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Big Data Analytics Remains a Big Opportunity for Wealth Managers – Part I

- December 17, 2014 - 0 Comments

Wealth Management firms are spending billions on IT to differentiate in the market place. Yet the question remains, can “Big Data” have a material impact on the business? Can it deliver business outcomes by reducing risk, increasing assets under management, driving profitability, client satisfaction, products per client, client and financial advisor retention, all while improving the cost/income ratio and return on equity?

These are questions that are being discussed in board rooms across the financial industry and topics that I will cover in this blog series.

In order to answer these questions we need to put the wealth client at the center and understand changing client needs and expectations around how the client wants to be served by the firm. We need to examine external factors such as the impact of game changing consumer technology and unprecedented client access to information, as well as understand how new market entrants are challenging the traditional financial advisor value proposition and business model as a new round of Robo-Advisors hit the market.

Up until recent years, banks enjoyed an account centric transactional business model. What is changing is the onset of unstructured social interaction data as smart mobile devices and mobile broadband Internet usage reach high penetration levels. Device proliferation is leading to the availability of “data exhaust” from mobile phones, tablets, automobiles, video cameras, and from sensors in buildings, streets, consumer wearables and footfall traffic counters. Correlation of such data to better attract, retain, and serve clients can create market advantage.J pagano Wealth Mgt Blog part 1

The “Big” in Big Data comes from the fact that worldwide data volume is doubling every two years with unprecedented volume, variety, and velocity. Ninety percent of the all data in the history of the world was created in the last two years (SINTEF)! The concept of Big Data is about the correlation and analysis of transaction data, social interaction data, and machine/sensor data in a way that can turn data into knowledge, knowledge into insights, and insights into actions in real-time.

So what does this all mean for wealth managers?

As a wealth manager, what impact would it have on your business if you were able to increase the understanding of your client exponentially? Actions derived from data are informed by highly personalized needs predictions that can arm wealth managers with deep insights about their clients, increase their relevance in every interaction, and directly contribute to business outcomes. Big Data can help wealth managers transform the client value proposition and re-imagine the client experience.

The new vision for financial services is that a firm must be present in the financial lives of its clients, any time, any place, on any device, and across any channel.

The firm can no longer wait for the client to come to it. It must be proactive in delivering highly relevant value-added services in real-time and anticipate client needs. The firm needs to aspire to creating a “market of one” experience for each wealth client, understand the needs of and the hierarchy within the household, and move to a client centric versus account centric go-to-market approach.

When it comes to Big Data in Wealth Management start with the foundation, put the client at the center, and define business outcomes. Focus on building capabilities around what is possible while re-imagining the client experience.

Wealth management firms can take concrete steps in the form of measurable business outcome based projects to significantly enhance the client experience. These include:

  1. Define a roadmap for wealth client data analytics maturity. This will identify gaps that can be addressed resulting in more relevant advisor-client interactions.
  2. Establish a wealth client listening system across all channels. Early detection of client behaviors can lead to the identification of issues and sales opportunities.
  3. Create a real-time single view of wealth client data with data virtualization. Substantial savings can be had by leaving disparate data in place while providing managers with a single view.
  4. Establish an analytics driven financial advisor collaboration platform. This helps create market differentiation by maximizing advisor productivity, sharing best practices daily.
  5. Deploy mobile virtual advisor video capability and establish branch analytics. This improves client experience and gives advisors more minutes per day with clients increasing cross-selling opportunities.
  6. Empower advisors with real-time client insights to drive business outcomes. This helps the advisor manage to client life events with much greater granularity and speed.

The choices that wealth management firms make around data analytics in the next two years will determine their position in the marketplace. Can Big Data help wealth managers? With a client centric and business outcomes solutions approach, the answer is an astounding YES!

I will discuss each of the above steps in more detail in my next blog. As always I welcome your suggestions, stories, and feedback!

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In late October, SAP released 3 year roadmaps across our Software portfolio, providing customers with excellent insight in to planned innovations.

Given my focus on the Energy & Natural Resources space, I have called out 3 areas of innovation that I think will be particularly important to customers as we pursue digital transformation:

  1. Enablement of S/4HANA Utilities for Large Systems

I recently came across an IS-U table that was 26 billion – yes, billion, with a b – rows long. Not surprisingly, a system that can command tables of this size (I’ve only come across two tables of that size, both in Utilities footprints) is often underpinned by a larger than life database. As an example, your typical Utilities ERP system will be roughly about 1TB, but the Industry Solution can be 8-10x this, in one extreme case, even 20x – although the one I’m thinking of hasn’t been archived since implementation!

As a result, customers running IS-U have been required to do significant preparatory work to shift to S/4HANA as a large, scale-up HANA appliance is not an inexpensive undertaking. More relevantly, for a number of organisations I work with, it forces them to revisit their “cloud-first” strategy as the roadmap for Azure, AWS etc is largely based on highly scalable, smaller node architectures.

Supporting a scale-out architecture by allowing the distribution of tables across different server nodes will allow organisations to adopt their desired flexible architectures and reduce their total cost of ownership. Along with this, clients can expect performance optimisation for their most critical batch processes in the areas of metering and billing.

  1. SAP Hybris Commerce, Utilities Accelerator

Optimising and automating the call centre has been and continues to be a large focus area for utility organisations. Most companies now see themselves moving away from being a traditional, commodity energy supplier to being a value-added services provider in the energy technology market.

Enter the Utilities Accelerator for Hybris Commerce. The planned innovations are focused on delivering packaged content for organisations to enable a smart, guided selling process across different rate plans for gas, electricity and home services. Aligned to this will be the ability to offer cross-sell opportunities for non-consumable and non-energy products such as smart meters and solar panels.

For consumers, this will give them a “one-stop” shop for all their energy needs and for retailers, they will begin to interact with their consumers on the same platform, allowing the organisation to forge connections not previously possible and deliver personal packages based on unique household characteristics. A win-win.

  1. SAP Asset Intelligence Network, Release 2

For those unfamiliar with the SAP Asset Intelligence Network, the most interesting analogy I have heard to describe the functionality was “Facebook for Assets”. Analogy aside, by leveraging the Internet of Things, manufacturers and operators can have a collaboration platform which serves as a global register for of the equipment in the client’s extended asset ecosystem. Operators can access up-to-date maintenance strategies, manuals, and more from manufacturers – and manufacturers can automatically receive asset usage and failure data from operators.

At its most fundamental level, manufacturers benefit from receiving feedback that allows for improvements, in turn boosting customer satisfaction. Operators benefit from complete asset information, tailored services and fewer maintenance issues. This collaboration platform serves as a conduit to transparent asset interaction, improving asset data quality (which is typically poor) and shortening issue response times.

Release 2 will see improved applications (e.g. work history and log books), enhanced content (e.g. equipment and location characteristics – particularly helpful for those far flung assets), and an augmented network and integration capability (e.g. integration with the SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service Solution).

The link to the full document can be found here. I strongly recommend taking a look and reaching out to your SAP representative to have the team come in and walk through some of these key innovations. Digital transformation is more than just a buzz word in the utilities space and SAP is aiming to provide utility organisations the opportunity to build competitive advantages in the brave new energy world.

To view the document requires an S-User login and is only available to current customers and partners. It should be noted that all innovations are planned and do not represent a commitment by SAP to deliver the functionality.

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Business and Law Clinic launches at UWE Bristol’s £16.5m Enterprise Zone ‘Future Space’

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As part of its new University Enterprise Zone (“UEZ”) activity, the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) is launching a pro bono legal service for small businesses in collaboration with Bristol law firm Gregg Latchams Ltd and international legal practice Osborne Clarke LLP. This support will be provided within the new Future Space Centre on Frenchay Campus.

The weekly Business and Law Clinic will provide pro bono legal advice to small businesses in Future Space and across the South West. The key objective of the innovative venture will be to provide SMEs, growing businesses and start-ups with business–legal advice at a critical stage in their development.

A selected group of law students, both undergraduates and postgraduate professional students, will provide the advice on areas such as corporate and commercial, employment, litigation and dispute resolution and tax. Supervised by practising solicitors from Gregg Latchams, Osborne Clarke and UWE Bristol, the students will gain real-world insight and experience, providing them with valuable skillsets and exposure to the world of business. In addition to the Clinic, students will also be providing ‘essentials’ workshops in the professional services of law and accounting.

UWE Bristol’s Future Space, which opened its doors on 15 August 2016, is part of a new University Enterprise Zone, one of four that have been set up nationally and supported by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Assisting businesses specialising inrobotics, digital and creative technologies, biosciences and other high tech areas, UEZ will bring an estimated economy boost of £85m as well as over 450 new jobs to the region.

Donna Whitehead, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean who has led this initiative at UWE Bristol said, “This initiative deepens and broadens the University’s engagement with local businesses and the community and will really enhance the experience of our students in the Faculty, ensuring they are business–ready whilst also providing valuable expertise to growing businesses and start-ups at a critical stage in their development. We are delighted to be working with Osborne Clarke and Gregg Latchams.”

