed. If we bring what we’re noticing into an open conversation without judgment or evaluation, amazing things can happen, and trust will grow.
Focused—We already have loads of information to process these days. If someone offers five pieces of feedback, even if they’re positive, it can be overwhelming. Focused feedback is like snacking on positivity and possibility, rather than gorging on performance reviews and lists of strengths and weaknesses.
If you’re seeking feedback, make it a focused ask for perspectives on just one thing. If you want to tell someone they rocked it, share the one thing you noticed. If there was one change that would have led to greater impact, share just one.
Frequency—The more often we connect, the greater the trust we build. For this reason, frequency is a critical foundation for strong, helpful feedback. Offering feedback frequently improves the quality of our relationships and tells others, “I’m paying attention, and what you do is important and notable.”
Next: How Effective Feedback Can Build Trust And Confidence
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2019/12/21/airbnb-can-teach-your-business-a-thing-or-two/
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Airbnb Can Teach Your Business A Thing Or Two
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Airbnb Can Teach Your Business A Thing Or Two
Sometimes the most unlikely business model simply works. Look and learn. Pexels
We live in the age of disruptors. We have one in the White House, and we have multiple examples throughout the business world.
Illustrations of the latter were scrawled on a whiteboard a while back by Alberto Brea, chief growth strategist at a New York marketing firm.
Here’s what Brea wrote—
Amazon did not kill the retail industry. They did it to themselves with bad customer service. Netflix did not kill Blockbuster. They did it to themselves with ridiculous late fees. Uber did not kill the taxi business. They did it to themselves by limiting the number of taxis and fare control. Apple did not kill the music industry. They did it to themselves by forcing people to buy full-length albums. Airbnb did not kill the hotel industry. They did it to themselves with limited availability and pricing options. Technology by itself is not the real disruptor. Being non-customer centric is the biggest threat to any business.
Those six bullet points provide lessons for anyone who’s planning—or already running—most any kind of enterprise.
Focus on the customer is not a new concept. Yet it somehow escapes a lot of people.
But not the people at Airbnb.
Customer experience consultant Joseph Michelli explores Airbnb’s journey from startup to juggernaut in The Airbnb Way: 5 Leadership Lessons for Igniting Growth Through Loyalty, Community, and Belonging.
How can Airbnb’s experience apply to your business?
Rodger Dean Duncan: Philosopher Paul Tillich once said, “The first duty of love is to listen.” How does Airbnb incorporate that into its leadership and business practices?
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Joseph Michelli StevenMillerPix
Joseph Michelli: Airbnb founders (Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk) all have strong backgrounds as experience designers. Brian and Joe graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design, and Nathan graduated with a computer science degree from Harvard. Given their educational experiences, all three founders are grounded in design principles that focus on listening to the stated and unstated needs of the customers or web users they serve. Based on their penchant for listening, leaders throughout Airbnb challenge themselves and team members to think about possible solutions that might address customer/user needs. They then test those solutions by listening for feedback from customers. Subsequently, Airbnb team members then deploy the best solutions across their platform.
Duncan: Give us an example.
Michelli: Airbnb serves two types of customers on its platform—hosts and guests. Since hosts report that they don’t know which elements of an accommodation to detail in their listings and since guests often aren’t aware of their own subtle preferences, Airbnb has explored and deployed artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to enhance the experience of both stakeholder groups. Specifically, picture recognition technology uses machine learning to scan, tag, categorize, and filter images on the Airbnb site.
To understand the benefits of this technology, assume an image of a listing has a picture of a bunk bed, but the bunk bed information failed to be included in the text description of the property. Also, assume that you have a history of choosing homes with bunk beds. Picture recognition technology could select that specific property as an option for your consideration because of the context of your past behavior on the platform. Leaders at Airbnb remind us that sustained business success involves understanding customer needs through listening and observation and then testing solutions to address those needs.
Leadership lessons can often be learned from a business very different from your own. McGraw Hill
Duncan: Airbnb leaders say they are not only in the people business, they’re also in the “belonging” business. What does that mean in their context, and what can it mean for other kinds of businesses?
Michelli: Let’s assume I am a member of the LBGTQ community wanting to stay in a rural conservative town. When I make my booking on Airbnb, I want to know that I will be respected and treated like a welcomed guest. Similarly, assume I am traveling to a remote part of the world where I can’t speak the language. I would want to know that my Airbnb booking will do more than provide a place to sleep. I would want a host who will care for me and about me during my stay.
Airbnb leaders seek to communicate the importance of assuring this type of psychological well-being to everyone who engages on the platform. As such, Airbnb’s founders have embraced hierarchy models of needs like those proposed by Abraham Maslow. As you’ll recall, Maslow suggested humans have basic needs for safety, food, and shelter as well as higher-level needs for love, belonging, community, and personal fulfillment.
Duncan: How do you see that model’s application at Airbnb?
Michelli: In the broad context of business, each of us should consider how we can help customers achieve not only their basic needs but also facilitate fulfillment of their higher-level needs. Airbnb has formalized the importance of helping guests experience belonging into their formal mission statement – “to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere.” The shortened version of that mission simply reads “belong anywhere.” Additionally, Airbnb leaders continually communicate (formally and through social channels) with hosts about the importance of creating belonging.
Next: What Airbnb Can Teach You About Trust
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394b3530e70e20792908caa8a94d9573
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2021/01/12/job-craft-change-your-work-into-something-you-love/?sh=724b90a3f17c
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Job Craft: Change Your Work Into Something You Love
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Job Craft: Change Your Work Into Something You Love
Do you sometimes feel that your world of work is spiraling out of control? You can take charge. Pexels
If you’re like millions of other people riding the pandemic roller coaster, you’re re-thinking your world of work.
You’re likely using technology in ways you didn’t imagine a year ago. Your morning commute may be no more than those 25 steps from the kitchen table to that folding table you set up in the guest bedroom. It’s probably been months since you shook hands with a client (or anyone else, for that matter). You sometimes use the term “new normal,” but you can’t be sure what that really means because “new normal” is so fluid.
So you’re examining your work life in ways you never before found necessary. You have a zillion questions about the future and your place in it.
Jonas Altman can help. He’s an expert in leadership and workplace practices and author of Shapers: Reinvent the Way You Work and Change the Future.
In the first part of this conversation, he offered counsel on how to clarify purpose and derive meaning from work. Now he explains the individual’s responsibility to create joy and satisfaction in work and how to stay adaptable. This is counsel worth a careful look.
Rodger Dean Duncan: You use the term “engaged workaholism.” What exactly is that?
Jonas Altman .
Jonas Altman: Whereas a workaholic exhibits an avoidant behavior, an engaged workaholic demonstrates a deliberate one. When we find meaning in our work–seeing it as a joyous endeavor—we don’t necessarily need to recover like “unhappy workaholics” who might be obsessed with their jobs but don’t actually like them. For engaged workaholics, their toil does not function as a diversion but as an indulgence.
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Duncan: What are the steps to transforming a disliked job into work that is appreciated and even loved? And whose responsibility is that transformation?
Altman: One way to turn that god-forsaken job you have into one you love is through job crafting. Dissatisfaction breeds innovation and this practice can help you examine and re-jig your tasks, relationships, and mindset.
In one extraordinary case, a hospital cleaner took it upon herself to perform many activities in addition to her usual duties. She regularly dusts the ceilings so patients don’t have to stare at the dirt or cobwebs. She often takes water to thirsty patients between nursing shift changes. For comatose patients, she even changes their surroundings in the hopes that it might improve their well-being (or potentially help wake them up). This cleaner sees herself not just as a cleaner but as a caretaker. Expanding her job, within reason, enables her to derive much more satisfaction and enjoyment.
Sometimes business conditions are just too toxic to permit fruitful job crafting. While the onus for appreciating your own work rests with you, leaders and colleagues certainly can, and should, support in helping make this a reality.
Duncan: Our world of work is changing faster than ever. What can people do to ensure that they stay adaptable to emerging opportunities?
Altman: Set ambitious yet realistic priorities and monitor them with regular and balanced input and reflection. Draw hard-nosed boundaries to remain focused during your most creative hours. Fine-tune your attention, stay conscious of your moods, stay present and sense what is needed in the moment. Stay steadfastly accountable to yourself and to others. Take a diverse and nimble approach to work by having a solid skillset and be developing others as you go. Make sure you’re always learning how to learn how to change.
Duncan: Can people engineer serendipity? If so, how?
Altman: Yes. Here are some ideas on how—continue doing those things that light you up. Remain open-minded. Have good thoughts in your head. Be in the right places. Connect people. Do the right things. Start with the give. Chose curiosity over judgment. Learn to let go and never stop learning.
Duncan: “Self-management” is an approach that a growing number of companies are adopting with their people. What’s the key to making that work?
Self-management is predicated on trust, competence, and dignity. It’s an ongoing experiment that evolves over time much the same as people do. And so the first thing required is a willingness to take the plunge.
. .
It’s also easy to think of self-management as prescriptive, but what works for one company won’t necessarily work for another. It’s an attractive theory, but putting it into practice can be a real drag. When workers cannot hide from the truth, egos, fears, and motivations are all exposed. This emotionally charged atmosphere can be both powerful and paralyzing. And the vulnerability required in self-management cultures is not for the faint of heart. Many folks don’t want to deal with all the extra office baggage when they get enough of it at home.
The Covid pandemic has helped push some companies that may not have been ready for self-management in the right direction. Others that were cultivating the practice are now doubling down because the model is purposefully designed to harness more of our human capital at a time when we need it most.
Duncan: What can people do to set boundaries for themselves so they can overcome (or altogether avoid) an addiction to busyness for the sake of busyness?
Altman: Benjamin Franklin used to ask one question in the morning: What good shall I do today?
At the end of the day he’d ask: What good did I do today?
We can start by emulating this and getting real clear on our priorities and our values. We can appreciate that our creative and cognitive energy is limited and we need to be extremely discerning in how we expend this finite resource. Why? Because when we get too busy our attention gets hijacked. Then we end up making terrible decisions on how to spend our time
Unfortunately, it’s still commonplace to find workers very busy but not necessarily productive. That’s why shapers work in bursts, rest often, reassess on the regular, cultivate support networks, remain sensitive to their circadian rhythms, and are honest with themselves about how they can be, and work, at their best.
Finally there is no more work-life balance, there is only the blend. And if you’re too busy to see this then you really need to stop and take a look around.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2021/02/09/how-can-you-prepare-for-a-work-future-you-cant-even-see/?sh=60bfef1f38eb
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How Can You Prepare For A Work Future You Can’t Even See?
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How Can You Prepare For A Work Future You Can’t Even See?
. Unsplash
In the words of psychiatrist R. D. Laing, we live in a moment of history where change is so fast-paced that we “begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.”
Change is not just faster. It’s also exploding in quantity and magnitude. Experts say we can expect more change in our lifetimes than has occurred since the beginning of civilization more than ten millennia ago. Trying to keep up with change can feel like getting trapped on a runaway treadmill. Managing it can be even harder.
This reality poses special challenges for people in the workplace.
Think about it. Many of the top jobs on LinkedIn didn’t even exist just a few years ago. It’s anyone’s guess how many as-yet-unknown jobs will be the hot tickets ten years from now, or even five, or maybe even two.
Nobody understands this better than Michelle R. Weise, a renowned thought leader in the field of the future of work and education. She’s founder of the Strada Institute of the Future of Work. Her thought-provoking book is Long Life Learning: Preparing for Jobs That Don’t Even Exist Yet.
For anyone who wants to take a proactive approach to education and career planning, Michelle’s book is an important read.
Rodger Dean Duncan: Due to the “algorithmic editing” of their online searches, many people live inside a so-called “filter bubble” and no longer have access to a balanced information diet. What’s your advice on dealing with such filters?
Michelle R. Weise: How we relate to one another is changing drastically because of new forms of artificial intelligence. We’re surrounded by things with which we agree as opposed to differing viewpoints that might challenge our thinking and make us feel uncomfortable. This is hugely problematic as we consider that researchers are suggesting that empathy and emotional intelligence are skills that may empower us to out-compete or better coordinate with machines in the future.
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At first blush, it seems promising that more automation will force us to demonstrate our uniquely human skills. But just because we’re human doesn’t necessarily mean we excel at the human side of work. These aren’t innate skills; we must practice them.
Michelle R. Weise Wiley
Duncan: So what’s the implication of this?
Weise: It’s hard work putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. But it’s much harder to empathize when we’re never exposed to those challenging views in the first place. It’s therefore important that more of our citizenry become aware that this is happening through every single click we make in the apps we use on our smartphones, tablets, or computers.
Countries like Finland may have the right approach with its “1%” AI initiative. With the support of government and private companies, the country is trying to teach 1% of the country’s population (approximately 55,000 people) basic concepts at the root of artificial intelligence technology. Although seemingly small-scale, the thrust of what the country is trying to accomplish is incredibly important.
As tasks increasingly get digitized, it’ll be ever more critical for the humans coordinating with the computers or robots to have enough domain knowledge to assess and check the work of the machines. We must be able to question the AI that undergirds all of our technologies, rather than let these technologies outstrip our ability to control them. Otherwise, our filter bubbles will become even more insular, and our ability to connect with one another will weaken without practice.
Duncan: The effect of more hours focused on screens means that people are investing less time practicing person-to-person skills with others. What’s the impact of that on an individual’s preparation for the workplace of the future?
Weise: Without deliberate practice of our human skills, we may inadvertently be impairing our competitive advantage for the future of work. Emotional intelligence, or our emotional quotient (EQ), as an example, is connected to larger issues of self-awareness and self-control, as well as optimism and flexibility. It helps us persist, face hardship, and deal with delayed gratification. In our work lives, it means we can take feedback well and demonstrate grit in the face of real challenges. Our bosses view us as more accountable and coachable with stronger EQ. These leadership skills are a powerful differentiator for employees; higher EQ translates into earnings on average of $29,000 more per year. But without deliberate practice, we may end up derailing or stagnating, unable to advance in our careers and provide for our families.
Duncan: In addition to paralyzing the world economy, the Covid-19 pandemic has unmasked a lot of problems that were in plain sight. What has the pandemic helped reveal about the issues of learning?
Weise: The global pandemic laid bare how fragile our multiple, fragmented systems of K–12 education, postsecondary education, and workforce training are. Siloed and unintegrated, our systems had long neglected millions of people looking to access the relevant information, funding, advising, support, and skills training they need in order to advance. And when Covid-19 hit, it became all too clear that our systems of learning and work were not equipped to skill up and transition large numbers of workers to jobs that are in demand.
Duncan: For a variety of reasons, online courses are gaining “market share” in the world of education. What are the keys to creating and delivering an online course that is not only engaging for the students but actually delivers great value?
Weise: The last thing we need right now is more online degree programs or credentials. There are already roughly 738,000 unique credentials flooding the education and labor markets. You’d think all these options would offer learners a selection of precise career pathways. Instead, the sheer number of programs creates more hiring friction between learners and employers. Employers already are struggling to differentiate between the vast array of signals they see on resumes and LinkedIn profiles.
Today, the millions who have lost and are losing their jobs will be focused on making ends meet. They are seeking new models that allow them to quickly acquire and demonstrate the skills employers want. They are seeking cost-effective, briefer and more targeted pathways that launch them rapidly into a job. They will not need a bundled, comprehensive program that could take years to complete—and may not effectively signal to employers what they can do. It’s more important to distill learning into the most critical and flexible modules to redeploy talent as rapidly as possible.
Duncan: You suggest the need for a new “learning ecosystem” that incorporates five guiding principles. You say it must be Navigable, Supportive, Targeted, Integrated, and Transparent. Can you give us a brief guided tour of that ecosystem?
Weise: More adults will face multiple career transitions, demanding the acquisition and demonstration of new skills. And those job changes need to feel seamless to learners, which certainly is not the case today.
Navigable: Newly laid-off workers don’t have the technologies and tools they need for easy career navigation—ways to surface their talents and assess their skill gaps.
Supportive: Job seekers also need access to human advisers who can coach them and help them access wraparound support services.
By targeted, I mean that learners are seeking more precise and targeted educational pathways that clearly have some signaling power to their future employer.
Or they may seek learning experiences that are integrated, or hands-on and embedded in the flow of work, so that they can continue earning a living while building new skills.
And finally, we need to move away from degree requirements to a fairer and more transparent skills-based hiring environment, where more job seekers can demonstrate that they have what it takes to do the work ahead.
Duncan: As you point out, many companies have historically preferred to buy talent rather than build it among their existing employees. What impact do you expect the evolving labor market to have on that mindset?
. Wiley
Weise: In August 2019, the Business Roundtable produced a surprising statement redefining the purpose of a corporation as benefiting all stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, and communities—not just shareholders. One part reads: “Investing in our employees. This starts with compensating them fairly and providing important benefits. It also includes supporting them through training and education that help develop new skills for a rapidly changing world.” Now, this broad statement doesn’t mean anything unless the signatories turn these words into action.
I think the onus will be on our future leaders to reimagine on-the-job training and offer more hands-on opportunities in the flow of work that empower their workers to acquire the right skills for new, emerging, and better jobs. By investing in their people and preparing them for the work ahead through continuous learning pathways and reskilling and upskilling opportunities, companies will not only demonstrate goodwill, but they will also ultimately serve corporate self-interest and survival.
Imagine the collective impact if employers were to invest a fraction of the $200 billion they spend annually on talent middlemen and instead invest those funds directly into their incumbent workforce. The leaders that begin “building” their existing talent—instead of always “buying” talent—will win the talent wars of the future and reap dividends on their intermediate- and long-term competitiveness.
Duncan: That certainly seems reasonable. So why are more companies following that approach?
Weise: Time is the biggest barrier—the biggest point of friction when it comes to companies allocating time for learning new skills.
Organizations often do not carve out time for reskilling or upskilling, and most workers do not have “time off” to develop new skills on their own. Employers must therefore embed more learning opportunities that are integrated into workdays—learning experiences that are hands-on, experiential, work-based, contextualized in the real-world and tied to clear performance outcomes. No skills-building initiative will work unless we solve for this limiting factor of time.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2021/02/27/why-mindset-matters-your-control-in-your-own-destiny/
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Why Mindset Matters: Your Control In Your Own Destiny
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Why Mindset Matters: Your Control In Your Own Destiny
. Pexels
John Hope Bryant knows a thing or two about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps.
From his own humble beginnings in Los Angeles, he’s become a thought leader on the issues of education, financial literacy, and strong family structure. His work has been recognized by five U.S. presidents, and he’s served as advisor for three.
Bryant is founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE, America’s largest not-for-profit and best-in-class provider of economic empowerment tools and services. He’s the author of three bestselling books.
His latest is Up from Nothing: The Untold Story of How We (All) Succeed. The book is especially relevant at a time of political in-fighting and racial and class divisions.
Rodger Dean Duncan: When faced with tough circumstances, some people fall into the “woe is me” victimization trap. What’s your advice to them?
John Hope Bryant: Whether you believe that you can, or whether you believe that you can’t, you’re right. So, as I like saying, it’s all about mindset.
Having a defeatist perspective like the one you mention defeats you before you ever even get started in life. It only hurts you. I can’t guarantee you that having a positive state of mind will make you a success, but I absolutely guarantee you that having a negative one will guarantee you failure.
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Duncan: There’s no doubt that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought heartache to a lot of people. But it’s also given people the chance to learn some important life lessons. What positives do you see coming out of the pandemic?
John Hope Bryant BK
Bryant: When have you ever had six to eight weeks, let alone six to eight months, to step off the grid of life and to reflect, to brainstorm, to reconnect with those you love, and to reset yourself? To reimagine your dreams that you have for your life? This is the hidden benefit of the Covid-19 period. With all of its devastating challenges, it’s also symbolic. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm first.
Duncan: What have you discovered to be the best path to adopting an “I can do it!” mind set?
Bryant: Practice is how you get anything in life. It’s about building personal habits and culture.
What is the culture in your family, on your block, in your community, and in our country? It is here, and I guarantee you that if you hang around nine broken people, you will be the tenth. This is also cultural currency. If you want to be an eagle, learn to hang around some.
Duncan: Employee engagement has been a challenge in many American businesses for decades. What are some best practices you’ve seen that really influence people to “own” their jobs and take full accountability for their performance?
Bryant: Employee engagement in the workplace speaks to culture, and as I firmly believe that culture is everything. The highest performing companies are those with the broadest and strongest employee engagement.
. BK
As KKR and Delta Airlines have done, I believe that a future model, and possibly even a partial upgrade on the “union model,” is the stakeholder model. No one attacks themselves, and few people wash rental cars. People protect and grow and are excited about things in which they have a stake. All of us have to be in this to win this. And we must understand that adversaries, especially China and Russia, benefit from Americans fighting each other. The stakeholder model, combined with the financial coaching model for America that HOPE Inside the Workplace model provides, is a model for the future that will work, and help to lift all boats.
Duncan: By many measures, there seems to be more divisiveness in American than most of us have seen in our lifetimes. What’s it going to take for us to get our act together and collaborate for the common good?
Bryant: The Bible says that “a house divided will not stand.” This is also common sense.
We need something that we can all agree on, and I believe that this “thing” is not the focus on red versus blue or the focus on white versus black or the urban versus rural agenda, but the unifying green—the color of U.S. currency, and likewise the color of our sustainability.
We need to focus together, on growing GDP and economic opportunity for all. I even believe that the best route to social justice (for Black America as one immediate example) is through financial inclusion and economic empowerment for all. Conversely, we can take no pleasure, that there is a hole in our boat. We are all in this thing called American progress together.
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ade113f67065f2b8cfd72569e73f230e
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2021/03/02/how-covid-is-teaching-some-leaders-how-to-lead/
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How Covid Is Teaching (Some) Leaders How To Lead
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How Covid Is Teaching (Some) Leaders How To Lead
As the adage goes, we can't always choose what happens to us, but we can always choose how we ... [+] respond. Never has that been more true than during the Covid pandemic. An expert explains what (some) leaders are learning. Pexels
Every day we see headlines on how Covid-19 continues to affect our lives. When, and how, will schools return to in-person instruction? When, and how, will businesses get back on track? What will the “new normal” even look like?
Regardless of their stations in life, people around the globe are sharing in the adversity. Some have certainly had a tougher time than others. But nobody has managed to avoid the impact of the worst health pandemic in any living person’s memory.
But there’s a silver lining. Challenging times can help people discover things within themselves that they didn’t know existed.
Dr. Joseph Michelli, bestselling author and internationally known organizational consultant, has used the Covid crisis as a case study in human resilience. To collect a treasure trove of stories about making the most of a bad situation, he contacted more than 140 senior leaders at companies like Google, Microsoft, Target, Verizon, Marriot and many others.
The result is his latest book. It’s aptly titled Stronger Through Adversity: World-Class Leaders Share Pandemic-Tested Lessons on Thriving During the Toughest Challenges.
In the first part of this interview, Joseph talked about the role of humility, compassion, and innovation in people’s response to the pandemic. Here he highlights the importance of empathic listening and self-awareness in a leader’s response to adversity.
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Rodger Dean Duncan: Mindful and empathic listening is always an important practice for leaders. Why is it especially important during times of adversity?
Michelli: During high-stakes communication events, active listening occurs through closed-loop approaches like “echoing.” For example, when a surgeon asks for a "#10 scalpel," the surgical technician completes the request and says "#10 scalpel" at transfer. In a crisis, word-level misunderstandings can be fatal.
Since adversity provokes emotional volatility, it’s also important to listen for the emotions behind words. Emotional listening (or empathic listening) provides context and an appreciation of the often-unstated wants, needs, and desires of the person you are serving.
Joseph Michelli .
Duncan: During a period of uncertainty (the Covid-19 pandemic certainly qualifies), many leaders have doubts about their personal adequacy. Psychologists call this the "imposter syndrome." What's your advice to leaders who question their own abilities?
Michelli: I am convinced that imposters are those who never question their abilities and who go to great lengths to act "as if" they have foolproof plans for every crisis. My advice would be to accept that every human being has doubts and fears, and the more we acknowledge our limitations, the easier it is to find people who have strengths to supplement our gaps.
Duncan: One of your chapter titles is "Bring Yourself to Work." What does that mean for leaders?
Michelli: In addition to self-awareness (which was the basis of my last answer), leaders also need to be transparent. Before the pandemic, many leaders conducted business from their boardrooms. Throughout the crisis, many were participating in videoconferences from their bedrooms.
My intention with the chapter title was to play off the theme of "bring your child to work" day. We used to "bring our children into the workplace," so they could see what we do away from home. As a leader, we need to let our teams’ peek into our lives beyond the workplace. While you can overdo personal disclosure, the pandemic prompted many leaders to see they were underdoing it.
For example, David Christ, Group Vice President and General Manager of Lexus North America, shared, "I've learned a lot about vulnerability during the pandemic. I typically didn't share much about myself or my family at work. I wasn't afraid of what others would do with the information. I just wanted to keep the focus on my team. Early in my work life, I had a boss who always talked about himself. I didn't want to be like him. However, early in the pandemic, I shared that my son has asthma and that I was worried about his welfare. In response, team members shared concerns for their mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, cousins, and even their own health. We talked about how we could ensure each person's comfort and safety."
Duncan: For leaders, what do you see as the essential steps for adding lasting value to their people and their organizations?
Michelli: Leaders want to have a meaningful impact. They don't want to spend extended periods of their career doing tasks that wash away like a sandcastle. So, the first step is to imagine you are leaving your current position and looking back at your contribution. What impact do you hope will remain? The answer to that question is your desired leadership legacy. Once you know your destination, the next step is to say "yes" to actions that move you in the desired direction and say "no" to those that do not. I should note that crisis actions will likely have a much larger impact on your legacy than actions taken in times of calm.
Duncan: You write about "leading from the middle." What exactly is that?
Michelli: In talking to leaders, it became clear that leaders needed to assume many different roles and postures throughout the crisis. I likened it to the varied leadership roles demonstrated in a wild horse herd. The herd has an alpha mare that leads from the front and sets the course toward the envisioned destination. The alpha sire leads from the rear and actively keeps the herd moving at the necessary pace. There are also many horses, leading from the middle of the pack. They are shaping herd behavior. During the pandemic, leaders found themselves shifting positions quickly from front to middle to back.
Leading from the middle means you only ask your team to do things you are willing to do. That's why Michelle Gass, the CEO of Kohl’s, told me she needed to be in the stores the day they re-opened from the lockdown.
Duncan: Among the dozens of leaders you interviewed, what are the most common practices for establishing priorities?
Michelli: I’ll share two recurring practices. The first was to focus on the "vital few." Those priorities were essentially mission-critical, “make or break” areas that required immediate solutions and flawless execution. Kevin Clayton, the CEO of Clayton Homes (a Berkshire-Hathaway subsidiary), noted, "We had to turn the tide on declining mortgage applications. To get that done, we made sure everybody in our organization knew the importance of dedicating their creativity to the task. Our teams then did their research, mined data, and gathered customer insights. Those inputs informed options, which quickly led to an innovative and hugely successful touchless solution that turned that mortgage application decline around."
The second common practice was to narrow priority timelines. Joe Haury, a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point and the Vice President of Global Logistics at Panasonic North America, explained, "In normal operating mode, especially in the corporate world, you might have weekly team meetings because your mission has a reasonably long lead time. In crisis mode and many military situations, your time horizon is that day. You have to ask, 'What must get done today to meet the mission?' So, when we first went into the pandemic, we immediately launched twice-a-day crisis meetings." Joe compared these calls to a military pre-mission operation meeting and a post-mission debrief. At Panasonic, the morning call would align leaders on the daily mission and ensure they could communicate the daily mission to their teams. The evening call assessed progress toward the daily mission and previewed the next day's mission.
. .
Duncan: In your research for your book, what examples of moral courage did you find?
Michelli: Rodger, there are so many examples, so I’ll pick just a few. I spoke with a police chief who had to place restrictions on the number of people who could attend the funeral of one of his officers killed in the line of duty. A healthcare leader talked about difficult decisions involving PPE shortages and developing processes so team members could use mobile devices to facilitate final goodbyes between COVID patients and their families. Brad Feldmann, CEO and Chairman of the Board at Cubic Corporation, protected employee salaries and averted furloughs while volunteering to have his pay cut. Moral courage was and continues to be quietly on display by leaders throughout the world in response to their organizations' challenges.
Duncan: What roles do appreciation and gratitude play in helping people cope with—and even benefit from—adversity?
Michelli: Frequently, leaders said it was difficult to show appreciation and gratitude in the throes of the crisis. In the best of times, leaders fall short when it comes to dolling out recognition. For example, a pre-pandemic Gallup study reported that only a third of employees had received recognition for good work in the previous seven days. A 2019 survey conducted by the employee success platform, Achievers, found "lack of recognition" was the third most common reason employees left a company (after compensation issues and career advancement challenges). When you added the chaos of crisis, leaders had to work even harder to celebrate the extra effort of team members.
Duncan: Do you expect appreciation and gratitude to play a larger role in the work[lace after the pandemic has passed?
Michelli: I am cautiously optimistic. However, I fear we may lose some of that perspective as things move in the direction of "normalcy." I wouldn't wish this pandemic on anyone, but since it darkened our lives, we need to cull as many positives as we can from it. An unintended benefit has been deepened respect, appreciation, and gratitude for those who matter most. It will be incumbent on all of us to continue to show our appreciation well into the future.
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540bbfaf380f9a68e6e8161db3ea60ab
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2021/03/09/does-your-culture-have-know-it-alls-or-learn-it-alls/
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Does Your Culture Have Know-It-Alls Or Learn-It-Alls?
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Does Your Culture Have Know-It-Alls Or Learn-It-Alls?
Research proves that culture is inextricably linked to organizational performance. Pexels
Culture, it’s been said, eats strategy for lunch.
Why does one auto dealership perform much better than another when both sell the same cars, have access to the same lending resources, and can hire from the same labor pool?
Why does one consulting firm continue to outpace a competitor when both have the same portfolio of services and access to the same kind of clients?
Why does one leader struggle to get top performance from the C-suite team, when the next leader manages to get world-class work from the same cast of characters?
Culture.
In each case a lot of variables are at play. But the common denominator is likely culture—the work environment that nurtures the commitment and ingenuity of real people doing real work.
Kevin Oakes, CEO and co-founder of the Institute for Corporate Productivity, provides some of the smartest counsel on culture that I’ve seen in a long time. He shares that counsel in Culture Renovation: 18 Leadership Actions to Build an Unshakable Company.
As author and professor Brené Brown has said, “the best playbooks are a combination of reliable research, relatable examples, and actionable strategies.” I agree with her assessment that Kevin’s book provides great insights on how to establish and maintain organizational cultures “that create competitive advantage, unlock performance, and rehumanize work.”
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Rodger Dean Duncan: In discussing culture change, you make a point of using the word “renovation” rather than “transformation.” Why?
Kevin Oakes: As we explored companies that have successfully changed their culture, it became quite clear that none of them “transformed” their culture. They didn’t do a complete tear down and rebuild. Instead, like renovating an old house, they kept the unique and hard-to-replace aspects and upgraded around them. While they often retained most aspects of their purpose and values, successful companies focused on changing aspects that would improve employer brand, consumer brand, and shareholder value.
Duncan: What do you see as the relationships between an organization’s culture and its performance?
Kevin Oakes .
Oakes: I’m a firm believer that organizational culture and financial performance are inextricably linked. In his first shareholder meeting as the new CEO, Satya Nadella said, “Our ability to change our culture is the leading indicator of our future success.” He went on to engineer what I consider to be example 1A of how to succeed at culture change, and in the process vaulted Microsoft to the most valuable company in the world.
A big reason this happened at Microsoft is that he and his team, including Kathleen Hogan who is the head of HR, rallied their culture renovation around some simple concepts, the most famous being Growth Mindset. Microsoft was previously a company that valued knowledge and intellect over everything else, and if you had critical knowledge you were quite powerful. That phenomena exists in a lot of organizations but is often damaging to culture. People hoard their knowledge as a protection mechanism and to wield power.
Duncan: How has this been applied at Microsoft?
Oakes: Using the concept of Growth Mindset, Microsoft changed to an attitude that knowledge sharing is power. To reinforce this, Satya very publicly declared he didn’t want a company with a bunch of know-it-alls. Instead, he wanted a culture of learn-it-alls, and continually stressed the importance of growth and development.
These cultural changes created an entirely different environment internally. And while my friends at Microsoft caution that culture change is never complete, the results are clear.
While I’m a believer in this culture-financial success link, I’m also realistic. Sometimes there are successful companies with poor cultures, or companies that previously had less-than-healthy cultures that improved it due to financial success. But those companies are very rare. When trying to lay the foundation for future financial success, building a healthy culture first is a much easier path.
Duncan: Many business leaders are educated in finance, law, or technology and may not have a particular affinity for organizational development issues. What’s your advice on their role with culture?
Oakes: First, don’t dismiss culture as too fluffy or esoteric. It’s one of the biggest reasons the organization will succeed over the long term or not, so if this area isn’t your forte then partner with experts. Typically, those experts are already in the company and in the HR department. If you don’t have strategic HR leaders, then get some.
Second, recognize that successful culture change is leader-led and supported. While creating a co-creation mindset internally is important to executing on culture change, if the leaders aren’t visibly supportive and committed to it, then it’s likely to fail.
. McGraw Hill
Third, keep in mind that most boards are asking for information and measures on culture. The National Association of Corporate Directors is pushing this and has stated that “Oversight of corporate culture should be among the top governance imperatives for every board, regardless of its size or sector.” As a result, boards are initiating the culture conversation and expecting culture metrics, and senior leaders need to be prepared. Boards are also actively seeking new directors with human capital expertise. The pandemic has accelerated this trend as boards realized they did not have the necessary HR skillsets among directors.
Duncan: How can leaders adopt a “growth mindset” that enables them to be effective champions of culture issues outside their (previous) expertise?
Oakes: All leaders contribute to culture whether they know it or not, and their influence is usually larger than they think. The question to ask is what is my contribution…am I improving the organization’s culture and making it healthier day-to-day, or are my actions doing the opposite? Once you honestly answer that question the next step is to listen to your team, your department or division, and the workforce. What are they saying? What is inhibiting their wellbeing, their productivity, their engagement? What will improve it?
Growth mindset is believing that everyone can learn and grow and adopting that learn-it-all mindset vs. being a know-it-all. The best leaders are constantly learning, so my main advice is explore and learn about the culture as much as you can.
Duncan: Genuine listening is clearly important in building relationships of trust and collaboration. And you make a particularly big deal about it. Why?
Oakes: The first step in culture renovation is to develop and deploy a comprehensive listening strategy. This is a big deal because executives often think they know the culture well. But usually they don’t. Information and sentiment are usually filtered the higher up the chain you go, and to truly understand the cultural nuances and issues you need to deploy sophisticated listening methods.
Newer technology utilizes Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence to allow employees to share their thoughts in their own words versus just picking answers from a list. And the system can correctly tabulate and categorize major themes, even in very large companies. We even counsel companies to analyze external sentiment on sites like Glassdoor and Indeed. This will provide a better, well-rounded view of the culture and better inform leaders what are the current strengths and weaknesses of the culture they have today.
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593b60aefcb5f68e0a18e7390343f905
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2014/09/01/whats-in-store-for-israeli-international-company-listings/
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What's In Store for Israeli International Company Listings?
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What's In Store for Israeli International Company Listings?
Investing in the Israeli banking sector was brought into sharp focus back in February when PFZW, the €140 billion (c.£115bn) pension fund for the Dutch healthcare industry, disclosed that it would undertake an "extensive review" of a decision by its pension fund manager, PGGM, to divest from five Israeli banks over what was cited as the banks’ involvement in financing Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The issue has been a hot one and certainly proved contentious as the Dutch pension fund received a load of flak including over allegations of its pro-Palestinian bias. It also sparked protests outside PGGM’s offices and the Israeli government even summoned the Dutch ambassador for talks.
By contrast ABP, the Netherlands’ €325bn civil service pension fund, announced late this August that it will not divest from three Israeli banks - Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi and Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot - due to their alleged involvement in the so-called occupied territories of the West Bank. Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican archbishop for South Africa and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, even stepped into the fray questioning whether ABP should remain invested in the banks.
Whatever the merits to the arguments the spotlight has certainly been thrown on responsible investing and investing in Israeli companies - be they listed domestically on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, in New York either on Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), or indeed London. As an investor you might want to examine the state of the play as regards what is on offer, international listing activity in these companies and how they been performing lately.
As of 11 July 2014 there were nineteen Israeli companies listed on the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) - up from fifteen in early March this year - with six on the exchange’s Main Market (including BATM Advanced, Emblaze, Frutarom Industries, one of the ten largest flavour and fragrance companies globally, and, Nomad Holdings), 10 on the London’s fledgling Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and one on the High Growth Segment (HGS) through Matomy Media Group, an Israeli digital advertising company, that recently had a market cap of £207.57m (c.$332m).
In total the combined market capitalisation of Israeli companies on the LSEG, which spans biotech, exploration, gambling, Internet, investment services, media, mobile telecoms and chemical sectors, stood recently £4.32 billion (c.$6.9bn).
So far this year there have been five IPOs by Israeli entities choosing London with Matomy Media (on 11 July), Marimedia Ltd (28 May), Nomad Holdings Ltd and Bagir Group Ltd (both 15 April), and, XLMedia (21 March). Their combined market capitalisation of £735.19m (c.$1,176.30m) equates to some 17% of the total market cap of the nineteen Israeli companies listed on the UK exchange.
Around sixty Israeli companies are listed at Nasdaq by comparison. These are companies that are headquartered in Israel and so does not include companies founded in Israel but with U.S. domiciles The total market capitalisation of Israeli listed companies on Nasdaq is north of US$30bn. And, currently Israel is the second largest foreign country represented on this U.S. exchange after China, which accounts for around 100 listings.
While there have been a number of delistings of Israeli companies in recent years on the London market and especially on AIM, this should not be viewed necessarily as being negative. In 2013 the LSEG saw 239 companies delist overall - irrespective of country of origin - and was a broad trend. Some reasons for delisting at the smaller end have included illiquid market conditions for shares in companies with capitalisations below £20m (c.$32m) and a requirement for AIM companies to have a so called nominated advisor (NOMAD).
However, it should be noted that at the height before the financial crisis there were around fifty Israeli company listed on the UK market. Today Israeli companies listed on AIM have various countries of incorporation including the UK, Israel, the U.S. and Jersey.
There have nevertheless been some notable success stories for Israeli companies in London. PLUS500, an AIM constituent and an investment services company that listed in July 2013, saw its shares trade at £4.61 (c.$7.38) as of 29 August 2014 - implying a market capitalisation of £529.63m based on 114.89m shares in circulation. The PLUS500 share price hit a 52-week high on 10 April 2014 and was up at around £7.07 (c.$11.31) - up a low of £1.23 (c.$1.97) last October.
Offering an online contracts-for-difference (CFD) retail trading platform in over fifty countries for customers PLUS500 has seen significant growth and reported 56,819 active users trading via its platform in 2013 - up 53% rise over 2012. Their maiden full year results saw a 207% increase in revenues to $60.7m for the three months ended 31 March 2014. The company’s trading platform is accessible from multiple operating systems (Windows, smartphones (iOS and Android)), tablets and the Internet. Though the share price is rich this might still be one stock to keep an eye on.
Playtech Plc, an Israeli software company founded in 1999 listed of the LSEG’s main market in July 2012 and as of late August had market capitalisation of around £2bn (c.$3.2bn). This March it announced the launch of its Live Games for Ladbrokes and its ‘Live Clickable Lobby Stream’ feature. The latter is touted as enabling “players to join live games from a real-time lobby stream with a single click.” Shares in the company have fluctuated over the past 52-week period at between £5.70 and £8.18 each, and were trading at £7.80 on 29 August 2014.
According to LSEG officials, Israeli companies and especially those in the IT sector were expected to see a strong year in 2014 for IPOs on the UK exchange. This is despite the recent £300m listing failure in April 2014 by Matomy Media after it fell short with investors in Europe. LSEG representatives asserted that this event did not reflect a lack of faith in Israeli companies. As it transpired Matomy decided listed a smaller amount of shares this July on the LSEG's High Growth Segment, which allows entrepreneurs behind fast growing companies to issue more shares when conditions are right.