Peter Clough, Head of Osborne Clarke’s Bristol office said, “Future Space plays to the strengths of Bristol as a vibrant technology and enterprise hub, offering crucial space and advice for startups and SMEs in the area. We’re looking forward to seeing the innovative companies and working alongside the best and brightest students that UWE Bristol has to offer.”

Ken McEwan, Director and Head of Dispute Resolution at Gregg Latchams Solicitors said, “Gregg Latchams are particularly proud to be associated with this project having a strong presence in the digital, media and technology sector. This exciting venture offers a great opportunity for us to build relationships with companies of the future, demonstrates our commitment to SMEs and fills an important gap to provide support to new enterprise.”

The new Business and Law Clinic is in addition to the renowned pro bono work that already takes place within the law school at UWE Bristol. As well as the services being provided for businesses, students will also from the autumn be offering a new weekly drop-in service under the supervision of practitioner tutors at Citizens Advice Bristol’s offices in Fairfax Street. Advice will cover areas such as benefits, debt, employment and family matters. In June, its work withAvon & Bristol Law Centre won ‘Pro Bono Initiative of the Year’ at the nationalLawyer Awards 2016.

The launch event and first 30 mins clinics are scheduled to take place on Wednesday 12 October from 14:00-17:00 at Future Space. For small businesses wishing to sign up for this event – please register using the link below: UWE Business and Law Clinic – Launch Event and First Clinic

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For Mining, Poor Governance Worse Than Corruption

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Human Rights Watch found that in many case regulators don’t know what’s going on in their backyards.

The biggest problem of the mining industry in India is not corruption but poor governance, claims a new report by Human Rights Watch.

“There is a systematic failure of oversight,” Cristopher Albin-Lackey, the author of the report, told India Real Time.

There’s a perception that in many cases regulators are colluding with mining companies to allow them to ignore enviornmental safeguards.

But Human Rights Watch found that in many case regulators don’t know what’s going on in their backyards.

Mr. Albin-Lackey argues for an overhaul of the system currently in place to monitor mining in the country.

In the state of Goa, Mr. Albin-Lackey found that the failure to regulate mining operations has caused widespread environmental damage, impacting the fertility of farmlands and polluting groundwater supplies. Residents also are worried that dust emissions may be responsible for breathing problems.

It’s the failure of government regulators to independently verify whether mining firms are behaving legally or responsibly, the report argues, that ultimately allows such irregularities to happen.

“It’s primarily a problem of governance. If it is possible to not play by the rules, companies will do that,” says Mr. Albin-Lackey, who based his report on field research conducted in 2011.

Part of the problem is the lack of resources: departments responsible for monitoring mining operations are chronically understaffed.

Take the case of Goa’s Pollution Control Board, one of the bodies that – at least in theory – is responsible for keeping mining companies in check.

The board’s chairman, Simon DeSousa, told Human Rights Watch that with their staff of 16, they are unable to adequately oversee mining operations in his state.

He said it was “quite possible” that 40% of mines are operating without the required clearances. Mr. DeSousa was not immediately available for comment.

S. Sridhar, a spokesman for the Goa Mineral Ore Exporters Association, the state’s leading mining industry body, says his organization strongly opposes mining violations.

While he said there could be irregularities, he claimed these were largely bureaucratic oversights, like failing to “file a report within a particular time frame.”

“My members, by and large, are not doing anything illegal,” Mr. Sridhar told India Real Time.

While the report focuses largely on Goa, “You can’t look at this and say: This is unique to Goa,” said Mr. Albin-Lackey. “What you see in Goa is the logical result of the system being broken.”

The report also points to systemic flaws in the environmental clearance process at the central-government level.

It’s up to mining companies to hire consultants to draft Environmental Impact Assessment reports, which are required for government approval of projects.

Government officials are meant to review the reports. For instance, if the report says there are no rivers, streams or farms “the government should be able to verify if that’s true or not,” says Mr. Albin-Lackey. He found that not to be the case, with the government often accepting reports without checking.

The report urged the central government, through the Ministry of Environment and Forests, to take a more proactive role in monitoring existing mining operations.

Citing government data, the report noted that the ministry approved 587 new mining projects in India between 2006 and 2008, rejecting just 10. A ministry spokesperson said he could not immediately comment.

Last year, mining scandals rocked India’s political establishment. In Karnataka, revelations of corruption in the mining sector led to the resignation of the state’s chief minister. And in Goa, concerns over illegal mining were a major reason the Congress party-led state government was recently voted out of power.

Goa’s new government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, has taken steps to regulate the sector more tightly.

Prasanna Acharya, director of Goa’s mining department, said in an interview that since coming to power in April, they have suspended 461 trading licenses, 43 of which have so far been reinstated.

They are also planning to monitor mining activities more closely through tools including CCTV cameras.

“Things are falling into place,” he said.

-Diksha Sahni contributed to this post.

You can follow India Real Time and Margherita on Twitter  @indiarealtime and @margheritamvs.

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Holy City Cycling

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Cyclists riding up Charleston’s Market Street

We were lucky enough to recently spend a few days in Charleston, SC (aka the Holy City*). The food was amazing, the architecture extraordinary, and the cycling culture incredible!

A stack of books perfectly balanced on a rear rack, near the College of Charleston

I’d read that Charleston was a great place for bike riding, and now having been there, I see why. The city is fairly compact and relatively flat; winter temperatures are mild; and no one (cars or cyclists) seems to really speed.

A lovely loaner bike from the Zero George Street Hotel

Combined with Charleston’s stylishness, the city is basically a haven for the chic transportation cyclist.

A super-sweet Biria seen near King and Market

I will definitely be back!

*(P.S. — Charleston, I learned, earned its nickname because, during the pre-Revolutionary era, it was the area most accepting of varying religions. It thus became known as the Holy City because so many different faiths worshipped there.)


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A narrative of the campaign in India which terminated the war with Tippoo Sultan, in 1792: with maps and plans illustrative of the subject, and a view of Seringapatam

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Printed by W. Bulmer and co., 1793 - India - 296 pages
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A Handbook for the Preparation of Research Reports and Theses

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University Press of America, 1978 - Dissertations, Academic - 43 pages
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books on the radio

Sociable! with Advent Book Blog & Open Book Toronto

Advent Book Blog & Open Book Toronto Present: Sociable!

The Advent Book Blog and Open Book Toronto Want You to Get Sociable!

Get offline. Come be social. Then tell everyone on Twitter and Facebook where you are and how much fun you’re having! Twitter hashtag: #soc10

Sean Cranbury and Julie Wilson of The Advent Book Blog and Open Book Toronto cordially invite you to an event for social media geeks, publishing professionals, and anyone with a passion for books and readers.

Thursday, March 25, 2010
7:00 PM
The Pour House Irish Pub
182 Dupont Ave.
Toronto, ON

Leading up to the event, Julie Wilson of Book Madam & Associates will unveil the identity of the six inaugural Associates, many of whom will be at the event. Find them and say hello!

And be sure to get a piece of Sean Cranbury of Books on the Radio while he’s in town from Vancouver. He’s the big guy with the big voice and an bigger heart. Don’t miss him!

Many thanks to Amy Logan Holmes and Open Book Toronto for their generous support and donation of light nibblies. Nom!

Bring your insatiable thirst and enthusiasm! SOCIABLE!

Impact of Piracy and P2P on Book Sales: Frankfurt

Impact Of Piracy And Free ( T O C F F)

View more presentations from bfoleary.
Brian O’Leary of Magellan Media has updated the data for his Impact of P2P and Free Distribution on Book Sales.  He presented this update at the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair.
Brian’s research and methods have been very influential on my own work.

Bookcamp Vancouver 2009: Book Publishing Throwdown

Friday October 16th, 2009 was a good day for book publishing in Vancouver.

I’m still fairly exhausted from the whole thing.  I’ll be writing a piece on the event in the next week or so once my senses return to normal and the blood returns to my feet.

But I will take this opportunity to thank everyone who came and participated in the event.  The volunteers and fellow organizers did an amazing job of executing a near flawless day and one that we should all be proud of.

I’m not even talking about the lunch!  Big props to Out to Lunch Catering for making us look good.

And yes, the words ‘Next Year‘ have already been uttered.

Forget Frankfurt! Bookcamp Vancouver 2009 is Here!

BOOKCAMP VANCOUVER 2009: FRIDAY OCTOBER 16: SFU HARBOUR CENTRE Exploring New Ideas in Books, Publishing and the Future of Reading

It’s curious.  Thousands of publishing professionals from all over the world funnel into the Bavarian outpost of Frankfurt at this time every year for the largest book fair and rights festival in the world.

Fortunes rise and fall on decisions made there.  Expectations run high.  Coffee is consumed at an alarming rate, as is Russian vodka.  The very next Harry Potter or Da Vinci Code could be right under one’s proverbial nose.