Luca Peyrano, LSEG’s Head of Primary Markets for Europe, speaking during a visit to Tel Aviv back in April said : “There is a lot of interest and a growing trend for [Israeli] companies exploring the idea of coming to London to raise capital.” Declining to give exact numbers he nevertheless expected 2014 to see the “strongest level” of activity for Israeli companies since 2007.
While the London market is not awash with Israeli companies to invest in there are some interesting prospects. It is true that their track record has been mixed, but the hope is that with larger businesses coming to list in London with more robust business models the chances for success should be better - both in terms of the float and their longer-term prospects. As the summer lull comes to an end time will tell how many more list on foreign exchanges.
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f79a3e2c839345ef8b50513e31d87733
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2015/04/09/courier-industry-fedexs-bid-for-tnt-will-create-a-more-competitive-market/
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Courier Industry: FedEx's Bid For TNT Will Create A More Competitive Market
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Courier Industry: FedEx's Bid For TNT Will Create A More Competitive Market
US courier giant FedEx Corporation’s (FedEx) €4.4 billion (c.$4.8bn/£3.2bn) bid for Dutch rival package delivery firm TNT Express N.V. to expand its European operation has sparked a boost in courier company shares. A joint statement on the FedEx website from both groups states that a “conditional agreement on a recommended all-cash public of €8.00 per ordinary TNT Express share” had been reached - a 33% premium on TNT’s closing share price before the announcement came this April.
Coming two years after United Parcel Service (UPS) pulled out of a €5.2bn bid for the Dutch firm, both FedEx and TNT Express are confident that the deal should fly without much of a hitch. Alan Graf, FedEx’s chief financial officer, speaking on an analysts call stated that he was “very confident” in regulatory approval being secured.
The news was certainly good news for the respective share prices: FedEx shares up 3.7% in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange on 7 April while TNT shares up c.30% in Europe. And, it represented a hefty 42% premium over the average volume-weighted price of TNT Express shares of €5.63 over the last three calendar months.
NEWARK, NJ - DECEMBER 16: Workers prepare to offload an incoming FedEx plane at a FedEx global hub,... [+] one of only seven in the U.S., on December 16, 2014 in Newark, New Jersey. FedEx is expecting their busiest holiday season ever this year, with an estimated 290 million packages projected to be delievered between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Roger Sumner-Rivers, an industry expert and founder of pioneering internet couriers ParcelHero, which delivers fast, reliable and cost-effective courier services to over 220 countries, commenting says: “It’s not only the courier industry that will benefit, but it is customers that should ultimately be the real winner.” He also believes the resulting company, will lead to “stronger competition” within Europe and globally.
However, some industry pundits are warning that the takeover could fall foul of the European Union (EU) competition authorities, in the same way that UPS’ €5.2bn Euro bid did two years ago. But Sumner-Rivers contends that the FedEx-TNT merger is “significantly less likely to spark fears of a monopoly in Europe.”
Mr Sumner-Rivers commenting further says: “This merger will most likely succeed because FedEx and TNT are a shrewder fit than UPS and TNT were. They complement each other without overlapping significantly.”
He adds: “UPS’ primary goal in seeking to takeover TNT was to build on its already substantial European business, which would have resulted in the combined company holding an unassailable 30% of the European market. The FedEx TNT merger is far less likely to fall foul of EU competition authorities.” Let’s hope so. On a positive note here a FedEx-TNT tie up would command around 17%-18% of the market. That is a level below the 30% mark that could be a concern for the European regulators.
Since pulling out of domestic UK and European markets in 1992, then returning and taking over UK express parcels company ANC in 2006, FedEx has struggled to build market share, and this lack of scale has resulted in a higher cost base than its competitors.
“For a global company of FedEx’s size, this lack of presence in the world’s second largest express delivery market was a major strategic weakness and has remained its Achilles heel,” Sumner-Rivers points out. “The acquisition of TNT solves this problem in one fell swoop.
”’The networks complement each other perfectly he says. TNT was “sub-scale” in the Americas and parts of the Far East, whereas FedEx’s network is very strong, and TNT’s strong European network will help FedEx become a robust competitor to the dominant players - UPS and DHL. At least that’s the broad brush of the argument.
The deal should also give FedEx a lower cost base in Europe, enabling it to compete more effectively. And, acquiring TNT’s domestic operations will also help the combined companies FedEx UK domestic operation, which was formerly ANC.
That said, the huge merger might not be “without repercussions” according to Sumner-Rivers. The success of the deal relies on successful integration. This is one of the largest ever acquisitions in the parcels market. FedEx says they will be aggressive in their integration efforts and state it will take three to four years. What cannot be supported for any greater length of time are too many hubs and services overlapping in the same markets.
In the UK, FedEx is based at Stansted in Essex, with its FedEx UK (formerly ANC) domestic parcels hub in Newcastle under Lyme, while TNT operates a separate hub operation in Atherstone near Birmingham. These operations will need to be carefully integrated to ensure FedEx gains the benefit of scale without redundancies.’
In conclusion, providing that the two different businesses can be combined swiftly and successfully the acquisition would appear good news for businesses and individuals sending parcels in Europe and further afield. The scale of the new combined operation should provide DHL and UPS with some healthy competition too and keep prices down - without lowering standards.
I wonder though if a white knight might be out there to make a higher bid. The terms of the current takeover (FedEx/TNT) do allow a competitor to table an offer within the next eight 8 weeks and for the present deal to be terminated should any alternative offer surface. However, it would need to exceed the existing offer by 8%.
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9ca0b747c8065340fb9c7dcbb3a74b5f
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2016/01/21/blackrocks-first-israeli-etf-ishares-ta25-listing-on-lse-could-appeal/
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BlackRock's First Israeli ETF 'iShares TA25' Listing On LSE Could Prove Appealing
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BlackRock's First Israeli ETF 'iShares TA25' Listing On LSE Could Prove Appealing
Does the iShares TA25 Israel UCITS ETF from BlackRock , which became the first Israeli exchange traded fund (ETF) to list on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) this Wednesday and offers institutional and retail investors access to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange’s (TASE) flagship index, the Tel Aviv 25 Index (TA-25), merit investing in? It ticks certainly a few boxes.
As a total return and capitalization-weighted index (free float adjusted), the TA-25 represents the top 25 Israeli blue-chip companies by market value (although there are 26 constituents). So, if one wanted exposure to the Israeli equity market in an index format it would make perfect sense for sure.
And, given that the ETF is denominated in both Sterling and US dollars with it physically replicating the underlying index, it presents a cost-effective and clean way to buy and sell a basket of equities in one of the leading technology centers of the world.
A visitor sits in the entrance hall beneath an electronic display screen at the new Tel Aviv Stock... [+] Exchange (TASE) building in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Photographer: Ariel Jerozolimski/Bloomberg).
In this case ranging from leading Israeli banks ( Bank Hapoalim , named ‘Bank of the Year’ in Israel for 2015 by ‘The Banker’ magazine and the largest bank in the country, and Bank Leumi ) plus companies spanning basic materials, chemicals, pharma/healthcare and IT sectors.
The ETF (Tickers: TASE and ISRL) can be traded through the London Stock Exchange, with the bourse having an international settlement structure through Euroclear Bank. Susquehanna is the official market maker.
For investors elsewhere and in continental Europe, a version of the TA-25 ETF became tradable in euros this Thursday (21 January) on Deutsche Börse’s Xetra platform in Frankfurt. This development follows an offering from international derivatives exchange Eurex, part of Deutsche Börse Group, of an index futures contract based on the TA-25 that has been available since June 2014.
Yossi Beinart, TASE’s Chief Executive Officer, commenting for the Israeli exchange said: "The launch of this ETF will provide an opportunity for global investors to invest in Israeli economy through the TA-25 index. This unique collaboration will increase TASE's exposure to international investors, who are seeking ways to invest in the Israeli market.”
He added that the exchange will “continue to promote partnerships” with leading international financial institutions, be “responsive to local and global market needs” and develop new products. It could also be that the ETF might be listed on another exchange in Europe in the future.
Top Holdings & Sector Exposure
The top 10 holdings of the TA-25 ETF account for a little over 70% over the entire fund, with Teva Pharmaceutical (10.91%), which was established in Jerusalem back in 1901, Bank Hapoalim (9.15%), Bank Leumi (8.56%), Bezeq (7.88%), the largest telecoms group in Israel, and NICE Systems (6.01%) among the largest holdings.
Given that stocks in just two sectors - financial and healthcare - account for a combined 61.47% of the entire allocation breakdown according the fund factsheet at present, a potential investor one might question that in terms of whether they wanted this sort of level of sector concentration.
And, particularly when another seven sectors (Basic Materials, Telecoms, Oil & Gas, Technology, Industrials, Utilities and Consumer Goods) make up the virtually the remainder. Still, at least no single constituent stock/holding in the ETF will account for more much than around 10% of the overall fund going forward. Add to that there will be a rebalancing every six months.
Gillian Walmsley, the LSE's Head of Fixed Income and Listed Products, commenting in the wake of Wednesday’s iShares TA25 launch said: “The first London-listed Israeli ETF is a significant achievement for London Stock Exchange and for investors, allowing them the opportunity to have direct exposure to Israel’s dynamic, fast growing and entrepreneurial economy.”
She added: “London’s role as an international financial centre is mirrored in its ability to provide investors with access to asset classes around the world.” Indeed, this latest ETF listing came just a few weeks after the first IPO of the year on the LSE’s Main Market from Trendit, an Israeli IT firm that specializes in the population analytics and big data space.
TA-25 Index - Trading Level
Developed with a base value of 100 as of December 31, 1991, the TA-25 was trading in a range between 1,427.45 and 1,447.36 this Thursday. Barely changed from a day earlier when the TA-25 ETF launched, the 1-year to date (YTD) return is -1.29% and YTD return -5.81%. Looking further back, in early January 2014 the index was hovering at just over 1,300.
Hardly stratospheric, but then most leading blue-chip indices are way down right now from their recent peaks in 2015. For example, the UK’s blue-chip FTSE 100 stands -10.67% 1-year YTD and -7.51% YTD. So, you could say that the TA-25 index has been relatively resilient.
The iShares TA-25 ETF, which has a total expense ratio of 0.6%, was trading in London this Thursday at around $4.91 and £3.47 per unit. And, while initially trading volume in this ETF has been pretty thin over the first two days, it should be viewed as an investment product for the longer term in Israel’s national index. And, on that basis it could well offer appeal.
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be85ef604af73e4be98487dd7d426061
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2016/06/06/brexit-will-eu-companies-shun-trading-with-uk-smes/
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Brexit: Will EU Companies Shun Trading With UK SME's?
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Brexit: Will EU Companies Shun Trading With UK SME's?
European business will be forced to cut back on trade with the UK following a vote by Britain to leave (aka ‘Brexit’) the European Union (EU). New duties, border delays and transport costs will push EU-based SMEs into trading with fellow member countries and abandoning British markets, warns international parcel broker ParcelHero.
The UK-based courier operator, which partners with major players like DHL, Fedex and UPS and ships to over 220 countries, has revealed that its UK SME business customers “prefer to steer clear” of trading with European countries outside the EU, such as Switzerland and Norway, because of the complexities and expense involved.
And, the firm contends that British businesses will be “equally shunned” by EU companies, because they will be “too difficult to trade with”, should Britain vote to leave the EU in just over two weeks’ time on 23 June.
Of course, one might think that the whole Brexit debate has made the British public confused and simply boggle-eyed with all the welter of information and disinformation flying around.
New York-born British MP Boris Johnson talks to supporters during a 'Vote Leave' rally on June 4,... [+] 2016 in London, England, ahead the Referendum on EU membership on 23 June 2016. (Photo: Carl Court/Getty Images).
UK-listed pubs operator J.D. Wetherspoon, a member of the London Stock Exchange ’s (LSE) FTSE 250 that posted annual sales exceeding £1.5 billion (c.$2.17bn/€1.9bn) in 2015, has even taken to running an ‘EU Referendum Special’ in its latest summer magazine. Touted as being read by some two million of its customers, the issue contained fifteen pages of articles - out of 90 - putting the case for and against Brexit by the main advocates.
It might be viewed as a bit of an usual move by J.D. Wetherspoon and sanctioned by chairman Tim Martin, given the sheer weight of stories on beers, beer gardens, Swedish pear ciders and their coastal pubs in the edition. After reading the various viewpoints from top politicians and economists you might want a stiff drink.
In a double-page feature penned by Martin himself, he says: “The EU is fundamentally undemocratic, and that contention has not been challenged.” He added in a concluding remark: “Continuing to give away power to the unelected elite in Brussels is a dangerous and an unpredictable path.”
Brexit Impact on Investment Assets
Elsewhere, SyndicateRoom, an equity crowdfunding platform authorised and regulated by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority and a member of the LSE, just last week unveiled the results of survey assessing how the forthcoming EU referendum will affect individual investors. Canvassing over 3,000 individuals on their investment decisions based on the referendum, the majority believed that the UK leaving the EU would have a “negative impact” on their investments.
These findings revealed that around £2,025bn (c.$2,927bn) of assets will be at harm if the UK votes to exit the EU, with an average £81,000 (c.$117,000) of invested assets per capita. Almost 50% the investment at risk is believed to be in the property market, with £900bn (c.$1,301bn) of property investment expected to be at risk from a Brexit. Not exactly small beer.
Meanwhile, ParcelHero’s new report titled ‘Delivering Brexit’, which reveals that 66% of its customers who regularly ship items to European non-EU countries such as Norway and Switzerland, say they would prefer them to be inside the Union. “It’s a message UK SMEs cannot ignore”, the international parcel courier asserts.
David Jinks, ParcelHero’s head of Consumer Research in London, commenting says: “The same difficulties with tariffs, border delays, red tape and transport costs that now discourage UK SME’s from trading with Switzerland and Norway, are exactly the hindrances that will hit business between the UK and the EU post-Brexit.”
He adds: “The Swiss economy is held up by ‘Leave’ campaigners as the trading model for the UK post-Brexit. However, it’s a model riddled with more holes than a Swiss cheese.”
As an example, with Switzerland and Sweden having respective populations at around 8.37 million and 9.84m according to the latest United Nations estimates as of 6 June 2016, it might be expected that the same approximate number of parcels were despatched from the UK to these countries. Not so.
While the differential in the Swiss and Swedish national populations stands at some 17.5% today, ParcelHero found that its small business customers in fact shipped over three times more items to Sweden in 2015 than they did to Switzerland. So, on that basis one could argue that Switzerland would appear as a less attractive market for SMEs.
Though Switzerland is the UK’s tenth largest export market, this trade is largely led by large international companies specializing in chemicals, medical equipment and vehicles. As an aside, the country did not feature in the top ten import or export markets list for UK SMEs that was recently compiled by ParcelHero’s partners FedEx.
“The reason is not hard to fathom,” says Jinks, whose firm has produced information for shippers on the pros and cons of leaving the EU. “The costs of red tape, tariffs and border delays might be swallowed by large companies, but to smaller businesses they can be overwhelming.”
For instance, ParcelHero will ship a 10kg parcel to Italy for £16.14 (c.$23.25/€20.50) - before VAT and any surcharges - on its Economy Service through one of its major delivery company partner. But the cheapest cost to Switzerland, which is broadly the same distance and also in Europe - but crucially outside the EU - is £36.90 (c.$53/€46.80).
One might well ask why is there a difference of over £20 (c.$28.80/€25.40) in that scenario? The simple answer is that many shipping companies do not want to serve non-EU countries because of the complexities of border controls. This means that there is little competition between couriers, and those operators who do choose to deliver into Switzerland build the cost of delays and bureaucracy into their prices.
Transport costs are one of the reasons why consumer prices in Switzerland are 58% higher than in the UK. Take a typical pair of Nike shoes: it costs £59.36 (c.$85.40/€75.30) in the UK compared to £88.35 (c.$127/€112) in Switzerland.
“Obviously some of this extra price is because Switzerland chooses to tax items heavily to pay for public services, but a good portion is because of duties and transport costs. It gives some idea how much prices could rise in the UK post-Brexit,” says Jinks.
If nothing else, the lesson behind these figures “must not be lost” on the Brits and SME’s according to the ParcelHero spokesman. If his firm’s prognosis is correct, there is little doubt that EU-based SMEs will be swift to retreat in doing business inside the EU should Britain vote ‘Leave’ and hit the exit door. And, UK companies will might well find themselves side-lined, if not snookered from a trading perspective. It won’t be immediate, but the die would have been cast.
For balance though we should present a counter view on impact of a Brexit on UK trade at a more macro level. Gerard Lyons, a member of the Economists for Brexit, a group of eight independent and leading economists who are convinced of the strong economic case for leaving the EU, has stated that ‘Leaving’ the EU for the UK will not only good for business but will enable Britain to have “an outward-looking global vision.”
If we can believe the independent Economists for Brexit, overall the UK would be a net global trade winner. Lyons wrote recently in The Times that “for most goods, tariffs are low or non-existent because of globalization.”
He added: “There may be some limited losers in areas previously used to EU tariff protection.” The reality, he suggests however, is that the average World Trade Organization (WTO) tariff is just 1.04%, which is “more a business cost than a deterrent to trade.”
All that said, if it’s any consolation for British voters swamped with views on the impact of Brexit, nothing would immediately change over the first two years if the ‘Leave’ campaign triumphs and wins the day. However, such an outcome may turn out to be a pyrrhic victory.
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9110dd9ead1c75a358fd710dc4e00062
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2016/09/03/fatca-could-israeli-injunction-on-us-sovereignty-violating-tax-law-prompt-rethink/
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FATCA: Could Israeli Injunction On US Sovereignty 'Violating' Tax Law Prompt Rethink?
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FATCA: Could Israeli Injunction On US Sovereignty 'Violating' Tax Law Prompt Rethink?
Tax doesn’t have to be taxing. But the Israeli High Court’s temporary injunction against the enforcement of America’s controversial global tax law FATCA should serve as “a wake-up call” for other nations to rethink enforcing this “toxic, flawed and imperialistic legislation,” according to the boss of a leading independent financial firm that advises high-net-worth individuals (HNWI’s) and expats globally.
The striking comments from Nigel Green, chief executive and founder of deVere Group with around $10 billion of assets under advisement (AUA) that opened a new US hub office in Miami this August, comes as Israel’s High Court of Justice threw a proverbial spanner in the works over Israeli government plans on Wednesday to begin actively implementing the U.S.’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in the country.
Under FATCA, which came into effect in July 2014, all non-U.S. financial institutions globally are required to report the financial information of American clients and U.S. Green Card holders who have accounts holding more than $50,000 directly and routinely to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the United States.
US tax form with calculator and pen, over light and vintage tone. (Image: Shutterstock).
However, just days prior to this process being activated and going into operation in Israel, Justice Hanan Meltzer ordered officials to stop the preparatory work. Now an emergency hearing is scheduled to be held on the matter before September 15.
“Justice Meltzer’s action should be championed,” deVere’s Green asserts, who is an outspoken critic of FATCA. “His wise caution should serve as a wake-up call for other countries to rethink enforcing this toxic, flawed, damaging legislation that is being imposed on sovereign states around the world by the U.S.”
As a judge in the Supreme Court of Israel, by way of background Hanan Meltzer he has taught at Tel Aviv University and was part of the controversial decision by the Supreme Court back in 2009, to order the government to demolish illegally built Palestinian homes in the West Bank.
It should also be pointed out that Mr Green, a British national, has been a long-time and vocal critic of FATCA. The CEO points to “important questions” needing to be asked about what he describes as “the imperialistic nature of FATCA.” Strong stuff.
He is also known for not exactly sitting on the fence when it comes to expressing opinions on topics ranging from US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s mutterings (e.g. on ‘Trumpononics’) to the Panama Papers and tax havens.
FATCA could indeed be described as a “masterclass” in fiscal imperialism and unintended consequences. But also of concern is that the US is increasingly secret in matters of financial data. It’s no wonder some have labelled it “horrific” and a nightmare for financial institutions.
Financial Secrecy
For evidence, just take the Financial Secrecy Index 2015, which details global financial secrecy. Launched last November and attempting to shine light into dark places, it revealed that the U.S. has moved up from sixth to third place in the secrecy ranking - ahead of the Cayman Islands - with only Hong Kong (No.2) and Switzerland (No.1) ahead on the secrecy front.
That ranking might make one think (incorrectly) that America is a bona fide tax haven. It is worth also noting that an estimated that $21 to $32 trillion of private wealth is located in secrecy jurisdictions globally - untaxed or lightly taxed. No wonder the authorities want a slice of the action, so to speak.
Perhaps unsurprisingly there a growing trend and an overwhelming number of U.S. citizens are giving up their American citizenship (citizenship abdications), which has been revealed by the U.S. Treasury Department.
And, according to a survey conducted in early 2015 by deVere itself almost three quarters (73%) of Americans living overseas expressed the view that they were tempted to relinquish their U.S. passports.
They also found when canvassing over 370 its American expatriate clients that just under half (48%) would vote for a Presidential candidate who seeking FATCA’s repeal. This was against 29% saying ‘No’ and 23% ‘Don’t know’. So, that would seem to sufficiently take the pulse on US expat thinking.
Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that many U.S. citizens cannot even now hold a bank account in their country of residence since foreign banks routinely feel Americans are too much trouble due to FATCA’s onerous and costly rules in order to comply with and take them on as clients.
As regards the cost to banks around the globe to implement FATCA it has been suggested that it will run to billions of dollars a year.
Sovereignty ‘Violating’ FACTA
As Green argues: “Countries and foreign financial institutions (FFIs) have been coerced into complying with FATCA’s sovereignty-violating, expensive, burdensome and privacy-infringing regulations by the U.S.- or face heavy penalties. In effect, these countries and FFIs are now working as de facto agents of America’s tax authority.”
He adds: “It is claimed by its proponents that this law is designed to catch tax evaders who illegally shelter money offshore.”
This might be a noble aim, just as with the U.S.’ upcoming Section 871(m) regulation on withholding tax covering derivatives investments to be enforced in 2017 on non-US resident investors - aka ‘Aliens’. This particular tax regulation seeks to impose withholding tax of between 15%-30% on a range of derivative investments and income.
According to Green FATCA “cannot possibly tackle this extremely important global issue effectively due to its dragnet, untargeted approach.” Now where I have heard that line before? Oh, yes a whole host of financial regulations initiated by the European Commission. And, it once again underscores the disconnect between the regulators and the industry under the spotlight.
Unintended Consequences & 'Financial Pariahs'
Instead, he says what it does - due to its plethora of serious unintended adverse consequences - is to brand the some seven million Americans who choose to live and/or work overseas, including many of the 300,000 in Israel for example, as “financial pariahs”.
U.S. expats are now routinely rejected from FFIs, such as banks in their country of residence, as result of FATCA’s costly and onerous regulations. The upshot is that in Green's view Americans are now typically deemed “more trouble than they are worth.”
Rubbing the point in further he adds: “Similarly, American businesses working in international markets are now often branded with a leprosy-like status. Clearly, this can only be detrimental to their global competiveness and could, in turn, hit American jobs and the long-term growth of the U.S. economy.” Now that of course could well have far-reaching consequences beyond the US itself.
The Israeli High Court decision could represent a landmark moment in the fight to have what Green and others regard as a “controversial and damaging law that should be resigned to the history books.” It’s any guess whether Justice Meltzer’s latest action will encourage and influence more nations worldwide to reconsider FATCA.
Note: The US Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) website provides FAQs and answers on FACTA issues on its website.
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5c78fa7a5a07fd3dfb4e0876654a9a2e
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2016/09/30/bitcoin-fintech-unocoin-sets-1-5m-vc-indian-investment-record/
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Bitcoin Fintech Unocoin Sets $1.5M VC Indian Investment Record
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Bitcoin Fintech Unocoin Sets $1.5M VC Indian Investment Record
Bangalore-based Bitcoin start-up Unocoin has raised $1.5 million (m) in a Pre ‘Series-A’ investment round, a record high for any digital currency venture in Indian history. But while the founder’s vision is to “scale Bitcoin” to the masses and address a largely ‘unbanked’ nation, is it such a big deal really?
Well, it might appear on the surface it isn’t, except when one considers that India is a country where an estimated “50% are unbanked” due to a weak financial infrastructure according Simon Dixon, CEO of BnkToTheFuture that has invested around £62 million (c.$80m) for professional investors, Bitcoin Capital fund manager and crypto commentator.
Along with Max Keiser, founder of Bitcoin Capital and broadcaster, Messrs Dixon and Keiser are among domestic Indian and international venture investors in this fund raise. It includes lead investor Blume Ventures, headquartered in Mumbai that played a key role in leading Unocoin’s Pre-Series A round, Adam and Tim Draper’s Boost VC, Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group, Mumbai Angels, ah! Ventures, and FundersClub in San Francisco. So not too shabby then.
Digital Currency Group (DCG), which is based in New York City, supports Bitcoin and blockchain companies by leveraging their insights, network and access to capital. For DCG, their latest investment in Unocoin joins the US-based investor’s global portfolio of Bitcoin and blockchain companies spanning over 80 investments in more than 25 countries.
Stacks of bitcoins sit on top of a collection of U.S. dollar bills in an arranged image.... [+] (Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg).
Bitcoin In India
Bitcoin adoption is skyrocketing in India. But then given that is the second most populous country on earth with a population accounting for 17.5% of the world total (1,267,401,849 as of July 1, 2014), it might not come as such a surprise. And, with Unocoin being the leading bitcoin operator in India, it might appear well positioned to capture expected growth in this market.
Addressing the role of Bitcoin in the Indian economy, Bitcoin Capital’s Dixon, stated: “In India, 95% of the people do not have credit cards and 50% are unbanked due to the country’s poor financial and payments infrastructure. And, we believe Bitcoin has a role to play in India in the long term.”
In relation to the investment, Keiser, who is also StartJOIN’s founder, remarked: “Unocoin is leading the charge when it comes to bringing bitcoin to India. We are excited to be working with this world-class team and look forward to supporting their continued growth trajectory.”
The capital raised will primarily be allocated towards “scaling out” Unocoin’s business. It is understood that they plan to make a few strategic technical hires, make investments into technical infrastructure and further investing for security.
The Unocoin Story
Sathvik Vishwanath, Unocoin CEO and co-founder who has over 15 years of entrepreneurial experience building software systems in the financial and virtual reality industry, reflecting on the origins to the Indian bitcoin startup explained: “We started from my small hometown called Tumkur near Bangalore [in 2013] and our goal from the beginning was to make it easy to get bitcoin in India.”
A few years later on, they located their headquarters in Bangalore with over thirty employees, serving over 100,000 customers across the country and growing exponentially. “Given our steep growth rate, we’re looking to serve millions more in the coming years,” said Vishwanath, who holds an MBA in IT and Business from the University of Melbourne, Australia.
He added: “India has the largest gold, inward remittance, and IT markets in the world, all of which make it a perfect home for Bitcoin and blockchain technology. As such these are exciting times.”
Vishwanath, asserts that they have a clear vision at Unocoin - “Let’s Make Money Simple” - and indicated to Forbes that they are currently adding c.5,000-10,000 new customers each month on their platform.
According to Karthik Reddy from Blume Ventures, it was the belief in the team at Unocoin that encouraged Blume to participate. Reddy commenting said: “In Sathvik and team, we discovered not only the leading Bitcoin company in India, but a determination to educate all stakeholders, simplify Bitcoin’s usage, and bring another frictionless layer to payments and commerce.”
Blume Ventures expresses confidence that Unocoin will “further alter the landscape and make additional inroads into remittances and e-commerce in India.”
Commenting on their investment in Unocoin, Harshad Lahoti, Founder and CEO of ah! Ventures, who is at the helm of four companies in the financial services and consultancy space, said: “It’s no secret that usage of bitcoin is picking up rapidly and the concept has seen a warm welcome from freelancers and retailers in India.”
He added: “That’s when Unocoin, a venture backed by a strong team with industry acumen and a rocketing number of users, caught our attention. We believe Unocoin will continue to be one of the strongest players in India’s booming crypto-currency market.”
Other notable players in the space include BTCXIndia based in Hyderabad, Coinsecure, which was established in June 2014 and headed up by founder/CEO Mohit Kalra and one of India’s earliest and largest miners, and Zebpay with an office in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, which claims to be the “fastest and easiest way” to buy and sell Bitcoin.
Sunny Ray, co-founder and President of Unocoin, who has over 15 years of experience in business development in the robotics and financial industries, explaining the motivation for the startup said: “We started this company four years ago with the mission to bring bitcoin to billions. Bitcoin opens up a world that simply wasn’t possible before.
The electrical engineer who studied at the University of Toronto added that when they started they saw a “once in a lifetime opportunity to build out a secure platform for people to easily access bitcoin.”
Empowered with their current round of financing from many of the “best investors in the world” according to Ray, he boldly remarked that they believe that Unocoin is “strategically positioned to reach millions of people in the next few years.”
Going Forward
In the future, Unocoin believes that bitcoin has the “potential to take market share from gold, substantially reduce the cost of remittance and potentially bank the unbanked.”
He added: “When we first learned about Bitcoin back in 2012 we knew that Bitcoin was going to be a big deal. However, the question we kept asking ourselves, was: ‘How do we bring the benefits of Bitcoin to Indians while systematically protecting against the downside risks?’”
But in the absence of clarity, they were the first company in India to seek out and work closely with top techno-legal firm in the country, Nishith Desai and Associates. Furthermore, Unocoin were the first Bitcoin company in India to implement a comprehensive compliance and banking like framework to address these challenges.
Unocoin’s Vishwanath added: “We believe that we’re at the dawn of a new evolution where money itself is being reinvented. We love seeing so many of the smartest cryptographers, mathematicians, and computer scientists from all over the world working together to scale Bitcoin to the masses.”
Over the past year, the firm has been innovating swiftly. Evidencing progress, recently they launched a merchant point-of-sale (POS) app, a mobile trading app, an auto-selling feature for remittance users, systematic investment planning (SIP) to mitigate against volatility risk, integration with NETKI to simplify Bitcoin addresses, created an over the counter (OTC) desk for large traders, integrated with purse.io for discounts on Amazon, API for developers amongst other initiatives.
And, in the coming months and years, Unocoin aims to build practical, useful features and tools on top of Bitcoin. While following this fundraise Vishwanath revealed to Forbes that they are “not actively looking for additional funding” at this time, but if a “strategic investor is interested” in working with them they would consider such approaches. Carpe diem.
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0343a81d5bb58919791c82bb3fd811f8
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2016/10/16/rock-hall-of-famer-jerry-harrison-launching-red-crow-equity-crowdfund-platform/
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'Rock Hall Of Famer' Jerry Harrison Launching Red Crow Equity Crowdfund Platform
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'Rock Hall Of Famer' Jerry Harrison Launching Red Crow Equity Crowdfund Platform
Angel investor and ‘Rock & Roll’ hall of famer Jerry Harrison, most widely known for his work with the Talking Heads, is set to launch equity crowd funding portal Red Crow this November, which will initially target ‘social impact’ and healthcare/medtech sectors. There are also plans to expand into other verticals including cyber security, virtual reality, machine learning and potentially “environmentally focussed” investments.
The Milwaukee-born serial entrepreneur, an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame back in 2002 with fellow Talking Heads’ musicians David Byrne, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, is behind San Francisco-based Red Crow’s equity crowd funding portal launch that touts “exclusive and professionally-vetted investment opportunities” for both accredited (under ‘Title II’ designation) and non-accredited investors (‘Title III’).
Red Crow, which was founded last year, is setting out on a mission to enable investors to discover privately held, “early stage” companies in the healthcare/medtech and social impact sectors that require funding to grow their business, whilst aiding innovative companies to find investors.
Members of the Talking Heads, from left, David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison and Chris Frantz... [+] speak to reporters after being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, March 19, 2002, at New York's Waldorf Astoria. (Photo: Ed Betz).
‘Quality Not Quantity’ Investments
It’s worth keeping in mind that this is not a platform where one will find hundreds of investment deals. Instead the rationale is more about “quality over quantity” as the founders stress with Harrison’s motto “Invest in what you know”.
That said, in the space that Red Crow will start to target - medical device companies - the start-ups have the potential for “world changing breakthroughs”. Add to that security start-ups are projected to be poised to dominate a $170 billion market.
Panel Of Experts
By focusing on deals in these specific verticals and by performing a “higher level of due diligence” with a panel of industry experts including Dr Stephen Shaya, Managing Director of J & B Medical and a Red Crow board director, Harrison asserts that it offers a “safer alternative to other crowd funding platforms” currently available.
A roster of experts will share their knowledge of each of the featured companies and their potential for success with the crowd and in effect “curating” the investments. Specifically, Dr Shaya will act as the strategic advisor for the healthcare vertical.
The company’s philosophy is to provide investment opportunities to those fully in the space, with marketing initially aimed towards doctors, scientists, researchers, and other health care professionals. It will also offer access to the same deals to both traditional accredited investors and the unaccredited crowd, which will include Millennials and potentially the beginning of so-called ‘Generation Z’
Crowdfunding Platforms
As Red Crow’s chairman, Harrison, together with Red Crow founder and CEO, Brian A. Smith, a leader in the equity crowd funding space focused on specialized markets such as healthcare and social impact investments and former wealth manager at Morgan Stanley, claims that there is a “gigantic distinction” between Red Crow and other crowdfund platforms.
The pair contends that these latter platforms often function as “anything goes” markets with little or no level of professional vetting. With Red Crow matters will be different.
Joining them on the Red Crow board is Amanda Welch, a marketing expert with a Ph.D. in linguistics from Harvard University, who is currently Manager of Partner Programs at Nielsen in the San Francisco Bay area. Prior to Red Crow, Welch served as a media research scientist (2012-2013) at Google in Mountain View, CA, and before that as President/COO of Garageband.com, which MySpace acquired.
Initial Investments
The first featured deals include Stretch, a communications platform for based in Austin, Texas, that allows all family members from baby boomers to millennials to communicate with each other and discuss important family issues including health; Ixcela, a platform aimed at helping individuals measure and improve internal fitness; and, MiRTLE Medical, a company located in Boston, MA., that has developed MRI-based procedures to allow doctors to perform medical procedures that have never happened before through non-invasive monitoring.
Ixcela
Led by biochemist Dr. Erika Ebbel Angle who serves as CEO, and Dr. Wayne Matson, the company’s co-founder, Chief Scientist and considered a ‘father of modern metabolics’, Ixcela’s offerings are touted as helping to improve, track and maintain an individual’s internal fitness - enhancing gut microbiome health.
After analyzing your ‘Internal Fitness’ test results, Ixcela formulates a customized natural supplement program to optimize internal fitness. They despatch a new test kit every three months to measure progress and your profile page, making adjustments to the body’s changing needs.
MiRTLE Medical
Headed up by Jim Robertson, President & CEO, MiRTLE’s product is a custom designed diagnostic-grade 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) for use during MRI. It cuts down absorbed energy, thus eliminating any heating of electrodes, and deploys Magnetic resonance (MR), a non-invasive three-dimensional imaging technique.
The first customer for the device was John Hopkins Hospital, which bought a prototype for $40,000 and installed it this June for research into MRI-based arrhythmia procedures. Subsequently it was demonstrated an improvement in outcome from a 30% success rate to 80%.
In terms of the MRI compatible 12-lead ECG market, the company has interest and letters of support from major MRI suppliers including GE Healthcare and Siemens Medical. And, according to a 2016 estimate from Frost & Sullivan the US MRI installed base has been put at 20,000 units with a 3-5% CAGR.
Speaking from New York, Harrison, a founding partner in the VenEarth Group, a venture capital group devoted to climate mitigation focussing on sustainable agriculture and solar technologies, asked whether he saw himself as an ethical or socially responsible capitalist said: “Yes, I would concur with that. I know a fair amount about the environmental space.”
The Harvard graduate, who studied architecture, also sits on the board of directors of Carbon Gold, a bio char company based in Bristol, UK, and has contacts with the Social Association in Britain and Patrick Holden, the Sustainable Food Trust’s founding director who Harrison is a good friend of.
As an environmentally conscious technology investor, Harrison added: “Biochar is an important component in trying to deal with climate mitigation. And, one of the things that I learned in trying understand Biochar, a charcoal produced from plant matter and stored in the soil as a means of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, was that if one put less than half an inch of it on the land we could take out all the excess carbon since the beginning of the industrial revolution.”
While acknowledging that initiatives for climate mitigation will require both state and private action, he is very much believes that the “private market is essential to actually finding opportunities where people can both make money and also do something that is going to save the planet.”
California-based Smith, who prior to founding Red Crow served as an independent financial advisor from 2010-2015, worked with Registered Independent Advisors located in Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut.
With a foundation in marketing having gained a BA in Marketing from Franklin Pierce University, Smith joined a division of Abbott Labs as a pharmaceutical sales representative, marketing one of the best-selling pharmaceuticals in the US and winning recognition as a top performer in his sales region.
In terms of the minimum investment for Red Crow’s portal, Smith indicates that it could be in the range of $5,000-$10,000 for Title-2 accredited investors. However, he acknowledged that outside this space a figure of around “$25,000 is a sweet spot”.
Investors
Under Title II, companies seeking to raise money through the sale of securities must either register the securities offering with the SEC, or rely on an exemption from registration. Most exemptions from registration prohibit the general solicitation such as advertising in the newspaper, on the internet, etc.
However, Title II permits a company to employ ‘general solicitation’ to market securities offerings as long as they follow the rules and guidelines of Rule 506 of Regulation D. And, under this exemption the Internet or other mediums can be used to advertise security offerings. This gives a company the chance to attract a large number of new investors in a short period of time, but restricts the type of investors.
Red Crow’s CEO Smith explains here that: “When companies achieve success in Title II (accredited investors), they can then position themselves to initiate a Title III campaign, which does a few important things.”
“First, it of all gives Title III (non-accredited investors) the confidence to invest alongside accredited investors who have the capacity to their own diligence,” he adds. “Furthermore, Title III of the JOBS Act is a great opportunity for new investors entering the Private Equity world to invest with some direction, as opposed to going into it blindly.”
For the entrepreneurs, Title III, which took effect May 16 2016 serves two purposes: (1) It allows additional funds to be raised, up to $1m in 12 months; and, (2) More importantly it exposes their product or service to a much larger audience, helping with customer acquisition.
Smith points out: “Red Crow’s Discovery component was built for this, providing a spotlight on companies in early stages while positioning them to have the most success when entering either a Title II or III fund raise.”
Red Crow’s platform is set to launch officially on November 1 2016.
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43f28d8fbd420457e1b654f2b98656a7
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2016/10/30/flexihedge-launches-worlds-first-p2p-financial-betting-exchange/
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Flexihedge Launches World's First 'P2P' Financial Betting Exchange
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Flexihedge Launches World's First 'P2P' Financial Betting Exchange
As fintech start-up Flexihedge launched the world’s first financial betting exchange on the 30th anniversary of the ‘Big Bang’ in The City of London late this week, its founder expressed hopes for a “second financial Big Bang” to allow access to anyone - not just brokers or hedge funds - and take trends in screen-based trading and technology “to the next level”.
The phrase ‘Big Bang’, used in reference to finance sector, refers to the sudden deregulation of the financial markets that took place on October 27, 1986 in London.
This was the day on which the rules of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) changed. It is so termed due to the increased in market activity that was anticipated from an aggregation of measures designed to change the structure of the financial market. Many of the old broking firms were acquired by large banks - both foreign and domestic.
Flexihedge is to risk what eBay is to junk; a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) marketplace. Indeed, the London-based start-up is touting itself as the “eBay of financial market risk”. Now anybody - not just professional money managers - can buy and sell risk, anytime, anywhere, on any market, and crucially, on their own terms. So, individuals could pretty much place orders from their home or via a phone.
Josh Miller, Flexihedge founder and CEO, commenting in the wake of the exchange’s launch said: “Four and a half years ago whilst flicking through the book ‘Liar's Poker’ by Michael Lewis, I asked myself ‘if there was an eBay of risk - financial market risk - what would it look like?’.”