Conferences are attended, powerpoint presentations proffer poignant percentages and that person over there flitting from table to table scribbling furiously in her notepad just might be Michiko Kakutani.

But… there’s something happening in Canada’s western hinterlands, some sort of modern mutation on an age-old theme.  Fresh ideas are being hatched, new voices are given the opportunity to speak and the wisdom of the crowd is tapped.

Bookcamp Vancouver 2009 Unconference!

It all happens on the rain slicked streets of Vancouver on Friday October 16th at the SFU Harbour Centre.  See you there!

Joseph Planta Interviews Sean Cranbury:

Picture 18

I spoke to Joe Planta last week as part of his excellent series of podcasts for  It was an great opportunity for me to speak about the various projects that I am involved in these days – namely Books on the Radio, Bookcamp Vancouver 2009 and the Vancouver Biennale.

Many thanks to Joe for doing such an excellent job and for being a kindred spirit in the podcasting game.

A quick look at his website shows Joe to be someone with a huge range of interests and a lot of dedication.  I look forward to watching his site continue to grow and maybe even contributing something to it in the future.

To listen to my interview with Joe please click this link.

The Commentary began in June 1999 as an e-mail newsletter of editorial comment.  Online since September 2003, THECOMMENTARY.CA featured other contributors as well commenting on a wide variety of subjects.

In August 2004, Joseph Planta premiered feature audio interviews with unique and diverse guests from renowned bestselling and prize winning authors, Canadian newsmakers and political figures, internationally known print and broadcast journalists, prominent academics and public intellectuals, as well as noted artists and personalities.

For over 350 interviews and five years now, the Planta: On the Line interview program continues as a forum for engaging, informative conversations on current affairs and a wide variety of subjects.

Excerpted Thoughts for a Sunday Morning

The italicized text below is a response that I wrote to a question that my friend Janet asked me via Facebook this morning.  I post it here because I think that it’s a fairly succinct expression of some of the ideas that I’ve been thinking about recently.

IMG_1396That’s a good question, Janet.  It seems impossible for me to imagine that the move to digital could be stopped or thwarted or derailed… but one of the things that I said many times when talking at SFU is ‘keep an open mind and be prepared to adapt’ so one has to be ready for whatever.

The technology is just so much more sophisticated, democratic and ubiquitous now than say it was at the end of the 90’s when the first digital readers appeared like clunky plastic mastodons on the digital landscape.

Look at the utility and ubiquitousness of the mobile phone.  In south east Asia, China, Japan, Korea.  Those are the places that we should be looking to for cues on what’s possible and how to disseminate content, who the audience is and how they access that content in the first place.

You think that people in publishing are scared of digital now?  Wait until they realize that the price of their electronic content is going to be around 99 cents and some times much less than that.  $9.99 is a dream come true for digital content costing but once Amazon’s death grip on the market is broken and a true ecology of online retailers and content providers starts to allow the consumer to decide price and once publisher’s get savvy enough to start repackaging content in meaningful ways for the new consumer then maybe the industry will cease to have this fear based sense of entitlement – which will kill whoever doesn’t snap out of it – and will realize that they’re actually a service provider to the customer.

Adaptation, improvisation, experimentation: those are the tools that need to be applied to the problem of digital change in book publishing.

Here’s my final heretical thought: serial downloads of content on a micropayment plan.  The next Dickens will arrive in digital installments paid for by subscription and unencumbered by DRM to your cell phone a couple times a week.  It’ll cost you next to nothing but the sheer number of readers will be staggering.  The real money is made by various digital extensions and mutations of the content – by allowing the readership to manipulate and remix the content among other things – and the physical edition that is printed at the end.  Remainders will become non existent because the publisher’s knowledge of their customers combined with better printing technologies – POD will become the engine that drives physical books into unexplored markets worldwide – will allow them to print an almost exact number of books to satisfy the market.

The book is not going away, writers and creators using language are not going away.  If anything the book is going to achieve a more exalted place in the minds of the public.

But the current landscape of book publishers are not entitled to be there without breaking a sweat.  If there’s a lot of dawdling then their competition will blow past them at the speed of light.

BookCamp Vancouver 2009 Unconference: SOLD OUT, Waiting List Available
July 15, 2009, 9:55 PM
Filed under: BookCamp Vancouver 2009, Industry Change | Tags:

Thanks to a sudden leak to twitter the BookCamp Vancouver 2009 Unconference registration was opened for a week and is now SOLD OUT.  A waiting list has been posted for those of you who want to attend.  We are expecting to have a limited number of spaces available so please sign up soon if you want to attend!

Thanks!  Wow.  Sold out in one week…. for a weird thing about books?  Are you nuts?

Participation is crucial and your ideas and experiences are vital to making this a success.  Looking forward to seeing you there and exploring the future of books, publishing and reading.

Forget Frankfurt!

BookCamp Vancouver is a user-generated un_conference that brings print publishers, educators, community builders and the tech community together – for free! BookCamp Vancouver is an opportunity to explore the present and future of books and book-like technologies. It’s open to anyone interested in the publishing industry and the potential dynamics of the reader/creator/publisher relationship.

Join us for a day of sharing new ideas, radical notions and engaging conversation! We’ll consider the future of the Book as an object; examine its ongoing role as a delivery mechanism for stories, information and entertainment; and examine how publishers can leverage themselves for success in the digital age.

Participants and self-selected guests will choose the agenda for the day, forming breakup groups to discuss and potentially create future book technologies, workflows, and grand schemes. Lend your passion and expertise to Bookcamp Vancouver by volunteering to facilitate a session.

Our plan is for this to be a day of talking and doing – of rolling up the proverbial shirt sleeves and tinkering with the publishing mechanism. We’re inviting authors, typographers, designers, printers, technologists, booksellers, literary agents, publishers and geeks of every stripe to come along and consider if and how technology can transform and perhaps improve on The Book.

Lots more information about BookCamp Vancouver can be found at and Once you’re registered, go and check it out!


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books on the radio

Symposium on the Book Humour Writing Contest Deadline is Monday July 5, 2010

Books on the Radio is co-sponsoring the SFU Symposium on the Book Humour Writing Contest!

Along with the Walrus Magazine, the Vancouver International Writers’ Festival, The Globe and Mail, CBC Radio One and Delta Vancouver Suites, BOTR will has donated prizes to the contest for a best short humour piece.

It’s a pretty sweet contest with some great prizes. Check them out:

Amazing Prizes for Best Humour Writing

• Two tickets to the Symposium on the Book (humour) on July 18th
• Two complete sets of books from each of the authors at the symposium
• Two nights at the Delta Suites Vancouver
• Passes for two to an event during the Vancouver International Writers Festival

• A year’s subscription to The Walrus magazine
• A year’s subscription to The Globe and Mail
• The latest book from esteemed designer Robert Bringhurst (CCSP Press)
• Dinner with the authors and panelists in the symposium

The story will be printed, recorded and broadcast on BOTR, the CBC and the SFU Summer Publishing website.

All we want is a 500-700 word essay of your best humour writing. Three judges will make the final selection and we will announce the winner on July 14th. Be prepared to have your piece read on air by North by Northwest and published on Books on the Radio and the SFU Summer Publishing website.

Deadline for entries is: Monday, July 5 at 5:00 p.m.

Send your submission to one of three places by mail, email or in person. Be sure to clearly label it SYMPOSIUM CONTEST.

Joyland Vancouver Summit or Wookie Symposium? You Decide!

Joyland Vancouver Summit at the W2 Building Sunday April 11 @ 7pm.

BOOKS ON THE RADIO RECOMMENDS: That you get your ass down to the W2 building this Sunday at 7pm to witness some of the best true voices in Canadian writing.

If you loved what you saw at the W2 Real Vancouver Writers’ Series during the Olympics then you need to be at the Joyland Vancouver Summit.  If you missed the W2 RVWS then you need to be at the Joyland Vancouver Summit.

It’s that simple.

Featuring W2 RVWS veterans Kevin Chong and Shay Wilson plus amazing Toronto-based writers Brian Joseph “Wookie Symposium” Davis and Emily Schultz.

Brian’s new book is amazing and he was featured on the last Books on the Radio show.

It’s going to rule!  Info below.

Hosted by Kevin Chong.

SUNDAY, APRIL 11 AT 7pm. W2, 112 West Hastings. FREE

Brian Joseph Davis is the author of Portable Altamont, a collection that garnered praise from Spin magazine for its “elegant, wise-ass rush of truth, hiding riotous social commentary in slanderous jokes.” Slate called his novel I, Tania, “The book of your fever dreams.” He’ll be playing radio theatre adaptations from his new short fiction collection, Ronald Reagan, My Father (AVAILABLE APRIL 1)

Emily Schultz’s latest novel is Heaven Is Small, released from House of Anansi Press in May 2009. Her writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Eye Weekly, the Walrus, the Black Warrior Review, Prism, Geist, Event, Descant, and several anthologies. The Vancouver Sun wrote: “Heaven Is Small [is] a stunning, often surprising read with moments of such audacity that the reader is likely to gasp out loud. . . the sort of novel that satisfies on every level.”