The former equity derivatives trader and a senior economist at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) added: “Flexihedge is one small step for share punters, one giant leap for the sharing economy. And as it happens, there has never been a more dire need to hedge, what with post-Brexit uncertainty, sterling volatility, the British government threatening the independence of the Bank of England, and a global hunt for yield that is at the very least inflating asset prices”.
Mat Luamanu of Harlequins rugby club opens the day's trading on the stock market at the 1801-founded... [+] London Stock Exchange, September 14, 2016. (Photo: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images).
Although not a bookmaker, the ‘house’ nor acting as a counterparty, Flexihedge as a ‘facilitator’ between parties becomes the fifth betting exchange in the UK licensed by the Gambling Commission in the UK. The other four are focussed just in the sports betting arena.
Miller reveals that he did have something of job attracting backing for his initiative, before a chance meeting an angel investor, Jignesh Patel, who became a shareholder in the venture, after a chance meeting.
By “democratising hedging” and broadening the scope of the sharing economy to risk, Flexihedge claims it is opening up a new dimension in P2P finance and what it describes as “peer-to-peer risk sharing”.
In doing so, Flexihedge aims to spark the second financial Big Bang. They even have even assigned a hashtag on Twitter (#BB2) for it. That said, it should be realized that Flexihedge is not a spread betting or CFD provider.
Essentially it applies the betting exchange concept that was pioneered by Betfair - to financial markets. Customers can ‘lay’ and ‘back’ odds on a pre-specified range of price outcomes (‘strikes’) and dates (‘expiries’), rather than make leveraged bets against ‘pip’ movements as with spreadbetting.
With Flexihedge’s offering intra-day price volatility during the interim and the risk of being stopped or wiped out is irrelevant.
So, for example, if you think as an investor that the gold price will rise over the next two weeks, you could take a spread bet position and in two weeks’ time you might actually be proved 100% right.
However, because with spread betting it works with ‘pip’ movements your account could be effectively stopped or wiped out in the next 30 seconds, if the price moves against you or in the opposite direction. By contrast, on a site like Flexihedge the only thing that matters is what the price of gold actually is in two weeks.
On Flexihedge’s platform, customers can: (a) ‘Make’ their own markets; (b) Go ‘Out of the Money’; and (c) Take longer-term fixed date positions - be it from one week up to one year ahead. None of this is possible via spread betting and CFDs.
It also enables customers to gain exposure to ‘hard-to-reach’ asset classes that are inaccessible through spread betting and CFDs. For example, Greek government bond yields. (Note: Flexihedge.com is optimised for mobile and is expected to be released shortly).
Stuck In A ‘Kodak Moment’
According to Miller the spread betting industry has seen this coming for “at least a decade”. Back in 2006, Cass Business School published ‘Whitepaper on Spread Betting’ written by Chris Brady and Richard Ramyar, which was commissioned by spread betting provider Finspreads.
David Buik, a veteran City commentator for brokers Panmure Gordon and formerly of BGC Partners, was at that time working for Cantor Index, another spread betting provider. He is quoted in the whitepaper as saying: “It is only a matter of time before the [betting] exchanges turn their full gaze on the financial markets”. That time would appear to have come.
The paper nevertheless noted that financial betting exchanges “have not had the same success as traditional spread betting or CFDs.”
Canadian-born Buik commenting in relation to Flexihedge’s exchange launch said: “The market has waited a long time for a financial betting exchange, which many participants will eagerly want to add to the arsenal of their dealing weapons to take on the vagaries of these tempestuous times we live in!”
Just like Kodak and the digital camera, that the “only reason” that none of the spread betting operators have moved into the betting exchange arena is “for fear of cannibalising their existing business model”. according to Flexihedge’s Miller.
Markets Covered
On Flexihedge, odds are presented in European decimal format, which means they include the unit stake (e.g. European decimal odds of 3.00 being equivalent to English fractional odds of 2/1). Customers can back as well as lay odds across a pre-set range include markets from currencies, commodities, stock market indices, share prices, bonds, alternatives, central bank policy rates and macro data.
Levels (or ‘Strikes’) can range from deep in the money to deep out of the money, while expiry dates can range from 1 week to 1 year (specifically This Friday, Next Friday and then the last Friday of March, June, September and December on a rolling basis). The furthest expiry date will always be four calendar quarters ahead.
Protection Of Customer Funds
All customer funds at Flexihedge are held not only in a fully segregated bank account, but are also protected by an independently administered corporate trust (Trustees are First Names Group - Isle of Man). This is claimed to the “best possible” form of protection available for customer funds and receives the highest protection rating achievable by the Gambling Commission.
Here Miller explains: “Many gambling companies will say they will hold your funds in a segregated bank account. That is not actually the strongest form of protection. We facilitate that as well, but then we have that bank account held and managed by an independently administered trust.”
As to the future, Miller indicated during a telephone interview that he is now seeking to “build critical mass in the UK market as quickly as possible”. That said, he thinks that to some extent there will a “certain amount of overlap” between Flexihedge’s new customers and the typical kind of spread betting customers (i.e. spread betting on CFDs (Contracts for Difference) on markets).
He reveals too that he is now working on a ‘Series A’ funding initiative and "potentially securing" a listing for Flexihedge on the LSE’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in the “next 12-18 months”.
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3f2ac3b50d029ceb0d9f6e26e825d7e8
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2016/11/01/blockchain-startup-tamtam-eyes-trillion-dollar-travel-industry-offering-crypto/
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Blockchain Startup TamTam Eyes Trillion Dollar Travel Industry Offering 'Crypto'
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Blockchain Startup TamTam Eyes Trillion Dollar Travel Industry Offering 'Crypto'
Is the travel sector ripe for disruption with blockchain technology? With a trillion dollar industry that estimates over a billion tourists per annum having suffered a lack of innovation for many years, startup TamTam Travels is now looking to “leverage the power of blockchain” technology and combine it with member benefits and discounts across a broad range of travel and related services.
The tourism and travel industry is one of the world’s largest industries with a global economic contribution - direct, indirect and induced - put at almost $7.6 trillion (trn) in 2014. While global international tourism revenue reached around $1.25trn that same year, the direct economic impact of the industry that includes accommodation, attractions, transportation and entertainment was c.$2.36trn. And, international tourist arrivals are forecast to surpass 1.8bn by 2030 - up 59% over 2014's 1.13bn.
Stepping into the breach is UK-based TamTam Travels with a business model of based on a membership portal, which offers discounts on benefits and services. This is not just while travelling abroad, but also locally whilst at home. And, potentially savings could run to hundreds - if not several thousand - of dollars.
Touting savings of up to 50% savings on groceries to fashion, and much more, from leading brands, it is also offering veteran travellers “exclusive access” to a personal assistant concierge service as well as airline lounges globally.
The startup, which is understood to be mulling a move to either Singapore or Dubai in the near future, estimates that up to $2,000 per annum of savings are achievable just on the exclusive offers that are available locally for day to day shopping excursions.
While there has been a recent flurry of tech and non-tech giants such as McDonalds, Samsung and Unilever all leveraging the power of the blockchain and the hacker to deliver an accelerated product role and strategy, there has to date been a relative paucity of innovation when it comes to the tourism and travel sectors. One could cite the last notable innovation in the area with Expedia and subsequently Airbnb.
Back in April this year Airbnb ‘acqui-hired’ the majority of the team behind ChangeCoin, a startup that ran a bitcoin-based micropayments service called ChangeTip, according to people with knowledge of the deal.
ChangeCoin was best known for enabling people to tip each other with bitcoin. The ChangeTip feature allowed individuals to tip each other with the crypto currency via social media channels Reddit or Twitter.
View of Beaches Turks & Caicos Resort Villages & Spa, September 26, 2016 in Providenciales, Turks &... [+] Caicos Islands. (Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images).
Member Benefits
Benefits and discounts offered by TamTam Travel go further than just hotels, flights and car hire. With such a portfolio it enables local benefits at home as well, this is a combo deal is described as benefitting all types of members.
As part of a pre-launch this November, this new blockchain technology travel startup is offering heavily discounted packages on memberships, with additional rewards of its ‘native’ blockchain currency - called the JIO Token - for purchasing memberships.
The one-year membership is priced at $350, while the five-year membership comes at $1,400 and is claimed to “average up to a 60% discount” compared to the official retail price and the main competitor in the space, US-based WorldVentures, the world’s largest direct seller of curated group travel with independent representatives in 28 countries.
Through TamTam Travel’s search engine, for example, members can search for daily, local and global discounts featuring over 300,000 of the world’s best merchants - including cruise packages at up to 40% discount. Membership also provides airport lounge access with complimentary pre-flight snacks and drinks, plus complimentary flight insurance up to $200,000 amongst a range of other discounts.
WorldVenture’s registration fee is $299 and $99.99 per month, which over one year equates $1,500. This compares with TamTam’s one-year membership of $400 and $1,500 over five years. With TamTam’s November ‘Special Promotion’ and rewards in the JIO Token on top this introduces mainstream users to the digital currency.
The startup’s initiative is to offer members a bonus in its JIO Token currency as a reward.
“These JIO Tokens can later be used towards the renewal of the subscription or traded on the secondary market. The goal is to eventually accept JIO Token against bookings for flights, hotels and other services in the members’ area,” explained Lee Grant of the Drachmae Travel Club, who is behind TamTam Travels’ venture.
Combined Efforts
The parties behind the initiative who seek to innovate the travel industry are a combination of Custom Travel Clubs, which was developed to address the need of increasing loyalty for organizations and their constituents, and the Drachmae Travel Club.
Headed up by CEO Mike Putnam, who in 1995 founded 11th HourVacations.com (one of the first online travel sites), Custom Travel Clubs offers organizations a 'turn-key' white label system of having their own travel club, which they can share with their customers, members and associates.
It has created a platform, which is housed via Amazon Web Services (AWS) for scalability and uptime. The members’ back-end (TamTam Travels) was financed was via the DT token of drachmae to offer support as partial payment.
JIO Tokens can be simplistically described as a “decentralized version of Airmiles” according to Grant. “However, it is not limited to a single use. TamTam Travels plans to introduce more services that will further enhance JIO Tokens,” Grant says. “The first of these will be Travel Money Services, which will include a pre-paid Visa or Mastercard that allows users to convert JIO Tokens to conventional currency.”
It was Grant who was involved in the Drachmae Project’s crypto initiative last year for the small Greek island of Agistri, a 1-hour ferry ride away from the port of Piraeus (Athens), which sought to boost business and tourism on the island in Saronic Gulf. And, if it’s anything to go by, the President of the Business Association of Agistri earlier this year stated that the island had seen an increase of 20,000 visitors in 2015 compared to 2014.
TamTam Travels accepts a number of crypto currencies for its Membership pre-launch, which ends on November 30, 2016. There are fifteen currencies in fact, which includes Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and NXT amongst others. The promotion period is limited to 1,000 Memberships together with the bonus JIO Token.
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ee50bfc06392aee9bbba82664a77300c
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2016/11/20/israeli-fintech-feelters-raises-2m-to-sell-retail-truth-scaling-up/
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Israeli Fintech Feelter Raises $2M To Sell 'Retail Truth' Scaling Up
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Israeli Fintech Feelter Raises $2M To Sell 'Retail Truth' Scaling Up
Feelter, a startup out of Israel that organizes social media and "curates product insights" for consumers online and led by an atypical tech entrepreneur who studied in the Far East, has closed a $2 million (m) funding round on a mission to become a major player and boldly "sell the truth".
The company, which was founded in 2014 by Smadar Landau, derives its base from philosophy. Living in the Far East for seven years - in China, India and Tibet - Ms Landau studied Buddhism. Following that stint overseas she made what is described as a "180-degrees turnaround" and went to study business administration back in Israel.
And, it's been a turnaround. An entrepreneur now with broad experience in business development, international marketing, fundraising and executive management of technology ventures, Landau returned to Israel and founded the School of Advertising (management studies) at Tel Aviv University. There she taught for four years and began consulting Israeli businesses on issues of marketing and advertising.
Feelter is the first initiative which she understood and saw as having huge international potential. And, she chose the United States as the focal point of her business activity. Having been accepted into the Mass Challenge Accelerator in Boston, from there things began to move swiftly.
The latest 'Series A' fund raising , which brings the startup’s total funding to $4m since being founded, comes on the heels of the company being named the winner of GMIC’s G-Startup competition in Israel as well as the winner of the global competition in Silicon Valley this September. The latter event witnessed the company scoop a cash prize award of $250,000.
Credit card payment for online shopping. (Image: Shutterstock).
Product Reviews
Deriving its name from ‘filter’ and ‘feelings’. Feelter aims to show that filtering content will provide the best mix of accurate and good reviews of products in the retail space.
It is touted as the only solution for online retailers that provides an “omnichannel, customer-centric reviews tool” by solving a major breakdown that occurs when consumers shop online. Furthermore, it is said to tackle the issue of many disingenuous reviews confronting consumers and floating around the cybersphere.
In order to make informed decisions, consumers clearly need hard facts along with authentic conversations. For example, in the automotive industry, consumers need information on fuel consumption, safety and information regarding the experience of driving. Consumers are said to benefit from these additional insights, save time and are more content with their purchases as a result of Feelter's service offering. The consumers of today are faced with a plethora of choices, often varying and fake reviews. The upshot can lead to a disconnect between what is written about a particular product and a consumer’s actual experience. In the past, it was possible to treat customers buying online and those buying offline differently. These days the separation does not exist. Indeed, when 82% of customers, as reported by research undertaken by Google, use smartphones in-store with the product on the shelf in front of them, to search for information about that product, or according to Sephora, a customer's first use of their mobile phone in-store for information on the product they're holding in their hands - the online and offline worlds have become 'fused'. According to Feelter this justifies the need to provide access to reliable, concise and relevant information on the website as well as instore via barcode scanning and an application. Take for example, a customer in a Best Buy store who is interested in purchasing a television. They often search for information on Amazon. "Feelter provides a more accurate solution for customers," Landau, the company's CEO and founder, asserts. "It prevents the need to migrate from Best Buy to its competitor Amazon. Amazon also has a financial interest. We'll keep it in the Best Buy environment, but present the genuine picture, as reflected in the conversations and insights on social networks." As to the evidence for solving the major breakdown referred to, Landau notes from recent in-house research : "We have multiple A/B tests in different verticals, mainly in the travel and automotive industries. Our average clients’ increase in time-on-site is 30% - with the range is 15%-60% depending on the initial metrics and implementation." And, in terms of conversion rates, she indicates that they have "seen a lift of 39.5% in the most extensive A/B test we’ve done so far."
New Funding Feelter will use its new funding to create a US base of operations, grow its team and expand its client base. They intend to open their US headquarters on the East Coast early next year, either in Boston or New York. “These locations are at the hub of our business development, sales and customer service activities,” Landau points out. “The East Coast is ideal for working with clients across the US and maintaining regular work hours for investors, advisors and our chairman, who are all based in Boston. Our world-class technology team will nevertheless remain in Israel.” The Investors As to the investors behind Feelter, the lead investor for this latest round is Boston-based Will Graylin, Global Co-General Manager of Samsung Pay and founder of LoopPay. He joins seed investor Dr Ilan Cohn of Reinhold Cohen & Partners, Israel’s leading patent firm. Dr Cohn manages the life science and chemistry department at the firm. Other key investors and advisors include: Investor/Board Member Gal Kalkshtein and Lital Kalkshstein - 'Final', Israel; Advisor/Chairman David Chang, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School, who previously led the PayPal Boston office; and, other advisors in the shape of Bill Schnoor, Partner, Goodwin Procter, Boston; Henry Ancona, Boston; and, Israel Ganot, MassChallenge Israel Managing Director. Chang, with an MBA from Harvard Business School, is a winner of the Boston Business Journal’s 'Power 50' and Bostinno’s '50 on Fire'. He is an influential entrepreneur with operating experience at five startups that have been acquired and an angel investor in some forty startups. Partnerships It is Chang who will focus on forming strategic partnerships for Feelter, leveraging his expertise and industry relationships with the goal to "grow the company scalably". Landau reveals that they have a "couple of partnerships" in the works. Some partnerships serve as distribution channels to increase exposure, enabling more consumers to experience Feelter. Others will improve the relevancy of the content and insights. And, they expect to announce several new clients in the first quarter of 2017. The company is currently focusing on seven key verticals: Travel, Electronics, Home Appliances, Auto, Health & Beauty, Kids, Sports & Outdoors. They effectively customize their solution for the larger, global sites with high traffic and offer an 'out-of-the-box' service for smaller clients. There is a single line of code that needs to be implemented on-site and within three minutes customers receive Feelter data and are able to receive service at the 'Amazon' level, including analytics, serving to illuminate and provide the tools to manage the products they sell, through their own frameworks and with greater understanding of the course that the customer takes on the website. For the mid- to large-size websites including enterprise, the company offers an embedded set of content directly within the website, assistance with applications and sales points, analytics, managing Facebook content pages - providing access to new information and recent photos, films and texts from social networks. On top of that the ability to present the leading social influencers for better or worse, the influencer - who gets the most shares and likes. How Feelter Works One might ask how Feelter actually achieves what it claims to do. Well, it culls product reviews from social media written by real humans and organizes and makes them accessible to consumers in one place. But many reviews are fake, lots of products look similar, and the list of issues goes on. “Shopping online is complicated. Consumers are faced with many options, but often find it hard to choose the right product and trust the reviews," says Landau. She adds: "Social media is flooded with information, from millions of people who have purchased products online, but the reviews are scattered in the cybersphere." Feelter organizes this content, helps retailers increase engagement and time spent on the website, and claims it makes shopping online an enhanced experience. Fake Reviews The company not only filters out fake reviews, but also inappropriate content and spam. The percentage varies by vertical, but usually "ranges between 60%-80% of the collected mentions" according to Landau. In order to calculate accurate relevancy and reliability scores, Feelter use a variety of techniques including pattern recognition, sentiment distribution analysis, and combine collected data on suspicious user behavior. "Our big advantage is the sheer quantity of the harvested data. If we’re not sure a mention is reliable...we just won’t use it," explains Landau. Feelter Technology By providing internet retailers with an embeddable widget, a highly customizable JavaScript package, that assigns each product, such as hotel rooms, cars or electronics a quality score of 1-10, Feelter aims to make shopping online more transparent and "empower customers" with information to make more informed decisions. Through this embeddable widget, Landau says: "Retailers simply need to add a line of code on their websites that references the script, together with some basic customization parameters." She adds: "Under the hood, this JavaScript calls our API, which is updated daily with the curated results of our system’s research, so the user interface and user experience can be customized further based on the client's needs." Retailers do not charge their consumers to use the service. When retailers and other websites add the Feelter widget onto their sites, Landau claims that they "experience higher conversion rates and increased user satisfaction". The retailers pay for the Feelter service, whose pricing is volume based and on the number of people who are exposed to and aided by the insights provided by Feelter. Algorithms
The company's algorithms combine meta-data with textual analysis for each mention to "determine its relevancy" to the consumer decision-making process. Their machine-learning algorithm takes into account the sentence structure, vocabulary, sentiment distribution, engagement meters (likes, dislikes, comments, shares, etc.), and produces a relevancy score that keeps growing better based on their visitors engagement and feedback.Feelter partners with major online retailers and provides a review feature and score, which is embedded on the partner’s website and easily accessible for consumers. Future Direction As to the strategy for the company over the medium to longer term, Landau puts it in some context saying: "As an early stage startup, we are 100% focused on expanding the team and developing a great product to help consumers make better buying decisions and improve our clients’ businesses. We believe that the truth sells. And, if we become the gold standard of trust, we’ll serve our consumers and clients well." Feelter's goal according to Landau is to build a "strong company and change the rules of the game" to create visibility and unique insights for consumers. She adds: "We're on the path to developing a sustainable, profitable company that creates value for the market, which may lead to a strategic acquisition or IPO if it enables us to make a better end product."
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cfc012210e411620a1959bb01cdfc4e1
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2016/12/28/u-s-tax-season-advice-what-to-do-before-the-tax-year-ends/
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U.S. Tax Season Advice & What To Do Before The Tax Year Ends
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U.S. Tax Season Advice & What To Do Before The Tax Year Ends
As the tax filing season approaches on January 23 in the United States, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in Washington has reminded taxpayers of things they should do to get ready. The tax season in the U.S. means mounds of paperwork with individuals and accounting firms often overwhelmed before tax returns are due in on April 18, 2017.
A myriad of IRS tax forms are used for taxpayers and tax-exempt organizations to file and report financial information to the IRS. These are used to report income, calculate taxes to be paid to the federal government, and to disclose other information as required by the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). There are in fact over 800 various forms and schedules.
For most taxpayers, December 31 is the last day by which to take actions that will impact their 2016 tax returns. Charitable contributions, for example, are deductible in the year made and donations charged to a credit card before the end of 2016 count for the 2016 tax year, even if the bill is not paid until 2017. Checks to a charity count for 2016 as long as they are mailed by the last day of the year.
According to a communiqué from the IRS published this month: “Taxpayers who are over age 70 ½ are generally required to receive payments from their individual retirement accounts and workplace retirement plans by the end of 2016, though a special rule allows those who reached 70 ½ in 2016 to wait until April 1, 2017 to receive them.”
The statement added: “Most workplace retirement account contributions should be made by the end of the year. However, taxpayers can make 2016 IRA contributions until April 18, 2017. And, for 2016, the limit for a 401(k) [a tax-qualified, defined contribution pension account] is $18,000. For traditional and Roth IRAs, the limit is $6,500 - if aged 50 or older and up to $15,500 for a Simple IRA for those fifty years of age or older.”
Taxpayers who have moved should tell the US Postal Service, their employers and the IRS, it was advised. And, to notify the IRS, mail IRS Form 8822, Change of Address, to the address listed on the form’s instructions.
Armando La Rosa directs people to the Liberty Tax Service office as the deadline to file taxes... [+] loomed on April 15, 2016 in Miami, Florida. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images).
Health Insurance Marketplace
For those taxpayers who purchase health insurance through the Health Insurance Marketplace, which is also known as the Health Insurance Exchange, individuals should notify the Marketplace when they move out of the area covered by their current Marketplace plan.
Each year the Marketplace, the place where people without health care insurance can find information about health insurance options and buy health care insurance, has an open enrollment period. Information via the IRS can be found regarding eligibility for help with paying premiums and reducing out-of-pocket costs.
The 2017 open enrollment period began November 1 and runs through January 31, 2017. To have coverage commencing on January 1, 2017, people had to enroll by December 15 this year.
Social Security Administration
As for name changes due to marriage or divorce, notify the Social Security Administration (SSA), an independent agency of the US federal government that administers social security, a social insurance comprising of disability, retirement and survivors' benefits, so that the new name will match IRS and SSA records. In addition, notify the SSA if a dependent’s name changed.
“A mismatch between the name shown on your tax return and the SSA records can cause problems in the processing of your return and may even delay your refund,” the communiqué stated.
Individual Taxpayer Identification Number
Effective January 1, 2017, any Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) not used at least once on a tax return in the past three years will no longer be valid for use on a return.
Furthermore, an ITIN with “middle digits 78 or 79” will also expire at the start of January 2017. Those with expiring ITINs who need to file a return in 2017 must renew their ITIN. But affected ITIN holders can avoid delays by starting the renewal process now.
“Taxpayers should allow seven weeks from January 1, 2017, or the mailing date of the Form W-7, whichever is later, for the IRS to notify them of their ITIN application status - nine to 11 weeks if taxpayers wait to submit Form W-7 during the peak filing season, or send it from overseas,” the communiqué stated.
It added: “Those who fail to renew before filing a return could face a delayed refund and may be ineligible for some important tax credits. For more information, including answers to frequently-asked questions, visit the ITIN information page on IRS.gov.”
It is worth pointing out that all ITINs not used on a federal tax return at least once in the last three years will no longer be valid for use on a tax return as of January 1, 2017. And, all ITINs issued prior to 2013 will begin expiring this year, commencing with those with middle digits of 78 and 79. For example, 9XX-78-XXXX.
Keeping copies of tax returns is clearly important since the IRS makes changes to protect taxpayers and authenticate their identity. Starting in 2017, taxpayers using a software product for the first time may need their Adjusted Gross Income amount from a prior tax return to verify their identity.
Taxpayers can learn more about how to verify their identity and electronically sign their tax return at Validating Your Electronically Filed Tax Return via the IRS website.
W-8 Series & Foreign Persons
The form W-8BEN, or the ‘Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding’ to give its full name, is used by foreign persons (including corporations) to certify their non-U.S. status.
The form, which needs to be updated every three years and can only be submitted directly to your withholding agent, establishes that one is a non-resident (aka ‘alien’) or foreign corporation, so as to avoid or reduce tax withholding from U.S. source income, such as rents on U.S. property, interest on U.S. bank deposits or dividends paid by U.S. corporations.
Late this November I received such a request from the brokerage firm through which I hold stocks, some of which are American. As my current W-8BEN form expires on 31 December 2016, it means that unless one renews you will become unable to hold or trade U.S. securities from 1 January 2017 onwards.
Therefore, if you are planning any investments in U.S. securities for 2017 and beyond, it is recommended renew your W-8BEN as soon possible before the 2016 year end. It’s also easy to forget about such matters at this time of year over the festive period. Also, should one not renew online or have done so via post the U.S. securities one holds will be sold.
A communiqué from my broker in the UK that is part of a Canadian firm read: “We’ll do this without further notice on or after 1 January 2017. We’re unable to say when this will be but you’ll receive the valuation that applies at the time we place the trade. If we need to sell your U.S. securities, online trading commission plus a £40.00 (c.$50) fee will apply to each sale we place.”
However, the good news here is that it is easy to renew and once completed trading U.S securities with your broker can be undertaken until the end of 2019.
Taxing Worldwide Income Of US Citizens & Residents
The U.S. federal and most state income tax systems tax the worldwide income of citizens and residents. A federal foreign tax credit is granted for foreign income taxes. Those individuals residing abroad may also claim foreign earned income exclusion and in order to qualify for the exclusion, the taxpayer’s tax home must be outside the U.S.
Additionally the taxpayer must meet either of two tests, namely; (1) Bona Fide Resident Test: where the taxpayer was a bona fide resident of a foreign country for a period that includes a full U.S. tax year; or, (2) Physical Presence Test: where the taxpayer must be physically present in a foreign country (or countries) for at least 330 full days in any 12-month period that begins or ends in the tax year in question.
Those citizens and residents living and working abroad from the U.S. may be entitled to a foreign earned income exclusion, which reduces taxable income. For 2015, the maximum exclusion was $100,800 per taxpayer and $101,300 for 2016, with future years indexed for inflation.
IRS Tax Forums & Filing
As part of the IRS’s on-going efforts to improve matters, IRS Tax Forums were held in five U.S. cities during 2016 with more than 10,700 tax professionals attending the three-day events held earlier this year in July, August and September.
The agency, which collects approximately $3.1 trillion in tax revenue each year and has around 90,000 employees and a budget of approximately $10.9 billion, has been developing a so-called ‘Future State’ plan, which envisions the taxpayer experience over the next five years and beyond. This initiative is designed to “improve the IRS’s ability to fulfill its mission in the years to come.”
They are seeking to enhance and expand their services for all taxpayers, to provide the services they need whether in-person or on-line. The objective is to make interactions with the IRS timelier and easier for taxpayers and tax professionals.
A central component of the plan is the creation of online taxpayer accounts as a new option through which taxpayers will be able to obtain information from and interact with the IRS.
“While technology and new service options are important parts of Future State, you can’t overlook the continuing need to have in-person service available to taxpayers over the phone and in-person,” John Koskinen, IRS Commissioner said commenting late this December.
He added: “Our hope is that expanded online options will provide help to taxpayers who prefer that option, while also freeing up valuable resources for people who need help over the phone or in-person.”
John Koskinen, commissioner of the IRS, speaks during a National Press Club luncheon in Washington,... [+] D.C., U.S., on March 31, 2015. (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg).
As part of the IRS’ Tax Forums this year, tax professionals received a demonstration of the online tax account application. In November 2016, the IRS went from the demo to an actual launch of the online tax account application on IRS.gov, which provides information to taxpayers with straightforward balance-owed inquiries in an easy, secure and convenient way.
This new ‘Finding Out How Much You Owe’ feature, paired with existing IRS online payment options, increases taxpayer self-service options. Highlighting early use for the online account, in around four weeks since its launch, taxpayers had checked their account balance over 76,000 times and used the new offering to initiate over 8,600 tax payments, worth over $27.6 million, through the Direct Pay feature.
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b3d0d04841687869760f4c65fd27b6ee
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2017/01/19/chronobanks-scores-2-7m-in-crypto-crowdfund-towards-laborx-exchange-launch/
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ChronoBank Scores $2.7m In 'Crypto' Crowdfund Towards LaborX Exchange Launch
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ChronoBank Scores $2.7m In 'Crypto' Crowdfund Towards LaborX Exchange Launch
Time-based cryptocurrency initiative ChronoBank.io, which seeks to disrupt the short-term labour-hire sector, is working towards launching an exchange in early 2018 where buyers and sellers of work can “trade skills for time and money”. The crowdfunded-back initiative, which ends next month, has attracted the equivalent of over 3,000 bitcoin (BTC) of investment to date.
As a blockchain initiative backed by major Australian labour hire and industrial training company Edway Group Ltd., which includes the Australian Government, GlaxoSmithKline, Royal Boskalis Westminster and the University of New South Wales amongst other clients, ChronoBank.io wants to “revolutionize the short-term recruitment sector” by creating decentralized mechanisms for employers to access and rank prospective employees.
The project, which is likened to how Uber has disrupted the taxi business and how Upwork represented an evolution in freelancing, was conceived back in June 2016 before concept development commenced last September. It has received $1.1m in venture capital funding from AXL Strategic Partners in Sydney, Australia, that adds to the support of Edway, one of ChronoBank.io’s founders.
HR & Recruitment Sector
The recruitment industry “is broken” according to ChronoBank.io, with intermediaries charging high fees to introduce suitable employees to businesses seeking to fill vacancies.
And, whilst this is generally accepted as the price of doing business for long-term appointments, it is contended that it can be “prohibitively expensive” for contract or freelance work.
“As such organizations can spend more time and money securing an employee than they do on the work itself”, the blockchain initiative asserted. The main professions being targeted by the start-up are within the building, e-commerce, industrial and warehousing industries.
Some out there might well concur with this view, while others may question ChronoBank.io’s ambitious plans. Still, who hasn't thought the recruitment business could do with a makeover and ripe for a right shake up? I can't surely be alone in that thought.
(Image: Shutterstock).
‘Labour-Hour’ Stable Coins
Initially, the first stage of the project has is to create and develop the financial backbone of ChronoBank.io, which are dubbed national 'Labour-Hour' (LH) tokens, which will are expected to launch between the second and fourth quarters this year depending on the territory in questions - from Australia to the UK, US and the European Union (EU).
Linked to the average hourly wages in the host country - be it the US (‘LHUS’), Britain (‘LHUK’), EU (‘LHEU’) or Australia (‘LHAU’) – these LH tokens, which are the most tradable resource in the real economy will effectively ‘tokenise’ the labour resource. They will be “hyper-liquid” and accessible 24/7 via the LH debit card.
Additionally, they are said to have “next to zero volatility in comparison to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies”, ChronoBank.io points out on its website (launched in November 2016). LH tokens will be “hyper-liquid” and accessible 24/7 via the LH debit card, while having stable prices in ‘fiat’ currencies (i.e. allowing users to transact while “maintaining AUD/USD/EUR/GBP-measured values.”).
LaborX - Decentralized Marketplace
The LaborX exchange, the second part of the project as it scheduled to launch in Q1 2018, is built on Ethereum’s smart contracts platform and capabilities. It will enable workers and businesses to connect on a ‘peer-to-peer’ basis.
According to a preliminary development plan from ChronoBank.io, for the different amounts of crowdfund sales the venture projects that a figure of between 10,000 and 20,000 bitcoin will be required to see a fully decentralized version of the exchange to be completed. It reveals that funds in excess of 20,000 BTC will be transferred to a security/guarantee fund and a liquidity fund to what is described “guarantee additional system integrity and stability.”
Using LaborX, organizations can buy labour directly - in much the same way that Uber connects drivers with those looking for a taxi, or Upwork allows freelancers to access work directly. A decentralized reputation system will also be included with LaborX, which will enable workers to be “rewarded in line” with their talent and experience - as opposed to a one-size-fits-all proposition.
Crowdfund Investment
Although ChronoBank’s crowdfund is still under way, with an end date in just under a month’s time of February 14 (23:59 UTC), it understood that a “significant proportion” of the critical work has already been completed.
The rewards contract, for example, handling the automatic payment of dividends for token-holders, has been created, as has the exchange contract that will allow trading between different token types on LaborX.
This exchange contract code has been implemented within the GUI (Global User Interface) of the ChronoWallet, allowing users to view offered rates and make trades quickly and easily. It is also possible to view amounts of LH tokens to be transferred in ‘fiat’ equivalents, and to switch between different currencies.
So far the fund raising exercise that has interested 1,581 investors has already raised around 1,200 BTC as well as significant quantities of other cryptocurrencies: Ethereum (ETH - 22,981), Litecoin (LTC - 2,666), WAVES (219,018) and NEM (10,785,712) since it commenced. But the numbers are a moving target.
TIME Tokens
As regards the distribution of TIME tokens, this will split 88% for the crowdsale, 10% for the ChronoBank.io team and 2% for advisors and the earliest adopters/contributors. TIME token holders will be rewarded with issuance fee every time a new LH (Labour-Hour) token is issued on any blockchain, with the issuance fee schedule being 3% in 2017, 2% in 2018 and 1% from 2019.
For more information on the concept behind this initiative, a 9-page white paper titled ‘A Non-Volatile Digital Token Backed By Labour-Hours’ can be found on ChronoBank.io’s website.
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b18a8aa0f0505cca63332203ec4ea858
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2017/03/21/slack-meets-tinder-matchpool-launching-crowdfund-for-dating-scene-disruption/
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'Slack Meets Tinder' Matchpool Launching Crowdfund For Dating Scene Disruption
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'Slack Meets Tinder' Matchpool Launching Crowdfund For Dating Scene Disruption
Matchpool, the incentive-based community platform that is touted as allowing anyone to open their own “matchmaking pool”, is to launch a crowdfund campaign later this month in a move described by the blockchain start-up’s CEO and co-founder Yonatan Ben Shimon, a former hedge fund manager, to disrupt the dating scene on a “global scale.”
In the run up to the start of the crowdfund, which is scheduled to commence on March 25, the company has also announced that Hermione Way, Tinder’s former head of European communications, brand consultant and digital marketeer, has joined the Matchpool advisory board.
As an advisor, Way who has appeared on has appeared on media channels including BBC World News, NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, and TechCrunch, will provide guidance on global communications strategies while the company works to modernize the centuries-old matchmaking profession.
Dating services as a market, which comprises segments spanning online dating websites, dating apps and matchmaking and dating coaches, has been estimated recently to be a $2.5 billion business in the U.S. alone according to a report by Marketdata Enterprises Inc. Online services are cited to account these days for around 70% of the market's value.
Whilst at Tinder, which is part of Nasdaq-quoted Match Group Inc. that also owns dating platforms like OKCupid and Match, she helped grow the brand across the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, Spain and Italy. Commenting in the wake of her appointment she said: “By combining blockchain technology with incentive-based matchmaking, the company has great potential to be a major player in the online dating industry.”
Like a ‘Slack meets Tinder’, Matchpool allows individuals to create ‘pools’ - similar to Slack Channels or Facebook Groups - to facilitate connections among friends and niche communities. The blockchain-based service has the grand aim to disrupt the multi-billion dollar dating industry and modernize the centuries-old matchmaking profession.
The 'Tinder' app logo seen amongst other dating apps on a mobile phone screen. (Photo: Leon... [+] Neal/Getty Images).
And, I’ve been wondering for a while when blockchain technology would be harnessed and applied to the dating market. After all, Decent, a blockchain content distribution platform in Switzerland founded by Slovak techs focussed on media and entertainment sectors, last October gained support from the adult entertainment industry (through producer Naughty America), backing blockchain technology in an effort to fight piracy. Open-Source, Decent's platform utilizes the blockchain to ensure what it touts as "trust and security."
Commenting on why Shimon, who studied at Bar-Ilan University (BIU) in Israel, got involved in this project in 2016 and feels it can work against what is already out there on the market, said: “I noticed that all the people in the world have a universal truth. Something that we all value and incorporate into our life. And, it doesn’t matter if we are Japanese, Chinese, American, etc. We all need and rely on trust.”
Citing a Ted Talk where Rachel Botsman spoke on 'The Currency of the New Economy Is Trust’, he added: “Trust is hard to gain. It’s earned. Matchpool’s currency is also trust and that trust is the cryptocurrency, Guppies.”
That according to Shimon, who managed a long-short securities hedge fund and has managed a portfolio of crypto currencies in recent years, is what the current online dating platforms don’t have. Namely, the community, trust and rewards for extending yourself to help others.
“Since it’s on a blockchain, there is also trust in the technology and fairness of rules/payments,” added Shimon who holds a BA in nanotechnology from BIU, one of Israel’s leading universities located in Ramat Gan. “In addition, on the Matchpool platform, anyone can create essentially a dating site. I want to do to dating platforms what wordpress did to blogs.”
Current Dating & Matchmaking Model
As regards to what, if anything, he and his team feel is wrong with current dating or matchmaking model and how blockchain technology can change things, Israeli national Shimon reflected: “There isn’t anything extremely wrong with online dating, except for the lack of immediate human connection. But it can be much better.”
Revealing that he moved from being a hedge fund manager because he felt that he “didn’t bring enough value to the world” and wanted to create something that solves a problem, he added: “It can be less expensive, involve more trust and create more meaningful connections before people actually meet in person. Furthermore, it is expensive to open a dating site for a niche community, so the only sites that survived were the ones we hear about today.”
The Matchpool CEO indicated that they want to enable anyone to create and foster connections and moreover “enable anyone become a matchmaker - and get paid for it!”
The former hedge fund manager who worked in Tel Aviv in that role added; “Matchpool is mimicking more of how the real world communicates - via trust - not via swipes. Meeting people due to common interests in pools on Matchpool where you have someone else interceding on your behalf already immediately cuts down the barriers of online interaction.”
The beauty about a blockchain he asserted was that it “allows for peer to peer interaction” and for individual rules or contract creation “without a middleman micro-managing things.”
It is understood that the dating foray is just the first use case for Matchpool’s endeavours. “We see endless opportunities,” asserted Shimon.
On this note he posited: “Have you ever wondered if the introduction you did actually turned into something fruitful and what if you were compensated for something like that? Connections and community are part of who we are and to have that on a blockchain seems natural.”
According to a recently published Matchpool whitepaper (dated March 20) jointly written by Shimon and co-founder and Solidity developer Philip Saunders that described the platform as a “decentralized matchmaking protocol” to help as many participants as possible to find love, it stated that it can also be used “as a more generic platform for any kind of paid membership community”.
Matchpool’s Crowdsale & Guppy Token
Turning to the upcoming four-week crowdfund, participation is encouraged by the platform’s Guppy token (GUP). Matchmakers on the platform can earn ‘Guppies’ for successful matches, while individuals can earn Guppies for their participation.
And, it all comes as Hermione Way joins a Matchpool advisory board that already includes JDate founder Joe Shapira, Ethereum CTO and Co-Founder Dr. Gavin Wood, Steem CEO and Co-Founder Ned Scott, and CoinFund Co-Founder Jake Brukhman.
Matchpool’s crowdsale is officially slated to begin at 13:00 GMT this coming weekend (Saturday) for its GUP token, a cryptocurrency created to fuel incentives on the platform. The funding is capped at $5 million (m) Ethereum (ETH) equivalent, which is the market price measured against the US dollar at the time of the crowdsale.
Then when Matchpool launches, GUP tokens will be used as deposits for opening pools and as rewards for creating matches. Token holders will then be able to trade or sell their GUP on reputable cryptocurrency exchanges.
Power Hour
The first hour of the crowdfund campaign has been dubbed a ‘Power Hour’, during which 1 ETH will be exchanged for 120 GUP. Thereafter the price will altered to a ratio of 110:1 and remain there for three days. Thereafter it will decrease to 100:1 and two weeks later adjusted again - to a level of 90:1.
Once the $5m of ETH equivalent is raised, the smart contract will stop accepting new exchange. And, at the end of four-week crowdsale period – should it be needed - token transfers will be locked for one month.
The Roadmap
Although Matchpool reveals that the total supply be 100 million (m) GUP tokens, during the actual crowdfund itself 60m units will be sold. The total amount that will exist at the beginning is set at 80m, with all the user incentive tokens to be distributed over the first two-year period.
The start-up’s whitepaper presents too the elements of the platform. This spans Ethereum smart contracts, which handle the “trust-sensitive ownership” and reward structures, as well as the core game logic that makes it work. Let’s hope it’s totally secure in the light of the Madison Ashley website hack.
A two-year roadmap is also laid out for launching and scaling the network, including a detailed specification of the Guppy token, which will play an integral role in its development. Having honed the vision for the platform last December, after the crowdsale is completed is expected that the release of the production platform worldwide will be rolled out this summer in August. Happy dating.
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0e76a13315520307f677b820fd318dcf
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2017/08/17/how-the-blockchain-is-disrupting-the-art-economy-as-we-know-it/?utm_campaign=CTRL%20ALT%20DELETE&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter
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How Blockchain Technology Is 'Disrupting' The Art Economy As We Know It
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How Blockchain Technology Is 'Disrupting' The Art Economy As We Know It
Vincent Van Gogh, Sammy Davis Jr., Edgar Allen Poe and William Blake. What unites this list of stunning artists in their various fields? All of them died penniless, victims of an artist and patron society that largely ignored the artist while appreciating the art. Now some start-ups are stepping up to redress the balance.
Indeed, if we take Sammy Davis as an example, it is incredible to think that he made $50 million (m) singing, dancing and cavorting with the Rat Pack. Yet by the time he passed away he was impoverished and deeply in debt to the U.S Internal Revenue Service. And following his death, Davis’ estate lost all rights to his name, image and music.
While these artists are now gone, many artists today are in the same position - making genuine works of art - but barely able to survive from their earnings as an artist.
The reason for this disconnect between greatness and monetary gain is the difficulty of centralized patrons. In the nineteenth century the patrons were rich barons and dukes, able to afford to keep artists on the payroll for their own pleasure.
In the 21st century, the patrons are centralized corporations, keeping artists on the payroll for financial gain. Yet much of the best art never produces monetary gain, either for the artist or those who promote them, because corporations take the bulk of profits. And, it would probably shock many fans to discover just how little artists make from the corporate structures that control their work.
Music streaming media concept. (Image: Shutterstock).
How Big Are The Art & Music Markets?
According to The Art Market Report, which is issued by The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) each year during its 10-day March event in Maastricht in The Netherlands, this year the art market was sized at c. $40 billion (bn).
While this is a big number produced by TEFAF, whose findings are regarded as something of bible for costs and trends in the world’s art market, the figure shrunk from last year’s $60bn figure. This decline of around $20bn was accounted for by a change in the metrics used in measuring the art market by the new economist and report’s author, Rachel Pownall, Maastricht University professor of art market & finance.
Moving over to the music business, according to the IFPI Global Music Report (formerly called ‘Recording Industry in Numbers’) published this April, the global recorded music market saw revenues grow by 5.9% in 2016, which represented the highest rate of growth since the IFPI started tracking the market back in 1997.
And, with total revenues hitting $15.7bn, 112m users of paid streaming subscriptions driving streaming revenue growth of 60.4% and digital income now accounting for 50% of global revenues, there would seem much to disrupt. Their report, which contains comprehensive data for nearly 50 territories, is one indicator of the state of play.
Separately, a forecast from statista of global music industry revenues worldwide from 2012 to 2015, as well as a forecast for 2016 to 2021, indicated that revenues will grow from $45.5bn in 2012 to just over $57bn in 2021.
However, despite the growing market for music services, the present bureaucratic system of labels, artist managers and distribution services are argued to have largely choked the smaller artist who unable to negotiate sponsorship deals with big brands, and who rely on direct artist-to-fan sales.
Add to that centralized streaming platforms can take up to 80% of the entire revenue stream, which clearly has an impact on many small artists. Consequently artists today are forced to rely on monopolized streaming platforms such as Spotify, which pay as little as $0.0003 per play. While established artists that rely on tours and sponsorships can handle this, smaller artists out there who have a fan base of a couple of thousands simply struggle to survive on this tiny revenue stream.
Blockchain Art
So enter Blockchain technology, a system designed to distribute the centralized management of data. The technology that supports Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and is now being used to decentralize other industries as well.
Given that the blockchain is a distributed ledger and completely secure and transparent, users are able to be connected to each other without the centralized hub of a corporation. Simply put, management has been replaced by machines.
In this new decentralized world, art has been one of the first and greatest use cases. Artists who otherwise would have been forced to use a large-scale centralized company to distribute their work are now able to distribute work in a decentralized way, and to receive rewards for their creations without profit-skimming corporate structures in place. And, are there entities seeking to disrupt matters, although whether they can succeed in their endeavours is another matter.
Monetizing Internet Content
WildSpark, for example, is a new decentralized platform that allows videos, text and other content to be shared between users. The platform is the first application built by a team at Synereo and is designed to create a system where artists can upload and offer content, be rewarded for that content monetarily. And, all without the need for a corporate structure.
The system is built on blockchain technology and uses a digital currency called AMPs. Currently worth about $0.23 each, AMPs are used to reward content creators and can be given to creators in order to have access to download or share their content.
Users are able to give AMPs as a way to reward creators monetarily, while creators are allowed to use the digital currency as a way to buy attention from users. The more AMPs, the greater attention a video, article or other content piece receives. Well, that is the logic.
By using this monetized system, a market for attention is born. Content creators have a way to upload, distribute, and advertise their creation, and users (‘curators’ in the WildSpark ecosystem terminology) are able to reward creators they appreciate, and also benefit themselves as content is accepted.
Artists are able to promote their latest works - in whatever medium - and receive compensation directly and nearly instantaneously via the tokenized, decentralized ecosystem created by Synero’s AMP model.
The tech team behind the Synereo/WildSpark development. (Image: Synereo). (Source: Synereo).
Industries Ripe
Other industries - from the music business to entrepreneurs in the Virtual Reality (VR) space amongst others - are getting in on the act too. The need for decentralized systems to distribute artistic content is clear. Companies are taking advantage of the blockchain system to create new and exciting ways to share other content as well.
Another organization, Opus Foundation (Opus), has begun offering a way, via their digital tokens, for musicians to upload new music without the cost of paying YouTube, Apple or Spotify.
Touted as a “decentralized music-sharing platform”, Opus claims to address the issue of music ownership and sharing in what is described as “an infrastructure and protocol level” by leveraging the speed of a novel Interplanetary FileSystem on the Ethereum blockchain. (Note: A recent 42-page whitepaper on the concept behind Opus looks at the issues being addressed and outlines the technology and the project's roadmap).
Here users of the platform can also download and enjoy the music anywhere in the world, since the blockchain allows for a fully secure network of ownership. Some 97% of profits are funneled directly to the artists themselves - all in real time. It sounds all too good to be true.
Founded by ‘Forbes 30 under 30 winner’, Mateusz Mach, a 20-year old Polish serial entrepreneur from Gdansk, Poland, this company created as a simple but highly effective tool for artists and users alike. Removal of centralized music platforms will help to produce greater freedom for artists, greater openness and availability for users, their mantra goes.
It was Mach who founded his first start up whilst still in middle school, unveiling his app, Five, and raising around $150,000 finance in the process from venture capitalists in his homeland - not Silicon Valley. This app essentially allows people to send one another custom hand signs, akin to what rappers do. With that slug of capital he wanted to turn Five into the ‘world's first sign-language messenger’ for deaf people.
Mateusz Mach, Co-Founder and COO of OPUS, created the world's first sign language messenger while he... [+] was in high school. (Photo credit: Five-App PR). (Source: Five-App PR).
Likewise Cappasity, based in Santa Clara, California, has a stated mission to “make 3D digitizing as easy as photography”, has created a system that allows artists creating 3D imagery to monetize their content and share it via their tokenized ecosystem.
In all these scenarios, companies are seeing that, by utilizing blockchain technology, artists and content creators are able to get paid for the work that they are doing, while at the same time incentivizing others to find it.
The decentralized system that blockchain provides creates a platform where management is ‘machined’, and profits are kept. The future applications may be limitless, as the patron economy for art is destroyed by the power of blockchain as some protagonists contend. It’s all rock ‘n’ roll. Carpe diem.
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bb90f1c4070a00fd0b80bd8397796bdb
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2018/01/16/ibm-forges-global-joint-venture-with-maersk-applying-blockchain-to-digitize-global-trade/
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IBM Forges Global Joint Venture With Maersk Applying Blockchain To 'Digitize' Global Trade
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IBM Forges Global Joint Venture With Maersk Applying Blockchain To 'Digitize' Global Trade
IBM, aka "Big Blue," and the Danish business conglomerate A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, also known as Maersk, have announced plans to form a joint venture to provide “more efficient and secure methods” for global trade using blockchain technology. Maersk has activities spanning transportation, logistics and energy with over 80,000 employees globally
The venture, which as a new company will be headquartered in the New York metropolitan area, has named Michael J. White, former president of Maersk Line in North America, as its CEO. And, once regulatory approvals are granted, its aim will be to offer a jointly developed “global trade digitization” platform built on open standards and designed for use by the entire global shipping ecosystem.
As such, it will seek to address the need to provide greater more transparency and simplicity in the movement of goods across borders and trading zones. After the joint venture begins operations, solutions are expected to become available in a “limited capacity within a few months” according to an IBM spokesperson.
The move comes amid the cost and size of the world’s trading ecosystems continuing to grow in complexity with in excess of $4 trillion of goods shipped each year. Today more than 80% of the goods that consumers use daily are carried and transported across the oceans by the shipping industry.
Given that the maximum cost of the required trade documentation to process and administer many of these goods has been estimated to reach around a fifth of the actual physical transportation costs, addressing cost reduction in this area could yield significant cost savings.
Indeed, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF) by reducing barriers within the international supply chain, global trade could increase by nearly 15%, boosting economies and creating jobs.
It was back in 2013, Bernard Hoekman, then Director of the World Bank’s International Trade Department, in a communiqué accompanying a WEF report in collaboration with Bain & Company and the World Bank released to coincide with the Davos forum, noted: “Supply chain barriers are more significant impediments to trade than import tariffs. Lowering these barriers will reduce costs for businesses, and help generate more jobs and economic opportunities for people.”
An IBM logo sits on the side of an 'Ollie' self-driving electric bus at the CeBIT 2017 tech fair... [+] last March in Hannover, Germany, during the annual expo that showcases leading edge technologies in the digital world. (Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg).
Leading edge technologies in the digital world are showcased in this annual event
The attributes of blockchain technology are said to be ideally suited to large networks of disparate partners. A distributed ledger technology, blockchain establishes a shared, immutable record of all the transactions that take place within a network and then enables permissioned parties access to trusted data in real time.
Since 2016, IBM has worked with clients across financial services, supply chain, government, retail, digital rights management and healthcare to implement blockchain applications.
Highlighting Big Blue’s efforts, which have around 1,600 staff working in blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) across all areas and sectors,
Last month they announced that together with Walmart, Nasdaq-listed Chinese retailer JD.com and Tsinghua University they would collaborate on a food safety alliance in China using blockchain for greater safety and tracking within the food supply chain.
Prior to that in October, they unveiled a cross-border payments venture in Toronto at SWIFT’s annual SIBOS event with a Silicon Valley firm to use blockchain technology initially for the South Pacific nations. And, collaborations in the space have been initiated with a number of exchanges including the London Stock Exchange Group and Memphis-based The Seam amongst others.
Blockchain & Global Trade Processes
By applying the technology to digitize global trade processes, according to the joint venture partners a “new form of command and consent” can be introduced into the flow of information, thereby empowering multiple trading partners to collaborate and establishing a “single shared view” of a transaction - without compromising details, privacy or confidentiality.
Together with Maersk, the largest container ship and supply vessel operator in the world since 1996, the parties will use blockchain technology to power the new platform.
In addition they will employ other cloud-based open source technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and analytics, delivered via IBM Services, in order to help companies move and track goods digitally across international borders.
Shipping containers sit stacked on the container ship Maglebi Maersk, operated by A.P. Moller-Maersk... [+] A/S, as she sits docked at the RWG container terminal in the Port of Rotterdam in Rotterdam, Netherlands, February 27, 2017. (Photographer: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg).
The Partnership
Over recent years IBM and Maersk, a global leader in container logistics, have partnered on various technologies to improve the way goods travel through the global supply chain. In June 2016 began a collaboration to build new blockchain- and cloud-based technologies. The implementation of these technologies, including cloud and analytics solutions, has helped Maersk build new capabilities that has helped to enhance its operations.
It was back in June 2016 that Maersk, a global leader in container logistics, and IBM, a leading provider of blockchain, supply chain visibility and interoperability solutions for the enterprise, began a collaboration to build new blockchain- and cloud-based technologies.
Today blockchain technology opens up an entirely new set of possibilities and an innovative opportunity to engage the entire global shipping ecosystem. As such the companies will jointly bring the new platform to market with both companies providing intellectual property and supporting the commercialization of the technology.
It is understood that IBM will provide software development, technology and services support with ‘Big Blue’ to host the platform on the IBM Cloud. “Both companies will resell the technology and lend their industry expertise in supporting and on boarding customers,” an IBM spokesperson indicated.
Manufacturers, shipping lines, freight forwarders, port and terminal operators and customs authorities should all benefit from these new technologies - and ultimately consumers.
Upon receiving regulatory approvals, the joint venture will be established and Maersk and IBM will onboard new ecosystem partners for testing purposes and as offerings from the joint venture become generally available. The intent is to scale quickly to onboard new network members. The board of the venture itself will form when the joint venture becomes operational upon the regulatory clearances.
The platform is designed for the networks that make global shipping run. In terms of how the different parties be connected, the idea is that the parties that already work with one another can join together into a network that runs on the platform and more easily share information in a secure and permissioned way on the blockchain.
Vincent Clerc, chief commercial officer at Maersk and future chairman of the board of the new joint venture, commenting said: “This new company marks a milestone in our strategic efforts to drive the digitization of global trade. The potential from offering a neutral, open digital platform for safe and easy ways of exchanging information is huge, and all players across the supply chain stand to benefit.”
He added, “By joining our knowledge of trade with IBM’s capabilities in blockchain and enterprise technology, we are confident this new company can make a real difference in shaping the future of global trade.”
IBM’s Blockchain Platform
As a recognized as the leading enterprise blockchain provider, IBM operates a number of blockchain-based networks running live and in production. It was an early member of Hyperledger, an open source collaborative effort, which was created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies.
The cloud-based IBM Blockchain Platform, which is provided through the IBM Cloud and powered by Hyperledger Fabric 1.0, delivers the end-to-end capabilities touted to give clients the ability to quickly activate and successfully develop, operate, govern and secure their own business networks.
As a result, the platform is claimed to enable hundreds of clients and thousands of developers to “build and scale active networks” across complex use cases, including cross border payments, supply chains, and digital identification.
Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president, IBM Global Industries, Solutions and Blockchain, stated: “Our joint venture with Maersk means we can now speed adoption of this exciting technology with the millions of organizations who play vital roles in one of the most complex and important networks in the world, the global supply chain.”
The executive, who and has been listed as one of Fortune Magazine’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and holds a Master of Commerce from the University of South Africa, posited: “We believe that blockchain will now emerge in this market as the leading way companies seize new untapped economic opportunities.”
Since mid-2016 when IBM and Maersk collaborated to build new blockchain- and cloud-based technologies, multiple parties have piloted the platform including DuPont, Dow Chemical, Tetra Pak, Port Houston, Rotterdam Port Community System Portbase, the Customs Administration of The Netherlands, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The joint venture is being described as now enabling IBM and Maersk to “commercialize and scale” their solutions to a broader group of global corporations, many of whom have already expressed interest in the capabilities and are exploring ways to use the new platform.
Names in the frame include General Motors and Procter and Gamble to streamline the complex supply chains they operate, as well as freight forwarder and logistic company, Agility Logistics, to provide improved customer services including customs clearance brokerage.
Customs & Government Authorities
It is understood that additional customs and government authorities, including Singapore Customs and Peruvian Customs, will explore collaborating with the platform to facilitate trade flows and enhance supply chain security.
The global terminal operators APM Terminals, which is based in the U.S. and also operates globally, and PSA International, located in Singapore that conducts work with shipments from around the world, will use the platform in what is described as a way to “enrich port collaboration and improve terminal planning.”
With support from the Guangdong Inspection and Quarantine Bureau in China and by connecting to its Global Quality Traceability System for import and export goods, the platform can also link users to important trade corridors in and out of China.
To address specific needs of the industry, Maersk and IBM are establishing an advisory board of industry experts to help further shape the platform and services, provide guidance and feedback on important industry factors, and drive open standards.
Commenting in the wake of the news, Michael J. White said: “Today, a vast amount of resources are wasted due to inefficient and error-prone manual processes. The pilots [tests] confirmed our expectations that, across the industry, there is considerable demand for efficiency gains and opportunities coming from streamlining and standardizing information flows using digital solutions.”
He added: “Our ambition is to apply these learnings to establish a fully open platform whereby all players in the global supply chain can participate and extract significant value.”
Initially the new company plans to commercialize two core capabilities aimed at digitizing the global supply chain from end-to-end, namely:
(1) A Shipping Information Pipeline: This provides a dashboard that allows users to securely publish and subscribe to data without using a third party system of engagement.
It also lets users search for and drill down into a specific shipment or group of shipments and allows information to be exchanged via a common connection - instead of numerous point-to-point integrations. Plug and play publish/subscribe services will be provided to all actors in a supply chain to securely and seamlessly exchange shipment events in real time.
(2) Paperless Trade: This will digitize and automate paperwork filings by enabling end-users to securely submit, validate and approve documents across organizational boundaries, thus helping to reduce the time and cost for clearance and cargo movement. Blockchain-based smart contracts ensure all required approvals are in place, helping speed up approvals and reducing mistakes.
For more information about the joint venture between IBM and Maersk can be read via this link.
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05b7168d83a798ae3141decdcd0ebf8d
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2012/06/28/sell-with-simplicity/
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Sell with Simplicity
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Sell with Simplicity
Information (Photo credit: heathbrandon)
What's the most important thing you can offer potential customers to move them from being interested to actually purchasing your product? A new study described in the Harvard Business Review suggests that it's simplicity.
The single biggest driver of stickiness, by far, was “decision simplicity”—the ease with which consumers can gather trustworthy information about a product and confidently and efficiently weigh their purchase options. What consumers want from marketers is, simply, simplicity. [From To Keep Your Customers, Keep It Simple - Harvard Business Review by Patrick Spenner and Karen Freeman.]
The article cites an example of two approaches to selling cameras to web searchers: one firm provides visitors access to extensive information about each of its products, while the other focuses on the user's needs and steers the user to the most appropriate product. The latter approach would be far more successful in today's marketplace, say the authors.
Decision Simplicity Index
The study showed that the "decision simplicity index," a measure of ease of accessing the information needed to make a decision, was highly predictive of sales success:
Brands that scored in the top quarter in our study were 86% more likely than those in the bottom quarter to be purchased by the consumers considering them. They were 9% more likely to be repurchased and 115% more likely to be recommended to others.
They identify three major factors that simplify consumer decisions:
Navigation - Ease of gathering information Trust - How believable the information is Comparison - Ease of weighing options
Easy Navigation
While every site can benefit from obvious paths to desired information, the best sites will attempt to determine consumer intent from information like search terms used by the visitor. If the consumer can be steered directly to information relevant to their stage of the decision process (e.g., initial product research or final product selection), they will be more likely to stay engaged with the site.
Trustworthy Information
Oddly, perhaps, the information consumers find most trustworthy isn't impressive research or detailed product data. Rather, it's commentary from other consumers in the form of reviews, descriptions of intended use, etc. If your site lacks this type of content, it may seem less trustworthy even if the brand itself is respected.
Weighing Options
Choices take a toll on our brains. As I described in More Choices, Fewer Sales, and Mega-Branding: The Purple Oreo Problem, offering consumers more choices can reduce actually reduce sales. Sometimes, of course, many products are necessary to serve specific needs and market segments. The solution, according to the authors, is to provide an easy way to compare products and quickly find the one that is most appropriate.
For years, we've heard about KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. This study shows that advice is still highly relevant in appealing to the digitally aware consumer.
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ac8584d7cfc8913dcad9255f04831034
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2012/09/04/sam-adams/
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Sam Adams' Secret Weapon
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Sam Adams' Secret Weapon
Beer drinkers drank 60% more slowly from a straight glass
Most of us probably don't think much about the shape of the glass we use to drink a beverage. If we're having a beer in a bar or restaurant, it will likely come in a tapered pint glass, a flute-shaped glass, a mug, or sometimes a glass branded with the name of the chosen brew. We SHOULD pay more attention, because new research shows our rate of consumption is dramatically affected by the glass that beer is served in.
A team of generous researchers from the University of Bristol decided to serve up some free brews, while (unbeknownst to the lucky subjects) carefully monitoring how long it took the average drinker to finish their beer. There were two glass designs used: a fluted glass which is wide at the top and has a curved taper to a narrow bottom, and a straight glass with vertical sides. What they found was startling.
Each subject was poured a 12 ounce beer, equivalent to a standard U.S. bottle or can, which gave them a full glass. It took subjects drinking from straight glasses nearly 12 minutes to finish their beer, while those drinking from fluted glasses took just over 7 minutes. (See the detailed data here.)
Curved Glass Obscures "Halfway" Mark
In an effort to determine why the beer drinkers polished off the fluted glass so quickly, the researchers ran a few additional experiments. They tried half-full glasses (or half-empty if you're pessimistic), and didn't find much difference in rate of consumption. Another test showed that it was more difficult for the subjects to estimate where the halfway mark was in the curved glass. From this data, the researchers concluded that the subjects were setting a rate of consumption based on their progress through the glass, and drank the beer from the fluted glass more rapidly because they mis-estimated that progress.
Soft drinks were consumed at an equal rate in both glass styles.
This research explains why so many locations that serve beer don't use straight glasses. I always assumed the reason was aesthetics, but, by design or luck, most establishments gravitate toward curved or tapered beer glasses.
Sam Adams Perfect Glass
A while ago, US brewery Samuel Adams introduced what they think is the perfect way to serve their beer: the Samuel Adams Boston Lager Glass. The glass has a bulbous top which, they say, is meant to preserve the head, concentrate the aroma, and maintain the optimal temperature.
Based on the Bristol research, this glass might deliver another benefit: beer consumed at a much faster rate. I don't know if the "two years of scientific research and thousands of hours of taste tests" conducted by Sam Adams demonstrated the consumption rate difference measured by the Bristol researchers, but to me the glass looks like at least some of the design benefits will accrue to the brewer!
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a6d8624663e6cba696ef58772d8878d9
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2013/02/14/makers-mark/
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Did Maker's Mark Commit Brand Suicide?
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Did Maker's Mark Commit Brand Suicide?
Maker's Mark - Now with more water!
For the last few days, the world of whiskey has been buzzing about the decision to cut the proof of Maker's Mark bourbon from 90 proof to 84 proof. [UPDATE: After several days of public flogging, Maker's Mark has reversed its decision to water down its signature bourbon.] In an interview, the distillery's chairman emeritus, Bill Samuels Jr., said that they had erred in their sales forecasts and diluting the bourbon was the best way to meet demand.
What Samuels is saying, in essence, is, "We're selling all the bourbon we have, so to increase unit sales we're going to water it down a little."
Our customers won't notice
It gets worse. Samuels goes on to say that Maker's Mark customers won't notice the difference. That may be a true statement for most customers, particularly those that drink their bourbon in cocktails. Indeed, Samuels says their professional tasters couldn't tell the difference, though he didn't elaborate on the tasting procedure. The problem with this is saying that the customers won't notice.
Do you really want to go on the record as saying the palates of your customers are so unrefined that they can't tell the difference when the whiskey is diluted? In reality, in blind taste tests most people probably can't tell the difference between similar colas, beers, whiskeys, etc. Nevertheless, brands still strive to maximize their taste differentiation. Can you imagine Coke saying, "We could change our formula a little, or even put Pepsi in our cans, and not many of our customers would notice."?
A Missed Opportunity
Maker's Mark could have used their looming shortage as an opportunity to make their brand stronger. If they encountered sporadic shortages for a period of years, they could raise prices and leverage the scarcity to take the brand up a notch in prestige.
Knob Creek Advertises Shortage
That's exactly what Knob Creek, also part of Beam, Inc., did when they faced the same problem as Maker's Mark a few years back. Did they water down their whiskey? Did they stop advertising (the product was sold out anyway) to boost profits? No - instead, they leveraged multiple psychological triggers by advertising the shortage (see Scarcity in Action).
First, they used scarcity - our brains prefer scarce things, even when they are identical to the same items in larger supply. Second, Knob Creek attributed the shortage to customer demand exceeding the limited supply, invoking social proof. And, in the process, they did some old-fashioned product pitching, saying, in effect, "Our product takes years of hard work to produce, and we're not going to take any shortcuts."
Maybe I'm not Maker's Mark target market - even before this fiasco, I preferred Knob Creek (or Elijah Craig) - but it seems to me that Maker's Mark took absolutely the wrong approach to their product shortage, and compounded that failure with terrible messaging.
What do you think - will this blow over in a week or two? Or has permanent damage been done to the brand? (And, for you bourbon enthusiasts, what's your favorite?)
Roger Dooley is the author of Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing (Wiley, 2011). Find Roger on Twitter as @rogerdooley and at his website, Neuromarketing.
More on Forbes:
The Final Frontier For Whisky
The 30 Under 30: Food And Wine
Sam Adams' Secret Weapon
Gallery: 30 Under 30 : Food & Wine 31 images View gallery
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04ebd2abf5872b1b75bc6ce3f6aab7df
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2013/03/11/wtf-solis/
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What's the Future of Business?
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What's the Future of Business?
What's the Future of Business? Changing The Way Businesses Create Experiences is the latest effort from business futurist Brian Solis. In this new book Solis, principal analyst with Altimeter group, explores how businesses shape their customer experiences, particularly from the standpoint of continuous engagement.
The format of WTF, as it's amusingly abbreviated by Solis himself, is fascinating in and of itself. The book is part text, part infographic and is peppered with cartoons by GapingVoid's Hugh MacLeod. It's full color throughout, printed on heavy, glossy stock. Although it's just a little over 8 inches square and runs a mere 224 pages, it has the heft of a coffee-table book. For readers who enjoy a combination of provocative text and diverse visual content, WTF is perfect.
Although the word count in WTF is well below Engage and The End of Business as Usual, Solis doesn't dumb down the content. A major theme in the book is the Dynamic Customer Journey, contained by what Solis calls the Influence Loop. Using this construct, he demonstrates how customers progress through the buying cycle and how businesses can create engagement with customers at each step of the process.
There is a flow to the chapters in WTF, but many parts of the book can be read as independent concepts. One chapter, The Six Pillars of Social Commerce, uses Bob Cialdini's six principles of influence to show how companies can use social psychology to persuade their customers. As in the rest of the book, the illustrations are unique - a series of faux-vintage infographics from TabJuice.
Solis describes a sequence of "moments of truth" in some detail, beginning with the Zero Moment of Truth, the point when people search and encounter the brand or product for the first time. The steps end with the Ultimate Moment of Truth, which is when people share their experience with the brand or product. This final step ends up being the Zero Moment for others who search and find it.
There are few business books I quote from more liberally than Solis's previous book, The End of Business as Usual. In it, he captures how brands are no longer created by their owners - in today's digital and social world, customers define the brand. Solis has an uncanny knack for explaining the changing business landscape and prescribing solutions for companies that want to prosper.
Just a few weeks ago we had a great illustration of the validity of Solis's concepts. When Maker's Mark announced they were going to reduce the alcohol content of their namesake bourbon whisky (see Did Maker’s Mark Commit Brand Suicide?, the outrage caught fire in social media. Within a few days, Maker's Mark sheepishly reversed their decision. Apparently, the brand was living in a pre-social media world and never asked itself, "What could possibly go wrong?" before announcing their dilution plans.
What's the Future of Business is a book that you can read in less than a couple of hours, but will be sufficiently thought provoking that you could spend the same amount of time on just one of its concepts. Buy it if you want a guide to staying ahead of the curve in today's rapidly changing world.
P.S. - The Psychology of WTF
I can't resist adding my neuromarketing perspective on this new book. Whether intentional or not, using the format this weighty little tome does invokes some great psychology in and of itself. First, because of its colorful graphic format and high production values, it's a book that people will likely prefer to consume in paper format. That's a good thing for Solis - as I described in Paper Beats Digital for Emotion, when we consume content on paper, our brains process content differently when it's read on paper or viewed on a screen. And, it has a stronger emotional impact in paper format.
The second psychological trigger WTF has in its favor is its weight - because of the heavy, glossy stock, it feels heavier than one would expect for its size - Amazon lists its shipping weight at 1.5 pounds. In Does Paper Outweigh Digital, I described fascinating research showing that weight adds credibility: a subtle change in the weight of a clipboard made subjects view a job applicant as "more serious." So, one expects that the mass of this book will add a little to its gravitas.
But, don't buy WTF for its weight - buy it because it may save you from being the next brand disaster.
Roger Dooley is the author of Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing (Wiley, 2011). Find Roger on Twitter as @rogerdooley and at his website, Neuromarketing.
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00a31f877ac907e923a21a5f712014c9
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2013/03/25/college-hospital-branding/
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McHarvard: The Future of College Brands?
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McHarvard: The Future of College Brands?
People often compare the higher education and health care markets. Both are widely dispersed industries with local, regional, and national entities. Both have seen dramatic cost increases in preceding decades. And, to some degree, this cost escalation has been fueled in part by third-party payers: insurance companies for healthcare, and easy government loans for higher ed.
Another common area is branding. In both fields, there are a few national, high-prestige brands that relatively few people can access - the Mayo Clinic and Harvard, for example. The most renowned institutions in both categories serve a national and even global market, but none have expanded in a big way to leverage the strength of their brand.
In particular, elite colleges and universities have typically limited enrollment even as demand has increased. The most selective schools in the US could easily double their enrollment while maintaining exceptionally high standards, but the costs of greatly expanding campuses and faculty would almost certainly exceed incremental revenues. And, of course, the brands might suffer at the same time as entry became marginally easier.
Still, both universities and hospitals have occasionally added additional campuses to offer greater access. The Mayo operates facilities in Florida and Arizona in addition to its flagship Minnesota location. Yale has a campus in Singapore, while Carnegie-Mellon has one in Silicon Valley.
Now, a new initiative by the Cleveland Clinic may be pointing the way for big-brand universities to leverage their name and expertise. The Wall Street Journal describes the Cleveland Clinic's newly forged connection with Community Health Systems, a for-profit hospital operator:
The new tie-up, which will involve quality-improvement efforts and other areas, comes as top medical names are creating more affiliations with health-care providers around the country. These can take many forms, but often resemble a sort of health-care version of the franchise arrangements common in other industries: The leading center shares clinical protocols and advice, and the local hospital, which typically pays a fee, can publicize the relationship to prospective patients.
In College Branding: The Tipping Point, I talked about the pressure institutions that lacked a strong brand would face in the coming years. The combination of shifting demographics, weaker employment opportunities, new instruction technologies, and inability to contain costs will almost certainly lead to an increasing number of institutional failures in higher ed in the coming years. The schools that will feel the pressure most will be those that have failed to distinguish themselves from others in any meaningful way.
The Cleveland Clinic deal, along with a somewhat different arrangement at the Mayo, the Mayo Clinic Care Network, suggests a way for some universities to expand their footprint without building new campuses. While online courses and degree programs are approaches that are being adopted by many schools, franchise-like affiliation with local and regional institutions offer the possibility of a blended approach that still incorporates a physical campus.
There could be major advantages to those local and regional schools, too. Faced with increasing competition for a declining student population, a branded offering could make a huge difference. What if a school offering courses in software development could brand their offerings with a "Stanford" or "Carnegie Mellon" label, and deliver much of the coursework electronically with lectures and course materials from leaders in their field? That could sway applicants looking to get the best return on their college investment. Other classes could be conducted in the traditional manner locally, or schools could adopt a hybrid approach with local teaching assistants supplementing remote lectures. There exists a potential to reduce overall costs, too, if a significant number of courses could be delivered by electronic means. These courses will come with their own expenses, of course, and the overall effect on tuition paid by the student remains to be seen.
The biggest obstacle to these co-branded or franchised offerings is the danger of brand dilution. Scarcity drives the appeal of elite schools - only a small number of students are admitted each year, and this increases the value of their eventual degrees. If students could attend dozens of "Columbia University" affiliates around the country, would the a "real" Columbia degree seem less unique and valuable?
This could be resolved by carefully co-branding, verifying that the partner institution was following specific guidelines and offering branded content, but not awarding degrees from the elite partner. Of course, a slightly more hungry brand-name school might decide to throw caution to the wind and offer a richer partnership with other schools that promised a branded degree, too.
A co-branding approach won't solve the fundamental problems facing the thousands of colleges and universities in the U.S. But, it's an approach that could allow a handful of prestigious schools to extend their footprint in a major way. And, for those local/regional schools that meet the criteria for co-branding and adopt the concept, the opportunity to attract more students in an increasingly difficult environment could be a competitive advantage.
It's also possible that a for-profit college system could make a connection with a big brand, much as happened with Community Health Systems and the Cleveland Clinic. For-profits are far more likely to aggressively pursue such relationships, and won't have to deal with objections from tenured faculty, powerful alumni, big donors, and other stakeholders. At the same time, the appeal of such connections to elite, well-branded universities may be limited for now. The for-profit sector has been tarnished by minimal admission standards, low rates of degree completion, and high loan default rates, hardly the kind of brand association a world-renowned university would seek out.
What do you think - is the co-branding concept viable for higher ed? Are you aware of any schools currently taking this approach? Leave a comment with your thoughts...
Roger Dooley is the author of Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing (Wiley, 2011). He co-founded College Confidential, now the busiest website for college-bound students and parents. Find Roger on Twitter as @rogerdooley and at his website, Neuromarketing.
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49b702290db247c20776e4423c17b054
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2013/10/14/is-starbucks-coffee-too-cheap/
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Is Starbucks Coffee Too Cheap?
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Is Starbucks Coffee Too Cheap?
Is Starbucks missing out on millions of dollars in revenue because its coffee prices are too low? That seems unlikely when the $5 cup of Starbucks is a staple of comedians mocking over-priced products. But, in reality, a small brewed coffee runs about $2 in the U.S. Now, a neuromarketing study in Germany suggests that the coffee giant may actually be under-pricing their product by a third and perhaps leaving profits on the table.
The provocative notion that we're not paying enough for a cup of java comes from scientist Kai-Markus Müller of Stuttgart-based The Neuromarketing Labs. Using EEG brain wave measurement, Müller's firm gauged the emotional reaction of consumers to different prices for a small cup of coffee, which costs €1.80 ($2.45) at a Stuttgart Starbucks.
The firm claims their results show that our brains reject prices that are too low or too high as being unrealistic, and says that the optimal price point for that small coffee in Stuttgart would be €2.40 ($3.25).
According to Der Spiegel, this claim is buttressed by another experiment in which a set-your-own price vending machine on a college campus showed that students paid, on average, €.95 ($1.29) for a latte macchiato. When subjects were shown prices while their brain waves were being measured, an optimal price very close to that number was observed.
Starbucks shareholders might salivate at the idea that at least some of the firm's products could be priced substantially higher, but some caution is in order. For commodity items like coffee, lower prices tend to increase sales while higher prices discourage them. It would be quite unexpected for a higher price to increase unit sales for this type of product.
Furthermore, price comparison for brewed coffee is easy. Regular coffee drinkers know what a cup costs at different outlets. At least in my local Austin market, Starbucks is already at the upper end of a fairly narrow band of coffee prices. If they suddenly broke from the pack by raising their prices 33%, it's hard to imagine that traffic wouldn't shift to the competition.
Previous studies on pricing using fMRI brain scans by Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University and others did show a "pain of paying" effect from high prices, but didn't report a negative reaction for low prices.
I think this kind of "most liked price" analysis would work best for unique or new-to-the-world products. When Apple introduced the iPad, for example, there was no reference point or competitive group to refer to. Studying consumer reaction to hypothetical price points might have been helpful. Of course, new and unfamiliar products present another problem - consumers have difficulty assigning a price (even subconsciously) if they don't know what value the product can deliver.
What do you think would happen to small (aka "tall" in Starbucks-speak) coffee sales if prices jumped by a third? Share your thoughts in a comment!
Roger Dooley is the author of Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing (Wiley, 2011). Find Roger on Twitter as @rogerdooley and at his website, Neuromarketing.
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c8ffb33a4d4657aa1096f5c2b4349bf3
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2021/03/23/how-long-should-a-brand-name-be/
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How Long Should A Brand Name Be?
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How Long Should A Brand Name Be?
Häagen-Dazs - an unlikely name for a highly successful brand. Newscast/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Conventional wisdom is that a brand name should be short and easy to say. One roundup of advice from branding experts suggests that any product or brand name:
Should be easy to say, understand, and spell. Shouldn’t use odd spellings or characters. Should suggest what the company or product does.
Entrepreneurship specialist Marty Zwilling suggested a brand name be no more than two syllables and contain neither hyphens nor special characters.
This isn’t necessarily bad advice, but sometimes a counterintuitive approach to naming can also work. According to Adam Alter, NYU Stern professor and author of Irresistible, there are times when a more complicated name can work better.
What is cognitive fluency?
In general, cognitive fluency is a measure of how easily our brains process or understand things. Things that are easy, like a big red sign that says “STOP,” are considered to be fluent. Things that are harder to understand, like the tiny, dense, gray text in software terms and conditions would be disfluent.
Names have varying degrees of fluency. “Green, Ohio” would be fluent for English-speaking Americans. “Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales” would be disfluent to that same group.
Fluency changes our perceptions of things. Research that Alter conducted as a graduate student showed that stocks with easy to pronounce company names or symbols outperformed those with more difficult pronunciation, particularly in the period shortly after their initial public offerings. (The researchers were quick to caution investors that many factors other than name fluency affect company valuation.)
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When disfluency wins
The stock price research and other studies all point to simple, easy names as being more desirable for positive business outcomes. But, that’s not always the best path, Alter points out.
Much of the time, Alter says, consumers are in what is known as “System 1” processing. They are mostly on autopilot, without paying much attention to the information they are exposed to. When they are confronted by something odd, unexpected, or complicated, they may enter a more conscious level of processing, System 2.
According to Alter, “Disfluency is good when you want people to engage more. It’s also good for signaling luxury... If you want something to seem different and interesting, often disfluency is valuable.”
The scoop on Häagen-Dazs
Alter cites Häagen-Dazs ice cream as an example of disfluency conveying a product image that is more interesting. “There is no language in the world that features an A with an umlaut, followed by an A without one. But this was a name that was concocted by a man in Brooklyn when he decided that he wanted to introduce a luxury ice cream to the marketplace. So, this brand is totally concocted to sound foreign, exotic, vaguely Eastern or Northern European.”
Some brands, of course, like Lamborghini and Lagavulin, got their disfluent names from actual people and places. Whatever the origin of these names, they have come to represent luxury.
Short or Long? Easy or Difficult?
The success of Häagen-Dazs, a hard-to-process name that violates nearly every element of common wisdom about brand naming, doesn’t prove that common wisdom is wrong.
For most products, simple, fluent names will be best. Alter’s stock price research shows that fluency seems to increase liking for a name. Practical considerations favor simplicity as well. People are less likely to remember a strange name after hearing it only once or twice. A week after hearing “Häagen-Dazs” just once, how many people would be able to repeat the name (or even a reasonable approximation) to a friend?
Top selling laundry detergents all have highly fluent names: Tide, Gain, Arm & Hammer, and Purex. While “Arm & Hammer” is long and contains a symbol, it is composed of easily processed words and benefits from iconic brand recognition dating to the 1860s.