Claire Gibson lives in Vancouver. She is a creative writing major at the University of British Columbia. Dan Schwartz is originally from Washington, DC, and now spends his time in the MFA program at UBC. He was recently one of the editors for PRISM international. He writes a story once a week for The Land Of Bad Decisions ( He has a few interests.

Shay Wilson is one of those kids your mother warned you about, though you probably won’t think so at first. She works in the film industry and completed her MFA in Creative Writing in 2009. Her work has recently appeared in The Beaver, The Ink Filled Page and Geist. Rob Peters flew thirty feet through a car window when he was two. He lives in Vancouver and writes fiction, probably as a result.

Kevin Chong is the author of two books: a novel entitled Baroque-a-Nova and a work of narrative non-fiction, Neil Young Nation. He is the Vancouver editor for Joyland.

For more information please see or contact Brian Joseph Davis at

Books on the Radio: Ready to Set Sail on the Torrents
March 10, 2010, 6:30 AM
Filed under: Torrents | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Books on the Radio podcasts will soon be available on Pirate Bay, Isohunt & H33T.

We’re hoisting the sails and aiming for open seas.

Very soon all publicly broadcast episodes of Books on the Radio will be able to be found via torrent tracking sites such as Pirate Bay, Vancouver’s own Isohunt and H33T.

This is an experiment with possibility and an opportunity for me to better understand how these sites work and what communities live there.  I am interested to learn more about how people communicate with one another in these places.

Also, obviously I am interested in the supreme efficiency of the digital transfer of files around the world and the possibility of finding kindred souls who love books and love listening to people discuss them.

There’s a lot of opportunity here, a lot of potential to build bridges and find new markets.

I’ll send back news of strange foreign ports of call, abandoned treasure and monsters under the sea.

In the meantime, I’ll be in the crow’s nest scanning the horizon for signs of plunderable booty.

Copyright in the Digital Age: BOTR Talks to Jesse Finkelstein

Books on the Radio vs Jesse Finkelstein: Copyright in the Digital Age.

Click Here to Listen to Jesse Finkelstein & Sean Cranbury Talk Copyright

At the beginning of February 2010, just before the Olympics rolled into town and before the independent literary showcase W2 Real Vancouver Writers’ Series took root in the local imagination, I was invited to speak on Copyright in the Digital Age to the Masters of Publishing class at SFU.

In preparation for that talk at SFU I spoke to an expert in the field of book publishing, copyright, international rights contracts by the name of Jesse Finkelstein.

Jesse is the Digital Assets and Foreign Rights Director at Douglas & McIntyre, Greystone Books and New Society Publishers.  She leads the company’s digital publishing initiatives and the development of international rights sales for all three imprints.

Jesse was formerly an Associate Publisher at Raincoast Books as well as the Everything-That-Needs-Doing Person at Vehicule Press in Montreal.  She is a graduate of McGill University as well as Simon Fraser’s Masters of Publishing program.

Over the past year I have had the pleasure of getting to know Jesse.  We have had a few great, passionate conversations about rights, the digital wave and the adaptability of traditional publishing business models to fit new demands.

It was a real honour to have Jesse on the show and I think that you’ll agree that it’s a fascinating conversation.

And, even at 30 minutes, it’s way too short.

Please comment below with any thoughts, ideas or questions that you have about these issues or our conversation.

Thanks, Jesse!

How you’re spending Wednesday nights in February 2010

Every Wednesday @ 7pm in February 2010. 112 W. Hastings Street. DTES!

The Books, Smells Like Content. Great Video.
January 24, 2010, 3:07 PM
Filed under: Enthusiasms | Tags: , , , ,

Most of all, the world is a place where parts of wholes are described
within an overarching paradigm of clarity and accuracy.
The context in which makes possible an underlying
sense of the way it all fits together,
despite our collective tendency not to conceive of it as such.

But then again, the world without end is a place where souls are combined,
but with an overbearing feeling of disparity and disorderliness.
To ignore it is impossible without getting oneself into all of kinds of trouble,
despite one’s best intentions to not get entangled with it so much.

the statues are bleeding green.
And others are saying things much better than we ever could;
as the quiet become suddenly verbose.

And the hail’s heralding the size of nickels.
And the street corners are gnashing together like the gears
inside the head of some omniscient engineer.
And downward flows the garnered wisdom that has never died

Then finally,
we opened the box, we couldn’t find any rules.
Our heads were reeling with the glitter of possibilities, contingencies…
but with ever increasing faith we decided to go ahead and just ignore them,
despite tremendous pressure to capitulate with fate.

So instead, we went ahead to fabricate a catalog
of unstable elements and modicums and particles.
With not zero total strangeness for brief moments which amount
to nothing more than tiny fragments of a finger snap.

we’re furiously seeing green.
And the map has started tearing along its creases due to overuse…
when in reality it’s never needed folds.

And the air’s withholding the sound of its wellspring.
And our heads approach a density reminiscent of the infinite productivity of the center of the sun.

And therein lies the garnered wisdom that has never died.

Expectation –
leads to disappointment. If you don’t expect something big huge and exciting…
I dunno,
just, uh yea…”

Video Recommendations for CBC’s Canada Reads
January 21, 2010, 11:16 AM
Filed under: Enthusiasms | Tags: , , ,

Me and my fold-out record cover poster of Isaac Hayes get down to the business of recommending some books for CBC’s Canada Reads program.


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Intrusive Thoughts: It’s A Bipolar Thang

September 28, 2013

You know, I hate it when I’m having a perfectly good day, doing my thing, and then suddenly my brain goes PFFFFTTT! and produces a noxious cloud of thought that’s so unpleasant it could clear a room. The experts call these brain-burps “intrusive thoughts”, and I can tell you unequivocally that they suck.

Just last night, I went downstairs to take my nighttime meds and was happily contemplating the fact that we’d made it to our wedding anniversary in good shape, when a stray thought came flying in from the back and slammed into me with the force of a knockout punch.

WHAM! All of a sudden, I was envisioning a time when Will would no longer be here, and I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I am going to be in serious trouble if/when he passes away. Despite all the promises I’ve made to him, despite the fact that I’ve sworn to our kids that I’d never do anything foolish, I honestly don’t know if I can stay safe if something happens to him.

As melodramatic as it must sound, I cannot imagine wanting to be in a world without Will. I can’t imagine wanting to exist even a single day after he’s gone. Does that make me crazy?

So there I stood in front of the sink, trying not to choke on my eight-and-a-half pills and bawling like a baby while attempting to reason with my recalcitrant brain. Where the hell had THAT come from? I demanded to know. Here I was having a lovely evening, and now it was ruined by this upsetting thought. Why??!

As it happens, it’s really very easy to explain. Still in the rosy flush of newly-won remission, I had momentarily forgotten that we bipolar folk have a big problem with intrusive thoughts—random musings that pop into our heads at any time, for any reason or no reason. And these thoughts are NEVER pleasant; in fact, they are almost universally distressing.

It’s not just a bipolar thing; in fact, it’s common in many types of mental illness. But BPers are notorious for these unwanted and often gruesome brain-spasms, which often haunt us even outside of mood episodes.

That’s what got me, and in the light of day I know it was nothing but a short-lived brain chemical shitstorm. It did, however, get me to thinking that I might want to develop a safety plan for myself in the event that things do go sideways for Will, because I really AM unsure if I can keep my promises to my family.

I don’t want to have to find out. But as good as things are right now, they can change at any time and then we’d be right back where we were two months ago. It happens every day out there in the cold, cruel world of cancer…..and frankly, that scares the hell out of me.

So as much as I want to be 100% positive at my next appointment, I think I’ll let my psychiatrist know about this even though it was probably only an intrusive thought. Those are going to penetrate my protective medication shield every now and again. Yet my immediate and visceral reaction makes me wonder if it wasn’t a warning of some kind, and it might be a good idea to have a plan in place if the fecal matter does collide with the rotary ventilation system sometime down the road.

All of which serves as a reminder on this rainy autumn evening that even when I’m stable, I still have a disease that really f*cks with my mind every now and then. Good times!

3 Comments leave one →
  1. kbailey374 permalink
    September 28, 2013 11:49 am

    We also get intrusive GOOD thoughts – and some of those can be given the weight they deserve – ie, we will get through this, we can be happy, we will/are succeeding, etc.

    • September 28, 2013 8:27 pm

      I’m glad you get intrusive good thoughts. With me, it’s all negative and it sneaks up on me when I least expect it, as it did the other night. It’s been a while since I had one of those, so it caught me by surprise. Used to be I had ’em all the time… with being properly medicated they don’t come around too often.