If your product is a luxury or niche product, or if you want to suggest an exotic origin, a longer, disfluent name may work better. Johnny Walker, fluent despite its four syllables, may be the best-selling Scotch whiskey, but the top-rated brands include less fluent names like Glendronach, Glenmorangie, Balvenie, and Ardbeg.
A long or difficult brand name represents a greater risk in most categories. But, if the name is consistent with the brand’s image and can get traction with customers, its disfluency will increase distinctiveness and memorability.
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d5c270663563f47bc8ed4880709297a3
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogergershman/2015/04/30/robo-advisors-versus-financial-advisors-which-is-best-for-you/
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Robo-Advisors Versus Financial Advisors - Which is Best for You?
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Robo-Advisors Versus Financial Advisors - Which is Best for You?
Quick question: If you had a problem with your checkbook and wanted accurate answers, would you want a series of telephone prompts or a real person to assist you? The automated response system may include perhaps a dozen questions and answers, based on algorithms, which are supposed to meet the needs of most callers. A real person can give you real-time answers, specific to your questions, when asked.
This is the argument ongoing now between professional financial advisors and companies promoting robo-advisors.
The Robo Class
Robo-advisors manage portfolios automatically, with their decisions driven by software. One of the pioneers of this automated investing trend is www.betterment.com. A few robo-advisors include extras, such as tax-efficient investing. Most include rebalancing. One, Fidelity’s www.futureadvisor.com, will do the tax harvesting and reallocation for you for a 0.5 percent annual fee.
So what’s not to like?
Robo-advisors are advisors like wireless phone company telephone prompts are communications consultants. That’s because robo-advisors generally put investors into a few exchange traded funds (ETFs), based on generic goals and risk profiles. For this privilege, they charge anywhere from 25 to 40 basis points for portfolios designed generically to meet the risk and investing tastes of most investors like you. But if you’re not most investors . . . .
Now you might say that the technology is only as good as the information entered into it, and it looks as if robo-advisors have solid information. But, again, the question remains: Are you most investors?
Robo-Advisors Work For Some Investors
Having said all of this, let's be clear: robo-advisors are a good alternative for many investors. Some solid companies and investment professionals are behind the bulk of these firms, which especially appeal to tech-savvy Millennials. This shouldn’t surprise, considering younger investors prefer to do most things on their phones or online.
Robo-advisors are attracting not only Millennials but also do-it-yourselfers who, perhaps, want access to ready-made portfolios in which to invest. Robo-advisors also work for passive investors who put their money into a black box of investments and leave it there. So if you typically invest only in index funds and you want someone else to pick a few for you at relatively low cost, robo-advisors could be your ticket.
This last point, cost, is probably the biggest selling point of robo-advisors. Compared to a professional financial advisor’s fee of one percent or so, the automated advisor service seems like a veritable bargain. And for the passive investor who doesn’t require professional financial advice, robo-advisors offer a good avenue to explore.
When A Pro Financial Advisor Works Best
But what if you aren’t a passive investor? What if you require more targeted advice, trading and asset reallocation? What if you are a six-figure—or higher—investor? What if you want advice about taxes, estate planning, college funding and other topics beyond the generic investing realm?
This is where you need to examine what you get for the price. For many people, a Volkswagen is a perfectly fine form of transportation, because they only have a utilitarian need to move from Point A to Point B. It is priced lower than most automobiles, in part, because it doesn’t offer as many features as other car makers. But the car is good transportation.
But maybe you live in a harsh environment, or like to drive off-road, and need the capabilities provided by a Land Rover Discovery Sport. You might pay a little extra, but it’s for capabilities you need.
It’s the same thing with investing. Maybe you don’t need everything a financial advisor offers and a robo-advisor will suffice. Or maybe you have considerable wealth, in which case an actively managed account from a top-notch professional should be your goal.
Maybe a computer-driven algorithm isn’t enough to meet your investing needs.
Competition Is Good
Tech-savvy, stock-rich Millennials and investors with particular concerns should consider whether a robo-advisor is really enough. Yes, a professional advisor may charge one percent. But look at what you get for that one percent, just as you might ask what you will get for the purchase price of an Aston Martin or a Land Rover.
Competition drives change. Some investors might have no problem paying a one-percent annual fee for assets under management. Others might – and maybe they should. After all, what should you pay for the advice of a professional financial advisor? Unfortunately there isn’t a standard. Many believe, however, that robo-advisors will drive down the fees charged by their living, breathing counterparts.
Make An Informed Choice
If you are a passive investor with less than $100,000 in investable assets and you need little more than rudimentary portfolio management, a robo-advisor could be your best choice. But if you want to talk about other areas of your life—if you need help with mortgages, debt, income goals, retirement plans, estate planning, college planning and 529 plans—you need a live financial advisor.
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17a1ade1ec3d90507953318ed188a533
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogergroves/2013/01/17/whos-been-duped-the-manti-teo-hoax/
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Who's Been Duped? The Manti Te'o Hoax.
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Who's Been Duped? The Manti Te'o Hoax.
English: Photo of Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o taken in 2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It is hard to know what to believe anymore. We watch movies and cannot tell what is animated through computer aided design and what is real. We used to believe baseball players were not cheating the sport but found out that many of our heroes lied about using performance enhancing drugs. Some people over the decade believed Lance Armstrong’s adamant representations that he was not doping. After all, he was charitable into the millions and the best in the world for over a decade. His tell-all admissions may still be forthcoming on Oprah. We believed Penn State was pristine in its football program because Joe Paterno was the gold standard of college athletics, charitable, as was his lead defense coach Jerry Sandusky. Those pillars of high principles too were torn down after Sandusky was later found guilty of multiple sex abuses with several young boys, and Paterno knew or should have known to protect the children more than the football program. And lastly for this week, we believed the feel good Notre Dame story. It has been a too-good-to-be-true turnaround season where ND went from an unranked irrelevant team to a potential national champion – until the game was played and the clock stroked midnight on Cinderella’s season.
Interwoven in the ND story was All-American linebacker Manti Te’o. He has been the face of the team and symbol of everything special about a college student athlete, great character and athletic ability. The character was evidenced by being the team leader, a stellar student, a devout Mormon, and having played to perfection while overcoming the adversity of losing his 72-year old grandmother, and within a short time thereafter, his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, who had Leukemia and died in a car crash. Te’o then played the Michigan State game with a heavy heart, but a heart filled with what makes us proud of humanity – love, compassion and a resolve to nonetheless perform at a high level. Perhaps he didn’t know another crash was fast approaching.
The story pulled on every bit of our inner sympathetic vulnerable selves. It involved death, the ultimate of human tragedy and ending. Surely this is a story we can believe. Who would be so sick as to make up a person just to have them die to intentionally hurt and most publicly embarrass this model of a student-athlete? Te’o is an apparent unwitting public figure with no prior baggage, with no apparent motive except to simply to play the game the right way. Did such a person or with co-conspirators single-handedly dupe us all – the stellar student Te’o, his teammates, his family, the entire coaching staff and athletic department, and everyone else in his life? Hmm.
On December 26th, Notre Dame was informed, reportedly by Te’o, that the beloved deceased girlfriend did not exist. Flashback to an ESPN interview on October 2, 2012. Te’o told ESPN he had a deep, involved, emotional relationship with Lennay. In his words, he “cared deeply” for her. He said “She is that person that I turn to.” He said she was one of the most beautiful people he ever “met”. He didn’t say he only “met” her online. Yet that appears to be the current version of the truth.
Now he said this revelation is “confusing”. He hopes people will be more guarded in dealing with people online. Yet reportedly, there are multiple representations of in-person meetings between Te’o and the fictional love interest. The South Bend Tribune describes their first meeting after the Stanford-Notre Dame game on November 28th: "Their stares got pleasantly tangled, then Manti Te'o extended his hand to the stranger with a warm smile and soulful eyes". In coming days, I suspect we will have more clarity about the source of this and various other accounts of personal meetings. According to Sports Illustrated, Te’o called her at the hospital room post-accident and stayed on the phone with her as he slept through the night. Te’o recounted that story on ESPN. Hospital telephone numbers are verifiable. Perhaps Te’o trusted someone else to provide the number, the hospital, and all other indicia of her persona, a Facebook page, a history of memories that life gives us even until age 22, as “she” claimed to be. Hmm.
Some teammates have also reportedly had comments that do square with Te’o being the “dupee”. I would expect Te’o will have a press conference or press release in the near future. And I hope he is not complicit in any way. Hopefully this will simply be a learning experience for him, and a highly qualitative life is before him. There is a lot to explain. If he was duped, it would not because he couldn’t think analytically if academic excellence at Notre Dame is any indication. Was he just too embarrassed about being duped, and the lie got bigger in his efforts to cover it up? Was he implicit in creating a sympathy vote to win the Heisman Trophy? I am not rushing to judgment. Just show us the cell phone bills, the emails, and allow an examination of your computer. In the meantime I wonder about the implications and consequences. And I ask myself, “What can we, the fans and media, learn about how not to be duped in the future?”
The implications and consequences for Te’o unfortunately may include more adversity than he faced during the games. He is about to go through a series of comprehensive tests by NFL teams considering whether to draft him. The event is known as the “NFL Combine”, combining various physical and psychological profiling examinations. I fully expect teams will want to know his version of the facts, and will be looking to see if he is wholly forthcoming, and whether he exercises good judgment on and off the field. Until we gather additional facts, it appears that Te’o at the very least was naïve. I am not a product of the online world, though I readily admit it is hard to live without being part of it. But in my world, a wise person, or a person of ordinary judgment will not become deeply emotionally attached to a person until you actually see your soul mate with your own eyes, and not be so trusting of a video or electronic transmission. This hoax issue will likely make it more difficult for him to focus on football during his final exam to pass the NFL tests. The scrutinizing coaches, and the media for that matter, are all putting him essentially on a witness stand that is hotter than before, questioning his character and what he stands for – in detail.
Were we duped by Notre Dame? If the reports are true that it was Manti himself that told the coaches it was a hoax, then several other questions arise. If ND knew the truth since December 26th, then they knowingly allowed the hoax to be perpetrated on the airwaves leading up to the championship game, with ability to stop it. ND said it was “Manti’s story to tell”. But all the hype about the game had Notre Dame all over it. This was not just about Te’o. Any such issue is never suddenly just about the player and not the school he represents. This is also about whether the university has an obligation, moral or otherwise to dispel pervasive untruth. This does not rise to the level of cover-up found at Penn State, and Ohio State’s tattoo-gate. There is no NCAA violation or criminal or civil law here. But the core issue is the same. “Should we protect the brand first, even if the truth would tarnish it?”
Was the media duped? If so, what made them dupable? Journalists are trained to investigate stories before they tell them. That makes the press more credible in the public’s eyes. The increasing cynicism in me says perhaps the media in this case was more in love with the story than the truth. That is to say, we would rather romanticize the story than investigate it for veracity. Let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good story. If we don’t investigate the facts, we avoid the issue. And if we let assumptions replace facts then we can be duped. So the next time the media sees such a fairy tale story, are they going do any background checks? Next time, are they going to ask, “So, did you actually meet this woman, or this child you say you now support for charity, or is did you only meet online?” Perhaps a little more cynicism is healthy.
Coach Kelly knew Te’o more intimately than most people ever will. He believed the Te’o – Lennay Love Story. After the Michigan State game Te’o, Coach Kelly gave Lennay the game ball. Will he be more scrutinizing in the future? I wonder if other head coaches, who are trustees and surrogate fathers for the teenagers are asking themselves, “What could I have done to stop this from happening?” Maybe nothing.
One part of the problem here is technology. The other part is humans who deal with technology. We created a monster. A techno-monster that is innovative and devilishly crafty, with the capacity for great good and great evil. In a pre-online world, would this have happened?
In our struggle to manage billions of bytes of data, technology spawned the use of algorithms (mathematical formulas) that monitor words and phrases to expose and even predict problematic behaviors. Since this elaborate electronic hoax is an embarrassment to the university at a level, will athletic departments create red flag words and phrases that alert the school of illicit conversations and then monitor player electronic communications like cell phone and computer data? Will schools ask their teenage players to provide a list of authorized outsiders and actually investigate the relationships to protect these teenagers and the brand? Will they compile a list of unauthorized contacts or flag certain words in certain combinations and block unauthorized online or telephonic transmissions? Will the schools prescreen media interview questions to ascertain whether the subject matter goes outside the lines of football, so they can investigate the story before it goes viral?
All we really know at this point is that once again a sports story took us from heart-warming to stomach sickening. To prevent the next “I can’t believe it” moment, we apparently must learn not to believe the hype. But hype is part of the sport. We love to root for or against teams, the underdog, the love story or character story that triumphs in the context of sports. The rooting is not based on rationality and due-diligence investigations. So I suspect we will learn little from this. We use our emotions first because we love to do it. Occasional revelations like this are just a risk we take as an unavoidable consequence.
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4c0a7d3f80570cd1ecc4fa74ff4460be
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogergroves/2014/03/20/the-trendiest-cinderella-in-the-ncaa-tournament-harvard/
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The Trendiest Cinderella In The NCAA Tournament: Harvard
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The Trendiest Cinderella In The NCAA Tournament: Harvard
Harvard has been playing basketball for over a century. They never won an NCAA tournament game until last year after 66 years of complete abject futility. All that changed under the 7-year rebuilding – no building from scratch – program of coach Tommy Amaker. The Crimson won the Ivy League title 3 consecutive years, and made the NCAA tournament for three consecutive years. Last year they won the first tournament game in school history. Now they’ve done it again. 12th-seeded Harvard beat 5th seeded Cincinnati 61-57.
Harvard was better tip to finish. Cincinnati was on the wrong side of history. Amaker termed his team a “Trendy Cinderella”. Indeed, the stats are trending in their favor. They have the first back-to-back tournament wins for an Ivy League school since Princeton in 1983-84. If Harvard wins, MSU will also be on the wrong side of history because Harvard would be the first Ivy League team ever to win so big so abruptly over a two-year span in the tournament.
Will Cinderella’s shoe fit before midnight Saturday or will the former darling, now Goliath-like Michigan State bewitch them? MSU beat Delaware to set up the Ball . MSU was predictably dominant. The observation of the TNT game analyst was that when MSU “walked into practice yesterday, it looked like a different level.” With 5 minutes left in the game, the commentators were talking about how the mannerisms of a Delaware assistant coach were similar to his grandfather – Martelli.
MSU has been prematurely crowned by the vast majority of experts and the Commander in Chief of the country. Only Kansas and Duke have longer streaks of consecutive NCAA tournament games than Michigan State. MSU basketball’s Commander in Chief is Tom Izzo, who has a higher approval rating than the other commander.
So it would be a presidential and precedential level upset and historically poetic for MSU to be beat by the school that started intercollegiate athletics in America. You may remember that Harvard and Yale met in America's first such athletic event. It was a crew race on Lake Winnipesaukee in Center Harbor, New Hampshire, back when Moses was a baby. And of course Amaker was formerly the head coach at Michigan who can legitimately play the underdog coach roll as he did during his tenure at the U of M. American loves themes of redemption and revenge.
Regardless of the outcome, the game is an early reminder to us all that the next few weeks are most special in American sports. No more competitive than crew, but with a lot more TV coverage and captivation of the American sports-mania public.
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5f48bfc357d2a0c1aba63251bf969d9d
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogergroves/2014/05/15/why-the-nba-is-taking-so-long-to-oust-donald-sterling/
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Why The NBA Is Taking So Long To Oust Donald Sterling
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Why The NBA Is Taking So Long To Oust Donald Sterling
The question raised by NBA’s Stephen A. Smith, Spike Lee, and several NBA players, current and past, is “Why is it taking so long to fire Donald Sterling?” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was so strong and strident in his announcement that steps would be taken “immediately” to do just that. There was no ambiguity about whether they were going to fire Sterling for his racist comments against African Americans. It is a done deal. Commissioner Silver surely would not have made such a profound announcement without having consulted the other NBA owners. So why hasn’t the first shoe dropped?
Like an onion, the answer has several smelly layers, and several lawyers. The first shoe is Donald. The second shoe is Shelly, his estranged wife and 50% owner of the family trust that owns the LA Clippers. The NBA is more concerned about the second.
The most important deliberative point I suspect is this: One or both of those shoes may sue the NBA and its owners. I have several legal reasons for why a Sterling suit would ultimately fail, not the least of which is that the controlling owner from the trust was Donald. He is the only one on the governing board, and the removal of him effectively removes the trust. But that does not stop either Sterling from commencing the action, and getting to a stage we call discovery. During discovery, a lot of dirt can be discovered about the other owners.
Los Angeles Clippers (Photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com)
Donald, himself a lawyer has been litigious in the past. Shelly is lawyered up with tall cotton firms. While their lawyers oppose each other for divorce purposes, I bet their lawyers will agree on exposing any evidence they can find that current owners have been complicit, accepting, acquiescing, or joking along with Donald in ways that are considered racist. The claim would be, “See these guys are just as bad, so ousting Donald is arbitrary or an antitrust-level conspiracy, and an abuse of discretion of its own rules.”
Donald Sterling protest, Staples Center (Photo credit: craigdietrich)
So even if there is enough legal support for ultimately winning at trial, the possibility of negative exposure in the media during months, if not years of discovery and motion hearings is probably causing the NBA to consider a form of pretrial settlement to avoid litigation. And I would bet your season tickets that a primary strategy being considered is the creation of a new diverse ownership group and then carving a non-operating passive piece of it for Shelly.
As for Donald, someone is likely looking at ways to structure a deal where he minimizes his multi-million dollar capital gains taxes he would pay on his forced sale. The taxation of capital gains is one of the most complicated least-understood areas of the law. To find loopholes is not a new quest among lawyers so the IRS has a myriad of regulations to avoid them. Yet there are not really many carrots to offer Donald so it will be a time-consuming task to grow and make this veggie inviting.
This is not to minimize the importance of carefully crafting the official legal basis for the ousting. Any misstep will likely become the basis for the Sterling lawsuit. When there is no clear precedent to rely upon, the risk increases that your selection of legal theory may be rejected. There is no direct prior case or authority for this ouster. There must be an interpretation and analysis of the NBA constitution, the franchise agreement with the Clippers, the family trust ownership interests, and California community property law that generally provides for equal division of assets.
The most difficult legal questions typically involve determining whether one set of authorities has priority over others when they appear to conflict. Many cases are litigated when the legislature or the document drafters did not contemplate the precise fact situation they now face. This is that perfect storm. The point here is that such ambiguity causes various ways to legally frame the issue and the resolution. The NBA has to select the exact language that navigates the most legally supportable conclusion.
Whatever the NBA crafts, it will need to be legally precise while being scrutinized at a high level, will need to be appetizing to the Sterlings without offending the NBA players and without putting the owners in the position to have the standard imposed against them some day . That is why it is taking so long to oust Donald Sterling.
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4f3392c5aa8ce426caa6670585e8d7b9
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogergroves/2014/10/25/now-its-a-matter-of-legacy-building-at-michigan-state-over-michigan/
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Now It's A Matter of Legacy Building At Michigan State Over Michigan
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Now It's A Matter of Legacy Building At Michigan State Over Michigan
For over 3 decades Michigan beat Michigan State in football the way you would expect of a big brother against a weaker little brother. But once Mike Hart actually said it out loud with a smirk in the first game of Mark Dantonio as the MSU head coach, there was a response to come in the following years that was unforeseen by perhaps all but that MSU coach. Since that MSU loss, Michigan State has dominated unlike arguably any other era in the long storied history of this rivalry.
Considering in-state rivalries nationally, rarely, if ever, has a 30-year history reversed itself so dramatically.
Michigan State has not just won 6 of the last 7 games. including this year's game. They have dominated Michigan in the most recent games with no change in the forecast. In fact, Michigan had not scored a touchdown since 2011 until late in the 4th quarter of this year's game, and that was more a result of Michigan State’s fumble than winning plays by the Wolverines. Michigan had -5 yards rushing at halftime in a series that the team with the most rushing yards won 42 of the last 45 games.
The question now is whether Michigan State’s victory laps in this rivalry have sustainability. Dantonio made a clear prediction when he bristled at the Hart comments in his post-game press conference. He said, “I’ll be here a long time…This is just getting started.”
If Dantonio is correct, the unthinkable is not only thinkable, but bet-able by rational people. A growing number of people may be willing to bet that if Michigan State is beating U of M with primary 3-star recruits now against Michigan’s 4 and 5 star recruits, what’s going to happen when MSU starts reaping the rewards of being the consistent best in the state, and one of the best in the country?
Clearly the evidence to date is that MSU coaches can take those 3-star athletes and grow them into a qualitative national unit. The top high school players in the state and the nation will have seen that now from MSU since they were freshmen in high school. That is enough time to develop respect and comfort level with the program. And if they are really paying attention to detail, they will observe that when Dantonio is ranked, and is opponent is not, he is now 26 - 0. The unranked now include Michigan all too often. Some of those top recruits will probably factor those items into their decision and start matriculating to East Lansing.
Those same prize recruits have seen Michigan going in the opposite direction. Coach Brady Hoke has had an unfortunately well documented decline in wins every year since arriving in Ann Arbor. He has a losing record against MSU and just about every other good team they play regularly. Saliently, if U of M truly has been getting 4 and 5 star recruits as all the experts say, they have not developed them into a collective crew of Victors. With all the negativity around the program, the battle cry is not as much Hail to the Victors than it is to Hell with the Victors.
Prize recruits are ideally high integrity people from high integrity families. They will see Michigan players do a staged pre-game stake in the Spartan field. It was the opposite of high integrity. Another factor.
And then there is the coach controversy. Most betting folks probably say the Michigan coach is a great person but a lame duck nonetheless. Recruiting has to suffer tremendously if the recruits do not know who will be the coach. So the incoming players may put Michigan even further behind in the talent and the attitude of the returning players. Attrition via transfers is also a significant risk.
And even if there is a transition to a new coach, there is the uncertainty of whether the new coach is the savior. Uncertainty does not build the program respect and comfort level that brings the best recruits to the campus.
Finally, the reality is that the trend in dominance is not just about Brady Hoke. It is at least about the last two coaches and the administrators during the past several years. Ineptness in executive decision-making about talent at the coach position may not be fixable if they make yet another bad hire. Historic judgment errors over those years takes several years to reverse.
Before last season started, Dantonio predicted his team would be in the Rose Bowl. He was right. Long before that he predicted he would be at Michigan State for a long time. He appears to be right again. If Michigan football is going to stop this trend of dominance, it is going to have to prove him wrong a little more often.
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ba5b13d414316fc42ffe097168ffae1f
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogergroves/2015/04/11/a-test-to-real-nfl-philosophy-on-domestic-violence-michigans-frank-clark/
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The Next NFL Domestic Violence Battleground: The Draft
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The Next NFL Domestic Violence Battleground: The Draft
The NFL’s domestic abuse policy only covers actions of current NFL players and staff. So of course, the policy does not attempt to proscribe for its teams how to gauge or grade out draft prospects with a domestic violence history. The NFL has spent considerable energy telling the public that it will no longer tolerate or hide domestic abuse among its players, and that abusers will be banned from the league.
Sooner or later, there someone or some advocacy group will say:
“If you are sincere, then the policy should apply to not only those who are now playing, but also those you allow to play in the future.”
In other words, if you want to have a league free of domestic abusers, then don’t let them into your league in the first place . That is fundamentally no different, they will assert, than saying you want a team free of bigotry, but then you let in a card-carrying member of the KKK .
The demand has not been made. The question about whether players with a domestic abuse history should be drafted has not yet been asked in the playing field of public opinion. But a potential test case is brewing.
Michigan’s Frank Clark entered last season as a very real potential NFL draft pick. But in November of that season a police report surfaced alleging that he got into a fight with his girlfriend, punched her in the face, slammed her to the ground and pinned her on a hotel room bed. He was intoxicated and bleeding, according to that report.
INDIANAPOLIS, IN - FEBRUARY 22: Defensive lineman Frank Clark of Michigan in action during the 2015... [+] NFL Scouting Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium on February 22, 2015 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
The plot thickens in February. That is when NFL teams examine serious prospects in a scouting combine leading to the NFL draft. Regarding Clark, teams must first answer this question: “Do we even consider someone with the same apparent Ray Race punch that haunted the NFL?”
At least eight teams answered that question with a “Yes”. Clark received his invitation and went to show his football abilities. And he did impress. At 6’3”, 271 pounds, Clark ran a 4.79 40-yard dash. His 38.5-inch vertical leap was better than the best leaper on the Duke basketball team, Grayson Allen at just over 37 inches.
After that performance, Clark has been accepted by eight teams for visits in anticipation of the draft.
There is also a 2012 guilty plea against Clark for a second-degree home invasion for stealing a lap top from a dorm room. But if he is drafted, the focus will be whether the domestic abuse history will haunt him by not being drafted, or haunt the NFL and the team that chooses to draft him.
If I am a team spokesman, the public statement includes the very recent report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter that the domestic violence charges against Clark have been reduced to disorderly conduct; that he has paid his debt, learned from his mistakes, and deserves another opportunity.
For some advocates against domestic violence that will not be satisfying.
If the NFL has learned anything from its domestic violence issues, it should try to get in front of the issues rather than merely react to them. Rather than wait to see if there is public outcry from drafting a Clark or any other college players for past misdeeds, the NFL should at least have private meetings to discuss this issue. That discussion should lead to having a level of counseling and related anger management services available so that if a player with that history is drafted, there is a believable response – and more importantly, a life-changing response to the challenge of the player.
If a player with a history gets drafted and then has a repeat episode, the NFL will again face that scrutiny . So the NFL should do all it can to draft wisely for football purposes, and counsel appropriately for the life of those it drafts.
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28aa06c95cb902190ea203b07b2eb2e7
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogergroves/2016/07/21/pokemon-at-jacksonville-jaguars-stadium-is-just-the-beginning/
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Pokemon At Jacksonville Jaguar's Stadium Is Just The Beginning
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Pokemon At Jacksonville Jaguar's Stadium Is Just The Beginning
CBS Sports online said Pokemon Go “is challenging football as the most popular sport in the country”. Hyperbolic or not, the marketing-savvy Jacksonville Jaguars chose to join rather than fight the trend. The Jaguars announced that on July 25th the public will use its EverBank field in one of the most interactive ways known to the NFL – a “Pokemon Safari” night.
(AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
Between 6 and 8 pm no other NFL stadium will have as many untalented and undrafted citizenry having more fun than what has generally been experienced in EverBank field on game day in recent years. There will be Pokestops and gyms for players, and it’s free.
NFL owners have realized that the highest and best use of their stadiums is not monolithically about playing football once a week during 16 weeks of the year. Rather than laying fallow the vast majority of the year, stadiums are increasing the intensity of the usage.
Specifically, they are not adding trash cans. They are adding revenue generators. The Jaguars added a profitable FanDuel lounge. In fact, FanDuel is partnering with the club to bring Pokémon night. The Jaguars are even appending an amphitheater to the stadium for concerts on non-game days. In other words, the Jaguars and other NFL clubs are viewing their stadiums as multipurpose multi-day entertainment venues. And even during game day, some fans may eagerly await the next time out, half time or blow out. I am confident that the Jaguars and others will make it increasingly convenient for fans to play with devices when the team is not actually playing ball.
This is no real innovation. In fact, the owners are generally a bit behind the curve. They are not disrupting the status quo. Even the nation’s airports realized that they do not own pit stops for travelers. They have malls with business meeting rooms, art galleries, and of course increasingly upscale bars and dining that rivals the outside world. Football fans will start missing plays like travelers miss flights .
Not surprisingly college football has the same playbook. Notre Dame is undergoing a stadium expansion that will actually build offices and classrooms that will house an entire academic department that has nothing directly to do with football.
Soon, if not now, a human with no interest in football can pay hundreds of dollars to bring the family to an NFL game, never watch or understand it, and feel like they got their money’s worth.
The fans that oppose this trend can still stay home and watch movies. Then they’ll get in their cars and return their rental tapes to Blockbuster.
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9913c933073ecc680d2ab2399e184981
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogergroves/2016/08/25/endorsements-or-stanford-a-choice-ledecky-should-not-have-to-make/
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Endorsements Or Stanford: A Choice Ledecky Should Not Have To Make
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Endorsements Or Stanford: A Choice Ledecky Should Not Have To Make
When you become one of America’s most celebrated swimmers in history; when you win four gold medals and one silver in the Rio Olympics; when you trained harder for free in that sport before going to college than most people the same age work for pay; you should get paid for your pre-college accomplishments. And getting paid should mean capitalizing on your fame, your name, pictures others take of you. Others should have to pay you for what they take from you. They pay you because they are going to make money from your name, your pictures, your images that you worked hard to make valuable. That is what Olympic Gold Medalist Katie Ledecky has earned. Through years of swim sweat, Charismatic Katie is projected to be able to receive $5 million a year in endorsement income.
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - AUGUST 13: (BROADCAST - OUT) Swimmer, Katie Ledecky of the United States... [+] poses for a photo with her five medals on the Today show set on Copacabana Beach on August 13, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
But Ledecky cannot do that because she wants to swim for Stanford.
NCAA rule 12.1.2 states that a college athlete loses amateur status and eligibility to compete in a particular college sport if he or she “uses his or her athletics skill (directly or indirectly) for pay in any form in that sport.” Many have tried and many have failed to convince the NCAA to sever the relationship between endorsements and that sport. So endorsements by a commercial company for clothes or music or something not directly to do with the sport is still at least indirectly related to athletic skill.
The same applies to Ledecky. If she endorses even non-swimming sportswear, or say an energy drink, she could not swim for Stanford, her stated school of choice.
In August 2013 the NCAA blurred the bright line a bit, allowing payment to college athletes for “actual and necessary expenses” from certain non-professional sponsored competition. But of course, receiving $5 million a year in endorsement income is well beyond covering expenses. The endorsement would be for the Ledecky name and fame she earned in swimming.
There is another NCAA rule more directly related to the Ledecky circumstance. The NCAA now allows more than expense payments related to the Olympics. But the financial handcuffs in the rules still imprison any realization of her own earned income, even when the events leading to the income occurred before she enters college. NCAA rule 12.1.2.1.4.4.2 now allows members of an Olympic team to receive nonmonetary benefits and awards received by the Olympic team. But that is only where the same benefit is available to all members of that nation’s Olympic team sport.
Endorsement deals are monetary awards, where the athlete receives cash or its equivalent in exchange for a company attaching her name, image, or likeness to their products. And of course, an endorsement with Ledecky’s face and payment to only her is not the same benefit received by all members.
The rule is internally consistent but externally punitive to Olympians. Punitive because it is overbroad. The rules were designed to prevent students from treating school the same as they do a professional sport – play for pay while in college. Here, Ledecky swam for the most laudable of reasons – for her country. She trained essentially without compensation as a motivation. She would be receiving money based on her fame gained before college, not during college.
Even the timing for receipt of endorsement income can be arranged to avoid any amateurism issue. If any endorsement income is placed in a trust, where Ledecky cannot legally receive any proceeds until her college eligibility expires, she is not swimming for pay or capitalizing on her amateur status during her Stanford swimming career.
NCAA rule 12.1.2.1.4.1 still treats a trust fund as an equivalent of cash. The rule does not distinguish between different forms of trusts i.e. those where the athlete cannot receive the funds during college from those in which they can. That rule is due for a revision to allow right-minded sports purists like Katie Ledecky to be rewarded for her accomplishments without foregoing college competition.
At the end of the meet, our system of athletes should not make her choose between receiving endorsements from pre-college competition and enjoying college competition.
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18b65f51a69e02bf5232c072754382aa
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerhuang/2018/10/09/lame-duck-election-year-crypto/
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What The Lame Duck Election Year Could Mean For Cryptocurrency Regulation
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What The Lame Duck Election Year Could Mean For Cryptocurrency Regulation
The Congressional lame-duck session means inaction on bitcoin legislation and uncertainty for... [+] bitcoin regulation. Gage Skidmore via Flickr
Cryptocurrencies are 'unregulated' and they might trigger the next financial crisis. This seems to be the dominant narrative about cryptocurrencies. The only problem is that it's not true.
It certainly isn't true in countries like China where domestic cryptocurrency exchanges are banned, and the promotion of initial coin offerings is too. In the United States, where there is a more balanced approach, cryptocurrencies have been copy and pasted into an awkward mix of state and federal regulatory standards. In the absence of Congress explicitly taking a strong stand one way or another, regulatory agencies have been forced to scramble to deal with new technologies without much explicit direction from their supposed Constitutional superiors.
It's clear that on this issue as with many others that members of Congress disagree with one another, sometimes quite fervently. Yet faced with a contentious midterm election coming up, the current lame duck session of Congress is focused on keeping the lights on and getting the votes they need to continue as politicians rather than looking to the future.
It's not like there haven't been some Congressional efforts on both sides of the debate. On September 2016, both Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) and then-Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) announced a new bipartisan “Blockchain Caucus” dedicated to exploring cryptocurrency and other related technologies. Mulvaney, who is now the Trump Administration's director of the Office of Management and Budget, was quoted as saying “Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize the financial services industry, the U.S. economy, and the delivery of government services.” It can't be hard to extend their view to cryptocurrencies built on the blockchain.
On the other hand, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) called for the total ban of mining and buying any cryptocurrencies for any US citizen, leaning into arguments about the dominant status of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency.
The only significant movement to address cryptocurrencies in Congress has been to unanimously pass a bill that would create a task force to counter money laundering by terrorists with digital currencies -- and you could argue that is less a matter of looking at cryptocurrencies as it is a national security hook that just happens to have bitcoin and cryptocurrencies come along for the ride. Other more substantiative legislation on digital currencies have been tabled for now.
Cryptocurrencies are effectively unlegislated right now in the United States -- a new technology without an overarching framework of how to address the new needs, and innovations it brings. Congress has passed no explicit law defining an overarching view on cryptocurrencies.
In contrast, applying old regulations, rules set for quasi-similar historical comparisons, have proceeded aplenty, even if it might be an imperfect match.
FinCEN (The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a division of the Treasury Department focused on money laundering) mandates anti-money laundering and "Know Your Customer" compliance for major cryptocurrency exchanges and applies the Bank Secrecy Act to both initial coin offerings and exchanges.
State-by-state monetary transmission authorities regulate how cryptocurrencies are exchanged, meaning that in practice in order for a cryptocurrency exchange to get nationwide coverage, it must bargain with 50 sets of state regulations and regulators.
The Federal Reserve (America's central bank, responsible for regulating the US dollar) and CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission, responsible for regulating commodities, options and futures markets) have adopted a "do no harm" philosophy around cryptocurrencies, but the SEC (Securities & Exchange Commission, responsible for regulating securities) says initial coin offerings are part of its mandate while maintaining that staples bitcoin and ethereum are commodities to be regulated by the CFTC.
The SEC has pursued cease-and-desist motions and pursued charges against dealers in ICO tokens as unregistered broker-dealers. It clearly regards most ICO tokens as securities under its scope and has started enforcement actions to match its words.
The IRS has also looked closely at cryptocurrencies, submitting a subpoena to major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase for customer and user data. It's been fairly well-established that cryptocurrency holders must pay taxes on their gains.
With forensic accounting on unchangeable, public chains of data -- federal and state authorities arguably have an easier job of piercing together any wrong-doing on cryptocurrency then with cash. Witness how the proceeds from Silk Road were seized after federal authorities were able to correlate the identity of "Dread Pirate Roberts" with his digital wallets.
There are other countries where there is barely any basic regulation of cryptocurrencies. Then there are countries like Mexico, which enacted a "Law to Regulate Financial Technology Companies" in March 2018, with a chapter specifically devoted to the operations of "virtual currencies".
The fear in the United States shouldn't be the former -- an empty void of unregulated activities -- because that isn't happening. Rather, the fear should be that there hasn't been explicit legislation and (partly) because of that void, regulation has proceeded in a way that is unclear and haphazard.
In the absence of Congressional votes and decisions by legislators that are more accountable to voters, executive agencies will continue doing what they are already -- applying the regulations of the past as prologue to a technology of the future.
There is almost always a legislative gap when it comes to new technologies, so this is nothing new. The United States saw the same thing with the Internet.
When the Internet emerged, the FCC regulated it like the telecommunications of old but with a lighter touch. Eventually, a law rolled out in 1996 and voted through by Congress actually clarified that lighter regulation (especially on the anti-monopoly front) was correct and implemented guidance going forward.
Added into that Act was the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which sought to regulate pornographic material on the Internet. The censorship clauses were struck down by the Supreme Court, but one critical section remained: Section 230, the basis that content platforms cannot be held criminally liable for content others publish. It has become the cornerstone of the platforms that rule the Internet based on third-party content, from Facebook to Reddit. You could argue that without Section 230, the modern web would not exist.
Small inflection points in legislation can make magnitudes of difference in how technologies develop and the benefits they bring. These are the points worth defining and fighting for, not whether this current void in legislation is sustainable (it's not) or whether the imperfect patchwork of regulation from different agencies will last (it can't).
Technologists and ideologues who dreamed that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies were a prologue to a world without government may still win the day in the distant future -- but this is the present, and the fight in front of them remains how the government will define its relationship to cryptocurrency and not when.
Likewise, those seeking to paint cryptocurrencies as lawless, unregulated threats should recognize that regulation is being applied, however imperfectly, and the larger threat remains hesitance with how innovators can proceed in an uncertain regulatory framework -- similar to the earliest days of the Internet. Technologists and entrepreneurs will choose to move to other states that take the lead on how they implement legislation with regards to cryptocurrencies and have clear regulations.
Cryptocurrencies aren't unregulated in the United States, they're unlegislated and will continue to be so in the lame duck session. The latter is a far graver and more realistic concern than the former.
This article was edited from its original headline "Cryptocurrencies Aren't Unregulated, They're Unlegistated" to "What The Lame Duck Election Year Could Mean For Cryptocurrency Regulation".
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22595fb105e0ba43393945bed656172a
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerhuang/2019/06/30/bitcoin-is-once-again-trending-over-jesus/
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Bitcoin Is Once Again Trending Over Jesus
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Bitcoin Is Once Again Trending Over Jesus
Bull market in Bitcoin crypto currency. Slovenia, December 1, 2018 Getty
Is the recent bitcoin rally an illusion or is it part of a larger price trend? It's suddenly become a relevant question that is making its mark on Google Trends. Bitcoin is once again trending over Jesus when it comes to search interest worldwide and in the United States. This sudden spike in interest comes as the price of bitcoin rallies to some of levels seen in 2017 and 2018, right after bitcoin first passed Jesus in Google search interest for the first time.
Bitcoin trends over Jesus in Google Trends, author screenshot Author screenshot
One of the leading indicators used to predict some economic outcomes has become Google search history, which can be encapsulated in Google Trends. Google and its chief economist Hal Varian once released a paper that described how searches for jobs and unemployment category keywords could predict for initial claims for unemployment benefits -- which are then used as a larger indicator for the health of an economy and whether or not a recession is coming.
Hal Varian and his team were able to demonstrate some positive correlation between Google Trends data and the number of initial claims that were made, even predicting for an unexpected drop in claims from the consensus by economic experts by looking at Google Trends for unemployment and job searches pointing downwards before initial claims came in. This same trend was a globalized phenomenon, with similar results being demonstrated by researchers in Germany and Israel.
It makes sense that in a digitized economy, that attention expressed in digital searches could be leading indicators of user and consumer behavior: after all, that's what the billions of dollars in digital ad spend caters to. What we search in aggregate is a reflection of where we place our attention in an environment where attention is scarce and ever more precious.
If that's the case, then there's some good news for bitcoin fans as bitcoin trends over Jesus again. It comes at a time where Bitcoin market dominance has come to a two-year high as it increases over 60%. Interestingly, while bitcoin's search interest has spiked, search interest for other chains like ethereum and ripple don't show the same pattern, even though their price has also increased with some positive correlation with the rise of bitcoin. Bitcoin dominance is inching higher, so certainly the relative amount of growth in bitcoin's price is higher than those of altcoins -- but it doesn't seem like the difference in price is reflected fully by the difference in search interest.