      • kbailey374 permalink
        September 29, 2013 3:07 am

        I dunno bub, I’ve read some of your “good” intrusive thoughts, but anyway, I am glad your meds are working well! Oh thank God for the good bits, the bad bits are SO bad… xo

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9 Lead Generation Best Practices

You’re only as good as the lead generation principles that you have incorporated into your website. Without a landing page that has been specifically designed to create beneficial leads, your time is going to be wasted chasing down the promises of false hope. Using these lead generation best practices, you’ll be able to give your conversions a boost, enhance your trust, and reinforce your niche expertise.

1. Always Include a Contact Number.

You’re selling a digital product. Doesn’t a contact number seem a little redundant? Maybe counterproductive? The fact that you’re willing to put in a valid contact number instantly adds credibility to the information that is being shared to generate leads. Maybe some leads will call to test out the validity of the number and maybe they won’t. What you’re doing is providing people with a level of comfort that others aren’t always willing to provide and it can pay off with a big result.

Here’s a pro tip. Incorporate your contact number in some way with your URL for even better results. This allows you to form a full marketing strategy around the trust that you’re attempting to establish with potential leads.

2. Make Your Forms Easily Accessible.

The biggest error that many lead generation pages make is that they offer people something like a “free quote” or a “free download” in exchange for personal information. The key word here is “exchange.” If something is free, then something shouldn’t need to be exchanged, should it?

Making your forms easily accessible means more than having them on every page or constantly visible. It also means that you should be honest with what your lead generation page is attempting to do. Maybe you need personal information to provide an estimate or quote. Be honest about that fact and let people know what happens to that personal information. Take only the information you need and you’ll likely see better results.

3. Identify Yourself.

Although online businesses are thriving and it allows for a certain level of anonymity, the old-fashioned methods of building business relationships are still mandatory in today’s lead generation best practices. Your leads want to know who you are and what you represent.

Don’t just let your identity be about you either. So many lead generation pages today have testimonial quotes that seem like they were written professionally by a freelancer. Some of them probably were. Adding an image of the person who gave the testimonial lends credibility to it. Putting a link to that individual’s website gives people trust.

Why? Because it allows them to verify the validity of the quote if they wish to do so.

4. It’s Not About You.

Lead generation is about how you can benefit others. Maybe you’ve got 30+ years in the industry and have won a dozen awards because of your general awesomeness. This isn’t experience. This is ego. Your leads want to know what you can do for them right now.

That’s why all of your content needs to speak to each user. Conversion rates naturally increase because the content on the landing page is personal, relationship-orientated, and valuable. This practice is even more effective at creating a sale than general advertising for many businesses because it allows people to feel like they are more informed.

5. Create a Guarantee.

People who see guarantees are more likely to make a purchase than those who do not see one. Why does this happen? Because it gives your leads a back door to escape a deal that goes in an unexpected way. Maybe your goods or services look great online, but they don’t match the value that was expected when received. The guarantee allows a lead to avoid what they will see as a potentially costly mistake.

6. Don’t Over Use The “Super” Words.

Certain words convey more power than others when it comes to inspiring others to action. People generally make decisions based on logic and emotion, so the goal is to get people to imagine how life can be better in some way with what you’ve got to offer. Using these words sparingly can inspire a lot of action. Using them everywhere on your landing page can actually be a big turnoff. It only takes one specific phrase to encourage an action, so focus on your primary strength and put your super words there.

Here’s a pro tip. Don’t use the word “please” when creating a call to action for your leads. People respond more frequently to direct commands instead. Using “please” might be considered good manners, but are good manners worth up to a 20% lower conversion rate? Of course not.

7. Do Something Different.

Lead generation cannot have a feeling of laziness to it. There cannot be a certain feeling of cheapness to the experience as well. Many people use generic website templates to create their landing pages for one reason: most are free. The only problem is that there are only so many of these free templates around and your leads know this. If they encounter one on your site, then you’d better have a massively tempting product to overcome this initial negative first impression.

You don’t have to be rolling in cash to create a custom template. Those free ones can be modified in a couple of hours to meet your needs without feeling generic. A better design creates more trust and that ultimately creates more confidence, which is why this point is one of the lead generation best practices that should be emphasized.

8. Start At The End.

Lead generation is so often about the beginning of the process, but it should be about the ending of the process instead. The goal is to get people to gaze into your sales funnel, see what lies at the bottom of it, and then want what is there. Begin building from the ground up and you’ll be able to bring leads directly through the funnel with very little work. If the bottom of your sales funnel is shielded, then the results that are achieved are going to be sub-par at best because it requires leads to gamble on the potential benefits that will be experienced.

9. Negative Space Creates Breathing Room.

Have you ever noticed that you can spend some moments in silence with a good friend and never feel uncomfortable? The same principle is true with a landing page. Negative space helps to create separation between the various elements that you want leads to see. It eliminates distractions, creates a comfortable flow, and provides access to a natural call to action. Avoid clutter at all costs – just as many would avoid a friend who never stops talking.

These lead generation best practices will help to shore up your pitch so that a positive first impression happens. Then take these leads, close on them, and you’ll experience a boost of revenues that can help you meet all of your goals.

Marketing Lead Generation


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How Tori Terminated Her Turbinate Problems

Home / How Tori Terminated Her Turbinate Problems
Blog Image - Tori

When Tori Turbinates came to see Dr. Pasha, her allergy symptoms were making her life miserable. She suffered from nasal discomfort, fatigue, and had difficulty breathing freely. Even though she had received medical treatment in the past, the problem persisted. “It feels like I constantly have a cold”, she explained to Dr. Pasha. He told Tori Turbinates that in order to find the right course of treatment for her, it was necessary to determine what was causing the symptoms.

Dr. Pasha investigated the inside of Tori Turbinates’ nose painlessly with a microscopic nasal endoscope. After this simple procedure, they went through the results together. Dr. Pasha explained to Tori that the turbinates inside her nose had enlarged. Turbinates are fleshy shelves inside the nose, and their function is to moisten, filter, and warm inhaled air before it enters the lungs. There are three turbinates on each side. Sometimes such factors as allergies, a common cold, or other irritants can make the turbinates congested or enlarged, which causes nasal blockage.

Usually, the enlarged turbinates are treated medically. In Tori Turbinates’ case, the medical allergy management options, such as a nasal steroid, had not provided a long-term solution to the problem because her turbinates had enlarged permanently. Dr. Pasha explained to Tori Turbinates that reducing the size of the turbinates may be the right solution for her. To shrink enlarged turbinates, Dr. Pasha uses an in-office procedure called Radiofrequency Ablative Therapy. It works by making the fleshy portion of the turbinate dry and scar. After a couple of weeks, the turbinate sheds and reveals a smaller turbinate.

Dr. Pasha carefully numbed Tori Turbinates’ nose before conducting the procedure. The procedure took about 15 minutes, and Tori was able to return to her normal activity the same day. Dr. Pasha recommended that Tori keep her nose moist with nasal salt-water spray during the next few weeks, until she was completely recovered.

Nowadays, Tori is able to breathe freely again. If you are suffering from allergy symptoms, don’t wait! Make an appointment with us to find out the best course of treatment for you.

Want to learn more? See a real life story of how Dr. Pasha resolved one of his patient’s turbinate problems.


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Leadership Challenges in Volunteer Organizations

Strong leaders are critical to the success of any organization- be it a non profit,  a corporation, a military unit,  a church or a bicycle club.   I believe that successful leaders can be developed and nurtured through mentoring, coaching and training but I have recently witnessed how unchecked power and bloated egos can corrupt leaders of volunteer groups.   Over the last 20 years, I’ve been a member and/or  officer in numerous nonprofit and corporate organizations and have seen a negative trend in leadership ethics.

Since college I have had the honor and privilege of serving under many inspirational officers, managers and executives who truly embodied the values of respect, humility and service.   These altruistic and motivational men and women were my role models and taught me the importance of recognition, encouragement, honesty and integrity.   They taught me to stay focused on the team member’s needs above my own.

In the past few years, I have become concerned by the increase in the frequency and negative impact that “corrupted” leaders are having on their organizations (this is across the board in society-  from the local nonprofit and school board to the state and federal governments).   There are more power-influenced leaders today and fewer selfless ones. There is more Me and less We and that’s not the way it should be!  Another disappointing theme I’ve observed recently is a misplaced focus where the officers of organizations are more concerned about their own power, titles and agendas with little priority or attention given to the actual members.

I recently wrote a speech and created a presentation entitled “Leadership Challenges in Volunteer Organizations”  where I outlined issues, impediments and possible solutions to address membership growth and retention concerns in non profit groups like Toastmasters and the VFW.   I sadly will cite the destructive and non-collaborative behaviors of power trips, politics and petty personal attacks as key factors negatively impacting the morale and growth of many well meaning, non profit groups.