Ethereum and ripple have not risen as much Author screenshot
This pattern persists worldwide with few regional variations, though it's certainly less powerful to say in other countries like China, where search engine market share tilts towards local players rather than Google and where Christianity doesn't hold as much sway as a country like the United States -- which has the largest Christian population in the world.
Yet regardless of any context, this can't be mistaken for anything other than good news for the crypto ecosystem. With increased attention and interest comes down-stream effects of more people becoming part of the crypto and bitcoin ecosystem as either consumers, miners or builders. And while it's unclear to what degree the correlation between search trends and price increases is driven by the price increase getting new eyes onto bitcoin again, or new stories and search interest driving demand for crypto and pushing up the price, it's clear the two factors are working together to create a virtuous cycle -- where price increases and search interest will help drive up short-term and long-term value for the crypto ecosystem back, potentially, to the heights of 2017 and 2018 -- and perhaps even beyond.
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771795db5c6f52964284b942522abc50
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerhuang/2019/08/31/andreas-m-antonopoulos-announces-new-book-on-lightning-network/
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Andreas M. Antonopoulos Announces New Book On Lightning Network
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Andreas M. Antonopoulos Announces New Book On Lightning Network
Lightning Flash Getty
Best-selling author Andreas M. Antonopoulos, of Mastering Bitcoin fame and two collaborators, Olaoluwa "roasbeef" Osuntokun, the CTO and co-founder of Lightning Labs and the lead developer of ind, one of the most popular implementations of the Lightning Network, and René Pickhardt, an independent Lightning Network contributor, recently announced that they were going to publish a book together on the Lightning Network entitled "Mastering the Lightning Network".
The book is going to be published with O'Reilly, which also published both Mastering Bitcoin and Mastering Ethereum. It's due to be published in the last quarter of 2020, which means that the book should come out in about a year or so from now. A Github repository welcomes contributions from the community so that they can help frame and shape the content being developed. The book is meant to appeal to users with a technical understanding of the fundamentals of open blockchains and bitcoin, and is meant to help address an educational gap on an exciting development in blockchain.
What is Lightning Network?
Lightning Network is a peer-to-peer scaling solution for open blockchains such as bitcoin -- a layer built on top of open blockchains. By using payment channels between different payers and smart contracts to enforce reliable payments and to punish bad actors, Lightning Network enables transactions between individuals without the burden of putting everything on the blockchain -- meaning that people can transmit value through cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin without paying burdensome transaction fees and without having to wait for long periods of confirmation time.
Instead, you can make micropayments through participating nodes, which open up payment channels that only broadcast to the underlying blockchain at opening and close. It's also blockchain-agnostic, and can be used to transfer value between different blockchains, with a test being deployed between litecoin and bitcoin.
This technological change allows for the rapid, near-instant processing of cryptocurrency transactions with almost zero transaction fees.
What effect has Lightning Network had?
Lightning Network nodes have almost doubled in the last half-year for bitcoin, with about 4500 nodes operational by the end of June 2019. In the first half of 2019, capacity for the Lightning Network has almost doubled. Coin Center used a Lightning Network transaction through a gumball machine to help demonstrate the potential of blockchain, cryptocurrencies and bitcoin to members of Congress. And it's not just bitcoin -- Stellar's founder indicated Stellar was looking to integrate Lightning Network as well.
Why does this matter?
The book about to be announced fills an educational gap, with the quickly developing Lightning Network helping bitcoin deal with scale issues that have plagued it from its inception. This rapid new innovation is changing how people use bitcoin and education around it will be critical to having its effects be propagated -- and understood.
Lightning Network allows bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to be much more usable for the average person, and gives people the ability and context where they can use cryptocurrencies in their day-to-day purchases with low transactional fees and delay. The more education there is about the topic of Lightning Network, the more momentum is build in this regards.
As Andreas M. Antonopoulos puts it, "I’m very excited about the Lightning Network and want to share that excitement and knowledge with as many people as possible.”
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e100255d4c1deeec29451960762aecdc
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerhuang/2020/07/23/garry-kasparov-chess-champion-human-rights-advocate-bitcoin-supporter/
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Garry Kasparov: Chess Grandmaster, Bitcoin Supporter
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Garry Kasparov: Chess Grandmaster, Bitcoin Supporter
OSLO, NORWAY - MAY 27: Russian democracy advocate and chess grand master Garry Kasparov is ... [+] interviewed by information warfare and propaganda expert Molly McKew at Oslo Freedom Forum 2019 on May 27, 2019 in Oslo, Norway. (Photo by Julia Reinhart/Getty Images) Getty Images
Recently, I sat down to interview Garry Kasparov as part of the Collision From Home conference. He’s currently serving as Avast's security ambassador, and the chairman of a couple of foundations dedicated to human rights, digital liberties and renewing democratic freedoms. First is the Human Rights Foundation, which hosts the Oslo Freedom Forum, and which uses technologies and digital innovations to unite against tyranny. Second is the Renew Democracy Initiative, a non-partisan and non-for-profit organization founded by a wide array of leaders from across the partisan spectrum to uphold constitutional principles in the United States.
I asked him a few questions concerning the intersection of human rights and new technologies such as cryptocurrencies. At this moment in time, with an assortment of threats against liberal democracies and the rise of autocracies around the world — technology can be used against people or be used to help liberate them. It was in that spirit that I interviewed Garry Kasparov. The following article has been transcribed from the original audio, with minor edits for stylistic reasons but with the substance intact.
Question 1: What role can cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum play when it comes to human rights?
Garry Kasparov: As with any new technology, it’s not inherently good or bad. It depends on who’s using it and for what purpose. You can use nuclear technology to build a bomb or a reactor. Now, we hear a lot about the potential downsides of cryptocurrencies because they can help bad guys rob money.
Actually, these fears are overrated. When we look at the opposite hand, we see many upsides of cryptocurrencies starting with bitcoin and others that followed it and blockchain as a technology because it allows for more personal control for individuals at a time where more and more of elements of our lives are controlled either by the state, corporations or outside parties that may somehow have a clandestine agenda. So I think it’s a natural response of technology to help the public regain the control that has been gradually lost to outside institutions.
We do understand that the state cannot function without certain rights to infringe on our privacy, but it all has to be regulated. And we understand the state has power to issue money, but again, if it gets out of control (as it has now), people are looking for alternative means of protecting their wealth and saving their fortune against inflation or uncontrolled state interference with their financial affairs. The good thing about bitcoin is that you know exactly the number — the magic number of 21 million. And we understand the formula behind that. But when you look at the other side, the Fed for instance, you never know how many trillions of dollars will appear on the market tomorrow that will damage your savings.
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The same goes for the privacy sector at large — more and more now, people are recognizing that so many vital elements of our lives are now screened and owned by outside parties. And of course, anything that can offer us the opportunity to take back control or some control of our privacy is always welcome. That’s why I think the steady rise in popularity of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology as a concept is inevitable, because it’s a response to the shift of power from individuals to states or other institutions that may act on our privacy without our consent.
Question 2: As the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, are you involved in projects that it advances in bitcoin privacy and the open web (for example, distributing USBs in North Korea), and what broad strategic outcomes would it like to see from its efforts and its interactions with technologies?
I’m not involved directly on a day-to-day basis, though I played a role in one of the projects. You mentioned the North Korea project. We have been distributing these USBs, and one of these methods was to send balloons with hydrogen — this is very low-tech — the balloons had a small package attached to it and a lock that had a combination of acids that blows up in two-three hours. And these balloons had to cross the demilitarized zone. I actually launched one of these balloons myself from the South Korean side. It was quite an experience.
It was part of our goals to send these balloons and to make sure that they can distribute some information. It definitely had some psychological effect on the North Koreans, they got really angry about it. In general, the Human Rights Foundation always looks at new technologies, at these new communication tools, as opportunities to empower dissidents around the world.
Our trademark is the Oslo Freedom Forum, which is the largest gathering of dissidents around the world, representing a wide variety of geographies and ideologies, fighting all sorts of dictatorships. We have no political preferences, we’re not subdued by any political ideology.
For us, it was important for us to address every violation of human rights, and we were trying to help these people, most of them under severe attacks by their governments — even if they left their countries, their financial accounts were hacked, their information was stolen — so we have been providing special training courses. We’ve invited famous hackers to help them and to work with them — we have been using every opportunity to offer them extra protection, and of course blockchain and bitcoin were very natural choices to incorporate into this strategy.
Question 3: In a Fast Company article, you said “enormous power has been allocated to big corporations that collect data and that is one of my biggest concerns”. How would you like to see data custody organized, and should internet companies be less concentrated or less centralized?
This is one of the key issues in the modern world and its relations between individuals and new technologies and its connection between security and privacy. I spent years writing on Avast, so many blogs I wrote about these issues. Speaking about big corporations, first of all, I always tell people that if they generate data somebody will collect it. The whole idea that data can be generated and lost is ridiculous. So we just have to understand that if we’re there putting our lives online, the data will be collected somewhere.
I always do emphasize the difference between KGB-like data collection and corporate data collection. It’s clear that in countries like Russia, China, Turkey and Iran, data collection by state institutions or by companies working with state institutions may cause drastic damage to individuals who are targeted.
It’s not the same in America, Canada or Great Britain or Europe — yes, your information can be used for some purposes you didn’t authorize, you could receive unwanted advertising, it could be used for political causes where you don’t approve — but it doesn’t cause you harm and there are many ways for you to appeal certain harmful cases.
What really bothers me is a twofold concern. One is I don’t think the legislation whether it’s in the United States or Canada or Europe is up to the task of protecting user data. I was totally depressed after hearing the five hour testimony of Mark Zuckerberg on the Hill — the level of preparation or unpreparedness by the senators was staggering. It’s amazing. They had so many staffers, and they could not ask any relevant questions — so you got nothing.
The problem goes way beyond GDPR because it’s about restrictions and potential punishments for the corporations that would allow this information to be abused as you saw with Facebook and the US election.
It’s a complicated issue and one of the problems is how do we put enough pressure on politicians to solve the problems? While everybody is concerned in general about the privacy issue, but when you look at the way people behave with their devices, it’s almost like a joke too. I wish people would practice what I call “digital hygiene” to protect their devices.
That’s one side of the problem — what’s happening in the free world — I think that we’re not yet there to address the issue from the side of legislation to make sure that Facebook, Apple AAPL and Google GOOGL and others understand the repercussions of not guarding the data they have in their possession.
What bothers me as the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation is a more serious concern — the same corporations that are pretending to be guarding the interests of their customers in American or in Canada — they behave differently when they are making deals with undemocratic, authoritarian regimes.
I don’t understand why on Earth people in China should be treated differently from American citizens. Why people who live in a country where loss of their private data could mean serious harm to them — in many cases prosecution and even death — why are these people treated differently as these second or third-class creatures? While in Canada, the United States and Europe, there are certain levels of protection that is being respected by these corporations. They always demonstrate their willingness to their rules of not sharing their data with the government.
What is needed is to fight for universal standards for privacy no matter where they live — no matter if they live in Africa, Asia or Europe — they should all get the same level of protection. I understand this will lead to business conflicts — countries like China have very strict rules for example. But this is something we should try to enforce as these are American corporations that benefit largely from being based in America.
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c569111f3f6faa06332429fb006d48c4
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerhuang/2020/10/19/dissidents-are-turning-to-cryptocurrency-as-protests-mount-around-the-world/?sh=1ef3188f584c
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Dissidents Are Turning To Cryptocurrency As Protests Mount Around The World
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Dissidents Are Turning To Cryptocurrency As Protests Mount Around The World
A pro-democracy protester gives the three-finger salute while holding up a sign on an electronic ... [+] tablet during an anti-government rally on the outskirts of Bangkok on October 19, 2020. (Photo by Jack TAYLOR / AFP) (Photo by JACK TAYLOR/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images
In a COVID-19 era marked by aggressive political consolidation and economic troubles, there have been sparks of protests around the world. From Hong Kong, to the United States to Nigeria, to Thailand, to Belarus and beyond no corner of the world has been untouched by a wave of fresh political protests.
Their causes are diverse: fighting against established political classes, opposing police brutality or calling for reexaminations of elections with possibly fraudulent vote counts.
Yet their concerns are common: they are aligned against powerful and entrenched politicians who largely control trust within their borders. From use of force against dissidents to regulations that control domestic banking systems to the control of state-affiliated media, political incumbents have a lot of power to wield to advance their interests. In order to create meaningful dissent, you have to work around that power.
Cryptocurrency offers one way to doing so. From the payment processor side, you can set up your own payment service using open-source software such as BTCPay. With decentralization, you don’t rely on any third-party organization to vet or potentially censor your payments, and there are no processing fees: a stark contrast from the conventional banking system in nation-states that are largely dependent on the corpus between political and legal power to maintain their good financial standing.
An example of this is the Feminist Coalition, an organization of Nigerian activists, moving to accept donations in bitcoin as part of the #EndSARS movement dedicated to fighting police brutality in Nigeria. The Feminist Coalition has reported that its bank account has been shut down, along with a donation link provided by centralized payment processor Flutterwave. Flutterwave’s chairman is Tunde Lemo, a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The move to bitcoin not only helps the Feminist Coalition to be resilient to censorship for payment processors who are entrenched in traditional power structures, it also helps donors decide the level of privacy they need to make donations to a cause that might be frowned upon in official circles.
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People can choose to use Wasabi wallet and the combination of tools they bring to the fore (broadcasting via the Tor network, using CoinJoin to more deeply anonymize transactions) to express a strong desire for privacy. They can use a bitcoin address they don’t use very often and which can’t be strongly tied to their identity to send cryptocurrency donations. Or they can choose to express a very loose expression of privacy by sending from a more centralized exchange with stricter identity rules such as Coinbase.
The essential point is that people can send cryptocurrency when centralized exchanges censor payment processing and there’s no other ways to transact, and they can choose how strongly they want to link their personal identity to financial transactions in the face of political repression and political power.
This same dynamic is what happened with Hong Kong Free Press, an English-level media organization that has pro-democracy support and perspectives within Hong Kong which is also using BTCpay to accept bitcoin and donations.
Given the new national security law, it’s possible that payment processors might shut off Hong Kong Free Press and their access to the financial resources required to operate — and it’s possible that they might go after with their donors, especially ones with weaker privacy protections.
In Thailand, where pro-democracy protestors have emerged, protestors have put up signs asking for others to buy bitcoin. In Belarus, government employees fired for supporting the political opposition have been supported with grants partially financed through cryptocurrencies by the BYSOL organization, an organization founded by civic society and technologists that “support[s] anyone who was repressed, prosecuted, or lost their jobs because of participating in strikes or peaceful protests in Belarus.”
Those facing political prosecution fill out a form that took one just ten minutes to figure out, and then they’re set up on a mobile cryptocurrency wallet, then sent grants and support. BYSOL is fundraising with bitcoin and ethereum as funding options. The organization has raised slightly over $2 million USD to send out to support protesters for their bravery if they are economically tied to the state and are punished for it.
Around the world, as protests mount, cryptocurrencies are starting to be used in various ways to go around established political power and to support protestors and dissidents. Each use further bolsters the case that cryptocurrencies can help support meaningful dissent and political diversity even in the face of extreme repression.
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afcdadfb68fe864e20af1ff5c9a951be
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerhuang/2021/01/14/ecb-pushes-digital-euro-wants-to-globally-regulate-bitcoins-funny-business/?sh=57a5150d44b5
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ECB Pushes Digital Euro, Wants To “Globally Regulate” Bitcoin’s “Funny Business”
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ECB Pushes Digital Euro, Wants To “Globally Regulate” Bitcoin’s “Funny Business”
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - DECEMBER 11: President of the European Central Bank (ECB) Christine Lagarde (L) ... [+] is talking with the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen (R) before the start of the second day of an EU Summit in the Europa, the European Union Council headquarter on December 11, 2020, in Brussels, Belgium. (Photo by Thierry Monasse/Getty Images) Getty Images
During an interview at a Reuters conference, the ECB’s President, Christine Lagarde, noted that bitcoin had some “funny business” and asked for a global layer of regulation for bitcoin.
This was a bit of an off-hand remark, but also comes at the same time as the ECB releasing the results of the end of public consultation around the digital euro, as well as a statement from Christine Lagarde that the digital euro was likely to come about in the next five years.
The digital euro will be the European Union’s version of a central bank digital currency, so the two remarks in combination seem to indicate more of a hybrid approach of trying to maneuver against bitcoin while promoting the ECB’s vision for its digital euro.
In a previous whitepaper, the ECB articulated its view on the digital euro. Worries about money laundering likely mean, of course, that even though the public supports privacy, the ECB is not going to be strongly tied to that.
After all, exceptions carved into privacy standards can become the norm: a backdoor anywhere is a backdoor to the entire system. With policy figures obsessed with cooperating with tax authorities or AML authorities, it’s clear that data will be able to be tapped in a way that wasn’t possible with cash versions of the euro or other fiats.
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Instead of contenting itself with monitoring the onramps and offramps and exchanges where cash might touch digital ledgers, the ECB is now advancing a potential placeholder for its supported version of digital currency — one it wants you to think is inherently privacy-respecting.
The vision in the early 90s from David Chaum, Hal Finney and others of cash becoming an electronic ledger in the control of governments has never come closer to being true. This moment is the beginning of the convergence of the digital yuan, the digital yen, the digital euro — and eventually, of course, the digital dollar, with bitcoins and cryptocurrencies as the only independent hedge.
The irony of course, is that the ECB questions bitcoin’s “funny business” while proposing a system that is inherently less trustable and less secure. Policy centralization led to the 500 Euro bill being one of the favored tools of money launderers — and a slow, anemic pullback when this was realized, even with the mechanisms of power aligned that this was probably a bad idea.
The digital euro will also obey Europe’s monetary policy — which is just now undergoing a radical experiment with negative interest rates. And while bitcoin offers privacy options (at least for metadata) for the weak, and transparency for the powerful (a public, open ledger where “whales” are watched every time they aggregate transfers), the digital euro may aim and actually achieve to have transparency for the weak, while obscuring the actions of the powerful.
After all, the ECB wants to know as much as it can about the aggregate state of its network, as well as some chosen individuals: technical backdoors and political backdoors beget holes in the integrity of the system already. In deciding that technocrats are going to implement arbitrary security standards, rather than testing security empirically, we may see the same people who secured Equifax EFX , SolarWinds SWI , and others have their fingerprints on digital money rather than an already more established and empirically tested security of checks and balances.
Unchecked technical capability and an unbalanced approach decided by a few rather than tested by many to how people can exchange metadata for utility gives states capacity with no constraints, while offering them little incentive to have the public discussions that spill out in bitcoin forums around the world, or are pored over as open source code.
Aside from “public consultations” that are time-capped and various whitepapers and PDFs that might be seldom read, can we expect a digital euro to compete with open source communities in their transparency, education, and openness to third-party monitoring?
Some bemoan the slowness of bitcoin improvement proposals (BIPs), but those are transparently laid out so that a decentralized consensus of many perspectives can come together. Somehow, the ECB’s timeline (five years or less, hopefully), is markedly higher than the amount of improvements bitcoin has seen in that time period and is almost longer than ethereum’s lifespan — while offering much less empirical evidence for its integrity or potential success.
In embracing a centralized digital currency, the ECB is fundamentally missing the democratic nature of the discourse of bitcoin and the way decisions are made in a a decentralized and incentive-balanced way.
One can harken to Thomas Mann’s appeal to democracy as a call to respect individual dignity and education — a call that echoes further in the nodes and miners of the bitcoin network system and the open ecosystem of educational resources created by independent creators, coders, nodes, and miners, rather than the ECB technocrat’s dream of top-down impositions through whitepaper.
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39dc3be8aaae53994237c8c4e1f23388
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerhuang/2021/01/25/stratum-v2-promises-to-further-decentralize-bitcoin/?sh=76555aaf5724
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Stratum V2 Promises To Further Decentralize Bitcoin
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Stratum V2 Promises To Further Decentralize Bitcoin
Computer, Bank, Blockchain, Coin, Currency getty
At the core of bitcoin’s mission has been a curve towards decentralization on many layers. The word itself is loaded — and it has a lot of meanings. Decentralization has many different categories from technical to cultural — and different stakeholders from the developers of the Bitcoin Core team to the exchanges that power fiat on-ramps and off-ramps.
Yet one area where there is a lot of focus are the miners that secure the bitcoin network and its proof-of-work chain. Stratum V2 is an upgrade to the bitcoin mining stack that aims to help miners as small as hobbyists with a few bits of ASIC mining equipment to have a more flexible and censorship-resistant route to communicating with mining pools. It takes the ideas of BetterHash and implements a few more improvements on top and differences.
From mining pool concentration in China to how miners can choose different mining pools, the amount of decentralization present in miners is an important consideration for the security of bitcoin.
After all, if miners that aggregate together in terms of mining pools embrace new policies such as censoring certain blocks, the promise of having a trustless, censorship-resistant technology solution would give way to a new “regime before the fact” of centralized mining pool leaders, who might be forced one way or another, whether through personal incentives like greed or through pushes for country-by-country regulations, to make decisions that benefit them rather than the network in aggregate.
To resist against this force, Stratum V2 is being supported by Slush Pool, a mining pool with more than 1.2 million bitcoin mined since 2010 and the largest non-Chinese based bitcoin mining pool. Its open source protocol called Startum V1 is now used by most mining pools now. Braiins, the parent organization, also offers open source mining firmware, and so helps miners throughout the mining value chain.
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Stratum V2 allows individual miners within a mining pool to choose their own blocks to mine rather than having to mine the one a pool proposes for them, while still benefiting from a more stable aggregation of mining rewards so they can defray volatility. Instead of the current paradigm of the pool offering a incomplete block template that an individual miner has to accept, now miners can optionally choose the blocks they want to mine and send it back up to the pool.
Stratum V2 also provides a bunch of different technical upgrades, from switching to JSON for communication to binary to make communication more seamless to reducing redundant communications between pools and individual miners, to cryptographic authentication that allows you to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks such as your ISP stealing your hash power.
In other words, Stratum V2, if adapted widely would be able to abstract away a key tradeoff for miners looking to join a mining pool between the surety of income flows, and the need to play by the underlying rules imposed by a pool.
This has more powerful implications than realized, if it was spread throughout the current system and there was equivalent uptake on Stratum v2 as there was with Stratum V1.
The idea is that instead of having large organizations with large slices of mining hash, you could bring the power down to individual-level mining units as the consensus group for proof-of-work algorithms — bringing decentralization all the way to individual hardware holders or physical farms, and preserving more of the censorship-resistant nature of the network. With less of a central third party to lean on, censorship resistance for the whole network becomes stronger.
Instead of thinking about hashing power aggregated into large mining pools, you can think about power distributed among individuals spread geographically — making it more difficult for any centralized organization or country to lean on the bitcoin system and force it one way or another.
People often talk about the mining pool centralization in China as one of the key issues surrounding bitcoin’s decentralization. Yet, here again, we are reminded of the varied arguments present within that single, seemingly simple word. Decentralization, but towards what? And who are the ones who inherit distributed power from a central base?
As with most examples with bitcoin, a cultural need to preserve the principles of the system and to create architecture that mitigates the creation of centralized guardrails has led to a technical solution — one that aims to use better standards in order to voluntarily move miners and mining pools towards a more even, decentralized and censorship-resistant consensus for bitcoin.
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7b27f244e77f087ff279cd25b1dfce02
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerhuang/2021/02/01/miamis-mayor-leads-the-charge-to-bring-bitcoin-to-americas-largest-cities/?sh=628272adc6c9
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Miami’s Mayor Leads The Charge To Bring Bitcoin To America’s Largest Cities
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Miami’s Mayor Leads The Charge To Bring Bitcoin To America’s Largest Cities
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Miami’s mayor, Mayor Francis Suarez, has been busy adding a personalized touch in trying to bring tech entrepreneurs to Miami. Striving to combine the financial elements of New York City and the technology character of San Francisco into a South Florida finance and tech oasis, the mayor is bringing a different attitude and policy outlook on innovation. Among one of the many areas this vision affects is bitcoin — something he believes, in an interview with Forbes, will be the “biggest story of the next few years.”
The mayor admits he’s always been fascinated with the idea of bitcoin. Its mathematical nature appeals to him and he’s aware of the growing popularity of bitcoin among the American people. There are three tangible paths the city is taking to expand its bitcoin-friendly nature:
Miami is considering giving city employees the opportunity to get their salaries paid in bitcoin Local fees and taxes could be paid in bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency Finally, the city’s treasury might place some of its investment capital into bitcoin, which would be a first for major cities in the United States (and perhaps in the world)
While in exact percentage or absolute terms, the mayor hasn’t got an exact figure for how much investment he wants to place — yet he knows he wants to structure it in a public-private partnership where private partners can take some of the reward for defraying risk from the public side.
An hypothetical example with arbitrary numbers: the city would invest about $250,000 in public funds into a fund that would be supplemented with $750,000 in private bitcoin from three large investors. The private investors would get the first funds out to guarantee their return, while the city would benefit from anything left.
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Using the city’s investment powers creates a lot of potential, but also some risk. For example, Miami’s treasury, according to the mayor’s recollection, doesn’t hold any commodities and mostly sticks to cash and cash equivalents. This makes his intent in this field a strong statement of interest in what holding bitcoin can do for the city of Miami.
He’s also keeping an eye out on the bitcoin ecosystem and events, having spoken at a bitcoin event a couple of years ago, and looking to bring the Bitcoin 2021 Conference to Miami.
Finally, the mayor is considering financing his reelection campaign in bitcoin, joining a small selection of politicians who have raised funds in bitcoin. Combined with his social media presence, the efforts could bear fruit that helps solidify his tech-friendly persona, as well as the treasury for his next re-election.
Beyond just efforts for his city, Mayor Francis is also reaching out and learning from other states and jurisdictions — and making efforts to bring Wyoming-style laws on bitcoin to Florida, having reached out to Caitlin Long of Wyoming fame and speaking with Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis about bringing a bill in the state legislature that would bring Wyoming-style bitcoin regulations to Florida.
The mayor concluded the interview by saying that many people “underestimated this story” (the story of bitcoin) and it looks like with these actions, he isn’t going to be one of them. The mayor of Miami is combining its hosting of innovators with a drive to bring bitcoin to the stage.
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5d3b9e83d133040afb6a5e569b3a124e
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerhuang/2021/02/16/arguments-that-bitcoin-harms-the-environment-through-wasteful-emissions-miss-the-mark/
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Arguments That Bitcoin Harms The Environment Through Wasteful Emissions Miss The Mark
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Arguments That Bitcoin Harms The Environment Through Wasteful Emissions Miss The Mark
SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk (R) gestures as he arrives on the red carpet for the Axel ... [+] Springer Awards ceremony, in Berlin, on December 1, 2020. (Photo by Britta Pedersen / POOL / AFP) (Photo by BRITTA PEDERSEN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) POOL/AFP via Getty Images
With Tesla’s TSLA recent $1.5 billion purchase of bitcoin, and the surge in bitcoin price, there has been a renewed interest in arguments that describe as bitcoin as wasteful and the cause of immense environmental damage. One of Elon Musk’s priorities is to address climate change — how does that square with bitcoin?
Arguments that bitcoin causes tons of carbon emissions and environmental degradation miss the mark. There are technical and specific tactical arguments to make here: the increasing use of renewable energy within the network, its capacity to chase wasteful power by aiming a fleet of mobile hardware that needs to consume energy to produce value (this helps understand, for example, natural gas that was going to be flared due to there being no productive economic use for it).
One interesting way to look at this is the use of Sichuan province for mining bitcoin — where the majority of Chinese miners who are in the People’s Republic of China do their mining. Sichuan suffers from overcapacity — an ambitious, centralized state-driven project led to the Three Gorges Dam and a glut of power that can’t find usage at optimal prices.
Instead of filling in the gaps with decades-long plans to fill in ghost cities commissioned by central planners, instead, a hyper-mobile fleet of hardware miners can come in and out and take advantage of excess power. Within the larger confines of the energy market, bitcoin mining can serve as a honing missile for inefficiencies, providing the imagined cities central planners thought they could conjure up when they set up building complex, and perhaps without bitcoin, projects that carry waste.
And this gets to exactly why these arguments against bitcoin miss the mark. “Waste” is an arbitrary term and is an economic analogue to those who in a political sense will define “terrorism” as a certain specifically defined kind of violence versus another. A state that kills a civilian is perpetuating justice — a non-state actor is committing terrorism. Similarly, if it contributes to a central planner’s ambition for GDP, it creates “value” — when it corresponds to networks of decentralized individuals defining and transacting in value elsewhere, it corresponds to “waste”.
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In this sort of philosophical worldview, the key point of contention is definitions rather than technology. We have to get at the very idea of what makes something valuable or not to create meaningful headway. Without that, even a bitcoin network that uses 100% renewable energy or absorbs all of the energy waste in the world (energy that is literally destroyed with no purpose) will never satisfy the pointy barb and perspectives of its skeptics.
Value is defined imperfectly in terms of our current market economics — how does a trustless, decentralized system that stores value without top-down leadership fit into a world that is used to having bureaucracies govern top-down without question?
We have to compare bitcoin to what it is trying to supplement or complement. In fact, the inevitable result of low monetary policy targeting and the current financial system is an incredible asset bubble passed through the retail banking system through incredible promotions and offers, and incredible punishments for the idea of saving (at least in standard retail banks).
As asset prices increase across the board, from shares to housing, all we have changed is the multiple — the asset multiples assigned to power an arbitrary metric, in order to push forward rampant consumerism in the hope that eventually, these consumption multiples (all of which accelerate some degree of carbon emissions) will trickle down to steady waged jobs.
Some economists have softened on the idea of tradeoffs — content or mystified with a flattening Phillips curve that no longer turns employment into inflation in as straightforward as a way and a rate of growth that is higher than the real interest rate.
The idea now is to get an economy that shut down entirely because it wasn’t versatile enough to see a once in a 20-year phenomenon, something that Albert Camus had written about as an inevitable fact of life in his aptly named “The Plague” (“They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences.”), back to life again in the most extreme fashion possible — with loose monetary policy and ample fiscal stimulus.
Yet, what are we getting for the bonuses paid for the financial captains of industry and increasing financialization (measured by financial sector % of GDP)?
What are we getting for the incredible asset inflation that is disproportionately rewarding those who are already wealthy, and leaving the working class, students, entrepreneurs and others at the very best poor in reality, rich in balance sheets — or poor in both?
What are we getting for a class of economic elites whose expertise does not seem well-suited in aggregate to predicting blowups in credit-default swaps and other exotic derivatives, private startup shares, or tail risk events such as plagues that are cyclical throughout the course of human history?
What are we getting for the relationship between political and economic elites, fed with political contributions? Can democracy function well with single-source contracts and a closed technocratic elite that rewards its members even as others sink below stagnation, buffeted with the promises of future cheques rather than future careers or independence?
What are getting from a system that rewarded the CEO of a bank whose role in Lehman Brothers helped foster incredible financial failure and worldwide recession with about $500mn in salary?
Are not all of these wasteful in some way or another?
Bitcoin is not just a wonkish deflationary “proof-of-work” system. It is a way to inject liquidity and a democratic, decentralized, and international desire to target the incredible amount of waste in the current financial system and economic-political complex that defines the modern nation-state.
At that, it is a welcoming one that rewards those who are intellectually honest, and which forgives a change of heart or those so tentative that they have become self-professed “latecomers” (Elon Musk). Bitcoin does not censor who joins the network, and some of its skeptics (Micheal Saylor for example) have become rewarded financially and socially for becoming some of its strongest advocates. Many financiers who are disillusioned with the current financial system have hedged their bets — or embarked on a wholesale adoption of bitcoin.
Since the early 2000s, in advanced developed countries, labour share of GDP has gone down (including in Canada, the United States, Germany, Australia, among others). The rich have gotten richer in places like the United States and in the People’s Republic of China— and this, not always through engineering new solutions or creating deflationary curves. Meanwhile, those working for wages are stagnating or worse, are seeing the potential for their savings to erode whether through government-based restrictions on their mobility (PRC’s Hukou), or the extreme difference in asset prices in developed equity markets, fed partly by tech stocks that have become a coterie of insiders before their IPO.
The explosive growth of bitcoin has not just been a story of those piling onto a deflationary asset to save themselves from a forced path of debt and lower wages. It has also been, in many ways, the story of the hidden costs of asset inflation that aren’t captured by the consumer price index — and the very story of what a society decides is valuable or wasteful. Arguments about bitcoin’s environmental impact and its “wastefulness” miss the mark entirely without considering the nuances contained in the idea of economic waste.
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f594c33d7118a30043ff0ef9ba82d2bd
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerhuang/2021/02/25/bitcoin-and-other-cryptocurrencies-are-fueling-innovation-in-space/?sh=122e856b4ad3
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Bitcoin And Other Cryptocurrencies Are Fueling Innovation In Space
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Bitcoin And Other Cryptocurrencies Are Fueling Innovation In Space
Ula launch at midnight getty
The journey of venturing out and becoming a multi-planetary species has always attracted an eclectic mix of pioneers. From Elon Musk to Jeff Bezos, space itself has been the next frontier for private-public innovation. A new wave of pioneers and entrepreneurs is starting to tackle the problem of crossing the planetary frontier, working with long established governmental organizations.
One of the pioneers involved in private space financing is Adeo Ressi. Some of you may know him as Elon Musk’s close friend, who was with him musing with Jim Cantrell about sending plants or rodents to Mars, a grouping that sparked Elon’s desire to start SpaceX.
Adeo is the founder of Founder Institute, an initiative that seeks to unlock entrepreneurs no matter what their background is. They operate around the world and deal with a diverse set of emerging-tech industries.
The Founder Institute help founders focus down on the problem they’re working on with a 3 and a half month accelerator program. The program is global and is meant to cultivate startup ecosystems wherever it goes. As part of that mission, The Founder Institute also runs VC Lab, an incubator for general partners looking to create their first fund. Two space funds have come out of that: Seldor Capital and e2mc. There has also been a cryptocurrency-specific VC fund: BitBull Capital.
Adeo’s a witness to the growing intersect between cryptocurrency and space, with two communities that share the affinity of risk and innovation. Several Founder Institute alumni have financed the launch of deeptech and cutting-edge startups with their personal proceeds from cryptocurrency.
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As Adeo put it, “It is difficult to understate the rapid growth of emerging technologies right now — cryptocurrency, in particular, is exploring new price levels and new value propositions, with Bitcoin's future appearing more promising by the day given the state of the global economy, inflation, and destabilization. At the same time, the ongoing crypto success story is encouraging investors to diversify into other emerging technologies and markets, including space.”
Founder Institute offers a program that helps channel that energy and funding towards space called Star Fellows. This started around 2 years ago, and was driven by Adeo’s realization that there was not as much innovation in space as other industries. It was “unchartered” territory, especially with seed-stage or earlier stage startups. Now, about two dozen space startups have been incubated by the Star Fellows program, with about half of the startups incorporated outside the United States.
Ceres Robotics is an example of a company that was incubated in this program that is looking to create robots for future living on planets such as Mars. Other Founder Institute companies manufacture comfortable space suits for travel, and others are looking to build vehicles for space. Atomos Space has gotten $2mn in contracts from the DoD and NASA for transportation using its last-mile orbital transfer vehicules. Mountain Aerospace Research Solutions is redesigning rockets. XArc is thinking through building architecture for different planets and the Moon.
These are all fundamental hard-tech problems that combine hardware and software on the cutting edge. One way in which the Founder Institute opens up the window for startups like this is to directly provide them with funding — yet another way is through opening up the window of possibility for early-stage founders wherever or whoever they are towards the stars.
Adeo believes that within five years, he wouldn’t be surprised if there were 20-25 seed and Series A funds dedicated to space, and perhaps 5-10 later stage funds, showing the explosive growth of interest and financing in space.
Space is unchartered territory — it is important to suspend disbelief, and while keeping things moored somewhat in the reality of financing — to ultimately embrace that the sector is about helping humanity embark on the precipice of multi-planetary civilization and do something entirely new. That those gaining from cryptocurrency are investing in space exploration should be nothing too surprising — and it forms yet another element of bitcoin and cryptocurrency’s dynamic effect on the world.
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b658dc26c1ce185d26a233968113a429
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2011/05/23/sex-scandals-distract-while-twitter-pulls-a-fast-one/
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Sex Scandals Distract While Twitter Pulls A Fast One
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Sex Scandals Distract While Twitter Pulls A Fast One
This little bird might not be as innocent as it seems
Last week was a bit disappointing from a spiritual perspective. Our leadership demonstrated yet again that it’s more about droit du seigneur than noblesse oblige.
Clearly, Arnold and DSK have been more concerned about what their fiefdoms can do for them than what they can do for their fiefdoms.
And although those two blotted up much of the ink in last week’s headlines, we should note in passing that our industry is not immune to such shenanigans. High tech has its own rogues gallery, led off by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who is followed — only at some distance — by others.
There is former Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd, whose strange story smelled more of schoolboy romanticism and naivety than cynical libertinage. And let’s not forget Hector Ruiz, former CEO of AMD, who slipped out the side door in the Raj Rajaratnam case, but not before succumbing to the dubious charms of Danielle Chiesi, who also managed to rope in IBM’s heir apparent at the time, Bob Moffat.
But lest we become entirely cynical, it is worth noting that our industry (and the world at large) also has many examples of leaders whose high rank and access to female company has not led them to step over the line: I give you Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Apple founder Steve Jobs, both devoted family men. And in the wider world, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi stand out as selfless examples.
As a result of all the hubbub in the headlines, however, you may have overlooked a small item from Twitter, which, while being passed off as mumbo jumbo too technical for the masses, was in fact earth shaking. You could be forgiven for not noticing. Deep tech is boring, and DSK and Arnold were pretty distracting.
Here it is:
Twitter told its third-party developers, via a Twitter API Announcement, that they would have to begin using a new type of authorization that gives users “greater granularity for permission levels” supposedly because said users requested such granularity.
Yawn. I know. But stay with me.
Previously, Twitter and its developers could use a security protocol called “xAuth,” which basically presents two fields (user name and password) to a user when that user wants to let an application access his or her Twitter account. Mac and iOS clients Twitterrific, Tweetbot, and Hibari have been using xAuth for a clean and simple log-in. Among other things, the developer of the client application can control the look of the log-in screen.
Now, however, Twitter is forcing all developers, by the end of the month, over to a more recently developed protocol named Oauth. Under Oauth, a user must leave a native application, launch a browser, go to Twitter, and enter his or her credentials there. Twitter than calls back and gives the application a token (a random number, essentially), which says this client has the right to respond on behalf of this user.
Right off the bat, there are issues with this. First of all, many phones can’t run browsers (e.g., Symbian). So, by month end, Symbian phones are dead in the water as far as Twitter is concerned.
But it’s much more important than that. Oauth interrupts the user experience, making it awful. It’s as if you came to my house to play a game, but I told you, “Before I let you play my game, go next door to my neighbor’s house, get a ticket, come back, and give it to me. Then you can play.”
This crap experience disadvantages all third-party native client applications. Twitter reserves the lean, clean xAuth for itself. Henceforth, Twitterrific, Tweetbot, Hibari will suck.
The similarity between corporations trying to take over a market and dictators trying to take over the world is striking. Both involve a strong propaganda component. In this case, Twitter is masking the coup d’état as a security play. For public consumption, the change in protocol is all about protecting users, making the system more secure, warding off keystroke loggers. But this security is illusory, since any native app can read keystrokes. Twitter is giving users a false sense of security while screwing its third-party developers.
It’s like the 1964 movie in which James Bond asks Auric Goldfinger, “Do you expect me to talk?” and Goldfinger replies, “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”
Twitter is, in effect, telling developers: “Thanks for helping us get to be a big company. Now, die.”
Each new step Twitter takes is minor and technical, just a lot of geek talk. But it’s all geared to eliminate third parties from the ecosystem.
Retrospectively, Twitter will say, as if just noticing: “We did a better job. Look, their stuff was all broken anyway …”
It’s a strategy worthy of Microsoft in its more Machiavellian days.
But Twitter may not have the programming chops to make better apps. It certainly has that reputation among hackers.