Solutions to these issues are often difficult to implement in a broad sense since they need to come from within the individual leaders however,  a positive organizational culture coupled with strong team agreements can go a long way toward improving a group’s leadership challenges.   An unwavering commitment to the organization’s  core Mission, without compromise, is also a critical to ensuring that ethical leaders are rewarded, encouraged and attracted.

Here are the Mission Statements of two organizations I am a member of:

“Provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills.”

 “ To serve our veterans, the military and our communities.  To advocate on behalf of all veterans.”

Notice that nowhere in the statements above does it mention the role, power or importance of the leaders or officers of the group.  They are solely focused on the members of the organization.  Losing sight of this simple fact is what I believe is causing many of the leadership issues we see in our volunteer organizations today.

Perhaps this message and blog can reach others and be shared in order to make a positive impact in our communities and non profit groups.  I hope so!

A Fresh Look at Retrospectives

It’s been a few months since I wrote the Agile Life series and I came across a new way to think about Sprint Retrospectives.

What if we asked these 3 questions at the end of every life sprint ( 2-4 weeks)?

1. What am I going to start doing?
2. What am I going to stop doing?
3. What am I going to continue doing?

Food for thought Grasshopper…..


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The power of the carousel

We are just getting a corousel system implemented in our warehouse. After years of running around the building to fill our parts orders, it's become too cumbersome finding things. This means that we're now going to allow the parts to come to us. With a platform that raises and lowers, we'll have people waiting at the end of 70' long carousels for the parts to come to them, then light up a bin number and a quantity next to the shelf that is supposed to have parts pulled from it. That's all fine and dandy, but what's the best about this is that it becomes tougher for people to make pulling errors, so we'll not only be able to ship out more orders per day, but also have fewer errors and store more inventory. Considering that we've got well over 100% more sales than just 12 months ago, this will be important as we move forward.

After getting top rankings for many of the most obvious key phrases for our site, there are still so many combinations available that I'm expecting to be able to double to triple our volume yet. If that continues, just counting the parts as they arrive is going to be a huge task. Both exciting and scary at the same time.

When we started building this site, I wasn't sure it would ever grow to a substantial sales volume. After all, how many people are competent enough to repair their own tools, let alone have the desire. Boy, were we all shocked when sales started taking off. That was even before we started really concentrating on SEO. After SEO, we're doing more in a month than I ever really thought we'd be doing in a year through this site. Now that I have more experience and insight, I think we're leaving a whole lot of business out on the table yet. I can seriously think of thousands of phrases that we're not showing up at all yet that would be decently converting phrases. Just about the time I think we're doing well, I start thinking about everything we're still missing. Amazing how much my attitude has changed.

Now that I've seen the volume we can do in parts, doing many times that volume in tools seems like it should be very easy. Granted, we're one of the few that sell parts online, but there aren't too many that know much about SEO and sell tools online. Put some accessories on the carousel and we can start moving through those in large quantities as well. It just seems like now that we have a carousel system, we should put almost everything on there. Obviously pallets of nails don't belong on a carousel, but it'd do a great job for smaller tools (drills, grinders, etc.) Table saws would be pushing it. Staplers would be great on a carousel.

I don't know how many companies in our industry use a carousel system, but I'm fairly certain that it isn't that many. Very exciting stuff, and it gets more exciting every day.

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Learning Cover Tunes

Cover tunes are how most guitar players initially learn to play guitar. It's an art form all in its own to learn a cover song. The art part comes in arranging it for live or solo play without all of the studio magic that was on the original recording such as layered guitars, strings, keys, hundreds of takes on a part or even 10 of the lead singer doing all the different vocal tracks. Studio magic makes it all sound so full, so keeping that fullness live or solo takes some special talents.

As I'm getting ready for my latest band, the list of songs they threw at me wasn't anything like what I'm used to playing. In fact, some of the songs don't have any guitar at all. Keyboard parts on guitar can sure lead to some awkward finger positions, and I've had to learn to use my thumb for several songs. It's a rather odd feeling initially.

But, beyond strange reaches and using the thumb, I'm finding that the more I use the clean tone and a subtle tube crunch, the more precise my playing is becoming. Sure, I've always prided myself on keeping my distorted tones crisp and clean while eliminating any unwanted sounds, but playing on the clean channel requires more finesse.

What am I referring to here? Well, distortion acts as a natural compressor, so you can't express things quite the same way as you can on the clean channel. Playing lightly on many distortions doesn't change anything all that much from playing as hard and chunky as you can. However, give a slight tube gain and playing clean opens up the door for dynamics and more expressiveness as a result.

So what's all this have to do with cover tunes? Well, I feel like learning cover tunes that don't include much (if any) guitar has really improved my playing. Doing so on the clean channel, or even with my EHX C9, Key9 or Mel9 opens up a lot of creative avenues that I hadn't really explored before. Plus, I'm starting to re-think my tone layouts. I think I need a few more clean tones for this group with varying amounts of tube gain and fewer distorted channels. It's been a learning experience for sure.

Sometimes, it's nice to step outside of the "Normal" songs that you love to play and expand to something beyond the normal scope of your interests.

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Numbers as Toxins: living qualitatively not quantitatively

A line in the last of the Five Mindfulness Trainings says, “I am determined not to gamble, or to use alcohol, drugs, or any other products which contain toxins, such as certain websites, electronic games, TV programs, films, magazines, books, and conversations.” I discuss these every month with Stephanie, whose thoughts on the process you can read on her blog, and we quite often end up discussing this line. What counts as a toxin?

Previously, we have identified certain kinds of always-negative talk about people as a problem (the thing where you complain about a colleague or a child you volunteer with and never have anything good to say about them, for example), and some kinds of celebrity talk and advertising (film posters which only tell you which actors appear and not anything about the plot, or even the genre, of the movie, for example), and talk about weight and diet which adds moralising to actually-neutral choices (‘Cake?’ ‘Oh, I shouldn’t…’ ‘I’ll be naughty…’/ ‘You’re vegan and teetotal? Do you have any vices left?’ and so forth).

More broadly, I am considering the possibility that living life by numbers is a toxin. I don’t mean that numbers are themselves toxic, they’re a useful tool for measuring things if often arbitrary; but rather that, in quantifying everything, we can get trapped in living by the numbers – in particular, trying to reach a certain number of something – rather than appreciating the quality. I am therefore experimenting with ignoring any numbers and making judgements on other grounds.

An obvious example is my body. I don’t know what I weigh, and I don’t much care; I’m not worried about how much body I have, but rather I want to be comfortable in it. I don’t count calories or weight-watchers points or anything else. I have cake if I want it and not if I don’t. I try not to clock-watch for meals; I eat when I’m hungry and not when I’m not. (Actually, I happen to live in a body which is quite predictable in this regard, and I can tell friends when I’m likely to want to eat and plan to meet them for a meal then, which is handy. I know that not everyone can do this.) I let doctors take my blood pressure but I make no attempt to know what it is – when it’s too low I get dizzy and that tells me what I need to know without worrying about a number.

Similarly, I have abandoned alarm clocks for all but the most important occasions or really unusually early starts. I have the good fortune to live a life in which this is easy, and a very predictable body which wakes at much the same time every day – and a fairly socially acceptable one, to boot. (Socially acceptable among workers and the middle-aged, that is, I stuck out like a sore thumb in a university hall of residence with my bed-at-9pm up-at-7am thing.) I know that I need more sleep than much of my peer group, but I am trying to give up counting it in hours. Who cares? I need what I need, and I’ll wake up when I’ve slept enough.

I do get sucked into job hunting by the numbers, sometimes. If there are x applicants for every job, I should get an interview every y applications, and they interview z people, so I need this many interviews to get a job… Only b in c people with such-and-such a qualification get this-or-that kind of work, so my chances are… This is completely foolish, of course, job hunting and interviewing don’t really work this way anyway. I am looking for the right job for me, and employers are looking for the right candidate for them, and the number of previous applications I have done affects this not at all. It’s tempting, though, because when I’m job hunting the whole exercise seems terrifying and humiliating and it is mostly if not completely outside my control. Trying to predict the outcome is a way of trying to assert a tiny amount of control and to assure myself that the process is not an endless torture but will, eventually, have an outcome.

Another area in which I can sometimes be trapped by the numbers is money. Money is a useful number, and I can’t see a way to give it up entirely. (Likewise, I think I will always need to start with numbers when buying shoes, for example, and baking cakes – although I reject the idea that you need to use numbers for bread dough, which can be done by feel.) However, I think it’s possible to get trapped into tiny numbers, worrying about pennies when spending hundreds of pounds. I try to make sure things are within a reasonable price range – this should be less than £5, that should be less than £50 – but to let myself shop for ethics and convenience within that range. This approach might not work for everyone. The advantage for me is that I can let many choices be made for quality instead – I can buy organic vegetables, I can take a bus when I need to and not worry about it – and because I have reasonably cheap vices, and a reasonable income, I don’t need to get bogged down in justifying every choice to my mean-angry-thrifty internal voice who objects to spending anything ever.

Other areas of life I have identified as ruled by numbers include time management, word counts for writing, and everything which involves making a list on a computer (to-do lists, wish lists, X Things You’ve Never Believe/Remember/Care About lists). I am still debating the extent to which these numbers are useful tools and to what extent they create a tyranny of targets.

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N is for Names

When I was a teenager, I changed my name from Emma to Rhiannon. There were lots of other girls my age called Emma, and if you called ‘Emma!’ across the park, or the street, or the playground, I didn’t turn around, because I assumed you meant someone else. This rendered it less than functional as a name, so I chose a new one.

A while later, my mother remarked that people had started asking her whether she had Welsh family. This was a complicated question – and a new one. After a while, we realised that people who had heard my name, and correctly but often tentatively placed it as a Welsh one, asked this sort of question. It’s hard to answer, because answering the question doesn’t answer the question – if someone asks me whether I have Welsh family, and I say yes, or indeed no, or sort of (it’s very much ‘sort of’, as it happens), I have answered the question they asked, but if what they wanted to know was about the origin of my name, I haven’t told them what they wanted to know. Questions like these are based on false assumptions – that your name was given to you by your parents, for example. In our society, this assumption may be reasonable – in the sense that statistics are on that side – but it’s far from always right.

What other assumptions do we make when we name things or people? In my academic work, I am interested in ways in which people name God, and this obviously has a bearing on that; but there are lots of other settings in which it also matters.

One example which I think is interesting for what it might say about naming generally is the giving and use of nicknames online. In my early days on the internet, it was standard for everyone to use a screen name, a nickname often not traceable, or not easily traceable, to your real life identity. This has become much less common with the advent of Facebook, and was never universal (and there are many parts of the internet where it is still standard – Twitter handles, for example, even if your name is given in full elsewhere). Before that, my experience of being given nicknames was mostly the things my classmates called me at school (which I won’t repeat here; suffice it to say that they had all the cruelty and lack of creativity common among children). A screen name, though, you choose, and you can choose different ones for different sites: context is very important indeed. Someone known as buffylvr83 might well also be called techgrrl10 on another website – and on yet another forum, this same individual might be able to login and post as admin.

In the debates about the use of real names online, it’s sometimes said that people should be able to use their paperwork names if they haven’t done anything wrong (usually people who say this haven’t thought about – or don’t care about – people who’ve changed their gender, or are being stalked or bullied, etc.). Besides some assumptions about the realness of the names on your paperwork, i.e. the name it’s easiest to verify, I think there are some assumptions about the use of the same name with different groups which don’t actually stand up to scrutiny. buffylvr83/techgrrl10/admin is a clear example, but of course lots of people use a different name, or variant of their name, at work, or to publish under – and when all these different contexts collide on one social networking site, lots of people find ways in which things turn weird.

Thought for another day: does this make it appropriate to name God differently in different contexts – such as prayer, liturgy, theology, interfaith discussion, and outreach?

5 responses to “N is for Names

  1. I’ve changed my name for a different reason, and I’ve changed it by adding a middle name. In theory, I could now be called different things by different groups of people – for example, “Sharon” at work and “Fred” at Meeting – but I’m finding in the Facebook age that it would be easier to pick one and stick with it (except for some internet contexts where using my real name would stand out as really weird) because so many people will assume that the Facebook version is the correct one.

    • Interesting reflections. 🙂 Facebook clearly acts as a standardising force (it teaches us the surnames of people we only know a little or friends-of-friends, for example). I suppose some people would have a ‘no work people on my Friends list’ policy, or run two Facebook accounts, but neither of these is workable for everyone. I know someone who uses one name in a Pagan context, and another name entirely in other settings – but her Facebook account can only reflect one of these and hence breaks down her carefully-built pre-Facebook division between the two parts of her life.

  2. I changed my first name a little – from Gillian to Gil (one el as I didn’t want to look like a liquid measure – it was a long time ago). Eventually only my mother and older family members called me Gillian. At first I signed Christmas cards to them as Gillian but eventually signed everything (except to my mother) as Gil.
    My original surname was Cooke and I was happy to change that to Skidmore when I got married in 1970. I knew all the feminist arguments but didn’t see that having a husband’s name was any worse than having a father’s. I could have decided on one of my own (as some of my friends did) but I liked the name and Gil Skidmore is now really me. For the same reason all my online identities include my full name.

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text:
Christian Dadomo, Senior Lecturer in European Law, and Emma Whewell, Senior Lecturer in Law at the Bristol Law School, attended the 16th International Society of Family Law (ISFL) World Conference on 25-29 July 2017 at Vreije Universiteit Amsterdam.

The International Society of Family Law is an independent, international scholarly association dedicated to the study and discussion of family law whose function is to provide an international forum for analysis of legal policy applied to family relationships. It exists to bring together scholars of any discipline, practitioners, policy makers and others with an interest in this area of law.

The Conference is dedicated to the subject whether existing national family laws adequately reflect changing realities of family life. Concern about the correlation between family law and family realities triggers growing interest in empirical research involving both lawyers and social scientists in various parts of the world. Academic lawyers and practitioners are no longer satisfied with focusing on family law alone.

This major event takes place every three years. This year’s conference was the longest ever with 273 papers being presented and discussed. Experts in family law, social sciences and empirical research are welcomed to attend this conference and present a paper. Papers explore the correlation between family law on the books and in action. They also consider the needs for various types of family members in different social, cultural and religious settings.

Christian presented a paper on whether polyamorous relationships should be regarded as an emerging new form of family and be provided legal recognition and protection.

Emma explored the issue as to why pre-proceedings work is important and needs to involve children. Both received positive recognition and discussion.


text:
John Stamos

Bye Bye “Birdie,” Hello New Work and New Horizons

January 25, 2010 // 1 Comment

Bye Bye “Birdie” [picapp align=”none” wrap=”false” link=”term=bye+bye+birdie&iid=6822616″ src=”3/a/5/4/Opening_Night_Of_d5b1.jpg?adImageId=9478895&imageId=6822616″ width=”234″ height=”200″ /] The universally panned production of Bye Bye Birdie, starring John Stamos ...

Mid-November Broadway Musical News Roundup

November 11, 2009 // 1 Comment

Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark is gearing up again this time with a lead actor and producer It’s official – Reeve Carney, the lead singer of the band Carney, will be playing Peter Parker (ie. Spideman) in the upcoming Broadway mega-spender Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark. Why cast such an unknown in the lead role? Director Julie Taymor said they ...

Catch your favorite Broadway stars on TV

September 24, 2009 // 0 Comments

Lots of Broadway stars are making television appearances this week: John Stamos (Bye Bye Birdie, Cabaret, Nine) will appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on September 29. Kristin Chenoweth (The Apple Tree, Wicked, You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown) will appear on the “Late Show with David Letterman” on Thursday September 24. New ...

A whole lot of gossip and news

September 10, 2009 // 0 Comments

Curtain up on Bye Bye Birdie! The Broadway revival of Bye Bye Birdie starts previews this evening. The production, which stars Gina Gershon, John Stamos and Nolan Gerard Funk will officially open on October 15 at the brand new Henry Miller’s Theatre. O’Hara returns to South Pacific! Another exciting bit of news: Kelli O’Hara, who took a leave ...

Full Cast and Creative Team Announced for Broadway’s Bye Bye Birdie

July 14, 2009 // 0 Comments

Director/choreographer Robert Longbottom has finished casting Broadway’s upcoming production of Bye Bye Birdie, which starts previews at Henry Miller’s Theatre on September 10 and opens October 15. As previously announced, the show will star John Stamos (Cabaret, Nine) as Albert Peterson, Gina Gershon (Cabaret, Boeing-Boeing) as Rose Alvarez, ...

Complete Bye Bye Birdie Cast Announced

June 19, 2009 // 0 Comments

Fragments of casting announcements had been leaking out, but now the casting for the Robert Longbottom-directed revival of Bye Bye Birdie is complete. Here it is: Nolan Gerard Funk as Conrad Birdie John Stamos (“ER,” Nine) as Albert Gina Gershon (Boeing-Boeing) as Rosie Bill Irwin (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) as Harry MacAfee Dee Hoty ...


text:
Six Great Places to Eat Great Oysters

Happy hour oysters hit the spot at Lobster Joint.

If you’re down with slurping raw mollusks, oyster happy hour is one of the best things ever–there’s nothing like the combination of a bracingly briny oyster with the lively acidity of a crisp rosé or a the bitterness of a hops-heavy beer. Yes, there’s an old adage about not eating oysters in months without the letter “r,” but we looked into it, and it turns out that the rule applies to a much older era of oyster consumption. Oysters spawn in warmer months, which compromises their flavor and texture. However, modern oysters are almost exclusively farmed, and those farmers take great care to manage their oysters beds so that they have delicious oysters to harvest all year long.

Here are a few of our favorite places to get oysters, because they have great happy hour deals, great oysters, or both. Between the heat and the mid-week holiday, Brooklyn feels empty right now, so hit these places up while the crowds are hunkered down in front of the AC or hiding out at the beach.