If a company builds a piece of code badly, it can’t just layer on more programming ability to repair the damage. It has to have the talent from the beginning. It can’t simply get some smart people in to fix things later. You don’t just patch a 100 story building that’s all raggedy and creaking in the wind. You have to tear it down and start over again.
And Twitter is hardly going fire the now-millionaire programmers who wrote its early code.
That’s what happened to MySpace. Senior employees sabotaged everything, making sure that poor software got written. They were doomed.
For those with a technical bent, an even more eye-glazing account of Twitter’s outrageous move was written up by John Gruber over at Daring Fireball. And, to be clear, Twitter isn't the only company trying to slide one past us on the presumption that we're too stupid to understand.
We can only hope that the community rallies with enough hue and cry to stop this policy before all third parties are choked off and Twitter gets MySpaced.
© 2011 Endpoint Technologies Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
Twitter: RogerKay
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5e5f35d4cf5014d8ed72d7bce29d4978
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2011/06/22/while-hp-and-oracle-sully-cloaks-ibm-takes-their-customers/
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While HP And Oracle Sully Cloaks, IBM Takes Their Customers
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While HP And Oracle Sully Cloaks, IBM Takes Their Customers
The fight between HP and Oracle can only be a distraction for them and a boon to competitors
Talk about throwing good after bad!
What are the percentages in Hewlett-Packard’s (HP’s) law suit against Oracle over the latter’s unwillingness to support its software anymore on the lumbering Itanium platform?
I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I wouldn’t be putting money on HP to win. Even if it does, the victory will be Pyrrhic. Although its demise has often been predicted and yet it survives, Itanium is going down at some point. Oracle would be foolish to throw precious resources down the drain to support it.
In March 2010, Intel introduced an x86 (Xeon) server line that featured many of the big-iron capabilities formerly reserved for Itanium in tacit recognition that the time had come to start looking beyond the ill-starred part. These capabilities, sometimes referred to as RAS (for reliability, availability, and serviceability), include things like error-checking memory, checksums for data transmission, redundant disks, journaling file systems for recovery, and many other redundancy, partitioning, and failover features.
While Intel is in the perhaps unenviable position of having to support Itanium development because of an agreement struck with HP, it clearly sees the volume market as having moved on to x86.
I was at an industry event last year at which IBM — a one-time Itanium supporter — threw more of its weight behind the new Xeons, even in some higher-end servers. IBM, of course, uses its own POWER7 processors in its Power Systems machines, which compete directly with HP’s Itanium servers. A system integrator who specialized in complex installations had a booth on the floor near the speechifying. A placard touted Itanium configurations as one of the firm’s offerings.
I asked how it was going with Itanium, and the guy manning the booth chirped in the predictably positive way called for in these situations, “Fine, fine. They’re going fine.”
So, I sharpened my question and asked when was the last time he had an order for a new Itanium installation. He thought for a bit and said, “Not in the last year.”
Gallery: The Tech Companies Hiring The Most 30 images View gallery
Itanium’s history has been fraught. Intel and HP partnered for its development in the mid-1990s, and the first product, code-named Merced, was supposed to launch in 1998. The project was delayed by complexity and coordination issues, and the part actually came to market in 2001 — three years late. When it did, its performance was not sufficient to lure customers away from competing Sun and IBM architectures, and sales flagged.
From that time onward, Itanium was a humiliation, the butt of industry jokes and a source of embarrassment to the analyst firms that predicted a large market for it. That market never materialized, and gradually, the industry began to withdraw support.
While HP and Intel continue to invest in Itanium, Microsoft, notably, announced that it was ending Itanium support after its latest versions of Windows Server and SQL Server. Red Hat has also said that it is ending support for Itanium. And, more recently and most painfully for HP, Oracle announced withdrawal from further application development for Itanium in March 2011.
Of all the hardware OEMs, only HP went into Itanium with both feet. Intel clearly shifted its weight toward x86 when Itanium failed to pan out, but continues to make the part to serve HP’s customers and has made public statements that it will continue silicon, compiler, and tool development.
HP has a lot at stake in keeping the Itanium ecosystem going and was therefore understandably miffed when Oracle withdrew. Large databases such as Oracle’s remain one of the top applications for Itanium systems.
The formerly cordial relationship between the two soured when Oracle entered the hardware business by buying Sun Microsystems, which brought along its SPARC microprocessor architecture as part of the dowry.
Relations haven’t been helped any by the ongoing soap opera between the two executive suites: former HP CEO Mark Hurd’s leaving HP to join Oracle, former top Oracle executive Ray Lane’s joining HP’s board as chairman, and former competitor and SAP CEO Léo Apotheker’s replacing Hurd at HP.
Thus, the suit.
HP contends that Oracle is trying to favor its own SPARC-based systems and is jawboning HP’s customers to dump HP in favor of Oracle hardware. Oracle says it is only trying to protect its customers from making further investments in a failing platform. The merits will come out in the course of the trial, if there is one.
Meanwhile, this beef has been a windfall for IBM, which, amid the uncertainty surrounding Itanium’s future, is picking off HP and Oracle (former Sun) customers right and left. IBM has institutionalized this process, creating what it calls the STG Power Migration Factory to bring its competitors’ customers over to Power-based systems.
IBM has been extending its lead in UNIX servers steadily in the past several years, taking out hundreds of its competitors systems per year. Even if Oracle caves and restarts support, customers will remain uncomfortable about the depth of that support. If the suit goes to trial, even if HP wins, support will come too late. Enterprise customers don’t like uncertainty.
So, IBM is making hay while this particular sun shines and will continue to press its advantage.
Disclosure: Endpoint has consulting relationships with Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Intel.
© 2011 Endpoint Technologies Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
Twitter: RogerKay
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53acb6cc325db0d1cfefb714905b8d0d
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2011/07/20/the-industry-reels-from-apples-windmill/
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The Industry Reels From Apple's Windmill
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The Industry Reels From Apple's Windmill
Apple’s Mac OS X “Lion” is more than a point release
Like a trained fighter, Apple landed a one-two punch these past two days. Yesterday, brilliant earnings, exceeding all but the most wildly optimistic predictions. Today, a salvo of important product advances.
Mac OS X Lion is more than a point release. Its more iOS-like interface replays classic Apple strategy: take what’s working and apply it elsewhere.
In addition, the ability of Lion endpoints to find each other to set up peer-to-peer networks and the increased focus on videoconferencing — FaceTime gets a highlight — indicate the next step in multimedia integration.
It’s no accident that one of the hardware products in the announcement is a highly integrated Thunderbolt display, which can be used by any Thunderbolt-enabled Mac with Lion, including the new Mac mini and the new MacBook Air. Thunderbolt was originally conceived by Intel as an optical trunk to let computers talk to nearby devices.
Running on glass at light speed (and codenamed Light Peak), the technology included electron to photon converters at each end and a protocol that allowed it to achieve a 10Gbps transfer rate in both directions at once, great for making external disk drives feel as if they’re internal and for achieving flawless high definition video on external displays.
But in going to market, Intel and Apple discovered that they could get the same high data rate out of simple copper wire — and it was a lot cheaper. So, they tossed the converters and kept the protocol. Apple Thunderbolt products fire electrons only — for now. Those photons will have to wait.
The Mac mini shows that Apple is improving its offering at price points more competitive with Windows systems. By packing increasing value into a system (without display) that starts at $599, the company is slowly addressing the last of its issues with the Microsoft world: price.
Price is arguably the reason Apple missed out on much of the joy in the first round of the personal computer market. Having been given another chance, the company is not going to make the same mistake twice. And yet, the product is well differentiated and therefore cannibalizes higher up the line less.
Besides being aggressively priced, the Mac mini comes with Lion, Thunderbolt, new Intel Core processors (including a high-end i7 model), and AMD Radeon graphics, positioning the product for the most demanding video applications. It can be built out modularly with higher performance storage, redundant disks, and, natch, a Thunderbolt Display.
The MacBook Air plays a supporting role in this announcement. Apple updated the already-well-established product with more advanced Intel Core processors, Thunderbolt, and Lion. Pricing remains at a premium, but the lowest configuration does break the $1,000 barrier.
Having defeated all comers, Apple is hardly resting on its laurels. Gloves raised high in the air, the firm continues to issue a challenge to the rest of the industry: drive forward if you can, try to match our momentum. It's a rare phenomenon for a company this size to keep growing at the rate that it is. There won’t be many more in our generation.
© 2011 Endpoint Technologies Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
Twitter: RogerKay
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6db231b60bb5189acfdfbcab93dacb80
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2012/01/10/ultrabooks-parade-of-beauties-at-the-consumer-electronics-show/
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Ultrabooks: Parade Of Beauties At The Consumer Electronics Show
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Ultrabooks: Parade Of Beauties At The Consumer Electronics Show
This column has been updated to include new information received since it was first posted Jan. 10.
The Ultrabook shoes have dropped at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and quite the assemblage it is.
Jeff Clarke, Vice Chairman of Dell, introduced the company's Ultrabook last night during Paul Otellini's keynote speech.
Unfortunately for the audience of thousands, the tiny silver box was pretty hard to see. However, this Ultrabook is one of the sweetest of the lot, with a thin taper to 6mm at the front and extremely spare and simple lines. On the hardware front, the XPS 13 gives Apple a real run for its money.
Dell's Ultrabook has four different materials on its four surfaces: machined aluminum on the cover (like the MacBook Air), gorilla glass for the "frameless" display, soft-touch magnesium alloy on the keyboard surface, and carbon fiber on the bottom. Actual carbon fibers are visible through the clear substrate, a nod to Dell's emphasis on authentic materials.
Units from Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, LG, Samsung, Toshiba, and now Dell grace Intel’s display, and many of them were on tables at Digital Experience, which, by the way, is one of the premier forums to get your stuff in front of journalists and analysts. One of my clients mentioned that his table setup cost around $12,000, quite effective when you compare that to the show floor. The venue is less expensive, and the traffic is more relevant.
Ultrabooks are all about thin, and thin they are. I was able to photograph a cheat sheet on the main entries, and there are some you might not see at all if they were standing sideways. Some (Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga) clock in at 14mm and others with more features range up to 20mm (HP Envy 14 Spectre).
If there was any surprise, it was that the price band of the new offerings is higher than the group that was already in market before the show. The HP Envy 14 Spectre starts at $1,400, and many others fall in the $1,000-1,300 band. Still, several of the Acer units fetch $800.
Intel and its partners are betting that Ultrabooks are a premium experience for which consumers will be willing to pay. Apple's MacBook Air now starts at $999, but Intel rightly points out that Ultrabooks have software compatibility, security, and manageability features that the Air does not. Also, over time, Intel expects to provide the premius Ultrabook experience at mainstream prices.
Screen sizes vary from 11.6” to 14” and weights from 2.4lbs to more than 4lb. So, Ultrabooks really range from highly portable units to serious working notebooks.
Security is a big part of the Ultrabook message. Consumers need to be able to wander around the Web without getting mugged. Many of the units introduce at the show have Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs), which support hardware encryption.
The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga deserves a special call out. This Ultrabook doubles as a slate tablet. A 360-degree hinge allows the user to open it as a regular notebook, lay it flat on the table with screen and keyboard both facing up, set the unit down like a tent and use the touch-screen interface of the display like an easel, or fold it flat with just the display exposed. Somewhere in the course of flipping the screen around, as the unit converts from a notebook to a tablet, Windows 7 disappears and (for now) a beta copy of Windows 8 comes up with its Metro interface showing for a great tablet experience. Unlike early versions of convertibles from the early 2000s, the hinge on this baby is solid.
The Lenovo units all have WiDi, Intel’s wireless display technology. WiDi is going to become increasingly popular as consumers direct content from small devices to large screens when they are available.
Although they don’t get much credit for it, the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) has done some great work over the years unifying the standards for consumer devices. With almost no fanfare, most of the devices hitting the market now are compliant, enabling just such scenarios as WiDi sets up (e.g., using your phone or tablet to direct content from your media server or large-storage desktop to play on your massive living room entertainment system).
Hewlett-Packard (HP) has done some interesting things with its Spectre. Many of the Ultrabooks do not have an Ethernet port. The marketing excuse for this state of affairs is that Wi-Fi is enough for most folks, but the real reason is that an Ethernet port is fat, and would cause the entire unit to flab out if it were added. HP has solved this problem in an ingenious way. The Ethernet port has a little metal flap that drops down when the cable is plugged in. Otherwise, it springs up, keeping the unit’s profile nice and svelte.
Battery life on some of the smaller units are only five hours, but the Spectre is claiming nine. I asked the folks manning the table about that, and a spokesperson said that figure was measured using a simulated “average” compute load, which is fair. Even though Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal and All Things D uses a “battery stress test” that involves turning on all the subsystems and hammering the processor with video loops and the like, most users will not use their machines that way. Mossberg’s test is, of course fair, too, measuring battery life consistently across all platforms.
Disclosure: Endpoint has a consulting relationship with Intel and several of the OEMs mentioned in this story.
© 2012 Endpoint Technologies Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
Twitter: RogerKay
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1f8a21ff585ba7ab9701b3f5168244ce
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2012/01/30/kids-see-a-future-in-mainframes/
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Kids See A Future In Mainframes
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Kids See A Future In Mainframes
You probably don’t think about mainframes much. Most people don’t. I certainly don’t lose any sleep over them.
But they are out there, humming away in the background, running the deepest part of our electronically interlocked lives.
At Visa, the San Francisco-based financial services company, banks of them quietly process 145,000 transactions per second in 200 countries around the world.
Many other firms — from Interpol, the clearinghouse for cooperating international police forces, based in Lyon, France, to Heineken, the Amsterdam-based beer maker, to Fidelity, the giant financial services firm out of Boston, Mass. — also need the power of mainframes to run the heart of their operations.
Since mainframes were really the first computers — ENIAC, the earliest programmable general purpose computer, was completed in 1946 — we tend to think of them as old. And there is a general belief that the people who know about mainframes are old, too, you know, like the guy with the COBOL skills and dubious hygiene who shuffles along the corridor, looking like he eats his blue-plate special at 4:30 in the afternoon.
However, nothing could be further from the truth. Not only have mainframes evolved over time to keep up with technology and ever increasing workloads, but so too have the skills required to program them. And young blood is trickling into the trade every day by way of special training programs.
One such program is the Global Enterprise Technology (GET) minor at Syracuse University in upstate New York. There, Dave Dischiave (pronounced “des-shav-y” — which he likes to point out translates roughly to “from slaves” in Italian) teaches kids about mainframes.
The GET program was put together by a consortium of organizations. IBM, which sells most of the mainframes still being made these days, and mainframe users like J.P. Morgan Chase teamed up with Syracuse to ensure that fresh faces would continue to show up in the field over time.
Dischiave noticed that his students were plenty adept at working small computers like Apple iPhones, Dell notebooks, and small Hewlett-Packard servers, but they had no idea how really large systems work.
In his course, Dischiave puts the “Visa problem” to them. How would you process 145,000 transactions per second with no letup around the clock all year? You certainly wouldn’t duct-tape a bunch of iPhones together, now, would you?
He teaches the kids about how to break enterprise-class problems like this one down into manageable parts and introduces them to the tools to solve them.
They learn RDz, IBM’s development environment for mainframe applications. “RDz is a hook for students who think things should look like an iPhone,” says Dischiave. “We don’t want to expose them to command line too early.”
Then, they get in deeper with Time Sharing Options or TSO, an interactive command line interpreter, and Interactive Systems Productivity Facility or ISPF, a menu-based application for building software that runs under z/OS, IBM’s 64-bit mainframe operating system.
Finally, they get to writing scripts with Restructured Extended Executor or REXX, a high-level cross-platform language that allows a programmer to, for example, build a program in Microsoft Windows and run it there, in Linux, or on a mainframe.
It’s just a survey course, not really deep tech, but it does give students a taste of what the mainframe world is like. And students like what they see. In today’s tough employment environment, mainframe skills lead to solid jobs.
Quawan Smith, who took Dischiave’s course, now works at J.P. Morgan Chase, one of the underwriters of the Syracuse program. Smith sees himself evolving over time into the networking side of things, but he found the course and its related lab a real eye opener. “There’s a perception in the tech industry that the mainframe is being replaced,” he says. “But that’s not the case.”
Smith will be cycled through a two-year training program at J.P. Morgan Chase, get a mainframe certification, and then work as technical staff. He’ll then have opportunities to move to other teams within the company. “You can make a pretty decent living,” he says, noting that he is able to cover the rent on an apartment in New York City. How many other 22-year-olds can say that?
Greg Davidson, currently a senior at Syracuse, has similar hopes. He has already interned with J.P. Morgan Chase, which operates a tech center on campus with 75 full-time equivalents and 75 interns.
Davidson describes the program as his “first exposure to the sheer volume of information companies have to store and process.” He says he is focused on working with “unstructured data, social media, and blogs,” not exactly old school topics.
After an initial stint in business school, he realized that “everything we do relies on technology” and changed majors. “Science was never a strong suit,” he notes, “but I was heavily into math.”
About the mainframe he says, “It is definitely not a dying technology.”
Davidson figures on staying in the Northeast region after graduation, but can imagine himself in Europe or California later in his career.
Meanwhile, Dischiave is busy building the program. He expects to turn GET from a minor into a major called System and Information Science and is recruiting other sponsors — such as EMC, Bank of America, Fidelity, Cigna, Aetna, Geico, and Travelers as well as European outfits such as Heineken, Nestle, and Siemens — to pitch in.
“Our numbers are on the rise,” says Dischiave. “Whatever we’re doing seems to resonate.
Disclosure: Endpoint has a consulting relationship with IBM.
© 2012 Endpoint Technologies Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
Twitter: RogerKay
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56b5e3bf35f6b024e2bdefaa50bd22a3
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2012/12/06/21st-century-tech-saves-lives-in-marijuana-county/
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21st Century Tech Saves Lives In Marijuana County
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21st Century Tech Saves Lives In Marijuana County
Terrain like this in Butte County, California, is perfect for illegal marijuana growing operations
It wasn't just any day in Chico, California.
It was 9/11 — 2012.
Wayne Renner, 49, stood in his wretched apartment, a Korean-war era .30 caliber M1 carbine in his hands. He was enraged. He cursed the gods and called them down on his head. He imagined drug lords were out to get him. He was out of his mind.
On the outside, the law waited. The local Chico police had been joined by people from the Butte County SWAT team earlier in the day. In total, more than 50 officers, pretty much the entire street force in the county, engaged in preparatory activity: clearing out the neighborhood, establishing a security perimeter, setting up robots, placing snipers, preparing a warrant, and taking extra precautions as they attempted a safe and legal arrest.
A squad car had chased him down the highway at 6 that morning. They knew he was stirred up. This was his third police chase in two weeks. By 10, they had tracked his car to his residence and found loaded weapons in it. They were 99% sure he was holed up in this apartment in a duplex, one among about 30 in the area.
He remained incommunicado.
They took things slowly. They thought he had his wife in there with him. Her coworker had called police when she didn’t come in. She always showed up. In the past, she and his other family members had been able to calm him fairly quickly when these episodes came on. He had never seen a doctor about them. But this time was different. For days now, he had been on an extended tear. He was riled and armed, and if she was with him, she was in tremendous jeopardy. The situation called for enormous delicacy.
Everyone worked quietly and carefully. The media played its role, not broadcasting events in real time so as to keep him from knowing via TV that the SWAT team was outside.
Because they couldn’t be 100% sure they had Renner in there, they needed a warrant to get in.
In a stroke of luck, his wife was able to escape the apartment unharmed in the early afternoon. By 2:30, they finished evacuating the area. At 3, they started trying to talk to him, calling him by name over the loudspeakers perched atop the SWAT vehicles. “Wayne Renner! Come out!”
There was no response from inside.
That’s when the situation “turned dynamic,” said Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey, who was involved in the case.
Renner began shooting. Since the apartment was empty, there was no one to aim at. He began firing through the windows and walls. He pulled the trigger again and again. Bullets flew in all directions.
It’s not that citizens in Butte County haven’t heard gunfire before. In addition to a hunting tradition nurtured by the plentiful game that thrives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, the county is at the epicenter of the commercial marijuana business, a trade that has attracted an influx of gang elements, including enforcers and guards. But this was a situation of an entirely different category.
Renner was crazy. The neighbors had made it out in time. So, the bullet that penetrated an apartment across the way, burying itself in a wall a few inches over the bed of an 8-year-old, did no one harm. In another apartment, a slug plowed through the pillow and stuffed animals of a 3-year-old, who, at that age, might very well have been in bed, but wasn’t.
California is a big state, and out there in the foothills, the local police are pretty much on their own. The California Attorney General in Sacramento is a long way away. The state provides crime labs and courts, but field work is up to the local force.
As Renner continued to expend what would ultimately turn out to be 32 cartridges, the SWAT team hung fire. On a laptop, one of the officers prepared the warrant. Time was of the essence. They were in Chico, and Ramsey, the DA, who had to approve it, was 23 miles away in Oroville, while the judge, who had to sign it, was at home outside Oroville.
Doing it “the 20th Century way,” as Ramsey called it, would have involved dispatching a much-needed officer from the scene to drive down Route 99, get the approval, get the signature, and drive back, a scavenger hunt that would take at minimum an hour and a half.
Instead, they used laptops, DSL and cable links, and DocuSign to get a legal electronic signature (eSignature) from the judge. The whole procedure took twenty minutes.
With the signed order in hand, the officers began the extraction operation.
They applied pressure for a half hour and backed off for a few minute, repeatedly, trying to dislodge him. They had a bomb robot roll over to the front door and set a phone on the stoop. “Take the phone, Wayne. We’ll call you,” came over the loudspeakers. Nothing.
They sent the robot around to the garage with the phone and a Webcam. They had it lift the garage door, put the phone inside, and look around. When Renner came into the garage to check out what was going on, they verified his identity and noted that he had his rifle in hand. But he didn’t respond.
At 5:30, they began firing tear gas into the house.
At one point, he ran into the back yard, yelling, “I’m going kill him! I’m going to kill him!” They had no idea who he was referring to.
Finally, around 7, after multiple volleys of tear gas, the SWAT team began to approach the house. Renner came out the front door, firing at them.
They shot him dead.
* * *
eSignature is already known for accelerating the pace of business. But in this instance, it may have helped save lives by shortening the time needed to quell a volatile situation.
Policing has become an increasingly technological affair, and eSignature is just one of the new tools in public safety. Services like DocuSign are built on top of infrastructure that has been falling into place over the past couple of decades. At this point, everyone has a laptops from Hewlett-Packard, Dell, or Apple as well as broadband from AT&T, Comcast, or Verizon.
As it turns out, the speedy acquisition of a warrant comes in handy time and again. Armed paranoid schizophrenics are unusual in Butte County. Most incidents in the region involve marijuana.
In a typical case, police stop a car at night and find a large quantity of pot in it. Given the car’s registration, the occupants’ identities, and other information, they conclude that the address will trace back to an active illegal growing operation. Calling for backup, a small number of officers will head up into the hills.
No one wants to go to this type of place alone. These locations are way up in the woods, isolated, lonely, and dark.
When they get there, the police can tell that it’s an active processing site because, when they knock on the door, people take off running out the back.
This is the moment of greatest danger. The police can “freeze the site,” essentially holding it so that nothing is moved, but they can’t take further action until they get a warrant. The officers occupying the clearing around the house have no idea who is in the woods looking at them, but most often the fugitives are armed. They don’t want to be there all night waiting for a warrant.
With DocuSign, they get it fast, and the county can finish the job and pull its officers out of harm’s way.
Disclosure: Endpoint has a consulting relationship with DocuSign.
© 2012 Endpoint Technologies Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
Twitter: RogerKay
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7ef12ff849282e1cd5c4002a830a9520
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2013/03/08/conflict-of-interest-behind-news-corp-tablet/
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Conflict Of Interest Behind News Corp Tablet
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Conflict Of Interest Behind News Corp Tablet
Does this bother anyone else?
News Corp, Rupert Murdoch’s tentacular publishing company, is putting out a tablet targeted at the education market. The effort is housed in a subsidiary called Amplify and headed by new Murdoch BFF, Joel Klein, credentialed lawyer, former New York City schools chancellor, and private News Corp. defender.
The tablet market has become crowded since Apple first introduced the iPad in 2009. Google’s Android now powers a slew of tablets from companies all over the world, including, most prominently, Samsung, but also Acer, Asus, Hewlett-Packard (HP), HTC, and Sony as well as many smaller companies.
Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble power their eReaders with Android, but the operating system is well disguised under a custom skin.
And Microsoft’s Windows 8 is starting to show up on tablets in the field now, its own, called Surface, and offerings from partners such as Lenovo, HP, and Dell.
So, given the tablet-fest, what’s wrong with another entrant? News Corp. isn’t just another entrant. News is in the content creation and distribution business, and in my view that’s a conflict of interest, a conflict made particularly acute given News’s extreme right-wing bias.
Klein has gone to great lengths to assure the public that Amplify is neutral with respect to content, and skeptics have mostly pointed to commercial motives. But I remain unconvinced.
The News tablets will come loaded with material from the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), a K-12 curriculum developed by a broad coalition of education experts and supported by most states. There is some controversy over the CCSS, but I’m willing to give it a provisional pass. The problem that might exist with it is that it will have a tendency to homogenize education, but this issue is not new. It has been on the table ever since former President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind program was implemented in 2001. While homogenization may limit students at the very top, it might help some of those below the mean.
From my point of view, the problem with News being in this business is that it creates a channel to our youngest, most vulnerable minds for a guy with extreme politics and highly questionable ethics.
Other tablet suppliers’ motives are transparent.
Apple likes to sell devices. The company tries to acquire rights to content to make those devices more appealing. Apple has always targeted young minds with an aggressive outreach to educational institutions. It rightly thinks that students who become fond of their early computing experiences will think well of the supplier later in life, and this strategy appears to have worked pretty well.
Google wants eyeballs, the more the merrier. Any platform that brings more eyeballs for advertisers is welcome.
Amazon is in the content business, but not its own content, and it also sells stuff. The Kindle is a sales platform, and the company has no particular stake in what exact content is sold through it.
But News is a propaganda machine, part of a right-wing cabal that includes, in addition to Murdoch himself, people like Roger Ailes, president of Fox News, a subsidiary of News Corp.; former Vice President Dick Cheney; Charles and David Koch, the financiers behind such dirty advertising campaigns as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; and former Bush strategist Karl Rove.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want those guys anywhere near the controls of a conduit that funnels “learning materials” to my kids.
Murdoch and Klein say they’re only in it for the money, but past actions say otherwise. Murdoch’s agenda goes way beyond making money, of which he already has more than Croesus.
School systems should be very wary of buying anything from this source.
© 2013 Endpoint Technologies Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
Twitter: RogerKay
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d9112065a285ee247368d63e7c5129e6
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2013/03/25/dell-has-put-itself-in-exactly-hps-position/
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Dell Has Put Itself In Exactly HP's Position
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Dell Has Put Itself In Exactly HP's Position
Having witnessed Hewlett-Packard (HP) facing exactly the same issue, Dell could have known how this would go.
Infotech 101, the course that all CEOs of tech companies should have taken freshman year, says that if you start fiddling with your corporate structure in public, you’ll spook your customers and lose business.
It might not have been so. If Michael Dell had managed a clean leveraged buyout, maybe the rumbling in the customer ranks wouldn’t have started, but now that it’s open season on Dell (the company), competitors are lining up to harvest Dell’s customers in their season of discontent.
With both Carl Icahn and Blackstone Group leading separate efforts to outbid the Dell internal group (Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners aided by Microsoft), Dell stands a chance of losing his job — exactly the opposite of his intention when he set out on the journey to take the company private.
Over the past few years, as Dell has acquired companies for its enterprise solutions business, it has taken on debt that is comparatively massive for a tech company. Remember, this is the industry that was financed on cash, and many of the founding companies still have lots of it (the problem of repatriation of foreign profit notwithstanding).
Microsoft, for example, has nearly $90 billion in current assets and about $32 billion in current liabilities, yielding a current ratio of 2.8. Cisco has more than $60 billion in current assets against around $18 billion in current liabilities, for a ratio of 3.3. In most industries, these are enviable numbers.
Dell, on the other hand is showing almost $28 billion in current assets and more than $23 billion in current liabilities as of the Jan. 31, 2013 quarter, for a ratio of 1.2. Not huge, but at least it’s above 1.
For comparison, HP has around $50 billion in current assets as of Jan. 31, 2013 and about $44 billion of current liabilities, giving it a ratio of 1.1, pretty much in Dell’s ballpark. (HP points out, rightly, that its ratio would be much higher if its "good debt" — financial services loans, which are based on contractual cash flows from customers — were separated from its "bad debt," the operating obligations, which the company is reducing as quickly as possible. )
As Shira Ovide points out in this morning’s Wall Street Journal story (cited above), even if the internal group led by Michael Dell prevails, it may have to raise its bid, stretching the company’s balance sheet even more, since a lot of the purchase price would come in the form of new debt. All this debt raises the company’s financial risk and the market’s perception that Dell is a riskier investment.
But these details are not really the problem here. It’s uncertainty, that enemy of customer confidence.
In all the years that I’ve been following Dell, HP, and IBM, whenever one weakens in any way — however ephemeral, illusory, or slight — the other two pile on as fast as possible in the field, directing sales people to stir up the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) in order to woo away as many of the beleaguered company’s customers as possible. This is a time-honored tradition in our industry, and, I might add, one that Dell itself has practiced with great zeal in the past.
During HP’s rocky time of management changes and policy reversals, Dell and IBM made as much hay as they could. Now, HP is looking stable-ish and its customers have begun to calm down. No doubt, HP is heartened by Oracle’s recent travails and earnings stumble.
It should be clear to all by now, though, that any stability could be temporary, and it’s best to remain circumspect. (With respect to stability, IBM deserves a shout-out. The company has not experienced the kind of turmoil recently that the other two have faced.)
Along the Dell-HP axis, though, the shoe is now firmly on the other foot, and Dell — as HP did in the past — finds itself fending off the flingers of FUD.
Disclosure: Endpoint has consulting relationships with Dell, HP, and IBM. This post was amended 3/26/2013 to include the parenthetic on HP's debt. A further update added the word "recently" to the penultimate paragraph.
Twitter: RogerKay
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1c91b3b3aaf91788bfadbf0300a37919
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2013/04/12/the-pc-industry-is-digging-its-own-grave/
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The PC Industry Is Digging Its Own Grave
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The PC Industry Is Digging Its Own Grave
Stupid industry can’t get its hand out of the cookie jar (Clipart by Ron Leishman)
This week, the PC community turned in its worst performance since IDC and Gartner started counting. Worldwide shipments were off by 14% year on year, according to IDC. Gartner says the decline was 11%. The two differ slightly in methodology.
Those of us who have been following the industry since its inception have reason to be dismayed as to the causes. Yes, the market has shifted to high mobility devices (i.e., smartphones and tablets), but much of the pain among PC suppliers is self-inflicted.
Of course, a fish can’t become a bird just because flying is in fashion. There are some limitations to a company’s ability to change what it does. But Apple proves the point that a computer company can become a high-mobility company. And, in fact, particular vendors’ degree of pain maps almost perfectly to the degree to which they have been able to make this transition.
For example, Samsung has been making notebooks for years, but is now right in the middle of the Google -fed Android revolution in smartphones and tablets. Lenovo, an amalgam of IBM ’s old PC company and the first major Chinese PC maker, has been moving into phones in China, India, Philippines, and Vietnam. Lenovo also offers a variety of tablets in developed markets.
Dell and Hewlett-Packard (HP), on the other hand, have nearly non-existent positions in high mobility. Dell, with its emphasis on computing for businesses, has reacted to organizations’ slowness to adopt new technologies by being slow to introduce them. HP bought Palm, intending to use the smaller company’s webOS for both phones and tablets, only to abandon the project and sell off the assets after a relatively short period. Both hardware makers are working to expand their high-mobility portfolios, but Dell is more focused on enterprise solutions, and HP has indicated that these products will not be rushed to market.
However, the real responsibility for the current situation lies with the main suppliers: Microsoft and Intel.
Although Intel, under CEO Andy Grove, was able to abandon the memory business and focus on microprocessors at a time when Japanese firms, backed by generous government subsidies, were driving their American rival out of the memory market, the company has not been able to pull a similar trick when it comes to the architectural transition from x86 to ARM. Not that the company can’t make the transition technically. It is philosophically against such a move. Orthodoxy has calcified the place since Mr. Grove’s tenure.
The problem is mostly cultural. And here, I depart from the usual disclosure practice to note not who Endpoint does have consulting contracts with but who it doesn’t. Both Microsoft and Intel terminated their relationships with my company in the past year or so. And the reason? Because they don’t like independent analysts, who have to tell it like it is even when the picture isn't pretty. They want “message force multipliers,” tame hacks who will help their public relations efforts. Tell them what they don’t want to hear, and you’re shown the door.
Microsoft didn't like a study we ran that showed that its InTune offering was badly priced. The company wanted marketing support, not real information. Intel was angry that Endpoint wasn't supporting Ultrabooks enough. Neither program has been particularly successful in reinvigorating the industry.
This bull-headed attitude is causing these suppliers to take the whole market down with them. They refuse to see the pixels on the screen. A contributing dynamic is the old Zen adage: “your strength is your weakness, and your weakness is your strength.” The very profitability of Windows and x86 has kept Microsoft and Intel from looking beyond these technologies. At Microsoft, anything that might hurt the Windows franchise is instantly killed.
But here’s the thing: the concept of the product cycle — in PCs, the three-year cycle (now four or five) — is entirely a fabrication. The industry is only 35 years old. The founders just made this stuff up to sell more product.
About five years ago, Intel had a program for explaining to companies how PC failure rates rocketed after three years and how productivity could be greatly improved by changing out the whole fleet on a regular basis. But in today’s world, a PC’s local content can be mirrored to the cloud instantaneously, and if the machine itself craps out, it can be thrown away and replaced with no loss of productivity.
Hard drives, which themselves are being replaced by even more robust solid state drives, have a design life of five years. This is the specification that drive suppliers like Seagate and Western Digital meet to sell them to PC hardware OEMs like Dell and HP. And the drive’s moving spindle represents the most friable part of the machine. A PC can last for a decade.
When Microsoft first shipped DOS, it did so under license. Essentially, you bought the right to use it, but didn’t actually own the bits. However, a version would ship, you paid for it, and it more or less worked. Point releases (the numbers that increment after the “.” — as in, version 3.1) came out, but buyers could opt not to install them. The process was pretty mechanical. But every few years, Microsoft came up with a new product. The transition from DOS to Windows did great things for the company. And early Windows versions, with numbers like 1, 2, and 3, gave way to Windows 95, arguably the company’s most successful product ever. Somewhere along with way, the software became stickier. Microsoft educated buyers that it had the right to enter their machines over the network and change the bits with “updates.” So, now, users not only didn’t own what they paid for, but didn’t really control it, either. The rationale was bug removal, virus protection, compatibility fixes, and so on. But the effect was increased dependence on Microsoft and its sometimes arbitrary whims.
With transitions being so profitable, can we really blame Microsoft for wanting to do it over and over? Well, yes. Resistance from the installed base has been detectable for years, with CIOs grousing about having to qualify an entirely new image just because Microsoft wants to turn its base over again. Evidence of this phenomenon is how support for Windows XP, which Microsoft really wanted to cut, has been extended again and again. Neither Microsoft nor Intel has ever accepted that some computing is “good enough,” to use a common industry phrase.
With Windows 8, Microsoft entirely screwed the pooch. A badly conceived OS, designed to compete with Apple’s iOS and yet remain a traditional PC, did neither. It only confused and repelled users. Windows 7, a decent replacement for Windows XP, finally, could have sustained the industry easily for a decade.
The dilemma facing the industry is familiar to anyone who knows the children’s “cookie jar” story: if you drop half the cookies, you can take your hand out of the jar with some cookies and then go back for another modest handful. Instead, we have the stupid industry, standing there on the stool with its hand in the jar, fistful of cookies unable to pass the rim, red-faced, crying, and looking like a fool.
Disclosure: Endpoint has consulting relationships with the PC hardware OEMs mentioned in this story.
Twitter: @RogerKay
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ba8644bd8d4aac6920b08c09d72aa1fa
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2014/07/14/form-factor-epiphany/
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Form Factor Epiphany
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Form Factor Epiphany
Over the weekend, I had an epiphany about computer form factors (their shapes, sizes, and the way they function). No, not a religious revelation; a more secular one. And here it is: the best form factor for any computing device is none at all.
That’s right, folks: presto, change-o, and your computer disappears!
I’ve been in the industry one way or another for decades, and there’s a lot of found wisdom about the way things should be. And I’m as guilty as the next guy for falling into these tropes. For example, based on sales and stereotyping we consider it true that the Chinese like big desktops while the Japanese like small ones. It fits some neat cultural biases, including the idea that Japan is small and crowded, and so the people like small things, while China is big and swaggering (sort of like the United States) and so favors large items.
And this type of thinking led me at first to treat Google Glass as a pariah, likely to alienate most people, who will not want someone in the room being able to look them up without their knowing, possibly video record them, and otherwise press an advantage of connected knowledge against the “unarmed” interlocutor.
Further thought brought me around partway. But I still wasn’t entirely on board. It probably doesn’t help that Google staff act like a bunch of bratty children and don’t return phone calls. But never mind, I’ve been parsing it out slowly on my own.
The way I see it, Google Glass is an early shot at making the computer disappear, at making it hide in the furniture. The true ideal form factor is one that isn’t there at all. It’s just a pure human interface. No friction.
The underlying reason why Apple ’s iPhone was such a huge success was that it was a re-imagination of the computer as a much smaller thing. Steve Jobs knew this in his gut. It had all the advantages of a computer, but was much smaller. It could be put in a pocket and carried around, changing the whole way people interact with computers. Before, if you’d seen someone hunched intently for minutes or even hours over something in his or her hand, you might have thought they were crazy. Now, it’s the look. That posture, being preoccupied with a phone, is the latter-day substitute for smoking in public places, a way to look casual and ignore those around you. A phone could always be smaller, except you need something to view.
The same is true for all-in-ones, those desktops with the computer built right in. They address the need for more screen real estate, but the computer itself, which used to be a big box (and then a much smaller box), just piggybacks on the back of a large screen. Why ever would you want an extra box for no good reason?
But even screen size can be handled as a relative matter. Apparent screen size is a function of distance between the viewer’s eyes and the screen and its actual dimensions. A 13cm (5.1”) screen held 60cm (~2’) away takes up the same field of vision as a 130cm (51.2”) screen at 600cm (~20’). You can watch a movie on a phone at two feet or on a big TV at 20 feet.
A company called Kopin has been making tiny displays for the military and industrial applications for a long time already, and the firm is trying to bring a version to the consumer market now. It’s Pupil, Pearl, and Prism products are designed to sit between 20mm and 60mm from the eye, held in place by glasses. So, Google Glass for soldiers. At 20mm (~3/4”), the wearer can see a full screen overlay on one eye while using the other to orient in the real world.
So, if we take this reasoning to its logical conclusion, the computer itself becomes so small that it can go anywhere: it can be embedded surgically, woven into a piece of clothing, fit on a key chain. And the display can shrink as it gets nearer, ultimately fitting into a contact lens.
That leaves only input methods. The keyboard and mouse are beginning to give over to things like voice technologies from companies like Google, Apple, and Nuance. Gestures also have a role, as in Microsoft’s Kinect. Qualcomm is building a sensor hub into its Snapdragon mobile processors that can handle input from a variety of sensors, like a three-axis accelerometer (which could be used to read gestures as well as movement). So, input devices will also disappear, their functions taken over by natural human input.
The final layer is the contextual intelligence, which knows what you’ve done in the past, what you’re likely to do, what other things relate to what you’re doing right now. Increasingly, this intelligence will be anticipatory and will help you do things in situations in which input might be awkward or difficult.
This robot-like anticipation of our known behaviors may turn us all into cyborgs, but at least we’ll all be on an equal footing. Everyone will walk around with the full context of the internet wired directly in. We’ll all be wearing our own war shells.
Meet someone at a bar, face recog will give you their stats, and they’ll get yours at the same time. Bad at intros? The Interwebs will supply you with one-liners. Forgot their name? Refresh the screen.