The backyard at Maison Premiere is prime oyster eating real estate.

Maison Premiere
298 Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg
Special: $1 oysters, 4-7pm, Monday-Friday
Best drink to pair with your oysters: Absinthe
You cannot talk about oyster happy hours in Brooklyn without mentioning Maison Premiere. With a menu of close to three dozen different oyster varieties and a turn-of-the-century Parisian bar vibe, not to mention an absinthe list, it’s pretty unbeatable if oysters and cocktails are your endgame. It’s especially good if you’re a West Coast oyster fan, as they offer a far larger selection of bivalves from Washington State and British Columbia than you generally find in Brooklyn. The weeknight oyster happy hour at Maison Premiere is an insanely good deal–and everyone knows it. Often, a line forms before 4pm to get in, and you’ll have to be dedicated enough to wait it out if you don’t make it to the first seating. Don’t even think about trying to save a seat for a friend who will show up later. The other thing about Maison Premiere is that, as charming as the huge oval bar, vintage fixtures and lovely backyard are, at times it feels like you showed up to a theme party and forgot to wear a costume, in the worst kind of Williamsburg-y way.

The Ten Bells
247 Broome Street, Lower East Side
Special: $1 oysters, 5-7pm, every day
Best drink to pair with your oysters: Sparkling rosé
If you arrive at Maison Premiere and find an enormous crowd don’t despair. Stroll across the Williamsburg Bridge to the Lower East Side and go to The Ten Bells. The bar is owned and staffed by French guys who love wine, and specializes in natural, biodynamic and organic Old World wines. Two huge chalkboards spell out the bottles and plates of the moment. They have just two varieties of oysters each day, both delicious, and their mignonette–the vinegary oyster bath that comes with–is perfect. Ask your server to recommend a wine; the list changes constantly, and they’re very good at taking a description of what you want and turning it into a bottle that you like so much you order a second one.

Lobster Joint
1073 Manhattan Avenue, Greenpoint
Special: $1 oysters, $4 lobster sliders, $4 draft beers, $16 pitcher, 4-7pm, Monday-Friday
Best drink to pair with your oysters: A pitcher of dark and stormys
The happy hour at Lobster Joint is such a good deal that it’s almost hard to write about it for fear of creating a Maison Premiere-like line situation. They usually have two types of oysters–Naked Cowboys are often on the menu, as are Malpeques. There’s a big, smoke-free backyard with picnic tables, so your oyster slurping experience isn’t ruined by someone lighting up next to you. Pitchers of cocktails are just $16 during happy hour, the dark and stormys are particularly good and particularly dangerous. The great thing about Lobster Joint is that they offer three different kinds of sliders–lobster, crab cake and fried oyster–for $4 apiece during happy hour, so you can invite friends who aren’t so crazy about raw oysters. Also, their fried clam strips are some of the best bar snacks around.

The Castello Plan
1213 Cortelyou Road, Ditmas Park
Special: $1 oysters, 2-8pm, Saturdays
Best drink to pair with your oysters: Honeydew prosecco
The Castello Plan may be better known for their mussels, $12 for a large bowl, than their oysters, but this neighborhood wine bar and restaurant has a seriously great Saturday oyster special. Named for an early map of lower Manhattan drawn up by a cartographer names Jacques Cortelyou, The Castello Plan is one of those restaurants in which every object, decorative and functional alike, has a story attached. Skip brunch and plan on early afternoon oysters and wine, and then make your way to Prospect Park for a stroll–or nap.

Chez Oskar
211 Dekalb Avenue, Fort Greene
Special: $2 oysters or 12 oysters for $18, Thursdays
Best drink to pair with your oysters: Vodka soda or vodka tonic, or, the free glass of sherry you get with six oysters
The French bistro Chez Oskar embodies the vibrant, bohemian energy of the Montmartre district in Paris, making a trip to its location on Dekalb Avenue transportive–whether you can Can-Can or not. An eclectic crowd regularly converges around its sidewalk tables sipping wine and enjoying the oyster special on Thursday nights. Every week Oskar offers a revolving array of East and West Coast oysters for two bucks a shuck. Buying six shucks gets you a free shot of sherry, and a dozen oysters are available for $18. Recent offerings include Gigamotos from British Columbia and Malpeques from Prince Edward Island.

166 Dekalb Avenue, Fort Greene
Special: No oyster special, just great oysters
Best drink to pair with your oysters: Sparkling wine
Seafood is a signature at Walter’s, which opened in a prime spot across from Fort Greene Park last summer, as a much-needed addition to Dekalb Avenue’s existing dining options. Aside from its seasonal brussel sprouts and an unbelievable bar steak, the restaurant’s raw bar recreates the kind of seafood experience you’d find farther up the coast–oysters included. Like its sister spot, Walter Foods in Williamsburg, Walter’s offers patrons a mix of six to eight varieties of oysters on the half shell. The selection changes daily, but typically includes one local type of oysters–either Hurricane Island or Blue Point–as well as a few varieties from both the east and west coasts like St. Simone, Stingray, Kusshi, Snow Creek, Hama Hama and the now ubiquitous Naked Cowboy oysters.

4 Responses

  1. Anonymous -

    You forgot Strong Place in Cobble Hill. Mon-Thu they do 2 for 1 beers and $1 Blue Point oysters . . .

  2. Di -

    You can’t forget Cornelius on Vanderbilt! They have $1 oyster happy hour every day until 7pm. They’ve got drink specials and to-die-for mac n’ cheese.

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text:
The AP via The Seattle Times:

S&P said Tuesday that while the acquisition would include a patent trove, that might not be enough to keep Google’s Android mobile operating software from encountering intellectual-property issues. It downgraded its rating on Google’s shares to “Sell” from “Buy.”

S&P is all sorts of reactionary lately,1 but still they not only changed the rating but cut the price target by $200. That’s got to hurt.

  1. It always it, truthfully.

Posted by Ben Brooks


text:
Is the news the truth?

Although this video may seem funny at first, but when you actually think about it, it raises a few interesting questions. Most people gain the majority of their information from news outlets and so how they display news is important in regards to how people receive and even use the information.

When reporting about Ebola virus, the video clearly shows the calm and measured approach taken by the UK news teams, while in America, phrases such as “spiralling out of control” were used in relation to the virus. Ebola is an infectious and generally fatal disease marked by fever and severe internal bleeding, spread through contact with infected body fluids by a filovirus.

Although the UK and America are in different parts of the world and are therefore affected in different ways, it does make you question what else the media choose to tell us as the public. It is questionable that if what the media tells us is actually THE truth or simply their representation of the truth. What they choose to tell us.

In  reality whoever owns the media owns the truth, and in a society where increasingly “money talks”, it would be strongly advised to really think about the legitimacy of what we read, as well as cross checking, before deciding for ourselves what we believe to be fact, and what merely is just fiction.

You can find links to my last blog posts here: Why did Kim Kardashian want to break the internet? , Tinashe – Aquarius (Album Review) , The Fappening: The Celebrity Hacking Scandal

You can also follow me on twitter: @__AB96   &  instagram: aaronbish_

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Chatfield humanities professor nabbed with 3+ pounds of marijuana at post office

by Aaron Gibson, April 28, 2016

A Chatfield College professor was arrested Tuesday, April 26 allegedly picking up more than three pounds of marijuana at a Mt. Orab post office following a tip by federal agents with the US Postal Inspection Service.

Douglas Link, chair of the humanities department at Chatfield College in St. Martin, was taken into custody in front of the US Post Office – Mt. Orab branch on Tuesday.

The Brown County Drug & Major Crime Task Force allegedly recovered more than three pounds of marijuana in Link’s possession and an additional several pounds of marijuana inside his home during the course of the investigation, according to task force commander John Burke.

Burke said as a result of two search warrants conducted at Link’s home in Mt. Orab and his vehicle, the task force also seized 24 marijuana plants, grow lights, digital scales, and multiple firearms.

Link posted $25,000 bond following a not guilty plea in Brown County Municipal Court on Wednesday. He is being represented by defense attorney Michael P. Kelly and is scheduled to appear next on May 5.

Link faces a preliminary charge of third-degree felony drug possession, but could face more charges as the investigation is completed and the evidence is presented to a grand jury for indictment, Burke said.

In 2014, Link was honored with the Dean Agatha Fitzgerald, OSU Excellence in Teaching Award, an award the college says is given annually to “an instructor who exemplifies the academic spirit and values of Chatfield College.”

Link serves as the chair of the humanities department at Chatfield College and teaches history & political science.

Brown County Crime Reporter, April 28, 2016 6:33 PM EST

Like Brown County Crime Reporter on Facebook for the very latest in Brown County, Ohio crime news.

2 responses

  1. Up in smoke….hahaha

  2. Looks like there is a God after all, sorry to hear about your problems…..not, funny stuff

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