Twitter : RogerKay
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faaf54e6d13beda59dfacd08b774b8f3
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2015/05/30/the-horror-the-horror-softwares-conversion-from-thing-to-service/
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The Horror, The Horror: Software's Conversion From Thing To Service
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The Horror, The Horror: Software's Conversion From Thing To Service
Software acquisition is turning from a purchase into a rental. Every transaction is becoming a “relationship,” and I am looking at this trend with growing alarm.
It’s not like we don’t have enough monthly bills. Now, add to the necessities — mortgage, car payments, water, electricity, gas, insurance — and nominally optional stuff — credit cards, Netflix , cable, club memberships, magazines, newspapers, and don’t forget cell phones, which some people would rank up there with the necessities — software.
Microsoft has been warning us for a while that this was going to happen. InTune was the company’s first, aborted attempt to rope us into a perpetual payment scheme. For an operating system.
The program failed primarily because, even for businesses, adding a monthly bill for something that has always been a one-time purchase goes against the grain. Also, Microsoft neglected to coordinate its Windows and Office divisions, and Office went ahead with its rental scheme — Office 365 — more or less at the same time as InTune. So, that would have been two new bills to add to the mounting stack.
Microsoft used to survive by selling us a new operating system every few years, but it won’t be content until it has stuck an intravenous needle into our bank accounts and put them all on a permanent drip into theirs. Increasingly — and especially with the coming Windows 10 — the company wants to host our computing environments and rent them to us in perpetuity. How this came to be may look at first like a mystery, but really it’s a straightforward evolution of the company’s business model.
Back in the 1980s, when you bought your copy of DOS for $50 in a store (or received it bundled with a new PC), you paid for it once, and the bits never changed. There was such a thing as software being done. Have you noticed that these days software is never done? Bits are only provisional. They are always being updated. Everyone’s bits.
In some cases, this continuous re-plowing of the field is the height of absurdity. Take, for example, the app Flashlight. The App Store on my Apple iPhone keeps asking me to update Flashlight. What, you may ask, can be done to improve on an app that lights up your screen so you can see your way around in the dark? You’re telling me that that software can’t be written once and for all time? It needs to be updated? Only for the seller’s benefit. The buyer is fine with a lit-up screen.
But if you read a software license (which no one ever does), you’d realize that you never owned the bits. When Bill Gates was developing his diabolical formula for software-as-intellectual-property, he made sure that the language included wording making clear that the bits were owned by Microsoft. The user was just that: someone authorized to use the bits.
By way of further explanation, I cite here a paragraph from one of my earlier columns:
“Somewhere along with way … Microsoft educated buyers that it had the right to enter their machines over the network and change the bits with “updates.” So, now, users not only didn’t own what they paid for, but didn’t really control it, either. The rationale was bug removal, virus protection, compatibility fixes, and so on. But the effect was increased dependence on Microsoft and its sometimes arbitrary whims.”
Against heavy betting, Office 365 has gotten some traction. But it looks like Office 365 is doing best tied to Exchange, which, for many people, is already “consumed” as a service rather than as an additional productivity tool on top of Windows. All that will change, however, when Windows 10 comes out, apparently on July 29. All signs indicate that Microsoft will again have a run at renting us our operating systems as a cloud service. That’s the thing, now, right? Everything as a cloud service.
It’s just that I can’t stand the idea of another bill.
Twitter : RogerKay
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504139ca5ba8c56954d054d5f5fd8d00
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2015/06/03/ericsson-smartphones-nearly-ubiquitous-in-five-years/
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Ericsson: Smartphones Nearly Ubiquitous In Five Years
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Ericsson: Smartphones Nearly Ubiquitous In Five Years
Ericsson ’s latest mobility report is out this morning, and it finds, perhaps unsurprisingly, that we’ll be swamped in smartphones by 2020. Even taking into account the company’s obvious interest in this finding, it’s still a shock to realize that the recently acquired cultural posture of bending over a small shiny object while swiping away at the glass will become nearly universal in just five more years.
The company predicts that the world’s population will support 6.1 billion smartphone subscriptions in 2020. Accepting a population estimate from Population Pyramids of the World of 7.7 billion yields a proportion of 79%. In its report, Ericsson gives a figure of 70%. Perhaps they’re using different denominators. But I think even with fairly loose numbers, the conclusion is the same: nearly all of us will be using smartphones in just a few short years. Next year, the number of smartphone subscriptions will exceed those for basic phones for the first time, Ericsson asserts.
Nearly all of us will be connected by 2020
As an old guy, I have mixed feelings about that.
On the one hand, I’ve come along with everyone else into the modern era and stocked up on all the latest gadgets. They have made my life easier in some ways. I’m able to work from anywhere at any time, a pseudo-benefit that cuts both ways. I can answer an urgent email while on a bike ride, but have less excuse for being “offline,” itself a state that didn’t exist a few short years ago when we were all offline all the time.
On the other, I do miss the slower pace of the only-recently-departed analog era. I used to come into the office in the morning to find a cloud of pink telex sheets, the overnight traffic from around the world, in a physical inbox awaiting my attention. And once I’d worked through the stack, I was done with communicating for the day. As I’ve written before, there’s an inverse relationship between quality of thought and volume of communication. I liked having a whole day to think about what I wanted to say.
Ericsson goes on to point out that most of the growth will be in the developing world, which I don’t think surprises anybody. Africa, which is coming from farthest behind, will see strong growth in subscriptions during the next five years. Including all phones, the report says, not just smart ones, phone penetration will reach 90% of the world’s population by 2020.
Whatever the consequences for humanity of being wirelessly connected almost all the time, this is certainly good news for mobile chip and base-station suppliers, communications carriers, and phone makers, which will have a fine time filling all the orders expected from this floodtide of mobility. Of course, Ericsson is one such supplier, but others like Apple , Avago, Intel , MediaTek, nVidia, Qualcomm , Rockchip, Samsung, Spreadtrum, and Texas Instruments are also in the game. Both Apple and Samsung make phones in addition to phone chips, and both have strong positions in the handset market. But even weaker makers like HTC , Microsoft , and BlackBerry could catch an updraft in such favorable conditions. And carriers around the world — such as Verizon, AT&T , T-Mobile, and Sprint in the United States; Vodafone , Telefónica, and Telenor in Europe; China Mobile in China; Airtel in India; and MTN Group in South Africa — should experience healthy revenue growth from the incremental data flow, even if the rate per bit drops dramatically to pick up users in the poorer nations.
I’m left with the image of smartphones as the new smoking: something to do in public when you have nothing else going on, a gesture that says, I may be on my own, but do not disturb; I have important updates to read and write. Except that with smoking, you had at least a chance of making eye contact once in a while.
Twitter : RogerKay
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b0e6d3de33985a3bbbca3ccd0c44dcce
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2015/06/26/freescale-positions-for-the-internet-of-things/
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Freescale Positions For The Internet Of Things
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Freescale Positions For The Internet Of Things
You know you’re in Austin when a live band is playing rock and roll at 8:30 in the morning before Steve Wozniak’s keynote speech. Every square inch of free space and time in this town is filled with Austin’s own weird brand of country/western/rock music. The crowd of 2,500 or so goes wild, clapping and cheering while trying not to spill coffee on its pants. We, the tech community, are at Austin City Limits, and why not? We’re in a town that mixes music and tech as easily as tequila and lime juice.
The occasion for this early daylight celebration and celebrity speech is the 10th annual Freescale Technology Forum. This is my first time at the conference, though. Freescale Semiconductor is so far down in the technological weeds, the low-level details of how things actually work, that I, whose background is way up at the system level (that is, PCs), have practically never run into it over the years, even though we both inhabit the technology world, and I once worked for the same firm (Motorola) out from which Freescale was spun. However, as the pendulum of history swings back in Freescale’s direction, its activities have become more relevant not just to me, but to everyone else as well.
The swing I’m talking about is the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), a term already worn out, even before its use becomes completely commonplace. Much of what the company does used to be called “embedded,” a term redolent with an almost moldy old backwater smell. Embedded systems are typically headless; that is, they involve machines talking to other machines without much conversation with humans. Not headless in the same way that centralized servers are. More like smaller nodes that lie closer to the endpoints at the edge of the network. The company makes things like microcontrollers that run automobile engines, doing things like adjusting the mixture of gasoline and air, keeping it just right for optimal fuel consumption and efficiency as the engine warms up. But now, embedded has become the IoT, and Freescale is positioned to play a major role in this rising area, particularly since the firm, which has experienced a number of changes of ownership and corporate structure since it was spun out from Motorola in 2004, is about to close a merger with NXP, a Dutch semiconductor company, spun from Philips in 2006, with a complementary portfolio of embedded/IoT products.
The combined company, when the deal closes in 2H15, will have a majority share of the worldwide market for computers used in automotive applications, just at a time when this market is ramping up. As Gregg Lowe, soon-to-depart CEO of Freescale noted in his opening remarks, there are now 100 microprocessors in a new car, doing everything from keeping the engine operating smoothly to monitoring the tire pressure (one for each tire!) to running the dashboard display, the navigation system, and the in-car entertainment devices. Now, these microprocessors are only distant cousins of those that run computers. Those, mostly made by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) can cost hundreds of dollars apiece. These run as low as fifty cents each, and pretty hefty ones can go for a couple of bucks.
And their features are entirely different, too. They have to run programs, yes, but their most important characteristics are low power consumption, efficiency, and small size. They have to get a lot done on a tiny cost, power, and space budget. This is not Intel’s favorite sort of business. It likes selling higher performing, larger, more expensive, higher margin parts. But these types of parts are Freescale’s bread and butter.
At the show, Freescale made a number of announcements. The full set is here, but I want to highlight the i.MX 6Dual Single Chip Module (SCM). This latest shrink of an entire system integrates hundreds of components onto a small piece of silicon and an accompanying miniature board. The i.MX 6 features two ARM processor cores, power management for both the chip and its tiny board, flash memory, system memory, video acceleration, image processing, related firmware and software, a full security stack, a range of connectivity, and display and power connections. This entire unit, which is about the size of a dime, can display high-resolution video without even getting hot. Nancy Fares, Freescale’s VP of system solutions, put her finger right on the chip during the reveal to emphasize this last point.
The thing about the IoT is that a lot of these endpoints, peripheral nodes, and edge devices, like Russian tractors, have to stay out there for a long time without maintenance, and that means they need to run with no glitches and not take up much in the way of resources. In some cases, they need to run for years on a single battery charge. And size and weight matter, too. For example, the i.MX 6Dual can be used for 3D gaming glasses, an application for which every tenth of an ounce is noticeable. The part’s low profile gives vendors a better shot at producing glasses that make more of a fashion statement than Google Glass did.
There isn’t space in this format to cover the breadth of Freescale’s lineup, but security deserves at least a mention. One of the capabilities that NXP brings to the merger is its security technology, and security is one of biggest barriers to adoption of the IoT. Think of how secure a connected car has to be. Can’t have hackers driving you into a Jersey Barrier just for fun. And the cars of the future will not only have components that talk to each other all over the car, but they’ll also talk to components in the road and city, in other cars, and to the rest of the Internet. So, security ranks right up there in importance with small size, power efficiency, low cost, and communications.
To emphasize this point, Freescale had Kevin Mitnick address the crowd. Mitnick is famous for having at one time been the most wanted computer criminal in the United States, having been caught by the FBI, and having served five years in prison for a broad range of hacking offenses. Today, he runs a “white hat” security consulting firm. His metal business card includes a pop-out set of lock picks.
Mitnick said lots of funny things, but one thing he said that was not funny was that he has a 100% success rate as a hacker. He never met a system he couldn’t take down through reverse engineering, social engineering, or a combination of the two. He said the biggest vulnerability now and in the future is the human part of the equation. Freescale and its partners are addressing this problem by keeping the humans away from the secrets. Stephen Luden, chief architect at Akamai Technologies , noted that to have secure communications, you need to use secrets, but the best way to keep a secret is never to use it. Akamai, working with Rubicon Labs and Freescale, is instituting so-called “zero knowledge keys” into its content-serving infrastructure. All the secret sharing takes place between non-human elements inside a secure space using fast symmetrical encryption. Mitnick could probably still hack in, but it might take him awhile.
The technology forum, which lasted three days, had hundreds of detailed sessions for developers, and a showcase where various events took place. On the show floor attendees could see all sorts of IoT applications like home control and monitoring, a connected coffee pot, a medical bed full of patient sensors, a snowboard with LED lights triggered by accelerometers, robots, radio-frequency cooking, and automobile assitive technology. The highlight here was the Sam Project car, a modified 2014 Corvette C7 Stingray that can be driven entirely by head movements. In a partnership with Freescale and others, Arrow Electronics created the car for Sam Schmidt, a former race car driver who became a quadriplegic after an accident in 2000. Sam blew away all comers on a driving simulation game using nothing but puffs and sips at a mouth tube for acceleration and brakes and head-turns for steering. This type of technology will find its way into all sorts of autonomous car/medical/assistive applications in the future.
Wozniak was classic irreverent Wozniak. He poo-pooed fears that machines will come to dominate the human race, saying, “When they’re that smart, they’ll realize that they need nature, and we’re part of nature.” He also took issue with the recent movie about Apple , saying although it showed how Steve Jobs refused to give the earliest employees stock when the company went public, it neglected to mention that, he, Steve Wozniak gave them $20 million of his own stock to make up for it.
A group of analysts were also able to meet with both CEOs of the merging companies. Rick Clemmer, the current CEO of NXP, will run the combined entity. After a brief transition period, Lowe will step down, in all likelihood to pursue another turnaround opportunity. During Q&A, Clemmer pointed out that, although the merger of Avago and Broadcom will make a larger company than the combined NXP and Freescale, the latter will still be the 5th largest semiconductor company in the world after Intel, Qualcomm , Texas Instruments (TI), and Avago/Broadcom. Clemmer doffed his hat to Intel’s strength in microprocessors, TI’s in analog, and Qualcomm’s in communications processors. His beefed-up outfit, he said, will aim to provide secure connections in a smarter world with the broadest range of products.
Twitter : RogerKay
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29020187fcd3feaca3caa1442ab18090
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerma/2016/07/12/are-you-really-just-throwing-your-money-away-when-you-rent/
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Are You Throwing Your Money Away When You Rent?
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Are You Throwing Your Money Away When You Rent?
There are a number of reasons for wanting to buy a home over renting and most are valid. Some people want to buy because their current rental unit may have restrictions on owning a pet, while home ownership would, in most cases, not have this limitation. Others want to diversify their assets beyond the stock market. Still others may be pressured by friends and family - loved ones may claim you are simply throwing your money away if you rent, but with owning, you could be building equity every month.
Is this really true?
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You Are Building Equity As A Homeowner, But...
It is true that you are building equity each month as a homeowner. However, the amount of equity you're building is equivalent to the portion of your monthly mortgage payment that goes toward paying down principal.
Because most mortgages are structured to have a uniform monthly payment for the life of the loan, in practice, this means that your early payments will consist of more interest than principal. So while you are paying down principal and building equity, you may not be building as much as you imagined.
For example, let's say you had a 30-year fixed rate mortgage with an interest rate of 4% and a starting loan balance of $500,000. Your monthly payment would be $2,387, but just 30% of this payment or $720 would go toward "building equity" during the first month. Over the first five years, less than 35% of your total mortgage payments go toward paying down principal (i.e. about $48,000 out of $143,000 of total payments).
Scott Trench, director of operations at real estate investment social network BiggerPockets, added, "Yes, equity can make you feel good, but it's not really money you can use freely until you've sold the property. And if you end up selling in a down market, you may not end up realizing as much equity as you expected."
You're Still Throwing Money Down The Drain As A Homeowner
While you are building some equity when owning a home, your monthly housing costs consist of much more than just principal payments on your mortgage. In fact, you could say that mortgage interest, taxes, homeowners insurance, homeowners association fees, and ongoing maintenance costs are all "wasted money" that you throw down the toilet as a homeowner.
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"People often say that buying a home was the best investment they ever made," said Neela Hummel, chief planning officer at financial planning firm Abacus Wealth Partners. "The problem is that their return as investors is often worse than they think. When calculating how much they made on a home, most people do not include the out-of-pocket costs they incurred through things like replacing pipes, repairing roofs, or numerous other unexpected expenses that come up. As a tenant, your costs are fixed, but as a homeowner, you are on the hook for any repair that comes up."
Those needed repairs to your home may involve you doing a lot of research online to find a solution or simply paying a repairman to remedy the issue. Either way, you're on the hook for investing more time and money into your home when something breaks.
The Transaction Costs Are Large For Buying!
The costs of buying and selling real estate are significant, and those costs don't go toward building equity either.
"Buying a house entails many transaction costs that add up to three, four, or five percent of the price of the home and sometimes even more," said David Reiss, a professor who teaches residential real estate at Brooklyn Law School. "Many advise that homebuyers should have at least a five-year time horizon or they risk having those transaction costs eat into any gains they were hoping to get out of the sale of their home. Even worse, those costs can lead to a loss, if the local market is soft."
On a $500,000 home purchase, three to five percent of closing costs translates to $15,000 to $25,000 - not an immaterial amount of money. When you ultimately sell your home, you may have to pay another three to five percent in closing costs or more.
That's why your expected time horizon in a home is one of the most important factors to consider when deciding whether it is the right time for you to buy. A longer time horizon gives your home a better opportunity to realize sufficient price appreciation, to offset those large transaction costs.
Leonard Steinberg, president of real estate brokerage Compass, added, "Buying involves commitment and generally, commitment has shown over many centuries to deliver great rewards. It makes sense to buy if you want to commit to a home and location for the long-term. Anyone seeking short-term rewards is better off renting."
Are You Telling Me I Should Rent?
At the end of the day, there are a lot of benefits to owning a home. Especially if you are planning to be in the same place for at least five years, buying a home could provide you with both personal and financial benefits.
On the personal side, buying a home will allow you to put roots down and customize a home to your preferences. You'll also be able to save on moving costs for as long as you stay.
On the financial side, mortgage interest and property taxes paid could help reduce your tax bill if you itemize deductions on your federal tax return. In addition, if you're using the home as your primary residence, you may be able to exclude as much as $500,000 of capital gains from federal income taxes.
In certain circumstances, it may make sense for you to rent over buy. It really depends largely on your time horizon, financial situation, future plans, and economics of your local area.
Whatever route you choose, just remember to take into account all relevant factors necessary to come to a thoughtful decision. And next time your Uncle Biff tells you you're simply throwing away money by renting, you can hit him with some knowledge.
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94a63ae47842458bc39153cf15d3c5b4
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2019/10/27/the-world-is-not-going-to-reduce-carbon-dioxide-emissions-by-50-by-2030-now-what/?sh=19b177953794
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The World Is Not Going To Halve Carbon Emissions By 2030, So Now What?
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The World Is Not Going To Halve Carbon Emissions By 2030, So Now What?
22 October 2019, Brandenburg, Sieversdorf: Wind turbines in the morning fog in the Oder-Spree ... [+] district (aerial view with a drone). Photo: Patrick Pleul/dpa-Zentralbild/ZB (Photo by Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images) dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images
Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that “limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.” Specifically, “Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050.” Since then, many advocates and policy makers have proposed that target as a political goal.
Here I’ll show you the simple mathematics of what achieving the 2030 target entails. The evidence shows clearly that the world is far from being on a path that will come anywhere close to that goal. That is not an opinion, it is just math.
Of course, climate change poses risks to our future, and aggressive mitigation and adaptation policies make good sense. So getting policy making right is important.
Let’s begin with a few key numbers as starting points. According to the 2019 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, in 2018 the world consumed in total almost 14,000 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe). That energy supports the lives, hopes, aspirations of more than 7 billion people.
Like wealth, energy consumption is deeply unequal around the world, and many who do not have access to a full range of energy products and services are working hard to secure that access. So we should expect energy demand to continue to grow over the next decade. From 2000 to 2018, according to BP, consumption grew at about 2.2% per year, and ranged from a drop of 1.4% in 2009 to an increase of 4.9% in 2004. In the analysis below, I use an assumed 2.2% growth per year to 2030.
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Here I focus on carbon dioxide from the consumption of fossil fuels, coal, natural gas and oil, and ignore emissions from the use of land. When combusted, fossil fuels emit different amounts of carbon dioxide. Coal by far emits the most. In 2018 about 27% of total global energy consumption came from coal, but according to the Global Carbon Project, coal accounts for about 40% of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.
To simplify the analysis, I assume that emissions reduction targets will be met through reductions in fossil fuel consumption which occur across all fossil fuels. That allows us to equate a reduction in fossil fuel consumption with a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. It also keeps us from misinterpreting a reduction in emissions from a switch from coal to natural gas. If the ultimate goal is net-zero carbon dioxide, then eventually all energy consumption will have to be carbon-free, meaning that carbon dioxide-emitted natural gas will have to also be eliminated.
I’ll also ignore the possibility of technologies of “negative emissions” which would allow the continued use of fossil fuels. The main reason for ignoring such technologies is that they don’t presently exist at scale, and don’t appear to be just over the horizon.
OK, with these starting points in place, let’s now look at the IPCC target for 2030. A 45% reduction in emissions from 2010, implies an allowance of about 5,950 mtoe of fossil fuel consumption for 2030, and a reduction of about 5,800 mtoe from 2018. If consumption grows by 2.2% per year to 2030, that means that the world will consume about 4,200 mtoe more in 2030 than in 2018. So the grand total of new, carbon-free consumption by 2030 needed to hit the 45% reduction target is about 10,000 mtoe.
That means that the world will need add about 1,000 mtoe of carbon-free energy every year over the next decade. Over the past decade, the world added about 64 mtoe of carbon-free energy every year, and in 2018 it added a record 114 mtoe. So the world would need to accelerate the deployment of carbon-free energy by 9 times or more the rate observed in 2018, and about 15 times greater than that of the past decade.
The deployment of new carbon-emitting energy would obviously have to cease immediately. Over the past decade fossil fuel consumption has increased annually by an average of about 150 mtoe. Last year’s record increase of 114 mtoe of carbon-free energy was dwarfed by an increase in fossil fuels of more than 275 mtoe. It is accurate to say that the world’s growing supply of carbon-free energy is additive, and not replacing fossil fuels.
Discussions of climate policy often center on the deployment of carbon-free energy supply, but rarely discussed is the corresponding requirement for the decommissioning of fossil fuel energy. As I have argued in a previous column, the magnitude of the net-zero by 2050 challenge is equivalent to the deployment of a new nuclear plant every day for the next 30 years, while retiring an equivalent amount of fossil fuel energy every day. Emissions reductions for 2030 consistent with the IPCC view of the 1.5°C temperature target require a much great rate of deployment than one nuclear power plant worth of carbon-free energy deployment every day, because about half of the required emissions reductions are squeezed into the next 10 years.
The bottom line of this analysis should be undeniable: There is simply no evidence that the world is, or is on the brink of, making “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” that would be required for the deep decarbonization associated with a 1.5°C temperature target. Anyone advocating a 50% reduction in emissions by 2030 is engaging in a form of climate theater, full of drama but not much suspense. But don’t just take it from me, do the math yourself.
Despite the overwhelming evidence on the unlikelihood of meeting the 2030 target, such realism has yet to take hold in climate policy discussions. Some even go so far as to claim that presentation of this type of analysis amounts to climate denial. For those making such claims, I’ve got news for you – the world is going to miss the 2030 target whether we talk about that reality or deny it, so we had better get to work on rethinking climate policy.
Follow me on Twitter @RogerPielkeJr
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c3dbb7eb6f50be413b7e36dab7abe27f
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2019/12/14/why-climate-advocates-need-to-stop-hyping-extreme-weather/?sh=ada0e067f0a7
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Why Climate Advocates Need To Stop Hyping Extreme Weather
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Why Climate Advocates Need To Stop Hyping Extreme Weather
MADRID, SPAIN - 2019/12/13: Activists protesting outside IFEMA, where UN Climate Change Conference ... [+] COP25 is being held. Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion activists are demanding solutions against climate change. (Photo by Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty Images) LightRocket via Getty Images
Data recently published in The Lancet tells an amazing story about weather-related disasters worldwide over the past three decades. As people around the world have become wealthier, the fraction of that wealth that is destroyed by extreme weather has gone down. This trend holds for rich and poor nations, and remarkably across all types of weather phenomena. It also helps us to understand why the focus on extreme weather among climate advocates is badly misguided.
The new data was published earlier this month in the scientific journal The Lancet, in its annual review of climate change and health. The data comes from the German reinsurance company Munich Re, which tabulates global disaster costs on an annual basis. The authors of The Lancet assessment presented weather-related disasters losses from 1990 to 2016 (2017 and 2018 are included but are not adjusted to a common base year) as a proportion of overall GDP for four different country groupings, ranging from the lowest income to the highest.
The figure below shows disasters losses as a percentage of GDP for each country grouping. You can see that the decrease in losses as a fraction of overall GDP is the greatest for the poorest countries. This is great news, as it means that as the world has become wealthier, weather disasters are costing relatively less.
Disaster losses as a percentage of GDP for four different country regions. Source: The Lancet, R. Pielke, Jr.
The regional trends are consistent with the overall global trend that I have recently documented in decreasing overall and weather-related disaster losses as a proportion of global GDP. The United Nations, under its indicator framework associated with its Sustainable Development Goals has identified a reduction in disaster losses as a proportion of GDP as a key indicator of progress.
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In an era where gloom and doom dominate our discussions of the environment, the remarkable progress in reducing the relative impact of disasters on society stands out as good news. Given today’s zeitgeist, it is perhaps not at all surprising that The Lancet article buried its disaster data deep in an appendix and in the main text displayed a misleading figure with only a small subset of the data.
Many people I speak to and hear from on social media are surprised, shocked even, to learn that in recent decades disaster losses have actually decreased as a proportion of GDP. A big part of this surprise is surely due to hyperbolic media reporting of disasters and climate change. But journalists share responsibility for such hype with some in the scientific community who have also been seduced by the siren song of apocalyptic visions.
There is no doubt that human-caused climate change of course poses risks to our collective future and aggressive adaptation and mitigation actions make good sense. But it also makes good sense to pay close attention to data and evidence, and not just in public and political debates, but also as the basis for decision making to improve societal resilience in the face of an uncertain climate future.
There are two main reasons for the decrease in weather-related disaster losses as a proportion of GDP. The first reason is that many types of weather extremes associated with the greatest economic losses – including floods, drought, tornadoes and tropical cyclones (which includes landfalling U.S. hurricanes) – have not increased in frequency or intensity over the long-term. That is not simply my conclusion, but the consensus view of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. National Climate Assessment and the World Meteorological Organization. Other types of extremes, notably heat waves and western North American fires, have increased according to these same assessments.
But there is more going on here than just trends in climate phenomena. A disaster happens when an extreme event encounters an exposed and vulnerable region of human development. Too often attention focuses on what is happening with the climate, and ignores what is going on in society.
The second reason for the decrease in weather-related disaster losses is decreasing societal vulnerability. In a recent paper, one of the most important climate-related analyses to have been published in the past decade, Guiseppe Formetta and Luc Feyen present “the first global scale, spatially variable multi-hazard analysis of dynamics in human and economic vulnerability to the most impacting climate hazards.” Specifically, they look at loss of life and economic losses from 1980 to 2016 for floods (distinguishing river, flash and coastal), extreme cold, extreme heat, drought and wind storms. They also look at these impacts over various spatial scales and for both low and high income regions.
What they find is incredible: Both mortality rates (fatalities as a percent of exposed population) and damages as a proportion of GDP have decreased for all phenomena, at all spatial scales and for both low and high income regions (with a notable exception: “human vulnerability to heatwaves seems higher in high/middle high income countries”). These decreases are among the most significant emerging trends emerging in the first half of the 21st century.
Formetta and Feyen provide a clear and convincing basis for understanding why the world is seeing lower mortality and disaster losses as a proportion of GDP: “Improved protection against hazards has counter-balanced the effects of increasing exposure on disaster risk, with the global average 2007–2016 multi-hazard human mortality and loss rates dropping of about 6.5 and nearly 5 times as compared to the period 1980–1989, respectively.” These are remarkable declines over a relatively short period of time.
The benefits of improved protection accrue to a greater degree to poorer countries, who have the ability to make greater progress on vulnerability reduction than most rich countries, most of which may have already taken such steps. This can be seen clearly in the data graphed above from The Lancet, which indicates a greater rate of decline in disaster costs as a proportion of GDP for lesser income regions. Formetta and Feyen conclude, “This effect is strongest at lower income levels and diminishes with increasing wealth.”
There can be no doubt that vast exposures and vulnerabilities continue to exist around the world, meaning that future disasters are not a question of if, but when and where. Even so, the evidence is encouraging that as the world has become richer, the world has also become safer and better protected. As Formetta and Feyen conclude, “Although high income countries may suffer higher absolute losses, in lower income countries people and their belonging are less protected and more vulnerable to natural hazards.”
The fateful decision by many climate advocates to center their advocacy on extreme weather events looks worse and worse. It has led some to the reject science and evidence about the climate past, some to rely on mythological apocalyptic futures and, as I can attest, a resulting tendency to smear as “deniers” anyone who points out these uncomfortable realities. Now we can add to that list the overwhelming evidence that the world has been reducing its vulnerability to weather extremes. When it comes to the impacts of extreme weather, things are not getting worse, in fact they are getting much, much better.
Follow me on Twitter @RogerPielkeJr
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6befcc1361c188fbdbaca439a9352e95
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2020/01/02/how-billionaires-tom-steyer-and-michael-bloomberg-corrupted-climate-science/?sh=572e8001702c
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How Billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg Corrupted Climate Science
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How Billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg Corrupted Climate Science
Tom Steyer, co-founder of NextGen Climate Action Committee, smiles during the Global Climate Action ... [+] Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Friday, Sept. 14, 2018. The Global Climate Action Summit brings together industry and political leaders working on improving the conditions and concerns facing climate in the world today. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg © 2018 Bloomberg Finance LP
This is a story of American democracy. In one sense, it’s a noble story. People with shared values have come together to petition the government and the public on their political aims, just as envisioned by James Madison in Federalist 10.
In another sense it’s a story of privilege and conceit – the privilege in American democracy that accompanies being mindbogglingly wealthy and the conceit that climate politics could be best pursued by corrupting the scientific literature on climate change.
Before proceeding, let’s make a few things absolutely clear. There is no doubt that climate change is real, and is significantly influenced by our activities, particularly through the emissions of carbon dioxide. I have long advocated for aggressive action on carbon dioxide emissions as well as to improve adaptation to climate variability and change. At the same time, I have also long argued that maintaining scientific integrity should go hand-in-hand with effective climate action.
At the center of the corruption of climate science discussed here a highly technical scenario of the future (called Representation Concentration Pathway 8.5 or RCP8.5). Over the past decade this particular scenario has moved from an extreme outlier to the center of climate policy discussions. You can read more about how that happened and its consequences in my previous columns here and here.
Today, I will add further details to this incredible story by explaining the important roles played by Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg, both billionaires and current Democratic presidential candidates. (Disclosure: I have endorsed publicly one of their Democratic opponents, Amy Klobuchar, but I will vote for whomever the Democrats select this November, including Steyer or Bloomberg.)
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According to the New York Times, in November 2012, one month after stepping down from the hedge fund he led, Steyer gathered environmental leaders and Democratic party leaders around the kitchen table at his ranch in Pescadero, California. Among those in attendance were Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org, and John Podesta, who had founded the Center for American Progress (CAP) in 2003 to promote progressive causes. (Another disclosure: In 2014, Steyer funded a successful campaign by CAP to have me removed as a writer for 538, as revealed in the Wikileaks Podesta emails.)
At the kitchen table meeting, Steyer was focused on the question: “How do you make climate change feel real and immediate for people?” He was convinced by attendees that the best way to answer this question was through people’s pocketbooks, through economics.
Following this meeting, Steyer invited two collaborators and co-funders to join him, to give the appearance of being non-partisan. One was Michael Bloomberg, then a political independent who was completing 12 years as the mayor of New York. The other was Hank Paulson, a Republican who was a former CEO of Goldman Sachs and who had also served as Secretary of the Treasury under George W. Bush.
Each of Steyer, Bloomberg and Paulson contributed $500,000 to the initial project, which was focused on “making the climate threat feel real, immediate and potentially devastating to the business world.” The initial aim was to produce a series of reports, drawing on several young academics and the expertise of external consultants at the Rhodium Group and Risk Management Solutions.
The first report was published in June, 2014 and was titled “Risky Business: The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States.” The Risky Business approach was a smart if flawed way to place economics at the center of climate policy. The approach focused on characterizing the extreme RCP8.5 scenario as “the closest to a business-as-usual trajectory” and centered its economic analysis on that scenario: “we focus on RCP 8.5 as the pathway closest to a future without concerted action to reduce future warming.” In this way they guaranteed that the economic impacts would be eye-poppingly large.
But in generating large economic impacts, the approach of the Risky Business report made two significant methodological mistakes. First, they improperly characterized the extreme RCP 8.5 scenario as “business as usual” reflecting a world without future climate policy. Second, they improperly presented the scenarios of the IPCC as representing different policy outcomes, suggesting that we could “move” from one scenario to another: “Moving from RCP 8.5 to RCP 2.6 (as well as RCP 4.5 and RCP 6.0) will come at a cost.”
Both of these methodological choices were contrary to the appropriate use of the scenarios, according the modeling experts who created them: “RCP8.5 cannot be used as a no-climate-policy reference scenario [”business as usual”] for the other RCPs because RCP8.5’s socioeconomic, technology and biophysical assumptions differ from those of the other RCPs.” The scenarios are completely independent from each other, and policy cannot “move” us from one to another. Consider that RCP2.6 represents a world with 3 billion less people than RCP8.5. The Risky Business methodology ignored such critical details.
Dodgy science published by climate advocacy groups is certainly not uncommon and it is usually not that interesting. But the genius of the Risky Business project was that it did not stop with a flashy report aimed at the daily news cycle. It undertook a far more sophisticated campaign focused on introducing its methods into the mainstream scientific literature, where they could take on a life of their own.
For instance, soon after the initial Risky Business report was released in 2014 the Steyer-Bloomberg-Paulson funded work was the basis for 11 talks at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, which is the largest annual gathering of climate researchers. The next step was to get the analyses of the project published in the scientific literature where they could influence subsequent research and serve as the basis for authoritative scientific reviews, such as the U.S. National Climate Assessment.
For instance, a 2016 paper published in the prestigious journal Science from the Risky Business project introduced the erroneous notion of moving from one RCP scenario to another via policy, comparing “business as usual” (RCP 8.5) and “strongent emissions mitigation” (RCP 2.6). That paper has subsequently been cited 294 times in other academic studies, according to Google Scholar. Despite the obvious methodological flaw, the paper passed peer review and has received little or no criticism.
In another example, a more comprehensive study from the Risky Business project was published in Science magazine in 2017, where the abstract brazenly announces its methodological error: “By the late 21st century, the poorest third of counties are projected to experience damages between 2 and 20% of county income (90% chance) under business-as-usual emissions (Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5).” The most extreme conclusion of this analysis was that the United States would see a 10% hit to its economy under the most extreme version of RCP8.5 (specifically its 99th percentile), projecting an incredible 8 degree Celsius temperature change from 2080 to 2099. This paper has been cited 285 times in other studies, according to Google Scholar. The 10% GDP loss figure would become the top line conclusion of the U.S. National Climate Assessment the next year.
Publishing papers in the academic literature based on the flawed methods was a formula that would be repeated time and time again. Like the introduction of a virus, the misleading reinterpretation of climate scenarios has subsequently expanded throughout the climate science literature and into leading assessments. Many experts well know that such methods are fatally flawed, but only a few have raised concerns.
The flawed methods have spread beyond the academic literature and into policy and scientific assessments. According to Gary Yohe, the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Wesleyan University and active in climate assessments for many years, the methodology used in the Risky Business project has caught on: “states and urban areas have adopted this approach, as well as the National Academy of Sciences and the National Climate Assessment of the United States.”
The 2018 U.S. National Climate Assessment offers a particularly notable example. The work initiated by the Risky Business project was cited almost 200 times in that report, including direct references to the project’s reports as well as the work of its lead consultant, the Rhodium Group. One of the lead researchers for Risky Business was also a lead author of the NCA. His research supported by Risky Business (and that of his main collaborator), was cited more than 150 times in the NCA. Yet, nowhere that I have seen has it been disclosed by the US government that this NCA lead author is under contract with the Rhodium Group from 2015 to 2022.
Imagine the reaction if a lead author of the U.S. National Climate Assessment with funding from a Republican billionaire and working with consultants opposed to climate action had their research, that of their funder and their colleagues cited some 200 times in the NCA – and that research was fatally flawed and the researcher’s financial connections with the consultants was undisclosed. I’d wager that it would receive some attention.
More recently, the work begun with Steyer-Bloomberg-Paulson initial investment has been taken up by a group called the Climate Impact Lab. This effort involves the project leaders from the Risky Business report and is a collaboration of several universities and the continued involvement of the Rhodium Group. It is unclear if Steyer-Bloomberg-Paulson continue to provide funding via the Rhodium Group.
The Climate Impact Lab has thrived on exploiting RCP8.5 to generate a steady series of media-friendly studies focused on projecting extreme climate impacts. Among them:
· 1.5 million more people may die in India by 2100 due to extreme heat by climate change
· Rising sea levels could swamp major cities and displace almost 200 million people, scientists say
· Rise In Climate-Related Deaths Will Surpass All Infectious Diseases
All of these reports are based on the misuse of scenarios, and especially RCP8.5.
Just last month the co-director of the Climate Impact Lab testified before Congress and argued that the “social cost of carbon” was far higher than previous estimates. In doing so he introduced a further methodological error by improperly pairing the extreme RCP8.5 scenario (again used as a baseline scenario in the underlying analyses) with the most pessimistic socioeconomic pathway (called Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 3).
Let me be clear about what is going on here. There is no hidden conspiracy, all of this is taking place in plain sight and in public. In fact, what is going on here is absolutely genius. We have a well-funded effort to fundamentally change how climate science is characterized in the academic literature, how that science is reported in the media, and ultimately how political discussions and policy options are shaped.
This effort has been phenomenally successful.
According to my search of academic citations (using Google Scholar) more than 4,200 academic papers have used “business as usual” and RCP8.5 together since 2011. If each is cited 10 times, that would mean that more than 42,000 papers have cited papers that mistakenly refer to RCP8.5 as “business as usual” and many improperly compare RCP scenarios as policy options. Of those papers that cite papers misusing RCP8.5 as “business as usual” about 2,000 of them (involving just the two Risky Business lead researchers) refer to work originating in the investments of Steyer-Bloomberg-Paulson and continuing at the Climate Impact Lab.
Further, not only has the USNCA adopted the flawed methodology of the Risky Business projects, but so too has the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, most notably in its 2019 Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. There can bee little doubt that climate science has been profoundly influenced by this campaign.
Of course, the Steyer-Bloomberg-Paulson investments are not solely responsible for the misuse of scenarios in the scientific literature, but they are clearly a significant part of the story.
The corruption of climate science has occurred because some of our most important institutions have let us down. The scientific peer review process has failed to catch obvious methodological errors in research papers. Leading scientific assessments have ignored conflicts of interest and adopted flawed methods. The media has been selectively incurious as to the impact of big money on climate advocacy.
This is a story of how wealth and power have corrupted science in pursuit of political goals. Climate change is important, there is no doubt. But the importance of climate change does not mean that we should abandon high standards of scientific integrity. We are going to need good science in the future — so it is best to keep it that way, no matter what cause it is enlisted to support.
Note: This article was corrected on 4 February 2020 to correct an undercount of papers referencing RCP8.5 and “business as usual” together. Thanks to Ken Rice and Lucas Wheeler for calling my attention to the error.
Follow me on Twitter @RogerPielkeJr
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8c175f4370deaa00e5d27a6eeabeba7d
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogersands/2020/01/25/vietnam-asias-new-leading-culinary-destination/
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Vietnam: Asia's New Leading Culinary Destination
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Vietnam: Asia's New Leading Culinary Destination
To learn more about the history and culinary experiences of Vietnam you can click on this link for more information.
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